This started badly. Learn from our mistakes: if you want to make flyers and leave them around the school, telling everyone about your new secret show, then get the details right.
Look at this, and spot the mistake:
Martin Harris came up to me in the corridor – never a pleasant experience.
‘You know anything about this?’ he snarled, thrusting one of our flyers in my face.
‘N-n-no,’ I stuttered. He was huge. His eyes were full of anger and evil, if eyes can do that.
‘Nah, didn’t think you would. None of you spods would have the guts.’ He looked at Holly and Artie. Only Holly stared back at him. Unblinking. Probably working out how to neutralise him using just her school bag and a ruler.
‘Well, anyone who tries to compete with me is going to be in big trouble. My dad will see to that.’ He marched off, after throwing the flyer on the floor and stamping on it.
We looked at each other and started giggling. We weren’t even on air yet and we were making an impact.
STEP 5:
SECURE ALL THE EQUIPMENT YOU NEED
You can do an internet radio show with just a laptop and microphone. But we (well, Artie) wanted to play music on our show, and not just music but old records, which meant even more equipment. Which meant another heist. On our ‘shopping’ list was a turntable for Artie to play the music on – but we also needed a phone so we could take calls on the show. Yep. Our show was going to have kids calling in. We were going to blow Merit Radio away.
My old hospital radio security pass was going to come in handy. I knew the station shut down during the afternoon so this would be when we could sneak in and ‘borrow’ the turntable from the spare studio they had. I would give it back once we’d saved enough pocket money to get one from a car boot sale. Three pounds should do it.
I was concerned that there might be CCTV cameras and we would be spotted. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t miss the turntable as it was hardly used, but I didn’t want to take any chances. Mum would be working at the hospital and that could ruin everything.
So I got my pocket money and went to a charity shop to get some clothes to wear as disguises. Then into the fancy-dress shop to get a few extra props. I texted the gang to meet at mine.
‘Spike, why would an eleven-year-old girl have a beard?’ Holly asked, holding out the fake beards I’d got for all of us.
‘Well, this way, if anyone does see anything then they’ll think they’re looking for three old people: men with beards. It’s perfect. Take these as well,’ I offered as I handed them a walking stick each.
‘Um …’ said Artie.
‘Perfect,’ I said, taking a step back.
Holly had a fake beard, a big brown jumper and brown trousers all rolled up, plus the walking stick and fake glasses. Artie also looked like an old man … ish.
Unfortunately, his fake beard wasn’t the same as ours, because the shop had run out of black ones. I’d had to get him a white Father Christmas one (it came with a complimentary jingle bell hat). I’d also found a grey cardigan and yellow trousers for him. What with his walking stick, he looked … well, I have to be honest and I never said anything to him of course, but he looked like he’d escaped from a special unit for crazy people.
‘I look like a crazy tramp, Spike,’ moaned Artie.
‘No, you don’t. We look like old people, and that’s perfect.’ I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror as we left. Black beard, fake glasses and nose, pink cardigan and black shiny tracksuit pants that were way too big for me. Perfect.
We got on the bus and headed over to the hospital radio station. Just getting on the bus caused quite a stir. As we went to pay, the bus driver told us, ‘It’s free on Fridays for OAPs.’
It was working!
The bus driver was most fascinated by Holly. I guess it was a bit odd that an old man with a beard would have bright blond hair, but maybe this old guy dyed his beard as he was in a jazz band.
We shuffled along with what we thought was the slow, bent-over walk of old people. Artie started to really get into character by shouting and waving his walking stick at cars that were driving too fast on the road outside the hospital.
‘Slow down, you young hooligans!’ he said, in his best impression of an elderly man.
As we approached the hospital radio station, I got my security pass ready to swipe through the huge double doors. These were bigger than normal doors as often patients on beds came through them. The pass worked and the doors opened. My heart was beating really fast. Holly was sweating so much her beard started to slip.
We quickly snuck downstairs as I’d done on many Saturdays. It didn’t take long to get into the spare studio, and I put Artie on watch in the deserted hallway. Holly and I unplugged the turntable gently and then the phone as well.
‘Where’s your bag?’ Holly whispered to me.
Oh no. I’d forgotten it in all my preparations.
‘SPIKE! YOU DON’T HAVE A BAG? WE CAN’T JUST CARRY THESE OUT OF HERE!’ Holly yelled. Wide-eyed with panic.
Think, Spike, think. Stay calm.
An idea hit me. I gathered the team and told them what we needed to do. They resisted at first, but I said we didn’t have any choice. It was either this or leave now with nothing. I told them to stay there, and I went and fetched what we needed.
Artie got into position and made himself comfortable as we headed for the lift. All three of us were shaking with a mixture of wild excitement at what we were trying to do, and terror at the idea of getting caught.
Artie was lying on a hospital bed under a blanket. Under that blanket were also the ‘borrowed’ items from the station. Genius, eh? Holly and I pushed the bed along, with Artie making convincing groaning noises. He looked like he was suffering from a very rare medical condition that caused his stomach to take on a peculiar shape – similar to a turntable and phone. We pressed the ground-floor button in the lift. My fingers were shaking. Doing the radio show was going to be calm and relaxing compared to all this. The lift doors opened, and now we were just metres away from the outside world and freedom.
Then I spotted a major problem. The gnome was heading towards us!
‘Oh no,’ I mumbled under my fake beard.
‘What?’ cried the others.
‘It’s the gnome, Graham Bingham. He works at the station!’ I said through gritted teeth.
‘ARRGHHHHHH,’ Artie groaned, staying in character.
The human gnome, himself a beard-wearer, nodded in a concerned manner at the poor patient on the bed. He stopped to chat.
OH, double triple no.
I was going to have a heart attack and end up on the bed myself.
‘Don’t worry, sir, you’re in the best place – which ward are you taking him to?’ asked the gnome. This wasn’t good. It was very, very bad.
I could only remember one ward name, the one my mum runs.
‘Barnabus,’ I fired back. Maybe we would be OK.
‘The children’s ward?’ replied Graham the Gnome, quite correctly. It was at this exact moment that Holly’s beard just quit on the spot and fell to the ground.
What happened next was like something out of a movie. A bad one. Me, Artie, Holly and the gnome just stared at one another, our brains trying to process what had happened. I took immediate action and yelled, ‘GO!’ as I ran off, pushing Artie on his bed as fast as I could.
It took a few more seconds for the gnome to process this latest development. He yelled, ‘Stop there!’ and headed after us.
He would’ve caught us for sure, but then something amazing happened. Not looking where he was going, and chasing after us in hot pursuit, he ran into a hospital stretcher that was carrying a properly ill person and landed right on top of them and their two broken legs. Hearing the screams, I looked back to see a hospital doctor throwing the gnome on to the floor and shouting swear words at him. We rounded the corner at speed.
‘Quick, off the bed, Artie, there’s a shop over there. Let�
��s get a bag,’ I ordered.
The heist was done. We were exhausted.
A few days later, our local paper featured this small story:
My heart jumped on Monday morning before school when Mum said, ‘Something is going on …’
The next few seconds were a blur. How had she found out? We’d got so far, and now it was all over?
‘… at Number 72, the Fishers’,’ she continued, and walked over to her observation post at the front-room curtains, her favourite.
I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. However, it really was going to be a miracle if Mum never found out about what was happening in the shed.
Merit Radio launched that day during the lunch break. I say launched, but it would be fairer to say it just arrived, without any warning or introduction. It was about as welcome as a cross-country run on a freezing-cold December day. We were ‘encouraged’ (forced) to listen in the school dining hall as it was blasted out from speakers above our tables. We had to be forced, as no one in their sane mind would’ve listened to that rubbish by choice. People were laughing into their lukewarm school dinners at what they heard and, believe me, ‘Merit Radio’ wasn’t trying to be funny. It was deadly, boringly serious. Like those TV documentaries your dad falls asleep in front of, about how glass or contact lenses are made. In fact, either of those would be infinitely more interesting than Merit Radio.
If they’d just played ten minutes of someone scraping their fingernails down a blackboard, it would have been less awful. You’ll be thinking, ‘Oh, Spike is exaggerating because he’s angry he wasn’t picked to do the show.’
WELL, STOP THINKING THAT RIGHT NOW.
So, to record everything for future radio historians who one day might want to google the words, ‘What is the world’s worst radio show?’, I have noted what went down. I’ve made this into a report and listed everything that happened. With comments.
MONDAY
1pm
LOCATION: DINING HALL
ST BRENDA’S SCHOOL LUNCH BREAK
LUNCH: SHEPHERD’S PIE (or jacket potato and beans for the vegetarian kids)
1.01pm
The national anthem starts playing over the PA system so loudly and suddenly it makes us all jump out of our skins. A few of us actually look round to see if the Queen of England has joined us all for lunch (she would’ve loved the shepherd’s pie). People look at each other, confused. Is the world ending?
1.04pm
National anthem ends.
A high-pitched whistling sound is now heard, so piercing it makes you wince. It means a microphone isn’t being used properly. AMATEURS!
Muffled, angry yelling can be heard in the background; the voice is unmistakably that of Mr Harris, aka Fish Face, the headmaster. Clearly, he is the producer. Lucky them. No doubt his angry red face is currently screaming at some kid to sort the problem out. This is wonderful. The puppet master controlling his puppets. And muppets.
‘Good afternoon, you are listening to the first ever show on Merit Radio …’
A small, forced round of applause breaks out in the studio. (No doubt ‘encouraged’ at gunpoint by Fish Face). It’s starting to sound as if the presenters are being held hostage.
‘I’m Martin Harris,’ says Martin Harris, finally, ‘and it gives me enormous pleasure to launch the first ever radio station for St Brenda’s. We will be here every lunchtime to celebrate all that’s great about St Brenda’s school. No better way to start this show than with some live music. Stephen Greaves passed his grade one trumpet yesterday and will now play for us …’
1.06pm
The sound of a child being forcibly pushed towards a microphone. Then a case being clicked open. Wow. Radio gold, Fish Face.
1.07pm
Someone can be heard hissing, ‘HURRY UP!’
Producer Fish Face, obviously being a very chilled and supportive producer.
1.08pm
I’m no trumpet expert, and I’ve no doubt a trumpet was being played, but to me it sounded like someone trying to inflate the world’s largest balloon. No notes, just the huffing and puffing of a small, terrified child, trying desperately to blow into a trumpet to make it work. Only the occasional parp could be heard.
1.09pm and fifty-three seconds
No more of trumpet boy. I fear Fish Face has thrown him out of the nearest window.
1.10pm
Martin Harris is talking again, probably with his dad’s hand up his backside controlling him.
‘You are listening to the GREAT MERIT RADIO …’
More forced applause in the studio: Martin’s ape mates must be there, knuckles scraping the ground.
‘Now every day we will read out the names of pupils who have achieved high grades, merits or good exam results. Here are today’s successful pupils, and to play some more live music is St Brenda’s head of music, Miss Wicker, while I do this …’
Forced applause. Obviously, no more kids are to be trusted to play on air today after the failure of trumpet boy, currently being scraped off the pavement outside. Bring on old Mizzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Wicker. I’m not saying she’s a crusty old woman, but she is.
1.12pm
Soft piano music is heard, the kind played in a dentist’s waiting room.
PLINKLY PLONK,
PLINKLY PLONK …
‘Congratulations today on Merit Radio to …
‘Mark Ellis, who got his gymnastics BAGA 3 award and apparently his work on the high bar was a delight!
‘Lois Morris, who got a merit in her French project yesterday. Lois apparently wrote a poem about her pony, all in French. The poem was called … well, she is here right now to finish the show in some style …’
1.14pm
Piano playing ends suddenly. I fear Mizzzzzzz zzzzzzz Wicker may have had her hands slammed in the piano lid by Fish Face.
Shuffling. Silence. Very heavy breathing: must be poor Lois Morris, who has a sinus problem, and sadly can’t breathe through her nose very well.
To really understand how this sounded, you’ll need to pinch your nose and read this bit.
‘My name is Lois Morris and this is my poem what I wrote in French about my pony; he is brown …
‘Mon Pony.
‘Mon pony est appellé Monsieur Kit Kat.’
Translation: my pony is called Mister Kit Kat.
‘Il est brun.’
Translation: he is brown.
Now the last line I think Lois wanted to say was that she loves him, but what she actually says is:
‘Je serais ravie de le manger.’
Which means: I’d like to eat him.
Give that kid a merit! A poem about eating your beloved brown pony – great show, guys!
Once word gets around the dining hall about what poor nasally-challenged Lois has actually said, laughter bounces around the room. I think I see a dinner lady smile.
No smiles over at the Merit Radio studio, I imagine.
Martin the Muppet is back, talking. Fish Face’s big angry head must have exploded by now.
‘We would like to apologise to any animal lovers listening. St Brenda’s does not encourage the eating of your pets …’
A very long silence, then …
‘… Well, that’s it from us today. Back tomorrow with more on Merit Radio, when we will have a very interesting show-and-tell feature with Year Eight’s Paul Allen, who is bringing in his collection of pebbles from over three beaches. Paul paints funny faces on his pebbles. Ha ha, oh, how funny. Hilarious, I’m sure. Well, we can hardly wait …’
Show ends.
Roll on Wednesday and my show.
You know that funny feeling you get in your stomach when you’re really excited about something? Well, times that by about a BILLION. People say, ‘Oh, I’ve got butterflies in my stomach.’ Well, this was more like a herd of excitable elephants rampaging wildly in there.
That’s how I felt all that day at school.
It was Wednesday. Which meant Show One for the SECRET SHED S
HOW.
That lunchtime, meanwhile, it was the third show for Merit Radio. You won’t be surprised to know it was still awful. Just some highlights from today’s award-dodging show:
Live music from Anne Anderson on her violin. It was either a violin we heard or a screaming cat having its claws cut.
Show-and-tell featuring Paul Allen and his stamp collection. Great radio that, talking about stamps you CAN’T ACTUALLY SEE.
Three cheers for Martin Mutant Harris who was presented with a trophy on his own show as captain of the school football team for winning some pointless game against our rival school. The chimp actually presented HIMSELF with the trophy while his gormless ape mates managed to drag their knuckles from the ground and give him a round of applause.
As I left school, Mr Taggart whispered, ‘Good luck,’ when he walked past me in the corridor. I guessed we could count on at least one listener. The flyers had been illegally posted around the school and the three of us had been stirring it up by asking everyone we knew, ‘Hey, you heard about this new underground radio show that’s really for us? Think I’ll give it a go …’
Artie, Holly and I met at the top gate of our school after the home-time bell rang. We should’ve been at the AV Club – in fact, that’s where Mum thought I was – but instead we were on our way to the secret gate at the bottom of my garden, and our destiny.
There wasn’t much talking as we made our way to mine. Artie was probably struggling to talk, as he was huffing and puffing, carrying a big black case. Inside it were all the records for the day’s show. You would’ve thought there was a million pounds in the case for the fuss Artie made over it all day. His backpack was also bulging under the strain of the extra cakes and buns he’d managed to smuggle out of Gateaux Chateau for us.
We finally reached the secret garden gate. The gateway to our adventure that really was about to begin. We had by now worked out the best route to take us through the bramble jungle while limiting blood loss and blindness. Every time we made it to the shed door safely, it felt like we were deep in the Amazon rainforest and had just discovered some ancient hidden temple, with a rusting lawnmower outside.
Radio Boy Page 7
