‘Hey, Radio Boy. I think Martin Harris is going to turn the school upside down looking for you now!’
‘He won’t stop the show, ever,’ I assured him. ‘Anyway, Craig, what’s the worst thing about school for you?’
‘Homework. We already get more of it than any other school around here because Mr Harris is so obsessed with grades,’ Craig moaned. ‘And now he’s doubled it!’
‘I hear you,’ I said. ‘The number-one thing everyone has said today on the show is the crazy amount of homework we get. Every show we do it comes up.’ I smiled, remembering the Queen homework game.
‘It’s never going to stop though,’ complained caller Craig.
It was right there and then that an idea hit me square in the face. I had been watching the news on TV earlier and it had planted a seed, and now that seed grew into something beautiful …
‘We should rise up!’ I said. ‘All the Secret Shed Show army of fans must go ON STRIKE!’
‘WHAT?’ Artie spluttered, sitting bolt upright. He was burning a hole in my head with his angry stare. The owl boy looked ready to pounce on me. I didn’t even look over at Holly: the Army Cadet in her would describe this behaviour as ‘insubordination’, I think.
The news on TV had featured workers at a factory on strike, trying to get a better pay deal. As the strike was on the news and got the factory bad publicity, the management had ended up giving in: it had worked.
‘Craig,’ I went on. ‘If we went on strike to make our voices heard, they would have to listen to how we felt. Could I count on you to strike, Craig, when the moment came?’
‘Um, what would we actually do?’ Craig didn’t sound too convinced.
But I was. Radio Boy to the rescue.
‘After lunch break, we all just march out into the playground and sit down. Just sit down. When we’re asked what we’re doing, we say we’re protesting about having too much homework.’
‘Won’t we get in trouble? Detention?’
Not an unreasonable question from Elvis.
‘So what? They really gonna put thirty or forty of us in detention? At least we’ll have made a point. Come on, who’s with me? Who’s had enough of homework?’
I was really getting into this now. I thought about the newspaper article, the Radio Boy graffiti and Fish Face’s speech. It all spurred me on.
After a long pause …
A really long pause …
‘I’m in!’ said Craig.
‘Here’s the thing,’ I said. ‘If we get a hundred of you saying you’re in then we’ll do it. If not then we’ll forget it and decide we aren’t serious about having too much homework. This is our chance. So you have this next song to decide. Email me, leave a comment and let me know: are you with me?’
The next song was bang on. ‘Anarchy in the UK’ by the Sex Pistols. I secretly looked up what anarchy meant on my phone.
‘A group of people or a single person rejecting authority.’
Yep, that was about right.
‘Guys, you better come see this,’ urged Holly, looking at the laptop.
Our eyes were met with a huge amount of new comments coming in every second.
Emails and texts of support continued to pour in until we had over two hundred. Holly and Artie both tried to speak at the same time, I’m guessing to urge me not to do what I was about to do, but the song ended, preventing them.
After a few seconds’ silence, I leant closer to the mic.
‘You have spoken. Prepare to rise up and strike, followers of the Secret Shed Show,’ I solemnly declared. ‘We will occupy the playground in two days’ time. There will be a special extra show tomorrow night to prepare everything. Speak then.’
I signed off.
As Artie looked at me, I could see in his eyes what I was thinking too: this was big.
‘What have you done, Spike?’ he said. ‘You could ruin everything for all of us.’
‘Well, that’s positive, thanks, Artie,’ I said.
‘Seriously, Spike,’ said Holly. ‘What have you done? This isn’t what I signed up for: we’re going to get EXPELLED, YOU IDIOT.’
‘Just keep the faith,’ I protested.
I would show them. When we ended up getting less homework, they would be saying well done and it would be high fives all round. Which would be nice. Especially since, as we left the shed, my two best friends were looking really angry with me. Neither of them spoke to me. Artie didn’t even offer me a stale cake or bun.
I’m going to write this next bit, which happened the following evening, as a movie script. Two reasons:
My Hollywood career as a stuntman doesn’t look too good after the karate underpants episode (unless there’s a major blockbuster about a poor kid and his overbearing, paranoid mum who makes him join various clubs, in which case I’m the go-to stunt kid for that role). So maybe writing movies might be an easier option for me. You sit in a big chair, yelling at the actors, go to movie festivals in sunny places and appear on TV chat shows with some funny story about the time on set a pigeon pooped on the leading actress’s face during a romantic scene. Easy.
The three of us sneaking into a shed and broadcasting to the world and leading a homework rebellion (good name for a band, Homework Rebellion) was all starting to feel very much like something from a movie. Of course, definitely a much better movie than the ones my mum makes us watch about talking racoons and singing chipmunks. Before we’re allowed to see any film, Mum needs to pre-authorise it, which involves painstaking and time-consuming research (chatting to other mums) about its content in case we’re exposed to anything which could traumatise us FOREVER. It’s only recently, since I started at secondary school, that she granted Harry Potter a ‘W’ certificate (W=Watch).
I think she has access to some hidden part of the internet where ‘Mumipedia’ lives. An encyclopedia of shared mum ‘knowledge’. This details everything that any child could innocently enjoy, but from the unique perspective of a safety-obsessed mother who is a nurse and can SEE DANGER EVERYWHERE.
Mumipedia would look like this for Harry Potter:
This article is about the films with the main character Harry Potter, based on the seven novels in the series.
Harry Potter
Where do I begin? Would you let your little puppykins go to a school with an alcoholic caretaker? Where they study no maths or English BUT ONLY DEVIL POTIONS?
At one point a poor unicorn is SLAUGHTERED and its blood is drunk. Aren’t unicorns an endangered species? More importantly, good luck with your kids’ nightmares after this dark arts movie.
I will let my son watch this when he is twenty-one and in the company of a priest.
Anyway, for those two reasons, here is the next bit of the story, as a film script.
You should imagine my voice very deep and masterful as you read this. Holly and Artie, meanwhile, sound high-pitched and wimpy.
RADIO BOY THE MOVIE –
A MOVIE WITH NO SINGING CHIPMUNKS
BY
SPIKE HUGHES
Int. Spike’s shed – evening.
RADIO BOY is having a very tense meeting with HOLLY and ARTIE minutes before that night’s radio show.
RADIO BOY is trying very hard to convince the others that going along with the strike is the right thing to do. RADIO BOY’s dark shiny hair looks great and his nose is slightly smaller than in real life in this movie. His teeth are neater and whiter too.
RADIO BOY
I need you guys to trust me on this. This is our moment to actually do something. This has to happen now or we’re letting everyone down.
ELVIS/ARTIE
But we could get into serious trouble … expelled. That happens and I bring shame to the family cake empire and I will be sent to some faraway boarding school-type prison where they serve porridge made from cat vomit for breakfast and I’ll have my head shoved down the toilet every morning and get a wedgie every day.
HOLLY has been patiently waiting to speak.
&nbs
p; HOLLY
Spike, this isn’t what we set out to do when we decided to make our own radio show for our friends. We are going to get in real serious trouble that not even I, the highest ranked officer in my Army Cadets, can get us out of. Worst of all for you, Spike, it will be the end of the Secret Shed Show and all this fun. You want Mr Harris and his son tracking us down and murdering us with shot-put balls and bad breath?
NOTE TO DIRECTOR. GET THE ACTRESS PLAYING HOLLY TO WAVE HER HANDS AROUND THE SHED STUDIO WHEN SHE SAYS ‘ALL THIS’. THANKS!
RADIO BOY cannot believe they are so worried. They are going to be heroes for once. Why can’t they have that just for one day?
RADIO BOY
It’s going to be FINE! They can’t expel hundreds of us. We can be the ones to finally put a stop to all the homework misery! This will turn us into instant legends! Loved forever around the world as modern heroes, studied in history lessons. Maybe even a bronze statue erected in town and dedicated to me, the unknown rebel leader, RADIO BOY. Maybe in Mexico around campfires they will swap late-night stories of the one they call ‘El Radio Boy’.
Extreme close-up on RADIO BOY’s eyes, which have tears in them such is his burning passion.
RADIO BOY – CONT.
Did you hear Martin Harris talking by the sports lockers today?
(RADIO BOY knows that will motivate his team: their shared hatred of the headmaster’s son and presenter of MERIT RADIO, MARTIN HARRIS. In the movie, MARTIN HARRIS will be way uglier than in actual real life. I would even suggest casting someone like a tramp to play him.)
HOLLY
What did he say, Spike?
ELVIS
Guy’s a total idiot times, like, a million.
Extreme close-up of RADIO BOY’s face as he winks to the camera. As if saying TOLD YOU SO to the audience.
RADIO BOY
I heard him and one of the other apes talking about our radio show, and the strike. Martin actually said it’s just ‘nerds talking big’ who won’t go through with it – that’s what his dad Fish Face told him. And that no one will join us. Easy to be brave in a website comment, but in real life it’s a joke. That’s what they said.
ELVIS and HOLLY look really annoyed. HOLLY’s ears, which are very visible to the eye due to the sharp angle they are positioned on her head, glow bright red. A sure sign she is angry.
RADIO BOY – CONT.
Plus, I have a great back-up plan. You need to trust me on this.
HOLLY and ELVIS (TOGETHER)
What?
RADIO BOY
You’ll see … Holly, when I hand you a phone number during tonight’s show, just call it live and put them on air so we can all hear the call.
Scene ends with me (RADIO BOY) grinning.Is doing a thumbs-up at the camera too much?
Time to move from Hollywood back to Crow Crescent and that evening’s strike countdown show. This was an extra show, a bonus one, to make sure the listeners were ready to launch S-DAY (Strike Day) the following lunchtime.
I double-checked and then triple-checked that the voice disguiser was ready to go, then opened the mics. The bright red glow of the MIC LIVE sign seemed to shine even brighter tonight as if it wanted me to know it believed in me.
‘Good evening, this is the Secret Shed Show and tonight’s show is a Strike Special because tomorrow is the big day when we get our chance to show them what we’re made of.
‘They don’t think we’re going to go through with it. We must. They think we’re all nerds who just talk. Not my words but the words of our headmaster, Fish Face, and his puppet fish son. But we are not just talk. We are people of action. And there are too many of us to ignore. Let’s just remind ourselves why we’re doing this.’
I played tonight’s first song. ‘No More Homework’ by someone called Gary U.S. Bonds. Perfect. Where on earth did Artie find these records? Written in olden times when everything was black and white, back in 1963. Decades later, homework was still ruining kids’ lives.
But not any more.
The song faded to its end.
‘… Radio Boy here. That song sums it all up. Tomorrow we strike. I know you are all getting a bit scared. Even rock-steady Elvis is worried about getting a detention or expelled. But we have a right to strike. Mr Harris can’t expel hundreds of us or he’ll have no one to shout at! He lives to yell and shout at us – we all know that. I think he was born yelling at the midwife and his mum. Believe me: we will be remembered by history for what we are about to do. People will sing songs about us.’
I was getting into this. You might even say I was getting a bit carried away with it all. Would the old me, Spike Hughes, have done this? Probably not. But Radio Boy could. I stood up to carry on with my rousing speech to my fellow rebels on air.
‘RISE UP, EVERYONE … BUT ERM … SIT DOWN IN THE PLAYGROUND. THE RISE UP MEANS IN … ERM … SPIRIT. YOU CAN RISE UP, BUT STILL BE SITTING DOWN.’
‘Don’t think you can actually,’ Elvis chipped in, unhelpfully.
‘Anyway, I need to make a very important call right now, live on air,’ I announced. I sat back down dramatically and handed Holly a piece of paper with a phone number on it.
‘Just call that number, my Secret Shed Producer, please?’ I asked Holly on air. Begrudgingly, she did.
She put the call through to me so everyone listening could hear me take it live on air. Like Howard ‘The Howie’ Wright did on his breakfast show when they called a competition winner.
Time for my back-up plan that would really get us noticed when we went on strike. Trust me, old Mr Harris would be stunned at this move. In chess, I think it’s known as a checkmate.
We all heard the phone ringing live on the show. No one listening, or in the shed, knew what I was up to.
Then a voice answered. ‘Hello?’
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Is that the Gazette news desk?’
‘Yes, it is,’ said the voice.
‘Say hi to everyone listening.’
‘Er … hi.’
‘To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?’
This was something I’d heard my mum say once.
‘I’m Derek Mountfield, news editor,’ said the voice on the phone, suspiciously. ‘And I’d like to know what—’
‘Then it’s you I want to speak to, Mr Mountfield! You wrote an article about me and my Secret Shed Show.’
‘Ah!’ said the voice, friendlier now. ‘The infamous RADIO BOY! We meet at last.’
‘Yes, it’s me, Derek, if I may call you Derek?’
‘Sure.’
‘Thanks, Derek. You’re on the air and I’m giving you my first ever exclusive interview. I have something to say. Do you have a pen?’
‘Right … no … gimme a second to grab my pad.’ Derek the newsman sounded excited. He was getting a MAJOR local news exclusive – maybe of the year or of his career. Must have felt good taking a break from reporting on vandals spray-painting a pensioner or the mayor opening a new youth centre.
‘Ready, Radio Boy. What do you want to say?’
‘Come down to St Brenda’s school tomorrow at 1pm to see history made,’ I said.
‘Well, what an offer. At the moment, let me check my diary … oh, the mayor is opening a new rubbish tip, but maybe I could cover your story if it’s bigger. What’s happening at 1pm?’
‘The kids at St Brenda’s are going on STRIKE! Hundreds of us.’
‘Kids? Striking!? Wow! That is more interesting than the opening of the new rubbish tip. I’ll ditch the mayor for you, Radio Boy.’
We could hear him making notes excitedly. Time for another great question from the news hound.
‘So what exactly are you striking about, Radio Boy?’ asked Derek. ‘Let me guess … Standard of the dinner ladies’ food? Can’t use Snapchat during lessons?’
‘Homework,’ I replied.
‘Homework?’ I may have been wrong, but I think I heard newsman Derek try to stifle a giggle.
‘Yes! We are doing too m
uch and Derek, you can quote me on this. WE ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE.’
I hit my hand on the desk for extra effect, and a few plant pots fell off a shed shelf. Without even saying goodbye to Derek Mountfield, I went straight into the next song. And what a song. ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ by a terrifying-looking group called Twisted Sister. This was our strike anthem. The Queen has her anthem, and I had mine, sung by grown men wearing make-up.
I thought Artie and Holly would be impressed by my genius masterplan. Derek Mountfield, coming to witness history and report on it, putting even more pressure on the school to change its ways. It was clear, however, that they weren’t impressed. They couldn’t even look at me. For the first time in our friendship, it seemed they didn’t know what to say to me.
Why couldn’t they see we were at a crossroads: to stay put as lifelong members of the walking prey at school or to rise up and strike?
Holly spoke up first.
‘I’m not sure I’ll be with you tomorrow, Spike.’
‘I definitely won’t be. Not sure who you are any more. Spike, or Radio Boy,’ said Artie.
‘Well, thanks, Artie!’ I said. ‘Some best mate. So you’d rather we just run away back home now and stop it all and carry on as we were? Go back to being invisible and just enjoy Merit Radio. Well, I want more and—’
‘That’s not what we’re saying, Spike!’ said Holly. ‘You’ve got the local paper coming now. That’s going to push Mr Harris totally over the edge like we’ve never seen before. You want to carry on making this huge mistake? Then you can do it without us. What’s happened to you, Spike? You’ve changed. And not in a nice way.’
Holly stung me with that one. Was I really changing? Yes, but for the good, right? Not hiding and scared any more. I’d started the radio show wanting to change something, but it had also changed me. I felt like I’d been sleepwalking for most of my life and now I’d finally woken up. At long last I’d found out what it was like to be captain of the school football team or karate champion. I didn’t want to go back to being just Spike Hughes, Captain Invisible Nerd of the AV Club. I felt important and powerful for the first time in my life.
Radio Boy Page 10
