The Mighty Dynamo

by Kieran Crowley

  ‘I don’t want to be a professional footballer,’ he replied.

  Maggie’s jaw dropped open, as if she couldn’t contemplate anyone who loved the game actually uttering that sentence. ‘You don’t want to be a . . . Why not?’

  ‘I’m going to be an engineer. An aerospace engineer. Football’s fun, but I don’t want to spend my whole life kicking a ball around.’

  ‘You’re a weird kid, Sunday.’

  ‘No, he’s not. I love football too, but I don’t want to be like those old lads on the television who spend the rest of their lives talking about matches they played when they were in their twenties. I’m going to be a businessman. I’ve even set up my own online company,’ Frank said.

  ‘Really? Doing what?’ Darren asked.

  ‘Selling anything I find interesting. I’ve bought stuff in car boot sales and sold it for twice the price online. I’ve even sold some of Barbara’s paintings.’

  ‘You draw, Barbara? Are you any good?’ Adam O’Brien asked.

  ‘I’m OK.’

  ‘OK? She’s like Vincent van Gogh, except she’s a girl and she’s got two ears,’ Stevie said.

  ‘I’d love to have my own business,’ Adam said. ‘Selling metalhead T-shirts. I can’t draw to save my life, but I’ve got all these great ideas. If you could design them, I could sell them.’

  ‘Call round to my house later and I’ll show you what I’ve done. If you’re interested, we can—’

  Kevin McCooley slammed his fist down on the table. Everyone jumped even though they should have grown used to his ways by now. ‘Stop yammerin’ away like a bunch of old women. We have to fix this Hegarty problem before it gets worse,’ he said.

  ‘Well said, Kevin,’ Maggie agreed. ‘We have to do something.’

  ‘Have to do something about what?’ Hawk Willis wondered.

  ‘You know, Hawk,’ Maggie said with a sigh, ‘my mom says that there’s always an idiot in the room and that if you don’t know who it is then it’s you.’

  ‘There’s an idiot in the room?’ Hawk Willis said. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Burger’s up,’ Jack shouted.

  Piotr was on his feet in a flash as the burgers zipped across the room. He stretched out his long arms and caught them all, one after the other. He didn’t even fumble once.

  ‘The Cat is the king,’ he said with a huge grin on his face.

  ‘I didn’t order a burger,’ Kevin said as Piotr placed one in front of him. He was feeling the pinch and had less than twenty cents in his pocket.

  ‘I got it for you,’ Maggie said. ‘You ate one of my burgers, but you gave me enough money for two that time back in The Hatch. Now we’re evens, chump.’

  McCooley tried his best to stop himself from smiling, but he failed miserably. Noah, who was on his usual bottle of water, smiled too as McCooley swiftly got back to the point while the rest of the group stuffed their faces.

  ‘So what are we going to do about Hegarty? Break into his house and look for, I dunno, clues or somethin’?’ McCooley said, chomping into a burger as if he hadn’t eaten in a month.

  ‘We can’t break into his house,’ Noah said.

  ‘Why not? You broke into the school.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. That’s the whole point of it. Darren and Sunday stopped me.’

  McCooley shrugged. ‘We can’t just do nothin’.’

  ‘I agree, Mr McCooley, but we need to come up with a detailed, well-thought-out plan,’ Stevie said.

  ‘Hey, Gaffer,’ Cormac McHugh said, tugging at Stevie’s shirtsleeve.

  ‘We have to figure out what he’s up to,’ Stevie continued. ‘I can’t imagine he’d be stupid enough to write down anything important so there’ll be no notes for us to find. I mean, he even wiped my tablet clean.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m speculating that it was to delete any evidence of the fight just in case Noah found a loophole and managed to wriggle his way back into the tournament.’

  ‘Wait, what about that Slugsley fella you mentioned? You said you’ve got his car reg and stuff. Can’t we get something from that?’ Limbsy said.

  McHugh continued trying to attract Stevie’s attention, without any success.

  ‘I’ve already thought of that, Limbsy. I tried some of the car-check websites, but they won’t give us any of the owner’s details like—’

  ‘Stevie, will you please talk to me?’

  ‘Sorry, Cormac, what is it?’

  He nodded discreetly in the direction of the huge plate glass window at the front of Dee’s Diner. ‘Don’t all look at the same time,’ he whispered.

  Of course, they all did look at once. Thirteen heads swivelled in that direction until they were staring out on to the traffic-choked streets. Noah saw what Cormac was referring to at once – Mr Hegarty was across the street, standing by his parked car, talking on his phone.

  Hegarty finished his call, took a couple of large empty shopping bags from the car and disappeared into the supermarket.

  McCooley turned to the group. ‘Any one of you lot want to give me a hand?’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘No time to explain.’

  ‘I’ll help you,’ Noah said.

  ‘Not you. He’s got it in for you, so he’ll be watchin’ and be all suspicious and stuff. We need someone else.’

  ‘Me then,’ Maggie said.

  She polished off the last of her burger and got to her feet.

  Before anyone else had the chance to ask what they were up to, they were out of the door. Maggie and McCooley crossed the road and followed Hegarty into the supermarket. Noah watched anxiously, unsure of what they were doing, but suspecting the worst. The minutes ticked by agonizingly slowly. Every moment felt like an hour.

  ‘They’re not going to do something stupid, are they?’ Stevie asked.

  ‘It’s McCooley and Maggie. On their own they’re dangerous, but when you put the two of them together anything could happen. If the supermarket explodes in the next ten seconds, I wouldn’t be surprised,’ Darren said.

  But it didn’t explode and less than a minute later Maggie left the shop, then sprinted across the street between cars that were only inching forward, with Kevin McCooley just behind her. She arrived into Dee’s pink-cheeked and laughing.

  ‘That was a rush,’ she said.

  ‘What happened?’ Noah asked.

  ‘No time to explain,’ Maggie said.

  Kevin reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a mobile phone. To Noah’s eyes it looked remarkably like the mobile Hegarty had been using only five minutes earlier. Stevie seemed to have arrived at the same conclusion.

  ‘You stole his phone,’ he practically shouted.

  ‘Keep yer voice down. And I didn’t steal it. I just borrowed it. It’s the same as if I took yer car from outside yer house without tellin’ you, but then I dropped it back a couple of hours later without you noticin’ it had been gone. That’s not really stealin’.’

  ‘Taking something that doesn’t belong to you without getting the owner’s permission – that’s practically the dictionary definition of stealing,’ Stevie cried in exasperation.

  Barbara patted his arm in an attempt to calm him down, but for once it didn’t work.

  ‘We’ll agree to disagree,’ Maggie said as Adam O’Brien slid his finger across the screen and unlocked the phone. ‘Check the contacts and do it quickly. We have to get it back to him before he notices it’s gone.’

  ‘This is wrong, very wrong,’ Stevie said. ‘And it’s not doing my hives any good.’

  ‘Yeah, and what Hegarty did to Murphy was wrong too,’ McCooley said. ‘Remember the old saying – two wrongs make a right. He did wrong and now we’ve done it too.’

  Noah thought Stevie was going to explode. ‘That’s not the saying at all. It’s two wrongs don’t make a right. Oh, I, I . . . give up.’

  ‘Got it,’ Adam said. He’d scrolled through all the numbers until he’d found the one they were looking for.
‘Arthur Slugsley.’

  He borrowed a pen from Barbara and wrote down the number on the diner’s cleanest napkin.

  ‘OK, let’s go,’ McCooley said to Maggie. He grabbed the phone from Adam and rushed out of the door, Maggie just behind him. They disappeared into the supermarket. They were gone for less than half the time they had been earlier.

  ‘Maggie dropped it into his shoppin’ basket and he didn’t even notice it. She’d make a great CIA agent. He’ll see it when he goes to pay for his stuff and think he dropped it in there himself,’ McCooley said when they returned. ‘And this has nothin’ to do with anythin’, but that man buys far too many sweets.’

  ‘I’m not sure about this,’ Dave said later that evening in the kitchen of Noah’s house.

  Potatoes were boiling in a saucepan of water on the gas ring, the steam fogging up the windows. Simone was upstairs. They could hear her walking around the room above from the sounds coming through the ceiling.

  Most of the St Mary’s team had gone home directly from Dee’s Diner leaving Noah and Maggie to put the finishing touches to the plan, not that it was much of a plan.

  ‘Quickly, Dave, before she gets back downstairs,’ Maggie said.

  ‘If you don’t want Simone to know what you’re up to, then it can’t be right.’

  ‘First Stevie, then you. If I’d known this town was full of goody two-shoes I’d have begged my dad not to move here. Just read it out, Dave,’ Maggie said.

  ‘I think it might be illegal,’ Dave replied, picking up the A4 sheet that was filled with Frank’s writing.

  ‘It’s not illegal. It’s illegal to impersonate a cop, but you’re not doing that. You’re not even impersonating a real human being.’

  Dave was still wavering. Before he decided to take a stand and give them a definite no, Maggie took the phone from his hand, and keyed in the number that they’d taken from Hegarty’s phone.

  ‘Remind me why I’m doing this again,’ Dave said. ‘Being an actor isn’t really my forte, y’know.’

  ‘You’re doing it because you’re the only one of us who sounds like a man,’ Maggie said.

  ‘And because, you know, you’re really nice,’ Noah added.

  ‘I’m a fool, little dude, that’s what I am.’

  As the dialling tone kicked in, Maggie pressed the speaker icon so that they’d all be able to hear the conversation.

  A man’s voice answered the call. ‘Hello.’

  Maggie nudged Dave. Noah smiled in what he hoped was a supportive and encouraging manner. His mouth was dry and he felt nervous too, even though he wasn’t going to have to do anything.

  When Dave spoke, he didn’t sound like himself any longer. He might have said acting wasn’t his strong point, but he was well able to do voices. Noah thought he sounded exactly like one of those annoyingly chirpy DJs you hear on morning radio.

  ‘Hellooooo, Mr Arthur Slugsley. This is Bobby Bob Robson from KCLMR, the station that rocks, rolls and gathers no moss and we’re live on ninety-seven point seven FM. I’m calling with some fantastic news – you’re a wiiiinnnnnner.’

  ‘I am?’ Slugsley sounded more downbeat than elated. ‘What have I won?’

  ‘We’ll get to that in a moment, but first we have to have a little chat and then we’ll ask you the big question for an enormous cash prize. What do you do for a living, Mr Slugsley, or can I call you Slugger?’

  ‘Please don’t. I’m a PE teacher and I coach schools’ football.’

  ‘So you’re not a football scout?’

  ‘No, what made you think—’

  ‘Wonderful. Who doesn’t love PE?’ Dave asked.

  ‘Lots of people, actually. Many detest it with a passio—’

  ‘So, Mr S, what’s the name of the school you teach at?’

  Slugsley suddenly sounded suspicious. ‘I’m not telling you that. How did you get my phone number, young man? I don’t remember entering any radio competition.’

  Dave ran his fingers through his mop of curly hair. ‘Er, no, we actually choose our winners at random, Arthurio. It’s a unique competition. You don’t contact us – we find you. We’re the seekers of the airwaves. And we found you because of that wonderful car you drive.’

  ‘My Fiesta?’

  ‘Yes, we love, love, love cars here at KCLMR and our favourite ever car is a, erm, red Ford Fiesta. One of our spotters saw you cruising around town, thought you looked as cool as an ice cube. We looked up the registration and there you were – our winner. Ha, ha.’

  ‘That’s not my car – that belongs to Figg’s company– . . . wait a second, if you took my car registration and then tried to find me that’s illegal. It breaches the Data Protection Act and has all sorts of privacy issues.’

  Dave was visibly wilting now. The pressure was getting to him. Noah motioned for him to end the conversation as quickly as possible.

  ‘No, we just, oh . . .’ He began to hiss into the phone. ‘Looks like the line’s . . . breaking . . . up.’

  ‘No, it’s not. That’s just you making random noises. Who is this and what kind of game are you—’

  Noah leaned across the table and ended the call.

  ‘Thanks for that, little dude. I was going into a spiral of doom there. And not the good kind. I’m glad you had the foresight to block our number so he can’t try to find us.’

  ‘So we know he’s a football coach, not a scout, and it sounds like the car he drives is owned by a Mr Figg,’ Maggie said.

  ‘That doesn’t really help us, does it? There’s probably loads of Figgs in the country,’ Noah said.

  Maggie was already on her phone, googling the name. ‘There might be, but one stands out.’

  She handed Noah the phone. The tanned and slightly pudgy features of Cornelius Figg filled the screen.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘You’ve never heard of Ireland’s richest man?’

  Name: Cormac McHugh

  Nickname: Don’t have one. My aunt used to call me Hugsy. I think she’s a bit soft in the head.

  Age: 12

  Position: I’m versatile, which means I can play in any position, but I’m tall enough so I usually go in goal or play as a centre-back or centre-forward. A lot of guys don’t like playing in goal, but I don’t mind it. There’s not too much running around.

  Likes: I pretend to like Derby County because my uncles are fans, but I really like Liverpool. I love playing chess too.

  Dislikes: Horror films. Just not my thing.

  Player you’re most like: Thomas Müller. But I wish I was like Riyad Mahrez. He’s brilliant.

  Favourite player: Neymar. All the skill in the world and he’s skinny like me. My hairstyle is almost exactly the same as his. My mam hates it.

  Favourite goal: When Philippe Coutinho scored the winning goal against Manchester City in the 2013/2014 season. I was sure Liverpool were going to win the league after that match.

  Messi or Ronaldo: Ronaaaalllllllldoooooooooooo!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  ‘I’m as happy as I can be, but I have been happier’

  Ugo Ehiogu

  Noah found out a lot about Mr Cornelius Figg the next day, but none of it was very useful. He learned about the businesses he owned, how much money he supposedly had – more than any one human being should have, Noah thought – but he didn’t find out anything that would connect him to Mr Hegarty or even to Arthur Slugsley. And as the days passed by and Hegarty didn’t try anything else to stop the team from getting to the competition his interest in investigating began to wane. There was so much else that needed to be done that there just wasn’t time to be a sleuth.

  Noah unzipped his kit bag. The tournament was less than twenty-four hours away now and he was giddy with excitement. In a couple of hours, Piotr’s father would collect him and the rest of the team in his battered old minibus and they’d be on their way to Dublin. The only thing dampening his enthusiasm was that his dad wouldn’t be there to see him play. He’d have loved that. S
till, it wasn’t going to do him any good to dwell on it. He had to focus on the games ahead. He sat down on his bed, moving the bag to one side. He knew they only had a very slight chance of winning, but if all of them kept their heads and gave it everything, that was all he could ask from them. He looked at the black jersey Dave had given him the night before. It looked exactly like it had in the brochure. It was jet black with two white stripes on the shoulders, a St Mary’s badge sewn on to the left breast and the number seven on the back. He loved it. Seven was the number he’d always wanted to wear. He was usually an eleven or a five when he played for St Killian’s, but neither of them had ever felt right. He wasn’t superstitious and he knew that having a favourite number on your shirt was just a bit of a quirk, but it was important to him, like wearing your jersey loose outside your shorts instead of tucked in. It was just one of those things.

  There was a knock on the bedroom door, interrupting his thoughts.

  ‘Come in,’ he said.

  It was Simone and Dave. It took Noah a moment before he noticed that there was something different about his sister.

  ‘Your hair,’ he said finally.

  She’d dyed it black and white with a stripe of red just behind her left ear. St Mary’s new colours – black jersey, white shorts with a red stripe.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s brilliant,’ Noah said with a laugh. Trust his sister to make her own kind of statement.

  ‘It sure is,’ Dave agreed.

  ‘Thanks again for getting the jerseys and shorts, Dave. You’ve done a great job.’

  Dave bowed extravagantly and clumsily.

  ‘Thank you kindly, little dude,’ he said, righting a football trophy he’d knocked with his elbow. ‘Shame we couldn’t get socks as well.’

  ‘How’s Limbsy doing?’ Noah asked.

  ‘He’s bouncing off the walls with the excitement. My dad was thinking of asking the vet for one of those animal tranquillizer darts to shoot at him and calm him down. He’s freaky deaky happy. You and Stevie did a good thing getting this team together,’ Dave said.