Radio Boy and the Revenge of Grandad

by Christian O'Connell

  Oh no, time for a song from Grandad Ray’s – or should I say Toni Fandango’s – greatest hits. Or misses.

  ‘Those were the DAYZZZZZZZZZ, my friend …’

  The ‘song’ ends. Rather awkwardly, Grandad Ray waits for some applause. None comes from the divas. Maybe they’re topping up their wines.

  ‘Later on the show, Daphne has some tips on how to improve your bossa nova, but now here’s a list of twenty things that used to be better in the good old days:

  ‘One. Phones. These mobiles you see young ’uns staring at the whole time. Rubbish. A landline was all we needed and we still managed to beat Hitler and win a World Cup. And invent gravy.1

  ‘Two. Music. The bands we grew up with used to look smart; now it’s some kid called Justin Bibber or something with his jeans halfway down his legs and his bum showing for all the world to see. Tuck your bum in, young man! Looks like a kid who’s up past his bedtime. Rubbish.

  ‘Three. The weather.’2

  I wish I could tell you 3–19, but I fell asleep. I woke up again to:

  ‘… finally at twenty. Kids. Much better years ago. Polite, respected older people like us as being wise. Nowadays kids are rude and evil. Fact.’

  This goes on for some time, and I switch off for a bit. I think I doze through the bossa nova tips too. The next thing I know, Grandad Ray is wrapping up the show.

  ‘Well, I hope you can join me and the dancing divas again same time next week. Ladies, say bye …’

  ‘See ya,’ says Susan. I think.

  ‘Can you wake up Jackie and Daphne,’ Grandad tries to say under his breath, but microphones are sensitive and pick up the quietest of sounds.

  Ha.

  Nothing to worry about there.

  ‘I’ll give you a lift to school if you like,’ Dad offered at breakfast on Tuesday morning.

  ‘Yes, please,’ I said. I was hardly going to say, ‘Oh, no thanks, Dad, I’d prefer to walk so I can enjoy the feeling of rain on my back and the weight of half the school library crushing my spine,’ was I?

  Of course I didn’t realise then the bombshell he was about to drop on me.

  A free ride with Dad was a massive treat. We got in his car and I immediately turned the radio on to Kool FM and Howard ‘The Howie’ Wright’s breakfast show. He was talking about some of the entries for Radio Star.

  ‘You got your homework?’ asked Dad as he guided his heap of a car along our road. Maintaining stock levels of toilet roll and supervising grumpy checkout ladies obviously didn’t pay enough for shiny new cars.

  ‘Shhhhhh,’ I said. I was listening to Howard talking.

  ‘… some entries are already coming in for Radio Star … but remember: you only have three days left to enter …’

  Dad reached over and turned it down.

  ‘Dad! I was listening to that,’ I cried out.

  ‘I want to talk to you. You already know about the competition, Spike. Can I just ask you why you want to enter?’ asked Dad.

  ‘Why? Why?’ I shouted, a bit hysterically. How could he not understand why? Had some washing powder fallen off a top shelf at his supermarket and hit him on the head? ‘Because I want to be a proper DJ and this could be my chance. To show people how GREAT I am. People will finally know I’m, like, the real deal. That I’m not just some kid in a shed.’

  ‘You are the real deal and already doing a great show. Winning this competition won’t change that. I mean, that’s if you manage to win, and that’s a big if,’ said Dad.

  ‘Why is it a big if? Thanks for the vote of confidence, Dad!’ I said. Maybe I should’ve walked to school.

  ‘That’s not what I meant, Spike. I think you’re amazing, but talent competitions aren’t always about who’s the best. The person that wins often isn’t the most talented. Look at the singers and bands who’ve won X Factor, then look at the ones who didn’t – they often go further,’ he said.

  ‘Howard “Howie” Wright is a true professional and a fan of mine! He gets it. He will want me to win,’ I said.

  ‘Then what, Spike? What changes?’ asked Dad.

  ‘EVERYTHING! I’ll be really properly famous and everyone will know who I am. Life at school will change overnight. It would be huge. Life-changing,’ I said.

  Dad sighed, hard. This was also a sign he was thinking. Like he needed to get air out of him for his brain to work. The car window almost misted up, he sighed so much.

  ‘Son, you know who you sound like?’ asked Dad.

  ‘Someone who wants to win? A winner?’ I asked.

  ‘Grandad,’ Dad said.

  ‘NO, I DO NOT!’ I yelled back.

  ‘OK, sorry, maybe that’s a bit harsh – but all that talk of being famous sounds very familiar to me. Just wanting to win to get more famous isn’t good, Spike,’ said Dad. ‘Obviously, I don’t know what it’s like to be famous, but from what I can see in Mum’s magazines, becoming a celebrity promises a lot but it doesn’t solve the problems you think it will. Unless you think true happiness is standing on a red carpet with a fake grin. It won’t change who you are, Spike, or make you happier. That’s not how life works. You do a great show and you’ve only just started learning what you can do and how good you could really be. Enjoy the journey.’

  ‘In this car?’ I asked.

  ‘No! I mean enjoy where you are right now. Doing your shed show, having fun with your mates. Take time to appreciate what you already have.’

  ‘Then why are you entering Search For a Star, then? You’re a failed rock star,’ I said.

  ‘That’s it, though. I never even got to be a failed one! I stopped, I gave up. I’m doing it for some fun, Spike. Just for the fun. You know what the highlight of my day running the supermarket is? Checking the stock levels of toilet rolls. We aren’t going to win. I doubt we’ll even get past the live auditions on Saturday.’

  I whipped my head round. ‘On Saturday?’ I’d known it was happening, but I’d been trying to blank it out.

  ‘Yes, why?’

  Oh, nothing, Dad, just the end of any status I might have had at school. It hardly bears thinking about. Dad and the Pirates, on national TV.

  ‘Nothing,’ I mumbled.

  ‘So you see,’ continued Dad, oblivious to the impending death of my school cred, ‘it’s just for the experience, the fun. Me and the band, we’re not doing Search For a Star to try and win it. You need to think like that about Radio Star.’

  I wasn’t really listening any more, as I’d suddenly noticed Martin Harris and Katherine Hamilton walking hand in hand to school.

  Katherine would definitely notice me if I won Radio Star – though obviously I would ignore her, in revenge for her laughing at Holly. I would be a star. Not just a kids’ DJ in a shed. I’d be a real super-star DJ and even the humiliation of Dad being on TV dressed as a pirate couldn’t touch me, then.

  I started to daydream. In my fantasy I was walking down the school corridor and as I strode purposefully along, people’s heads were turning when I passed. ‘That’s him, Spike Hughes. He won Radio Star,’ they would all say. Girls would run up to me asking for selfies, leaving behind their jealous boyfriends – especially ones called Martin Harris.

  ‘Spike! Spike! Hello, anyone in?’ I could hear the words, but I was still in my alternate celebrity world.

  ‘Sure I’ll sign your bag, Katherine – uh, sorry, what?’ I mumbled as I came back to reality to find my dad looking at me like I’d gone mad.

  ‘“I’ll sign your bag, Katherine”?’ asked Dad, looking confused.

  ‘Sorry, just erm … practising a line from the school play we are working on,’ I said, far too quickly.

  ‘OK, take it easy, son. Talk more later. Don’t forget your bag and have a good day. I love you,’ said Dad.

  ‘Love you too, Dad,’ I said. As Dad pulled away, the brakes were squealing. I did love my dad, so much, but I didn’t want to end up like him. I’d have a sports car, the ones you see with no roof. Not an old banger.

 
And when I won Radio Star, I also wouldn’t be wearing a tie with the name of a supermarket on it.

  ‘My parents are world champions at embarrassing me,’ I said into my microphone on Wednesday evening’s show. ‘I mean, my dad’s going to be on Search For a Star on Saturday. He’s in a pirate-themed rock band and their signature song is ‘Pirate Party in My Pants’. It’s going to be the armageddon of embarrassment.’

  ‘Mine are pretty bad too,’ said Artie.

  ‘How?’ I asked.

  ‘Remember our school Christmas nativity play? My dad fell asleep and started snoring so loudly no one could hear what the three wise men were saying,’ said Artie.

  Holly and I laughed as we remembered it. More people had been watching Artie’s dad snoring than our play. People were filming him and taking pictures.

  ‘Well, at least your dad isn’t about to embarrass you on national TV.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Holly. ‘He’s in a rock band. It’s cool.’

  ‘Cool?’ I echoed.

  Artie leaned into his microphone. ‘Spike has a point here, Holly. The potential for embarrassment is very high.’

  ‘Great, thanks, Artie,’ I said. ‘Anyway, tonight on the Secret Shed Show, I want to hear how your parents have embarrassed you. I need to know I’m not the only one struggling.’ After I gave out the usual ways they could get in touch, I played a song. Artie had picked it especially because it related to what we were talking about tonight. ‘Parents Just Don’t Understand’ by DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince. A rap song from the late 80s about parent trouble. Might be old, but it was still good.

  It seemed we had hit a bullseye with our listeners. I guess all parents are embarrassing; maybe they are just born that way. Sad, really. Could they get any medical help for this? Some tablets maybe?

  Doctor: ‘What’s the problem?’

  Patient: ‘I’m really embarrassing my children all the time.’

  Doctor: ‘Don’t worry! You’re the fifth person I’ve had in here today with this condition; take these three times a day and if they don’t work, maybe leave your family and go and live in the woods.’

  ‘Caller ready to go, Spike,’ shouted Holly. The song was ending.

  ‘Hi, it’s Radio Boy on the Secret Shed Show, taking your calls about your embarrassing parents. Hello, caller – who is this?’

  ‘It’s Shane. Hi, Radio Boy and the gang,’ said our caller.

  ‘What have your parents done, Shane?’

  ‘I have a twin brother and since we were born, right up until last year when we were ten, they would dress us in matching outfits. In every photo we look so creepy.’

  ‘That’s awful, Shane,’ I said while laughing.

  ‘Hi, you’re on the air. Who is this?’ I asked the next caller.

  ‘Hi, Radio Boy. Hi, Artie,’ said our new caller, who I could tell was a girl from her voice. I’m observant like that.

  ‘Well, hello,’ said Artie, adjusting his hair despite this being radio.

  ‘Can I just say I love your voice, Artie,’ she said. Artie’s eyes bulged.

  ‘Well … well … thanks,’ stammered Artie.

  ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’ asked his female admirer.

  ‘N-n-no I don’t, yet,’ mumbled Artie, blushing.

  ‘Would you like one?’ she asked.

  ‘Right, this isn’t a dating show. What’s your name?’ I asked, trying to steer the show back under my control.

  ‘Suzi, with an i,’ she said. I knew this girl, she was in our year.

  ‘Well, Suzi, how did your parents embarrass you?’ I asked. Still irritated she hadn’t said anything about my voice. Maybe my microphone was playing up.

  ‘My dad’s disgusting. When I have friends over he makes his bottom “talk” by breaking wind.’

  Artie laughed hard – too hard. I couldn’t believe how he was behaving. ‘What a funny, funny story, really funny story. Great one, wasn’t it, Spike?’ said Artie.

  ‘Not bad,’ I muttered.

  Suzi hadn’t finished, though.

  ‘Meet me at lunch break by the science block, if you like, Artie,’ she offered. Well, this blew Artie’s tiny cake-filled mind.

  ‘Yes, yes, interesting,’ was all he could say. Artie had got a girlfriend from the show. Unbelievable! I really needed to win Radio Star. This shed was holding me back and now affecting my love life.

  We took another caller.

  ‘Hi, Radio Boy, my mum gets all these embarrassing photos of me out all the time. Like one of me when I was two, naked, wearing only a Santa hat.’

  ‘Brutal,’ I said. Why did our mums want to share those embarrassing photos with everyone? Didn’t we have rights?

  Right then a text appeared on my phone. From Dad.

  As I read the next sentence I couldn’t quite believe my eyes.

  ‘You OK, Spike?’ asked Artie. We were still live on air and I had gone silent.

  ‘Yeah. Turns out, it’s not just parents who embarrass us. Grandparents do too … My Grandad Ray has just been arrested,’ I said to a stunned Artie and Holly.

  And all our listeners.

  ‘I know as much as you do,’ protested my older sister. We were waiting in the living room. We’d ended the show early on the bombshell news of Grandad’s arrest, and Artie and Holly had left to go home.

  Holly said she was going to have a go at editing our ten-minute Radio Star entry, taken from all the best things we had done on the show. From the highly illegal cat hunt, and some of our best callers, to the show when we’d caused a Christmas-present explosion, and our embarrassing parent phone-in.

  Except right now, it was embarrassing grandparents who were most on my mind.

  ‘You must know more – how on earth does an elderly man, our grandad, get arrested? Unless it’s for crimes against music,’ I said.

  ‘Well, as you learned the hard way, Spike, he likes winding people up. I don’t know why you let him get to you about that silly DJ competition. I wouldn’t bother entering Radio Star if I were you,’ said Amber.

  ‘Why not?’ I asked.

  ‘Grandad Ray will win. Those dumb competitions love crazy old people,’ said Amber in a very matter-of-fact way. Totally unaware she was annihilating my dreams.

  ‘And cute kids,’ I emphasised desperately. I had to keep the dream alive. Cute kids surely always beat crazy oldies? Did I still count as a cute kid?

  ‘But he’s a crazy old guy who can also sing and dance. He’s like a grandad Swiss Army knife,’ she said. She had me there: dream back to total annihilation.

  ‘Well, we’ll see, I’m pretty sure his entry will be total rubbish compared to mine,’ I said. I thought back to the secret recording of the Dancing Divas and their on-air snoozes.

  Suddenly we heard the sound of squealing brakes outside the house. Dad’s rust-bucket of a car was back, crash-landing by the sound of it. We could see Grandad the criminal in the front seat. Amber and I had rushed over to the lounge window. We saw Dad turn the engine off, and get into a very animated conversation with Grandad Ray. I was no lip reader, but their conversation definitely contained a few swear words. Dad even slammed his hand on to the steering wheel, which made the car-horn bleat, like a poorly goat.

  ‘Oh my goodness, Spike! You won’t believe this, but Grandad Ray has a black eye,’ said Amber.

  ‘What? I thought tonight was his ballroom lesson, not boxing! How did he …’ As my words trailed off, Amber and I had exactly the same thought.

  ‘You don’t think he got into a fight at his ballroom lesson, do you?’ I said.

  The front door opened and in traipsed a very sheepish-looking Grandad Ray. He did indeed have a very swollen black eye.

  ‘Hi, kids,’ said Dad, trying to sound all normal and not like he’d just walked in with a heavyweight boxing loser. He blew out his longest sigh ever. ‘Grandad err … erm … had a misunderstanding with another gentleman at tonight’s ballroom-dancing class. The police were called and it’s all OK now.’
>
  ‘I was physically assaulted by a complete thug,’ burst out Grandad Ray. His trademark golden necklace was broken in his hands.

  ‘Apparently you were dancing in an ungentlemanly fashion with his wife; a tango too far, according to witnesses,’ said Dad, with his hands on his hips like he does when he is telling us off. It must be great when you get to be a grown-up and can start telling your parents off. Can you send them to bed early? Or ground them?

  ‘How was I to know her husband was a member of that idiotic postman Senator Terry’s karate club?’ said Grandad Ray.

  ‘SEN-SEI,’ I corrected him.

  ‘Whatever. Psychopaths in pyjamas, if you ask me. He got a lucky punch in, that’s all,’ said Grandad Ray.

  ‘Apparently you tried to hide from him behind some of the ladies,’ Dad said, not quite succeeding in suppressing a smirk.

  ‘LIES!’ protested Grandad Ray.

  With that he looked up and widened his stance, gazing into the distance. Oh no, time for a song …

  ‘DON’T … STOP … BEEEEEEEEELIEVVVVVVING.’

  ‘OK, enough excitement for one night. Carol will be home any minute now and will have a look at your eye. Bedtime, you two,’ said Dad, nodding at me and my sister.

  My grandad had been in a fight and got himself arrested. This was no time for sleep. Mum came in the front door then, just back from her Zumba class.

  ‘For crying out loud, WHAT ON EARTH has happened to Ray’s face?’ she said in a far-from-calm voice.

  She looked accusingly at my dad, then me, and then back at my dad again. As if Dad or me were the main suspects for giving Grandad the black eye.

  ‘Grandad Ray had a little misunderstanding at tonight’s ballroom-dancing club,’ said Dad.

  ‘And the police arrested him,’ added Amber helpfully.

  ‘You should see the other guy,’ said Grandad Ray.

  ‘Really?’ said Dad.

  Grandad hung his head. ‘Well … no,’ he said and sloped off to bed. My bed.