First published in Great Britain by

HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2018

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

HarperCollins Publishers

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London SE1 9GF

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Text copyright © Christian O’Connell 2018

Illustrations © Rob Biddulph 2018

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

Christian O’Connell and Rob Biddulph assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work respectively.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008200596

Ebook Edition © 2018 ISBN: 9780008200602

Version: 2017-12-07

For Sarah, Ruby and Lois.

The three brightest stars in my world.

Love you, always.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1. The DJ Who Stole Christmas

Chapter 2. Barbecued Like a Sausage

Chapter 3. My Headmaster Hates Me

Chapter 4. The Surprise House Guest

Chapter 5. A New Team Member

Chapter 6. Radio Stars Wanted

Chapter 7. The Guest from Hell

Chapter 8. In for the Kill

Chapter 9. The Snake

Chapter 10. The Letter

Chapter 11. The Ray-chter Scale

Chapter 12. When Grandads Go Bad

Chapter 13. A Spurned Grandad

Chapter 14. Please, Dad, No

Chapter 15. Breaking Dad

Chapter 16. The Rumble at the Red Lion

Chapter 17. Please, Dad, No (part 2)

Chapter 18. Grandad Ray Rattles Cages

Chapter 19. Everyone’s a DJ

Chapter 20. Catastrophe

Chapter 21. Cliffhanger

Chapter 22. Cat-Napped

Chapter 23. Face to face With a Cat-Napper

Chapter 24. Spooking the Enemy

Chapter 25. Returning to the Scene of the Crime

Chapter 26. The FrankenHarrissteins

Chapter 27. Pretty Uneventful

Chapter 28. Blackmail

Chapter 29. Lasagne

Chapter 30. The Cha-Cha Chat Show

Chapter 31. Bring on the Red Carpets

Chapter 32. Embarrassing Parents

Chapter 33. Duelling Dancers

Chapter 34. Never Meet Your Heroes

Chapter 35. A Bad Thought

Chapter 36. Ninja Dad

Chapter 37. Dad’s on the TV

Chapter 38. A Reluctant Star is Born

Chapter 39. The Final Countdown

Chapter 40. The Final Four

Chapter 41. Training Camp

Chapter 42. Attack of the Dads

Chapter 43. Zombie Mum

Chapter 44. You Said What?

Chapter 45. Friends Remited

Chapter 46. The ‘Amazing’ Tent

Chapter 47. My Interview

Chapter 48. And Then There Was One

Chapter 49. The Aftermath

Chapter 50. And the Winner Is …

Chapter 51. Decisions, Decisions

Chapter 52. Choices

Chapter 53. And the Winner Is …

Chapter 54. The Final Chapter

Chapter 55. One Last Thing

Note from Me, the Writer of this, Spike Hughes

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Publisher

Can you imagine what it would be like to have your very own radio show?

Just think about it for a moment.

You could do whatever you wanted, say what you wanted, and get your listeners to do ANYTHING.

Well, that’s me. Spike Hughes. Living the dream. Surfing the radio airwaves from my garden shed at Number 27 Crow Crescent.

And the Secret Shed Show is live on air right now …

‘Spike, you cannot do this!’ begged my radio-show producer, Holly.

‘Oh yes, I can,’ I replied.

The song came to an end. Time to speak. I suddenly remembered watching this old documentary with my dad about a motorcycle daredevil called Evel Knievel. He would jump over things on his motorbike. Cars, buses and planes. He even once tried to jump across thirteen London buses at Wembley Stadium. I felt like him, about to try to make that jump.

The MIC LIVE sign turned bright red, meaning we were on air. I spoke into the mic.

‘So, who of you listening right now is brave enough to go and get one of your Christmas presents from under the tree, without anyone catching you, and open it up live on the show? Just grab one and call us right away!’

‘This is a really bad idea,’ said Artie, but I could see he was trying to swallow down his laughter as producer Holly scowled at us both.

A few months ago, after the whole school strike situation,¹ I had promised them both I would take it easy, but what’s the point in having your own radio show if you can’t have a bit of fun every once in a while?

I could see we had callers eager to take part in my ‘bad idea’. I picked one.

‘Hello, you’re live on the Secret Shed Show. Who is this?’

‘Hi, Radio Boy and the team.’

Artie and Holly mumbled back a very strained ‘Hi’, making it very clear they still didn’t approve of what I was doing. Artie is my radio-show sidekick and he also picks all the music. He doesn’t really want to be a famous DJ like me. He’s just here because he likes being part of it. Holly is my producer because she’s the smartest out of the three of us. They are my best friends, and my only friends. I guess it’s like being in a band together. Does that make Artie the triangle player?

Anyway, they knew all too well how much trouble could come from my spontaneous ideas. I’ll tell you a little secret: this wasn’t that spontaneous as I had planned to do it, but knew if I told them before the show they’d try to stop me.

‘I’ve got a present to open from under the Christmas tree,’ said our caller.

‘OK. Firstly, what’s your name?’

‘Nick.’

‘OK, Nick, describe the present to us.’

‘It’s huge, I can hardly lift it, almost the size of a door.’

‘Is this your main present?’ I asked. I was starting to get a little worried, as Christmas is all about the MP. The Main Present. Had Nick grabbed the big one from under his family’s Christmas tree?

‘Oh yes,’ replied Nick. I could almost hear him frothing with excitement. You know what Christmas is like. It almost makes you sick with anticipation. It can’t come soon enough. But for Nick, it would come right now, live, on my radio show. I looked at the terrified faces of Artie and Holly and hesitated for only a split second, then, excited by the power I had right at that moment, I shouted –

‘Open it, Nick!’

Suddenly, the full horror of what I was doing got to Artie and he grabbed his mic, yelling:

‘DON’T DO THIS, NICK! YOU’LL GET INTO HUGE TROUBLE!’

Holly’s mouth was wide open, like she was watching a car crash in slow motion.

‘DO IT, Nick!’ I demanded.

He did it. We heard the unmistakable sound of wrapping paper being torn off – no, more ripped apart like a bear attacking a tent. There was no going back now. I had put tonight’s radio show on a roller coaster. The question was, were we on the going-up bit, or plummeting down out of control?

Nick squealed in the most amazingly high-pitched way.

‘OH WOW! OH WOW! OH WOW!’

‘What is it, Nick?’ yelled Artie. Now he wanted to play my game!

‘It’s … it’s … it’s … an Xbox, a brand-new Xbox,’ said Nick, sounding as if he was crying with joy. The wonder of Christmas!

The moment was then shattered by the very loud footsteps we could hear from Nick’s end of the line, and the sound of a door slamming open.

‘WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING, NICK?’ yelled a very angry-sounding man.

‘R-R-R-R-Radio Boy made me do it,’ stammered Nick.

Oh dear. Time for me to hang up quickly and play a song.

Then I remembered: Evel Knievel managed to clear all thirteen buses. But he crashed on landing. Breaking lots of bones.

I suppose I should bring you up to speed with things.

The Secret Shed Show is still doing really well. Everyone now knows that I, Spike Hughes, am Radio Boy (which is kind of brilliant). At least people know I’m good at something other than being a total loser.

It’s official, I’m now 17 per cent less loser (not 20 per cent less, unfortunately, as my mum still insists on making me a packed lunch, whereas everyone else in my year just has the school dinners. ‘Delicious fresh fruit to keep you regular, Spike, and gluten-free bread with nutritious mung beans, watercress and celery.’ If you want to know what this tastes like, try eating an old shoe with a dead toad inside it).

I always just quietly bin the leathery sandwich, and the dinner ladies give me a cooked lunch for free. I can see the pity in their eyes.

Being Radio Boy hasn’t exactly changed my world that much, then. Let’s look at the pros and cons of being a newly-fledged radio star in my world.

CONS:

Girls now officially find me funny BUT still just want to go out with the boys on the football A-team. I thought being ‘school famous’ would fix all this. Not so. Now I’m just their funny friend. A tap-dancing monkey is funny, but you don’t want it to be your boyfriend.

To be honest, it’s Artie that has been getting more of the attention from girls. They send him fan letters. He didn’t seem that interested at first (or so he said), but I noticed he’d started putting gel in his hair and wearing his dad’s aftershave. I say ‘wearing’; I think it’s fairer to say it wore him. Holly’s and my eyes watered within a metre of him and his scent.

Even worse, Katherine Hamilton, the girl I once wanted to marry, is now going out with Martin Harris, the school bully and the son of my evil headmaster. I try to tell myself they deserve each other, but it’s still like a stab to the heart whenever I see them together.

MORE CONS:

Our show would always be called the Secret Shed Show, but it wasn’t really secret any more – and even though I still went by Radio Boy, I had lost my anonymity. This created problems. The biggest was, of course, my mum.

It started innocently enough, with occasional peering in through the shed window mid-show. Then it escalated to bursting into the shed studio while we were doing the show. Yeah, don’t worry about the bright red glowing MIC LIVE sign, Mum. Just barge on in.

‘There is a cold draught in here, I’ll go and get your special jumper.’

‘Are those electrical leads even safe? We had a poor young boy on my hospital ward just the other week who had been literally fried like an egg by faulty wiring. Poor kid had a permanent grin on his face. Even in his sleep.’

‘Shall I make us all some nice soup?’

BTW:

My mum puts great faith in the restorative powers of soup. Like a simple bowl of soup is some highly potent ancient brew, not straight out of a can she just warmed up. My mum is a highly trained nurse, but her medicine cabinet appears to contain just three go-to things:

1 Soup.

2 Vicks VapoRub.

3 A cold flannel.

To my mum, this is the Holy Trinity of medicine. There is nothing that soup, Vicks or the application of a cold flannel cannot heal. If I was run over and lying in the road bleeding, my mum would go and get a stinking cold flannel and rub some Vicks on me before calling for an ambulance. By the time the ambulance had arrived she would have set up an IV drip, containing not blood, but chicken soup.

Anyway, my mum took to just bursting in on the show whenever she wanted.

So now there are two locks on the shed door. One on the outside to protect the broadcasting equipment from being stolen, and one on the inside to protect us from my mum.

‘Spike, is this door locked? What if the fire brigade needed to come and rescue you as your studio turned into a human bonfire? Oh, my poor angel, barbecued like a sausage.’

My mum wasn’t the only one trying to get in on the radio action, either. There was also Sensei Terry: our local postman, karate instructor and one-man neighbourhood watch. The man who rumbled the intruder in my garden, Fish Face, aka Mr Harris, my headmaster. Since then, Mum has given Sensei Terry permission to patrol our garden whenever he wants. It’s not exactly like being given the freedom of the city, but in his mind it’s exactly like being given the freedom of the city. The freedom to patrol at will in the garden of Number 27 Crow Crescent. The way he behaved, you’d have thought he’d caught the country’s most wanted criminal.

Without warning, Sensei Terry will leap out of a hedge or from behind a bush and shout, ‘Spike – all clear and safe!’ and then disappear again. I’m sure I saw him last week disguised as a conifer tree following a suspicious-looking door-to-door salesman down the road.

EVEN MORE CONS:

Apparently everyone’s a DJ. Who knew?

People at school keep giving me ‘helpful’ ideas of exactly what I should do on the show and they are nearly always bad. Don’t believe me? Here are some recent gems:

Matthew Howard in my year suggested I have a competition called ‘Britain’s Got Burps’ to find the listener who can – well, can you guess? – burp the best. Thanks, Matt. Real classy.

Nan Fights. No, really. This came from Psycho Pete at school who even frightens the teachers. He’s already about six foot tall and has a beard. At age thirteen. His dad, Psycho Pete Senior, is rumoured to be in prison. Psycho Pete Junior told me his nan could beat up anyone else’s. I had no reason to doubt him.

Olivia Cooper in Year Eight suggested: ‘Which teacher would you like to see attacked by an animal and which animal?’ Olivia is a nice girl, but she talks to an imaginary friend during the lunch break.

Radio gold, all of them. One day I might do an entire show full of these bad ideas. Get ready for Nan Fights Live!

On top of that, people also want to be on the show. I have a special way of dealing with this: Producer Holly. We have a system. I’m nice to people and say, ‘I think you’d be great on the show – speak to Holly. She’s the boss.’ Then Holly will say to them very firmly, ‘We aren’t hiring right now. Ask again in a few months.’ She does this in such a way that no one would ever dare ask again. It’s in her eyes, I think.

I still feel anxious, though, anytime anyone wants to be my friend, or invites me over for a playdate. It’s only a matter of time before I get hit with the ‘I’d love to be on the show’.

HOLLY!

BUT OF COURSE THERE ARE ALSO PROS:

I’m starting to get free things. Yes, people send me free stuff in the hope that I’ll talk about it on the radio show.

So far I’ve been sent:

Ski boots from Snow Joke, the local ski shop. I’ve never been skiing and can’t ski. Mum has given them to the local charity shop and they are in the front window next to an old wooden tennis racket and a wedding dress. The way they have positioned the boots, it looks like the wedding dress and ski boots are an outfit, ready to be sold to any passing ski-loving bride-to-be.

School shoes from Just Shooz. This is the new shoe shop in town, a bitter rival to Shoe City. I love the fact they called it Just Shooz. Like anyone has ever walked past a high-street shoe shop, seen all the endless rows of shoes in the window, and then wandered in and asked the helpful assistant where the pet dolphins are. ‘Sorry, sir, “Just Shooz”.’

Things are going so well, in fact, that just like an actual proper radio station, we now have adverts. Well, one advert. It’s for Mr Khan, the local newsagent.

He doesn’t pay me in cash, however, as an advertiser normally would. Instead I’m allowed unlimited sweets, as is Holly. Sadly, due to Artie’s very large sweet tooth (shall we say), he’s had to have his offer limited to just one bag a week.

Mr Khan wrote the advert himself and I have to read it out twice during every show, complete with sound effects. He even has a big sign in his shop window that boasts, ‘AS HEARD ON THE SECRET SHED SHOW’.

Here is my first-ever script for my first-ever advertiser:

SFX LARGE EXPLOSIONS

They have gone SWEET C-C-C-C-C-RAZY down at Mr Khan’s!

SFX MORE EXPLOSIONS

This week Haribo Tangfastics are HALF PRICE! Hurry after school tomorrow before Mr Khan runs out!

SFX OF PEOPLE SCREAMING AND RUNNING

Also, why not check out Mr Khan’s wide array of greeting cards for all occasions. Births, birthdays and pet deaths. Yes! You heard us right, a sensitive card for someone special in your life who has lost their beloved pet. The PURR-fect idea!

Find it all at Mr Khan’s Store. Penguin Parade, just opposite the dentist. No more than three schoolchildren allowed at any one time.

SFX MORE EXPLOSIONS

However, one thing hasn’t changed – if anything, it’s got even worse. And that’s my relationship with my headmaster, Mr Harris.

I mean, I get it.

If I was in his shoes I’d hate me. I’d spend every waking hour thinking of new and ingenious ways to make my life hell.

I would never not be out of my mind if I was him.

My headmaster, Mr Harris, carries not just deep emotional scars from the showdown in my back garden, but also a very noticeable physical one. I mean immediately noticeable. Like, you wouldn’t be able to stop looking at it if you were talking to him.

You see, Fish Face is now the only headmaster in the whole wide world with a golden front tooth. He had to have a new tooth to replace the one that to this day is still somewhere in my garden – knocked out with force by the legendary front karate kick of Sensei Terry.

Now, with his new golden tooth, Mr Harris’s face looks even more evil. Like a James Bond baddie. Or maybe a rejected Bond baddie who was turned down for being too scary.

And that’s unpleasant. But not as unpleasant as how Mr Harris must feel about it. I mean, I almost feel sorry for him. Every time he looks in the mirror he sees a reminder of what happened that fateful night in my garden. Marked for life.

Even worse, for months leading up to his manhunt for me, Radio Boy, I had made a laughing stock out of him on my secret radio show. To be fair, he started it. He launched the school’s radio station, Merit Radio, and he should’ve had me on it – I mean, I was the only pupil at the school with radio experience (hospital radio; I was fired, but that’s not the point). Instead, he put his idiot son, Martin Harris, on air and we became sworn enemies in that moment.

So, I mocked him mercilessly for weeks from my garden shed. I used a voice disguiser to mask my voice and real identity. I made up the name ‘Fish Face’ for him on air. He heard it. The school heard it. Everyone heard it. And when he finally tracked me down, Sensei Terry thought he was an intruder and knocked out his front tooth.

So it’s not really that surprising my headmaster hates me.

Which was why I found myself staring once again at my own terrible reflection in the window at school.

‘Do I really have to wear this?’ I asked.

Fish Face grinned, his gold tooth glistening. He was grinning because my evil headmaster was successfully making my school life hell. It was payback. I was on litter duty again at lunchtime and he was making me wear a high-visibility jacket with the words ‘RUBBISH COLLECTOR’ printed on the back in large letters. The ‘COLLECTOR’ bit is microscopically minute. It reads like this:

Oddly enough, I’ve never seen anyone else having to wear this particular design of vest.

‘It’s for health and safety, you see, Spike. I wouldn’t want anything unfortunate to happen to you …’ said Fish Face with fake sincerity as his fishy grin showed all his revolting coffee-stained teeth (and one golden one). Had he even been to a dentist this century?

If he ever did find a dentist unlucky enough to take him on, they’d need the industrial-strength jet washer to get those brown coffee stains off. And they’d need to have their own oxygen supply to protect themselves from his honking bad breath. Mr Harris can wilt flowers with just one small sigh.

No better way to spend your lunch break than wandering around your school in a high-vis jacket with a giant metal claw, picking up rubbish, as I did today. A constant soundtrack of ‘Hey, you missed a bit!’, as kids deliberately dumped sweet wrappers and crisp packets on the ground behind me. Let me say, for the record, it takes an awful lot of precision and skill to pick up a Curly Wurly wrapper with a giant metal claw.

Without realising, though, Mr Harris had actually done me a favour. At least, rubbish-collecting around the school grounds, I didn’t have to listen to his lunchtime show on Merit Radio, which was blasted into every classroom and corridor. There was no escape – even in the toilets.

Things had changed on Merit Radio too. Before Mr Harris was arrested for breaking into my garden, the official school radio station had been presented by Martin Harris, with his dad barking orders in the background. Now Fish Face had decided to freshen things up and had put himself on air. This meant his son had a vastly reduced role. Martin had gone from presenting the show, to only speaking once an hour, with his new feature, Martin’s Minute. In reality it lasted no longer than thirty-one seconds.

I almost felt sorry for him. But not quite. Once again, Fish Face was behaving like a wannabe dictator. In history we learned that some countries aren’t like ours, and instead of an elected government, they have a ‘dictator’ who controls everything, even the radio and TV channels. They are only allowed to broadcast good news that’s been approved by the mad leader. I think this was what Mr Harris had modelled Merit Radio on.

I’m pretty certain Mr Harris would be far happier running a small country like a crazy dictator. Banning things like jugglers, terrapins and the colour purple.

Anyway, back to Martin’s Minute. This sound bite of radio gold had poor Harris Junior reading out official school ‘good news’ approved by his dad, to anyone unfortunate enough to be listening. All spoken like he had a gun to his head.

Merit Radio – more like Hostage FM. If this was on TV, Martin would be blinking ‘free me’ in Morse code.

‘Good news … the leaking tap in the boys’ toilets has been mended.’

Good news?! Only to plumbers and fans of all things tap-related. Back to Marty’s minute.

‘Further good news: the school cat is four years old today. If you see Cat, wish him happy birthday.’

That’s not a spelling mistake, the school cat was actually called ‘Cat’. It had been Fish Face’s job to name it. Cat. Which sums up the man’s creative powers.

Yes – it was Martin’s Minute. But it felt more like Martin’s Endless Boredom Torture Hour.

‘Grandad is here,’ I shouted, after I spotted him coming down our front path after school. It was a cold March day and Grandad was about to brighten it up.

‘What? Why? Oh no,’ cried Dad in a horrified way. Dad is never very excited about seeing Grandad Ray, which I’ve always thought is odd. I mean, it’s his own dad.

I opened the door excitedly and hugged Grandad.

‘Spike!’ he said in his typically booming voice. He was wearing even more aftershave than Artie, as well as the big shiny gold necklace he always wore below his high, open lapels. I noticed he had two suitcases with him.

‘Dad. What’s going on?’ came my dad’s irritated voice from behind me.

‘Well, I thought I’d come and stay for a few days. See my grandkids, help out around the house. That OK, son?’ Grandad asked.

‘Um … of course. Is Mum all right?’ asked Dad suspiciously.

‘Yeah, yeah, fine,’ muttered Grandad Ray, pushing past him into the house.

Grandad Ray isn’t like a normal grandad. Let me explain.

Firstly, the hair. It’s not grey or white, like most men his age. It’s white with a black stripe down the middle. It’s also big. High and swept back. Never a hair out of place. It doesn’t even look like human hair any more, after all the years of hair-spraying. It’s actually a hair-based work of art. He always wears black cowboy boots too. No matter what the occasion. I think he even has cowboy-boot slippers. All of this would’ve looked perfectly normal if he was a part-time cabaret singer and ranch owner in Texas. Which he wasn’t. Except he was a singer, of sorts – or had been – and in his mind he still is.

Grandad Ray used to be a cabaret singer on cruise ships, which is where he met Nan. His stage name was Toni Fandango. He quit dramatically after he was downgraded to performing on car ferries to France.

‘I’m wasted trying to sing Frank Sinatra classics next to the fruit machines, Spike.’

Grandad blamed the end of his career on another, younger singer, Kriss Kristie. We all secretly knew, however, that it was due to his age and panda hair.

He opened his mouth and started to sing, right there in the front hall, at the top of his voice. He often broke into song without any warning.

‘Youuuuuuuuuu ain’t nothin’ but a—’

Sherlock, my other best friend and full-time dog, immediately started barking.

‘Bleedin’ dog, shut it!’ yelled Grandad.

‘Ray, Ray, you sweet old man!’ said Mum as she came rushing into the hallway.

‘Here she is, greatest woman on Earth, what you saw in my son I’ll never know,’ Grandad said.

‘How lovely of you to come and see us for a few days. Spike, take your grandad’s bags,’ ordered Mum.

I gladly obliged, but had a quick question.

‘Um, where shall I take them?’

‘To your room, of course, Spike. He can have your bed. You’ll have to sleep on the inflatable mattress.’ Awesome! Grandad Ray and I would be room-mates. Sure, it meant me having to sleep on the world’s most uncomfortable bed, the dreaded inflatable mattress – like sleeping on a bouncy castle – but that was a small price to pay.

It took me two trips to lug Grandad Ray’s suitcases upstairs. I passed Dad at one point and said, ‘Look, snakeskin suitcases, proper showbiz.’

‘Snakeskin! Fakeskin more like! The label on them says Poundland. Not sure a pound gets you a pair of authentic snakeskin suitcases.’ They still looked very cool to me. At least no snakes had been harmed in the making of them. I’d love my boring school bag to be snakeskin like his suitcases. That’d soon catch Katherine Hamilton’s eye.

‘Oh, I love your bag, Spike; what’s it made of?’ she would coo.

‘Python,’ I’d say casually and saunter off.

‘Here, you’ll need this,’ said Dad, snapping me out of my daydream as he threw me the foot pump for the blow-up bed.

‘You owe me ten thousand pounds! Right NOW! Pay up! But … oh no … you don’t have enough money, which means … I WIN!’ yelled Grandad Ray as he cheerfully helped himself to me and my sister Amber’s last bits of paper money on the Monopoly board.

Now he had bankrupted his grandchildren, Grandad Ray started doing a victory lap round the living room. He looked like a footballer who had just scored a hat-trick, trying to pull his shirt over his head – though his high hair got in the way.

‘SUCKERS!! LOSERS! LOSERS!’ he shouted while pointing at us. Grandad really likes to win. ‘You snooze, you lose,’ is just one of his supportive phrases.

Monopoly is without doubt the WORLD’S WORST GAME EVER. What a fun way to spend time, financially ruining your family members, taking all their money and property. Fun for all the family. NOT. I bet the only kid who ever liked playing this was Donald Trump. I can imagine the young Donny chuckling to himself as he made his own grandmother bankrupt and homeless.

What’s the second worst board game in the world?

Pictionary.

Every Christmas Mum insists we play it. Amber and I are forced to go with a grandparent each, who, once the game starts, reveals that they cannot draw anything from the modern world.

This was my nan’s picture of a mobile phone:

And guess what this is?

Alien, anyone?

Grandad’s phone rang as he continued to point at us and jeer. He paused, and answered it. ‘Hi …’ he said, suddenly going very quiet and meek – for him.

He listened to the person on the other end, then spoke.

‘Unbelievable! I’ll pick the rest up later this week, you harridan,’ he said angrily, and tried to hang up, but it took him a while to find the right button on his phone.

‘Everything OK, Grandad?’ I asked.

‘Yes! Yes! Fine, just FINE,’ he said in a way that suggested it really wasn’t.

‘Who was that?’ asked my sister.

‘Oh … just the window salesman,’ he explained.

Amber opened her mouth to say something, but then he started doing his victory lap again.

Later, I looked up ‘harridan’ in the dictionary, and apparently it means ‘a strict, bossy or belligerent old woman’. Which I thought was an odd thing to call a window salesman.

The next two days were just so much fun. My new room-mate Grandad Ray and I stayed up late into the night, every night, playing cards. He taught me a game called ‘poker’, which was much more fun than Monopoly, and he said I was a real natural. He won all my pocket money, but assured me it was a very close game. I also had to write him something he told me was called an ‘IOU’ (which I now know stands for ‘I OWE YOU money’) for the rest of that year’s pocket money, after another very close poker game.

I wasn’t getting too much sleep, what with the late-night poker club and the bouncy bed from hell. Grandad also snored really loudly, sounding like a zombie with sinus problems.

Getting ready for school was proving problematic too. The entire family had to wait ages to use the bathroom, due to Grandad Ray’s intensive showering and grooming routine. All of this was accompanied by him singing at the top of his voice, waking up the whole house at 6am. He had a separate washbag just for his hair products.

Grandad Ray was kind enough to walk me to school, though – but not without asking to borrow my snack money. I gave it to him safe in the knowledge that my VIP fame at the school would mean I could blag some free snacks. Proper famous people never pay for anything. Cars, clothes, watches. Ask yourself this: when was the last time you saw an A-lister wandering around a swimming pool asking for a pound for the locker? Exactly. They get EVERYTHING free.¹

Then, a few days into his stay, I got back from school and he was very comfortable with his feet up, reading his newspaper on the sofa. A very loud banging on our front door shattered the silence. I took a quick peek through the front window to see who it was.

‘Nan’s here,’ I cried out excitedly. She was immaculately turned out in a bright pink trouser suit with matching lipstick.

Grandad Ray leaped off the sofa like he’d been electrocuted.

‘Don’t tell her I’m here, Spike,’ he whispered desperately as he ducked down and crawled along the floor into the garden.

What was going on?

‘Hi, Nan,’ I said in a slightly confused voice as I opened the door.

‘Hello, darling. Is he staying here, then?’ she asked in a very matter-of-fact way. I noticed she had two full black bin bags with her.

‘Um … no?’ I said.

‘How do you know who I’m talking about?’ she asked.

A pause. ‘Well, I assumed you meant Grandad and … er … he’s not here.’

She walked into the house and sniffed. ‘I can smell him, Spike, so he must be here. Let me guess – he’s hiding and told his own grandson to lie? Typically pathetic.’ She wandered off towards the back door that leads to the garden. My sister and I then watched a very sad scene unfold. Our nan searching for her husband and our grandad, who was hiding in our garden.

Just then Dad came home from work.

Amber and I breathlessly got him up to speed with the events of the last two minutes and he joined us at our observation post, the kitchen window.

Our garden is pretty small, so very quickly the Grandad-Ray-hide-and-seek game came to an end. Nan had looked everywhere apart from the shed. My studio.

She rattled the door handle. It didn’t turn. It looked like Grandad Ray had locked himself in.

I heard him yell, ‘LEAVE ME ALONE, YOU HARRIDAN.’

‘That’s what he called the window salesman the other day,’ I said.

‘What?’ asked Dad. So I took him through the phone call Grandad had received and the shouting at the window salesman.

‘Well, it’s finally happened,’ sighed Dad. ‘She’s thrown him out. I wondered what this surprise visit was all about.’

Thrown him out? Can you even throw out a grandad? Aren’t there laws against that? The thought of unwanted grandads being thrown out and dumped by the side of the road made me very sad.

So Nan and Grandad argued through the shed door. Nan threw the bin bags on the ground and stormed off. Dad met her as she came back into the house.

‘I’m so sorry you all had to see that, darlings,’ she said, and Dad gave her a hug. He ushered her into the front room and closed the door.

I went out into the garden to see Grandad Ray. I tried to open the shed door. It was still locked. ‘It’s just me, Grandad,’ I said.

‘Is she there with you, Spike? Is it a trap?’ he said from inside the shed.

‘No no, it’s just me, I promise. What’s going on, Grandad?’ I asked.

‘Oh, just your nan having a bit of a meltdown. She’ll calm down,’ he said. Still from behind the shed door.

‘Has she thrown you out, like Dad’s just said?’ I asked.

‘Not exactly, Spike. I’m just being a … gentleman and letting her cool off for a few days. She will soon see she’s behaved very badly and come back round and apologise.’

I looked down at the bin bags Nan had dumped on the ground.

‘Are these all your clothes?’ I asked the shed door.

‘Yes, erm … I … I asked her to kindly drop a few extra bits off,’ the shed door said.

‘Dad, she’s gone home,’ yelled my dad from the back door. ‘So you can stop hiding in the shed now. Come inside when you’re ready, we need to talk.’ The door unlocked. Inside the shed, the Grandad I saw was not one I recognised. He looked broken.

‘Are you OK?’ I asked.

‘Just thinking about your nan. Hurts like hell, Spike …’

Oh no, song time. He grabbed an imaginary microphone with his right hand and pulled it to his mouth:

‘Well, since my baby left me …’

He sang most of ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, then sort of slowly stopped and froze on the spot, his mind and heart elsewhere.

He seemed the loneliest man in the world. I didn’t want to catch his eye, so glanced around at all my radio equipment crammed into Dad’s shed. Grandad must have seen me looking at it.

‘This where you do your show, then, is it?’ he asked me.

I immediately came alive, telling him how it all worked and where we all sat. Then an idea hit me. ‘Hey, Grandad, why don’t you come in on the show?’ I asked him. ‘You could be our first guest.’

Grandad’s eyes widened and a smile appeared on his face for the first time since Nan’s bin bag dump-and-go visit. It felt good seeing that smile. I was saving my beloved Grandad Ray. No one threw away my Grandad Ray.

GRANDADS ARE FOR LIFE, NOT JUST CHRISTMAS.

‘Yes! I thought you’d never ask!’ replied Grandad eagerly. He smoothed back his coiffured hair with the silver comb he always carried in his back pocket. ‘I guess if you wanted, I could sing …’ he said, and produced a list of songs he had apparently made on the off-chance I ever invited him on to the show.

‘That would be amazing!’ I replied. Grandad would be our first live-music guest.

By now, Dad had come out to the shed and must’ve overheard my offer. I saw him give me a worried look, raise his eyebrows and sigh. I ignored him. ‘Come to the shed, our studio, after dinner and we will get you on air,’ I said to Grandad.

‘Right ho! I’ll bring my best stories.’

As it started to get dark outside, I went back down to the shed to get the studio ready for that night’s special guest show. I was testing my microphone when Artie and Holly came in.

‘Hey, guess what – you know my grandad has come to stay?’

‘The one with the big hair, and cowboy boots? Used to sing on cruise ships?’ asked Holly.

‘Yeah, that’s him – Grandad Ray.’ I doubt many other grandads fit that profile. ‘Anyway, I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve invited him on the show today.’

‘Cool, that certainly should be fun,’ said Artie, unpacking his vinyl records for the music on the show.

I put us on air and the MIC LIVE sign glowed red, meaning we were broadcasting to the world. But mainly the kids at my school. Midway through our first live link, Grandad came flying in through the shed door, kicking it aside with one of his cowboy boots. It slammed against some paint pots and one fell off the shelf on to the floor.

‘HERE I AM!’ he shouted. The smell of his aftershave immediately made us start coughing. He had to duck through the shed door to make room for the hair that followed him. The cowboy boots made him taller, adding to the extra height of the hair. His quiff caught a cobweb, or did the cobweb catch a quiff?

‘Erm, this is my Grandad Ray, listeners,’ I explained.

‘Heyyyyyy, all you dudes out there, how you doing?’ Grandad Ray said in a deep fake American voice. Who was he trying to be, a Texan cowboy DJ?

I leaned into the mic. ‘He’s staying with us at the moment—’

‘Yeah, and I’ll tell you why I’m currently sleeping in my grandson’s bedroom. My wife doesn’t understand me and my talents and now she’s thrown me out … Diane, what have you done?’

Holly watched, her mouth wide open. She needed to be careful she didn’t catch one of our resident spiders in it. I don’t think she’d ever seen a grandad like mine. But he was only just getting started.

‘Only a woman can take your heart and then rip it out, RIP IT RIGHT OUT I tell you, and then stamp on it, STAMP ON IT! … And then make you eat it. I hope that evil bug-eyed wit—’

‘Grandad, that’s my nan!’ I interrupted. Sure, he was upset and angry, but no one wants to hear their grandad call their nan an ‘evil bug-eyed witch’. I mean, she didn’t even own a broom.

Grandad jumped to his feet. His massive hair collected another cobweb. Maybe his hairspray was attracting them like Velcro. He pulled the microphone close to his mouth and started to sing. It was some old song about having a broken heart. His eyes remained closed for the entire song. We watched in shock and awe.

‘Whaaaaat becoooooooooommmmeeeeesss of the broken-hearted …’ crooned Grandad. Everyone was getting the full Grandad Ray experience tonight.

When he finally finished the last verse of his moving performance we all burst into applause, which, in fairness, he had encouraged us to do by means of a cardboard sign he’d made with ‘APPLAUSE’ written on it in black marker pen.

I played a song.

When the MIC LIVE light went off, Artie spoke first. ‘You have a great voice, and what a great song choice, sir. I love Motown.’

‘You know Motown music, Arnie?’ asked Grandad.

‘It’s ArT-ie, and yes I love all the old classics,’ answered Artie.

‘Great to see the younger generation appreciating vinyl – you and me are going to get along like a shed on fire,’ said Grandad.

Immediately, he and Artie began an in-depth discussion of the label’s greatest hits. United in a love for Artie’s old vinyl collection. Bonding over music. I smiled, seeing Grandad so happy again.

Then we were back on air, not that the MIC LIVE flashing light made any difference to Grandad Ray’s volume control.

‘It’s the Secret Shed Show and Radio Boy here with the gang and our special guest, my Grandad Ray. Grandad, why don’t you tell everyone about what you used to do?’

‘Well, I was a professional singer. My stage name was Toni Fandango.’

Holly burst out laughing when she heard the name.

‘Something funny, girl?’ said Grandad, in a dangerous tone.

Oh no.

‘I wouldn’t be laughing if I had ginger hair like that,’ Grandad snapped back. Looking around the shed for laughter. He got none.

Uh-oh. One thing you don’t ever do is take the mickey out of Holly’s ginger hair.

‘Well, at least it’s not dyed with shoe polish,’ Holly fired back.

Grandad Ray looked horrified. Holly glared at him. Sherlock snarled.

‘Right, um, shall we move on?’ I said. ‘So, why the name Toni Fandango?’ I asked, in an effort to stop Holly and Grandad’s hair wars from escalating any further.

‘Well, it was either Toni Fandango or Bobby Gibbon,’ said Grandad.

That set Holly off again. I shot her a look.

‘I was a proper professional singer,’ said Grandad. ‘Played on all the biggest stages.’

‘Wow! That must’ve been so exciting, singing to massive crowds in big arenas,’ said Artie.

‘Yeah, it was. Sometimes it was standing room only in the Kon-Tiki bar on the Caribbean Queen cruise. They said when I sang I made grown men cry and women fall in love with me.’

Holly sighed and rolled her eyes.

‘What happened?’ I asked him.

‘Suddenly they didn’t want an old-timer like me. Showbiz will eat you, then spit you out. Showbiz is a dog that you think is your best friend, then one day it hits you in the face with a shovel and runs you over in your own car.’

‘But dogs can’t drive, Grandad,’ I pointed out.

‘Oh, you know what I mean. Then the only place I could get work was on car ferries. Portsmouth to Cherbourg. No way for a man like me to end up.’

Much to my surprise and Holly’s annoyance, the listeners loved Grandad Ray, aka Toni Fandango. The texts and messages poured in, saying how funny he was. It gave me another idea.

‘Well, I hope you enjoyed the show and thanks for all your messages. Grandad Ray, you were a great special guest. Who thinks Grandad should join the team every week while he’s staying with us?’

‘Yeah! Come on, join us,’ said Artie, Grandad’s new best friend in antique music.

Holly glared at me, but I took no notice.

‘Well, thanks, kids, I think I will accept that offer. Always knew I’d be brilliant at radio.’

Ever modest, my Grandad Ray.

And so it was that three suddenly became four. What a nice thing to do for my poor heartbroken grandad.

Also, as I would find out in time, a Really Big Mistake.

‘Good morning, World!

‘Who wants MY JOB?

‘Who DOESN’T want my job?

‘Chatting to stars.

‘Going to all the coolest parties.

‘Do you want to be a Radio Star?

‘Do you DREAM of being a DJ?

‘Becoming a famous celebrity?

‘Walking down the red carpet and seeing all the losers behind the barriers wishing they were YOU?

‘Then keep listening, as we have details on a brand-new talent competition, the first of its kind in THE WORLD:

‘Radio Star!!!!’

Wait.

I turned to the radio.

What did he just say?

‘We are looking for a brand-new DJ for Kool FM and it will be one of YOU.’

Every morning, while getting ready for school, I listen to my most favourite radio show in the world, Kool FM’s breakfast show with Howard ‘The Howie’ Wright.

This morning, The Howie’s announcement had just blown my mind.

If you could see my mind before and after this, here’s how it would look:

Sherlock stared at me, confused. I guess Sherlock, in his doggy mind, was wondering, ‘Why has my master’s mind just exploded?’

It would be like he’d just heard a dog DJ on Paw FM announce that all dogs could now come in and eat for free at the new pizza place in town.

Come to think of it, restaurants are quite boring. I have some ideas on how to improve them:

A Pizza Restaurant for Dogs and Their Owners. I’m serious. Think about it. Who doesn’t love pizza? Instead of a plate, they would just bring your dog’s pizza out in a large bowl – 12” deep pan, of course. No anchovy and pineapple toppings for our four-legged friends – instead they’d offer toppings like tripe, beef bone, dried pigs’ ears and peanut butter. Maybe some dog mouth-mints after that for their breath.

Pizza Mutt, I’d call it.

TV Dinners Restaurant. This is a winner. You all sit in booths with a TV right in front of you. Everyone has their own. You eat your meal in front of the TV. Great, right? No need for boring conversations with Mum or Dad, ‘How was school today? What did you learn? Blah, blah.’ We can watch what we want and they can watch some rubbish drama from olden times with posh people in big hats on horses and carts. Everyone is happy.

Anyway.

I had to sit down to take in what The Howie had just said on the radio. My heart was racing. This competition could be my big chance. To break out of my shed and into a real studio. How would Katherine Hamilton feel about the way she’d treated me, then? In a word: badly. I imagined her hanging around outside the Kool FM studio, waiting for me. Then, as I pulled up outside in a chauffeur-driven limousine (or possibly my dad’s old estate car), she would throw herself at me, crying as she begged for my forgiveness. Other screaming fans trying to get my autograph. My bodyguard (Sensei Terry) having to clear a path for me. All very realistic, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Howard ‘The Howie’ Wright knew about me and the Secret Shed Show – when I’d first started the show, the local newspaper had done a story about it, and he’d given a quote. Surely this would give me an unbeatable advantage in the Radio Star competition?

I couldn’t help but think it was mine to win. Wait till I tell Mum, Dad, Holly and Artie, I thought. I raced down the stairs two at a time and burst into the kitchen, where I found Mum and Dad by the sink in a very intense conversation – well, shouting and pointing their fingers at each other. All I heard before they quickly spotted me and stopped was:

Dad: ‘He will just take over the whole thing and ruin it. We have to get him out of this house, Carol.’

Mum doing her trademark move (stamping her foot and pointing): ‘You are being very mean and – Oh, hello, Spike, sweetie, we were just chatting about …’

Me: ‘Yeah, I know who you were talking about and Mum’s right; Dad, you’re being really mean about Grandad. But anyway, I haven’t got time for this right now. I have far bigger things to think about – stardom, for instance. Listen to this …’

I turned the kitchen radio on.

‘Good morning! It’s Howard “The Howie” Wright here, at ten minutes past eight. We are launching THE WORLD’S biggest-ever radio talent competition, Radio Star!

‘If you want to be a famous DJ like me, then this is your chance, my friend.

‘The winner gets personally trained by me, and you will do my very own breakfast show here for a whole week while I’m on holiday in the Caribbean!

‘It’s for anyone and everyone –

‘Young and old!

‘All you need to do is send us a short ten-minute tape of you presenting a show. Not a real one if you don’t have one, just what yours would sound like if you did.

‘Good luck! (Terms and conditions apply.)

‘Let’s get the travel news now with Travel Tanya.’

‘Well …’ said Dad. ‘It’s really exciting, son, and I’m right behind you as always, you know that … but these talent competitions … well, they aren’t really about the best and most talented winning. Look at X Factor.’ He patted me on the shoulder. His brown tie was dotted with flecks of toast.

‘Your dad’s right, Spike, it’s probably just a very big marketing idea to get the whole town talking about the station. I heard the other day –’ SOUND THE-MUM-WHO-KNOWS-EVERYTHING KLAXON!!! – ‘that their latest audience figures are out and they have lost a load of listeners, so that’s probably why they are doing this. My friend Denise, who works in the accounts department, told me,’ added Mum.

‘And a dirt-cheap way to get someone to do his show while he’s off sunning himself in Barbados!’ said Dad.

‘Or … they could be looking for the next new super-star DJ!’ I said. ‘Why are you both being so mean about The Howie? He could be helping me change my life. You heard him, young and old – he’s talking to me! No one else is a young DJ in this town. He’s inviting me to enter so we can work together, master and apprentice. Like Yoda and Luke Skywalker. It starts with looking after his show, sure, but then one day the apprentice becomes the master and I replace him. But that’s a few years away. I’m telling you, this is meant to be. I just know it.’

Mum moved over to the kitchen counter and started doing her daily exercise routine. This involved wearing her gym outfit and bending, twisting and squatting while making mine and Amber’s breakfasts. Using bags of sugar as weights and punching the air with them. To any onlooker walking past our house at that very moment and glancing through the kitchen window, it would’ve looked like a mad woman in leggings squatting down and back up again for no real reason. Like some crazy game of hide-and-seek with strangers, all while waving groceries about.

‘One … two … three … OK, Spike, go for it … four … five … six.’

‘Just be careful, I don’t want to see you hurt – again,’ Dad said quietly.

I knew what he was referring to, of course: my disappointment over Fish Face giving Merit Radio to his son, Mutant Martin.

But this competition was not that. It was a proper competition run by a proper (and amazing) DJ, where the best person would win. Me.

My phone started buzzing in my pocket and I took it out. Messages from Artie and Holly.

The Howie’s announcement had reached them too. My uncontrollable excitement was only brought back down to earth at school. The morning passed uneventfully, with lots of ‘Did you hear Kool FM this morning? You have to enter!’

But then at lunchtime the radio dream bubble burst. Guess who popped it?

‘Hellloooooooo, pupils of St Brenda’s, this is Merit Radio and your fun-lovin’ – that’s lovin’ with no “g” as you kids like to say – host! Yes, it’s Mr Harris here, but you can call me Mr Harris or Headmaster or sir …’

‘Or His Excellency,’ I said loudly. It got a big laugh. I wasn’t smiling for long, though.

‘Some extremely exciting news to share with you all,’ continued Mr Harris. ‘Now, some of you may not be aware that Kool FM (the FM of course stands for FREQUENCY MODULATION. There’s your fun fact for today!) have launched a disc jockey competition and I’m sure you would all like to wish good luck to …’

Wow. He was going to wish me luck? Fair play. Even with that thick, fishy-scaly skin of his, he knew I was the one to win this. He had learned something from what happened between us, after all.

‘Good luck to … ME! Yes, that’s right, I will be entering Radio Star. No doubt you are cheering my decision in the dining hall right now …’

Cut to silence; total, gobsmacked silence. People looking at each other, frowning and confused. People looking round at me, all thinking the same as me. Is he seriously entering? Thinking he could do well? Win it, even? I just shrugged my shoulders and carried on eating my soggy jacket potato. Even the dinner ladies went quiet and laid down their serving spoons to look at each other. And then it got worse.

‘Yes, and also good luck to my son, Martin, who will be joining me in our entry, along with the brand-new member of our team … Katherine Hamilton.’

I dropped the glass of water I was holding. It smashed on to the dining-room floor.

‘Katherine will be doing a fascinating feature called Lost Property Corner. All the latest things left just lying around, so it could be your shoe, gym bag or underpants that Katherine will tell us about, and hopefully we can have some wonderful reunions live on the show.’

‘Reunions live on the show?’ Was he mad? Who did he think would hear Katherine Hamilton describe their stinking PE kit and still want to go and claim it live on Merit Radio? Not me, that’s for sure. Mainly because my mum had gone to great efforts to sew my name into just about every possible item. In an ideal world, she’d have my name sewn into the back of my neck.

Katherine Hamilton.

Just hearing her name again had caused the blood to rush to my face and I could feel my cheeks turning hot and red. This was the girl I had once dreamed of marrying. Then she went and ruined our future life together by helping Fish Face to find me – by betraying me as Radio Boy. She grassed me up.

Yet even though she threw me to the lions (well, to the fishes), she still had this strange power over me. And I had planned to forgive her one day.

But maybe never now!

Everyone at school knew she was going out with … MARTIN HARRIS. My arch-enemy and nemesis. But now she was joining Merit Radio and entering Radio Star, against me! This was open-heart surgery. With no anaesthetic.

Was I in some weird computer game where players had to find new ways of making my life hell? Forget the Sims, this was the Slums.

This was the girl who had called my very own show telling me I was ‘the best’. Now she was all aboard the Martin Harris Love Train with his headmaster dad in the driving seat, wearing a train-driver’s hat. The three of them against me.

I started to feel sick at the thought of having to hear them together on the radio.

Suddenly all that came into my head was that song Grandad had crooned earlier, which, judging by his voice, sounded like it was called ‘What Becomes of the Broken-farted?’.

The warning signs were there from the moment Grandad Ray joined our merry band of radio outlaws.

Dad had warned me too, and I’d ignored him. ‘Be careful, son, you are doing a kind thing, but remember: Grandad is very selfish. That’s why Nan threw him out.’

I just thought he was being mean – but he was right.

For his second appearance on the show, Grandad Ray carried his own chair into my shed studio. The old picnic chair I’d sorted for him obviously wasn’t good enough. So he rocked up with Dad’s office chair. My dad doesn’t actually have an office, it’s just a desk and swivel chair in the gap under the stairs. Grandad had hauled the chair all the way into the shed studio, and I soon realised it wasn’t for comfort. It was because it was a big chair and higher than any of ours. He now had a sort of royal radio throne, to look down on us from.

It got worse. For the next show I walked into the shed to turn everything on before Artie and Holly arrived, and found Grandad was already in there. Sitting in MY chair, behind MY microphone.

‘Just thought we could switch things up a bit tonight,’ he said. ‘I can do a bit more on air – you know, might freshen things up.’

I stood there, shocked, unable to speak. It was my show. He wasn’t just taking part, he was taking over.

Holly came in and within seconds had assessed the situation and, more importantly, what she could do about it. ‘Sorry, Mr Hughes Senior, but that’s Spike’s chair. I’m going to have to ask you to move, as the microphone is carefully calibrated to his voice and if you speak into it, your voice won’t sound as big and strong as it normally does.’

Genius, Holly – appeal to his vanity and ego. She then doubled that up with this:

‘Also that’s where the spiders’ nest is.’

‘ARRGGGGHHH!’ screamed Grandad Ray as he leaped up and scuttled back to his chair. After the show, I asked Holly how she knew he was scared of spiders.

‘You forget, I’m in the Army Cadets. We are trained to notice everything and read people,’ Holly said, looking pleased with herself.

‘Wow, that’s incredible. What a skill,’ I said admiringly.

‘Yup, that and the fact your mum told me he was,’ Holly said.

It had been three shows now and we were heading into tonight’s fourth with Grandad Ray on board. It was getting worse. Grandad was holding court midway through tonight’s Secret Shed Show, telling a long, boring story about performing at some comedy club in Blackpool. Holly was rolling her eyes in boredom and miming yawning behind his back. Clearly, she still hadn’t forgiven him for the ‘ginger hair’ comments.

Artie was politely feigning interest and my face was frozen into a fake grin. I was also trying to swallow a yawn. You know when you desperately need to have a big yawn but you can’t when someone is talking to you, as it’s too rude? So you have to try to swallow it. Not that it would’ve mattered if I had let out a huge yawn anyway – Grandad wouldn’t have noticed, as he was pretty occupied with what he thought was another fantastic story. The same one he’d told last week, and the week before that, I believe.

‘Did I ever tell you about the time the cruise ship I was working on was in a gale force fifty storm?’ Grandad asked, when his earlier story had mercifully come to an end.

‘Yes, I think you did, Grandad.’ But Grandad ploughed on regardless.

‘During a song – it was a particularly good rendition of Elvis Presley’s “Love Me Tender” – a huge wave, must’ve been twenty thousand feet high,¹ at least, rocked the ship so hard I flew off the stage and landed on the front row. I went head first into a lucky lady’s bosom!’

‘That’s enough, Grandad! You told us this story last week and we got a complaint about that last bit from a listener’s mum who said it was “inappropriate”.’

‘Well, she sounds like a stuck-up, boring old whatnot. I always say if a story is worth telling once, it’s worth telling twice,’ Grandad said.

‘Maybe not for three weeks in a row, though, eh? Let’s play a song,’ I sighed.

‘Song? Do you want me to sing?’

‘NO!!!’ said all three of us simultaneously.

I hit the play button so hard and quickly the studio desk shook. It was more like a panic button than a play button.

Very quickly my Grandad Ray had overrun the show. Like a rotten apple that stinks out the rest of the thing the apples are contained in. No, that doesn’t work. Forget that. He was a cuckoo. You know what cuckoos do? A cuckoo lays its eggs in the nest of another bird. Just some stranger bird’s nest it doesn’t even know. The cuckoo babies hatch out of their eggs quicker than the other bird babies and they just kick them out of the nest, their nest, totally taking over.

Grandad was Cuckoo Ray.

What had I brought upon me, the team and the listeners?

And it wasn’t just the tendency to take over. Holly had started calling him the ‘Big Topper’ behind his back. Anything you had done, Grandad could top it. Not only had he done it, he’d done it bigger. Better. Scarier.

Like earlier in the show today, when Artie was telling us the story of what had happened to his hair.

‘My dad just said my hair needed trimming and he was perfectly able to do it himself. I said, “You’re not a professionally trained hairdresser, Dad,” but he said he’s been making cakes for years using all sorts of hand-held tools, shaping, cutting, trimming – so how hard can it be? Well, when I looked in the mirror I saw how hard it is. Look at the state of me!’

I have to say, Artie’s hair was truly in a very bad way. My mum, in her hospital, would have described it as being in ‘critical condition’. He looked like he had contracted a rare tropical illness where the poor sufferer lost random chunks of their hair. Although he mostly looked like a kid whose dad had cut his hair.

Guess who’d had a worse cut, though?

The BIG TOPPER, of course.

‘That’s NOTHING! I was once working in the Caribbean, back in ’78, I think, and we stopped off in port. I decided to enjoy some downtime and went to visit the local zoo. Well, it wasn’t too long before some of the ship’s passengers spotted yours truly and begged me to sing to the tigers; apparently they love a bit of old Frank Sinatra – I mean, who doesn’t? So I did. Now this was a pretty shabby-looking zoo that wasn’t very well maintained and one of the tigers got out and came after me. I guess it must’ve really loved my voice. It leaped over the shoddy fence. Who knew the old Toni Fandango magic works on humans and animals? Well, I tried running away, but it’s not easy in flip-flops, and I tripped, and the tiger was on me!’

‘Were you hurt?’ asked Artie. He didn’t ask out of concern, more in a very bored and tired way.

‘I was lucky. The keeper shot it with a tranquilliser dart and it fell asleep on top of me. Stank, it did. But it had taken several chunks out of my hair. So there you have it, I got a haircut from a TIGER!’

The Big Topper had struck again. Artie’s dad had butchered his hair. Grandad Ray had a tiger ruin his. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the tiger. It would’ve been coughing up Grandad Ray hairballs for weeks.

The show carried on.

‘Call in now,’ I said, ‘if your older brother or sister has ever done something really evil to you. Yesterday, Amber, my older sister, told me I was adopted and for a few hours I really did believe her. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Mum, Dad and Amber all love Marmite; I hate it. The evidence was compelling and overwhelming.’

We got some great calls:

Dev called in to tell us his older brother once put on a monkey mask and jumped out at him, giving him such a fright he fell down the stairs. Knocking a tooth out.

Arya’s older sister told her that a glass full of vinegar was delicious apple juice, so she took a huge swig. And was sick.

Ryan really wanted to play football with his older brothers. So they let him. Be a goalpost.

Nadia was invited by her older brother into a ‘magic lift’. She spent two hours waiting for it to take her up to Fairyland. To many, this ‘magic lift’ looked exactly like a bedroom cupboard.

Today was a great show. No way would Merit Radio and the gruesome threesome beat me in the Radio Stars competition.

‘I’m a little bit bored tonight, Spike,’ said Grandad casually as the record we were playing came to an end. ‘Too many flipping kids on the show.’ Holly and Artie nearly fell off their chairs.

I managed to say, ‘This is the Secret Shed Show. I’m Radio Boy. Thanks for all your calls tonight …’ while inside I seethed.

‘Bless them, eh? You can see why there ain’t too many radio shows by kids for kids!’ said Grandad Ray.

I really couldn’t find any words. I stared at the MIC LIVE sign. We were still on air.

‘Why do you say that, Ray?’ said Artie, in an ominous tone.

‘Well, son, I think only grown-ups know how to really tell a story. Even then, it’s only a few that are blessed like me to be storytellers. To be honest, kids just aren’t very good.’

Artie and Holly glared at him, their eyes burning holes into his head.

It was in that moment that I realised Dad had been right. Grandad ‘Cuckoo’ Ray had taken over the show. I glanced at the studio inbox where all our emails and texts came in. It was a non-stop blizzard of listeners asking who this rude old man was, ruining our show. The cuckoo had hatched and taken over the nest. Eaten all the eggs. You get the idea.

‘Erm, I don’t agree with that, Grandad,’ I said. Very quietly. It seemed almost wrong to disagree with him. But scared though I was of upsetting my beloved grandad, I had to defend my listeners. I’d be nothing and no one without them.

‘What’s that, Spike? Couldn’t hear through your mumbling,’ he said.

This time I spoke louder and clearly. ‘The callers made me laugh, more than your repeated stories. Anyway, that’s it for tonight’s Secret Shed Show. Thanks for listening – maybe next week we will talk about family members who outstay their welcome, or CUCKOOS.’

I killed all the radio mics before Grandad could say anything else to upset everyone. He took off his headphones and smoothed back his hair. Not as easy as it sounds, as the thick hair cream had attracted a few new cobwebs. Grandad quickly brushed them off as if they were a highly dangerous corrosive acid.

‘Those kiddies will try even harder next week, Spike, after my pep talk. Tough love it’s called, used it on your dad.’

‘So kids can’t tell stories?’ Holly said in a calm but ever so slightly demonic way. She was like a slow-ticking time bomb.

‘Look, sweetie, don’t get upset. These days all you kids get a pat on the head and told no one is a loser at sports day. Well, it doesn’t help you. There are losers in life. Fact.’ Grandad Ray replied as he replaced his fire-hazard comb. With all the hair grease on that, if it came within a mile of naked flame we would all go up in a fireball visible from China.

‘Like living in your grandson’s bedroom at your age? Fact,’ Holly replied, winking at him. Psycho-style.

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, young lady,’ Grandad snapped back.

This was going to get ugly. If he wasn’t careful, thanks to Holly, Grandad Ray might end up with his trusty comb sticking out of him. Let’s not forget she’s won karate trophies and is in the Army Cadets. They don’t mess about in the church hall where she goes for her cadet training. I’m talking combat-trained kids. She could half kill him within seconds, then field-dress him and save his life. I’d let her, but I’m worried we’d be hearing Grandad’s story about it for the next eight years:

‘She ripped my head off and shouted down my neckhole, then ripped my heart out and ate it in front of me etc. etc. etc.’

Just then the shed door rattled.

‘Dinner’s ready!’ yelled Mum. Saved by Mum’s shepherd’s pie. Something I never thought I’d say.

‘Great, I’m outta here,’ said Grandad as he left the three of us standing in the shed and disappeared back to the house.

The MIC LIVE light went dark.

Everyone started speaking at the same time. Unleashing their fury and anger at Grandad Ray, The Artist Formerly Known as Toni Fandango.

‘He’s killing our show,’ said Artie. He was always the calm one. For him to say such a thing showed how desperate the situation was.

‘That was awful, Spike! Did you see the studio inbox?’ said Holly, her cheeks flushed with anger.

I could only make out odd words through the wall of Grandad-bashing from them both. But their final line to me was crystal clear.

‘You have to fire your grandad.’

‘Are you kidding me? Are you actually suggesting I sack my own grandad? A harmless old man down on his luck, whose wife has just thrown him out?’

‘YES!’ shouted Artie and Holly in perfect unison.

‘Yeah, OK, fair enough,’ I said. I understood, but the thought of what I had to do made me feel physically sick. You ever had to fire a family member?

‘Plus, harmless? That man is as harmless as Mr Harris’s stinking bad breath,’ said Holly. ‘He’s no cute grandpops, Spike. He’s a bitter old cruise-ship entertainer whose career didn’t happen.’

Artie was next. ‘Your poor dad, growing up with him. I’m surprised he didn’t run away and join the circus.’

‘I know, I know,’ I said. ‘But you’ve seen what he’s like. If I sack him, he’ll … well, I don’t know what he’ll do. He’s pretty …’

‘Insane?’ said Holly.

‘Crazy?’ said Artie.

‘Um. Yes.’

‘Well, I’ll make it easy for you,’ said Holly. ‘Either he goes or I go, Spike.’

Wow. Even thinking about trying to do without Holly was crazy. But I really didn’t want to fire Grandad Ray. I’d won a round of poker one night and he’d thrown the pack of cards out of the window. I dreaded to think what he’d do if I dumped him from the show. I tried to reason with her.

‘Yeah, OK, I get it. He’s just … in a tough spot right now … maybe after a little chat he’ll be back on form and apologise …’

‘ME or HIM,’ Holly said CLEARLY, SLOWLY and LOUDLY. Then she went in for the kill.

‘I’m telling you right now, Spike, you enter Radio Star with him on the show, you’re guaranteed to lose. Merit Radio will sound brilliant compared to us, with your crazy grandad in our shed. The judges, if they are still awake after hearing our entry, with boring stories about cruise ships, will think it’s HIS show—’

‘OK, OK, I’LL FIRE HIM!’ I yelled.

She was right, as always. Radio Star was my big break and I couldn’t let anyone get in the way of that. I’d come too far. The thought that they would think it was Grandad’s show really got me angry. It was MY show. I was the star. Now I was starting to understand why Dad felt the way he did about him. ‘Tough love,’ Grandad Ray had said earlier. Maybe he needed a dose of that himself.

By the way, ‘Tough Love’ sounds like a bad rapper.

‘Hi, my name is Tuff Love and I’m here to rock.’

No, you’re not. Your real name is Christopher Pringle. You live in your mum’s basement and work in a dry cleaner’s.

‘How do I do it, though?’ I asked. ‘You’ve seen him. He’s got the emotional sensitivity of a great white shark who hasn’t eaten in a month. He’ll eat me alive.’ Just thinking about it frightened me. He could be very intimidating with that overly high hair.

‘Well, I’m sorry, Spike, he’s your grandad, you invited him to join the show so you’ll have to fix this,’ said Holly.

I looked to Artie for answers. He steepled his fingers and cocked his head to one side, like a wise old owl with some insight to share. I appreciated the fact he was giving my tricky situation the thought it deserved.

‘Do you really think a tiger ate his hair?’ he said, at last.

That night, after we all said our goodbyes, I headed up to bed with a heavy heart. I heard Grandad Ray before I saw him. It was a full-on zombie orchestra in my bedroom tonight, judging from the snoring levels.

Using the kind of subtle, soft footwork a Russian gymnast would be proud of, I tried to avoid stepping on the noisy floorboard in my bedroom and alerting Grandad to my presence. I caught a glimpse of his right arm over the duvet, and the tattoo on it. One I hadn’t seen before. It seemed to be of a tiger eating a man’s hair. I squinted to get a better look. The man in the tattoo was a barely recognisable version of Grandad Ray. He looked like a large, female Italian opera singer wearing a tiger backpack.

How on earth was I going to tell a desperate and unstable man like him that he was fired from a kids’ radio show? I had to sleep on it. On the inflatable bed of nails on the floor, listening to Grandad Ray’s snoring as he slept on my comfortable bed.

The answer came the next day from an unlikely source.

I leaped out of bed the following morning, before my alarm could wake Grandad. I was also hoping to catch Dad before he headed off to work at the supermarket, but Mum said he’d had to leave early. Maybe no bad thing anyway, as Dad would’ve been angry with Grandad when he heard how he had ruined our radio show. He might have thrown him out on to the streets! I couldn’t ask Mum as she’d just defend him; she was totally under his spell. Or maybe the aftershave fog surrounding him had affected her brain? In her eyes, either way, Grandad could do no wrong.

I headed to school, with my head and heart full of dread. Sensei Terry was on his post round, with his postbag bursting with letters and parcels. ‘Morning, Spike. I see a young man heavy in thought,’ he said in his wise karate-warrior way.

‘Really? How do you know?’ I asked.

‘Samurai training. I can read a man easier than a book. If I see someone wiggling their fingers, they could be about to attack with that hand. I’ve already thought through my options to neutralise the attack. It’s over before it’s begun,’ he said casually.

‘Wow! Have you ever had to use this knowledge in practice?’

‘Oh yes. A man was once loitering near my car, Spike, looking very shifty indeed. I crept up on him. He spun round and went to withdraw something from his pocket. This could’ve been a knife or gun so I was compelled to react FAST. The best form of defence is attack. I grabbed him at lightning speed and threw him over my hip, classic hip throw, Spike. Correctly known as O-Goshi. KABLAM! On the pavement.’

‘WOW! A knife-wielding maniac?’

‘Not exactly, as it turns out. A traffic warden who was trying to get my parking ticket out of his pocket. Still, we had a laugh about it, once he got out of Casualty a few days later. I never did get that ticket …’

At that precise moment Grandad Ray came strutting past us. ‘Have a good day at school, Spike. This weirdo bothering you?’ He gestured at Sensei Terry.

‘Oh no. This is Sensei Terry. He’s not just a postman, Grandad, he’s also the local karate instructor,’ I explained.

Sensei Terry, upon hearing his introduction, gave a half-bow to Grandad Ray.

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