been at a party and Dad had bumped into the Pirates’ former lead singer, Tom Dibble, who now runs a tanning salon in town. It was the first time I’d ever heard my dad swear. After playing Count the Swear Words (seventeen, including one I didn’t understand; Holly did when I told her – she said her mum called her dad it once when he shrank her favourite jumper), I finally found out what broke up the band.
It would appear that Tom, the Pirate singer, took the rock-and-roll behaviour too far. Despite having a girlfriend, he thought it would be no problem to have a spare one. The only problem was that the spare one turned out to be my Aunt Charlotte. Dad’s sister. When she discovered she was the bonus girlfriend, she came home in tears and Dad had a fight with his Pirate bandmate in the middle of a show. Oh, wouldn’t you have wanted to see that? Two pirates fighting live on stage – walk the plank, Tom! As the other pirates tried to break up the fight, the microphone got smashed into Pirate Tom’s teeth. A tooth was knocked out and into the drink of an audience member.
Tom really did look like a pirate after that, it would seem.
Despite much dental work, the Pirates had ended up with a lead singer with a slight but very audible whistle when he sang. The record deal never happened and they split up a few weeks later. Sometimes Dad is all fun and laughter until certain songs come on the radio and it will take him to his dark Pirate times. Then he starts staring madly into the distance, mumbling to himself the words of the band’s biggest hit, ‘Pirate Party in My Pants’.
‘Pirate … party … pirate p-p-p-p-PARTY.’
Now Dad looked up from cleaning pony poo off the wing mirror of the old-mobile.
‘You’re back early. Everything all right, Spike?’ he asked, unaware that the information I was about to give him was going to change our lives forever.
‘Not great,’ I said. ‘I got fired from hospital radio.’
Dad put his serious face on. Frowning and everything.
‘Sorry, son,’ he said. He stretched his back. ‘That must have been awful for you.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘life sometimes isn’t very fair. But I’m telling you now, if you really want anything, there will always be setbacks along the way. What’s important is how you handle them. No one gets anywhere without struggling.’ Dad looked at me, seriously. ‘Every day I wonder what could have been with the band. If we’d worked things out better, or if I’d taken up the offer to join the Dead Giraffes …’
After The Pirates broke up, Dad was offered a drumming spot in another band, the Dead Giraffes. However, disillusioned with fame and fortune, he joined the trainee management scheme at the supermarket he now runs. He’s done well.
Not as well as the Dead Giraffes though, who went on to have five number-one hits in thirty different countries.
‘But … how do I keep going?’ I asked, bringing him back from one of the thousand-yard stares that goes with him reminiscing about his drumming glory days.
‘Simple. Get back on the horse.’
‘The horse?’
‘I mean, find another show,’ said Dad. ‘Get back on the radio somehow.’
‘Easier said than done,’ I pointed out. ‘Although Holly wants to make the school finally start its own radio station …’
‘That’s the spirit!’ said Dad. ‘Or just do it yourself. You watch all those kids with online shows, but it’s not just videos. There are online radio stations too, Spike, playing much better music than all that pop rubbish you hear now. I love this one called New Music Is All Rubbish. It’s a brave new world out there on the interweb. Why don’t you launch your own one? Do the Spike Show.’ Dad’s serious face changed into his excited one. Which is maybe scarier.
‘Where from? I don’t have a studio,’ I replied. He obviously hadn’t thought it through. What my dad said next will go down in history as the dumbest idea ever.
‘Do your show from the shed.’
An innocent suggestion from a dad trying to help out his desperate loser son.
But those fateful words started this whole mess.
‘WHAT? The shed! The buried jungle temple? Where a whole community of spiders with fangs and rats live? Are you kidding me, Dad?’ I yelled.
‘Spike! You’re missing the bigger picture,’ said Dad, warming to his idea now. ‘You’d be your own boss: no one to fire you or tell you what to do. We’d have to keep it a secret from your mum or she’d never allow it. Your mate Holly can get it up and running, I’m sure. Ask Mr Taggart, the AV Club teacher, for some help. I’ll help you too. Don’t do what I did and walk away from your dream. Chase it.’
‘Dad, have you ever heard of anyone doing a radio show from a shed? It’s pathetic. Look, it’s OK, Dad. Keep your shed. It’s got all your paint pots and the lawnmower in and it’s covered in thorns and weeds. I’m going to chill out in my bedroom.’ I left him to his car-cleaning, my head low and dejected. I dragged myself upstairs.
As I climbed the stairs, I bumped into my sister, who’d been listening to everything.
Her eyes narrowed as she said, ‘Oh dear. Little brother’s been sacked and is now launching Loser FM live from the shed?’
Amber was loving this. Remember: her weekend highlight would’ve been sitting on Mr Toffee’s back, being carried around a field, praying the beast didn’t launch her into the air just for a laugh.
‘Not now,’ I sighed, and tried to get past.
But Amber blocked the way. She was dressed in her riding gear and stank of manure and attitude. A fresh red rosette the size of her face was pinned to her.
‘Maybe you could do the show from the toilet? Perfect for your material,’ she kindly suggested.
‘Ha ha,’ I said. I was too tired to think of a comeback.
Her smile widened. ‘Oh, and I couldn’t help but notice you’ve doodled Katherine Hamilton’s name all over your desk.’
‘YOU’VE BEEN SNOOPING IN MY ROOM!’ I yelled.
‘It’s so sweet,’ she replied. ‘The first flush of romance …’
‘I hate you,’ I said. I could feel – with horrified embarrassment – that I was about to cry. I took a deep breath.
Suddenly, Amber’s face softened. ‘I don’t know why you like her so much anyway,’ she said. ‘She’s horrible. She is not the girl you were friends with in primary school.’
I was confused. Was Amber being nice now, caring about me?
I wasn’t confused for long.
‘Anyway, so long, loser,’ she said. And with that she walked off.
As I flopped on to my bed, I heard a key in the front door. My dog Sherlock ran under my bed as if he knew a storm was coming.
Mum was back.
I heard her and Dad talking briefly, and the word ‘sacked’ sounded loud and clear. Then it went quiet. Too quiet. Eerily quiet. My mum swore. Very loudly.
‘The loser! I’ll stick his headphones …’
Technically it’s impossible to do what she suggested to Barry Dingle – the Beyerdynamic headphones are very big – but I’d have liked to have seen her try. Sherlock pushed himself even further under the bed.
Then