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,