Hell Bent for Leather by Seb Hunter

Author:Seb Hunter [Hunter, Seb]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007381616
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2016-03-15T05:00:00+00:00

BLACK SHRINE

There wasn’t much screaming going on in the back room of the Railway Inn. Instead, our audience lowed like a herd of beery cows.

‘I can’t hear you!’ coaxed Owen, so they lowed some more, and when the lowing faded to mumbles we started the next song. Two gigs and two spectacular triumphs. Rag ’n’ Bones were hitting their stride.

‘I’m leaving this stupid band,’ said Danny.

‘Good,’ we said.

We replaced him with a young man called Edward. Edward told us proudly that he sang for the King’s Singers choir. He had a neat side parting and wore a magenta V-neck jersey with grey slacks with heavy ironed creases. He was all we could find. Not only was he the squarest man in the whole goddamn town, but he also kept having opinions. Shut up, we had to politely tell him, and just play what we say.

We booked another gig at the Railway, and as we were setting up that afternoon, in came Andy and Owen. We greeted one another as usual.

‘Hi, Andy.’

‘No, sorry,’ said Andy.

‘Pardon?’ I replied.

‘Trapper.’

‘What?’

‘My name’s not Andy any more, I’ve changed it. Call me Trapper. Trapper Ragg, with two Gs.’

‘Trapper Ragg?’

‘Yes, please call me Trapper and not Andy, at all times.’

‘God, do I have to?’

‘And Owen is now called Owen Bones.’

I looked at Owen, who suddenly seemed busy with wires underneath Andy’s synth.

‘Are you?’ I asked him.

‘Um, yes. I, um … am, yes.’

‘Owen Bones and Trapper Ragg,’ I slowly repeated.

‘Right,’ said Andy.

‘But why not just be Andy Ragg. What’s with this Trapper?’

‘Andy Ragg sounds stupid.’

Johnny coughed.

‘Oh, I see. So you’re like the “Rag”, and Owen’s the “Bones”.’

‘That’s right.’

‘You can be “n”, if you like,’ said Owen, hilariously.

‘Ha!’ Inside, I seethed.

And for the next month or two, whenever anyone called him Andy, he’d angrily correct them. We loved calling him Trapper. We thought it was the funniest thing we’d ever heard. We tried to get his girlfriend to say it too, but she refused.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.