The Fearless Five by Bannie McPartlin

The Fearless Five by Bannie McPartlin

Author:Bannie McPartlin [McPartlin, Bannie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bonnier Publishing Fiction
Published: 2018-04-24T00:00:00+00:00


29

The Gig

The post-match commentary went on till just after 10 p.m. The pub was still busy when the telly went off, and even before the band started playing, everyone was singing. Mr Cornally served out more chips. My mam had brought her own sliced pan and a pound of butter to make up chip sandwiches. Nobody really noticed the lads getting up on stage – they were eating chips, talking about the game, laughing, singing, hugging and crying happy tears.

Rich spoke to the crowd. ‘Hello, Ireland,’ he said, and no one paid attention. They were too busy having a good time to notice the kid on the stage. ‘Hello, Dublin,’ he roared again to the few people who bothered to listen.

Walker was patting his slightly swollen nose and making snorting sounds. ‘I think I took an elbow to the face from Titch,’ he said. ‘I didn’t feel it till now.’

‘Yeah.’ I nodded. ‘Your nose is definitely bigger.’

‘Nuts,’ he said.

I looked over at Sumo. He was asleep in the corner. Charlie came and sat beside me. We didn’t speak, not even one word. We were the only people in the room who had nothing to say. After a bit I looked her way. She smiled at me. I smiled back.

‘It’ll be OK,’ she said, and that was that. We looked back onto the stage to Rich and the boys struggling to get attention.

‘Would you all shut up and listen to these lovely boys?’ my mam roared from the corner of the room. ‘Go on, son,’ she said, and everyone laughed and cheered.

Rich turned the colour purple, then he coughed a little and fixed his Lego-man hair before leaning into the mic.

‘This is our first song. It’s called “Take On Me”, by A-ha,’ Rich shouted, and stepped back from the mic. He clicked his fingers three times and then stepped back to the mic and started singing. On the second line of the song the rest of the boys joined in and Johnny J started to play, but the sound was too low.

‘We can’t hear ya,’ someone roared.

‘Eh? Hello?’ Rich tapped the mic, ‘Testing, one, two. Decko, will ya turn us up?’

Decko twiddled with loads of knobs.

‘HELLLLLOOOOOOOO.’ It was so loud the room shook!

‘OK, TURN IT DOWN A BIT, DECKO.’ The room rumbled with the sound of my brother’s voice. My mam looked around the place anxiously. My dad dropped some chips out of his chip sandwich. Decko just pushed everything down again, so now Rich was just mouthing words. Some of the kids that went to school with us laughed and jeered. ‘You’re crap!’

Johnny J looked panicked, so I got up and went over to Decko.

‘Hiya, Decko.’

‘All right, Rich’s brother?’

‘Yeah, grand, thanks. Any chance you’d let me take over?’

‘Ah yeah, great. I’m bursting for some chips,’ he said, and he was gone.fn1

I took over. The sound wasn’t perfect, but the lads could be heard. They were halfway into the first verse before the crowd really started to notice them. By the end of the second chorus they had them in the palm of their hands.



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