Читать книгу Radio Boy and the Revenge of Grandad - Christian O’Connell - Страница 10

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.