Christian O’Connell - Radio Boy and the Revenge of Grandad

First published in Great Britain by

HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2018

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd,

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins website address is:

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Text copyright © Christian O’Connell 2018

Illustrations © Rob Biddulph 2018

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers 2018

Christian O’Connell and Rob Biddulph assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work respectively.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008200596

Ebook Edition © 2018 ISBN: 9780008200602

Version: 2017-12-07

For Sarah, Ruby and Lois.

The three brightest stars in my world.

Love you, always.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2018 HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF The HarperCollins website address is: www.harpercollins.co.uk Text copyright © Christian O’Connell 2018 Illustrations © Rob Biddulph 2018 Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers 2018 Christian O’Connell and Rob Biddulph assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work respectively. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008200596 Ebook Edition © 2018 ISBN: 9780008200602 Version: 2017-12-07

Dedication For Sarah, Ruby and Lois. The three brightest stars in my world. Love you, always.

Chapter 1. The DJ Who Stole Christmas

Chapter 2. Barbecued Like a Sausage

Chapter 3. My Headmaster Hates Me

Chapter 4. The Surprise House Guest

Chapter 5. A New Team Member

Chapter 6. Radio Stars Wanted

Chapter 7. The Guest from Hell

Chapter 8. In for the Kill

Chapter 9. The Snake

Chapter 10. The Letter

Chapter 11. The Ray-chter Scale

Chapter 12. When Grandads Go Bad

Chapter 13. A Spurned Grandad

Chapter 14. Please, Dad, No

Chapter 15. Breaking Dad

Chapter 16. The Rumble at the Red Lion

Chapter 17. Please, Dad, No (part 2)

Chapter 18. Grandad Ray Rattles Cages

Chapter 19. Everyone’s a DJ

Chapter 20. Catastrophe

Chapter 21. Cliffhanger

Chapter 22. Cat-Napped

Chapter 23. Face to face With a Cat-Napper

Chapter 24. Spooking the Enemy

Chapter 25. Returning to the Scene of the Crime

Chapter 26. The FrankenHarrissteins

Chapter 27. Pretty Uneventful

Chapter 28. Blackmail

Chapter 29. Lasagne

Chapter 30. The Cha-Cha Chat Show

Chapter 31. Bring on the Red Carpets

Chapter 32. Embarrassing Parents

Chapter 33. Duelling Dancers

Chapter 34. Never Meet Your Heroes

Chapter 35. A Bad Thought

Chapter 36. Ninja Dad

Chapter 37. Dad’s on the TV

Chapter 38. A Reluctant Star is Born

Chapter 39. The Final Countdown

Chapter 40. The Final Four

Chapter 41. Training Camp

Chapter 42. Attack of the Dads

Chapter 43. Zombie Mum

Chapter 44. You Said What?

Chapter 45. Friends Remited

Chapter 46. The ‘Amazing’ Tent

Chapter 47. My Interview

Chapter 48. And Then There Was One

Chapter 49. The Aftermath

Chapter 50. And the Winner Is …

Chapter 51. Decisions, Decisions

Chapter 52. Choices

Chapter 53. And the Winner Is …

Chapter 54. The Final Chapter

Chapter 55. One Last Thing

Note from Me, the Writer of this, Spike Hughes

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Publisher

Can you imagine what it would be like to have your very own radio show?

Just think about it for a moment.

You could do whatever you wanted, say what you wanted, and get your listeners to do ANYTHING.

Well, that’s me. Spike Hughes. Living the dream. Surfing the radio airwaves from my garden shed at Number 27 Crow Crescent.

And the Secret Shed Show is live on air right now …

‘Spike, you cannot do this!’ begged my radio-show producer, Holly.

‘Oh yes, I can,’ I replied.

The song came to an end. Time to speak. I suddenly remembered watching this old documentary with my dad about a motorcycle daredevil called Evel Knievel. He would jump over things on his motorbike. Cars, buses and planes. He even once tried to jump across thirteen London buses at Wembley Stadium. I felt like him, about to try to make that jump.

The MIC LIVE sign turned bright red, meaning we were on air. I spoke into the mic.

‘So, who of you listening right now is brave enough to go and get one of your Christmas presents from under the tree, without anyone catching you, and open it up live on the show? Just grab one and call us right away!’

‘This is a really bad idea,’ said Artie, but I could see he was trying to swallow down his laughter as producer Holly scowled at us both.

A few months ago, after the whole school strike situation, 1I had promised them both I would take it easy, but what’s the point in having your own radio show if you can’t have a bit of fun every once in a while?

I could see we had callers eager to take part in my ‘bad idea’. I picked one.

‘Hello, you’re live on the Secret Shed Show . Who is this?’

‘Hi, Radio Boy and the team.’

Artie and Holly mumbled back a very strained ‘Hi’, making it very clear they still didn’t approve of what I was doing. Artie is my radio-show sidekick and he also picks all the music. He doesn’t really want to be a famous DJ like me. He’s just here because he likes being part of it. Holly is my producer because she’s the smartest out of the three of us. They are my best friends, and my only friends. I guess it’s like being in a band together. Does that make Artie the triangle player?