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

and the fact your mum told me he was,’ Holly said.

      It had been three shows now and we were heading into tonight’s fourth with Grandad Ray on board. It was getting worse. Grandad was holding court midway through tonight’s Secret Shed Show, telling a long, boring story about performing at some comedy club in Blackpool. Holly was rolling her eyes in boredom and miming yawning behind his back. Clearly, she still hadn’t forgiven him for the ‘ginger hair’ comments.

      Artie was politely feigning interest and my face was frozen into a fake grin. I was also trying to swallow a yawn. You know when you desperately need to have a big yawn but you can’t when someone is talking to you, as it’s too rude? So you have to try to swallow it. Not that it would’ve mattered if I had let out a huge yawn anyway – Grandad wouldn’t have noticed, as he was pretty occupied with what he thought was another fantastic story. The same one he’d told last week, and the week before that, I believe.

      ‘Did I ever tell you about the time the cruise ship I was working on was in a gale force fifty storm?’ Grandad asked, when his earlier story had mercifully come to an end.

      ‘Yes, I think you did, Grandad.’ But Grandad ploughed on regardless.

      ‘During a song – it was a particularly good rendition of Elvis Presley’s “Love Me Tender” – a huge wave, must’ve been twenty thousand feet high,¹ at least, rocked the ship so hard I flew off the stage and landed on the front row. I went head first into a lucky lady’s bosom!’

      ‘That’s enough, Grandad! You told us this story last week and we got a complaint about that last bit from a listener’s mum who said it was “inappropriate”.’

      ‘Well, she sounds like a stuck-up, boring old whatnot. I always say if a story is worth telling once, it’s worth telling twice,’ Grandad said.

      ‘Maybe not for three weeks in a row, though, eh? Let’s play a song,’ I sighed.

      ‘Song? Do you want me to sing?’

      ‘NO!!!’ said all three of us simultaneously.

      I hit the play button so hard and quickly the studio desk shook. It was more like a panic button than a play button.

      Very quickly my Grandad Ray had overrun the show. Like a rotten apple that stinks out the rest of the thing the apples are contained in. No, that doesn’t work. Forget that. He was a cuckoo. You know what cuckoos do? A cuckoo lays its eggs in the nest of another bird. Just some stranger bird’s nest it doesn’t even know. The cuckoo babies hatch out of their eggs quicker than the other bird babies and they just kick them out of the nest, their nest, totally taking over.

      Grandad was Cuckoo Ray.

      What had I brought upon me, the team and the listeners?

      And it wasn’t just the tendency to take over. Holly had started calling him the ‘Big Topper’ behind his back. Anything you had done, Grandad could top it. Not only had he done it, he’d done it bigger. Better. Scarier.

      Like earlier in the show today, when Artie was telling us the story of what had happened to his hair.

      ‘My dad just said my hair needed trimming and he was perfectly able to do it himself. I said, “You’re not a professionally trained hairdresser, Dad,” but he said he’s been making cakes for years using all sorts of hand-held tools, shaping, cutting, trimming – so how hard can it be? Well, when I looked in the mirror I saw how hard it is. Look at the state of me!’

      I have to say, Artie’s hair was truly in a very bad way. My mum, in her hospital, would have described it as being in ‘critical condition’. He looked like he had contracted a rare tropical illness where the poor sufferer lost random chunks of their hair. Although he mostly looked like a kid whose dad had cut his hair.

      Guess who’d had a worse cut, though?

      The BIG TOPPER, of course.

      ‘That’s NOTHING! I was once working in the Caribbean, back in ’78, I think, and we stopped off in port. I decided to enjoy some downtime and went to visit the local zoo. Well, it wasn’t too long before some of the ship’s passengers spotted yours truly and begged me to sing to the tigers; apparently they love a bit of old Frank Sinatra – I mean, who doesn’t? So I did. Now this was a pretty shabby-looking zoo that wasn’t very well maintained and one of the tigers got out and came after me. I guess it must’ve really loved my voice. It leaped over the shoddy fence. Who knew the old Toni Fandango magic works on humans and animals? Well, I tried running away, but it’s not easy in flip-flops, and I tripped, and the tiger was on me!’

      ‘Were you hurt?’ asked Artie. He didn’t ask out of concern, more in a very bored and tired way.

      ‘I was lucky. The keeper shot it with a tranquilliser dart and it fell asleep on top of me. Stank, it did. But it had taken several chunks out of my hair. So there you have it, I got a haircut from a TIGER!’

      The Big Topper had struck again. Artie’s dad had butchered his hair. Grandad Ray had a tiger ruin his. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the tiger. It would’ve been coughing up Grandad Ray hairballs for weeks.

      The show carried on.

      ‘Call in now,’ I said, ‘if your older brother or sister has ever done something really evil to you. Yesterday, Amber, my older sister, told me I was adopted and for a few hours I really did believe her. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Mum, Dad and Amber all love Marmite; I hate it. The evidence was compelling and overwhelming.’

      We got some great calls:

       Dev called in to tell us his older brother once put on a monkey mask and jumped out at him, giving him such a fright he fell down the stairs. Knocking a tooth out.

       Arya’s older sister told her that a glass full of vinegar was delicious apple juice, so she took a huge swig. And was sick.

       Ryan really wanted to play football with his older brothers. So they let him. Be a goalpost.

       Nadia was invited by her older brother into a ‘magic lift’. She spent two hours waiting for it to take her up to Fairyland. To many, this ‘magic lift’ looked exactly like a bedroom cupboard.

      Today was a great show. No way would Merit Radio and the gruesome threesome beat me in the Radio Stars competition.

      ‘I’m a little bit bored tonight, Spike,’ said Grandad casually as the record we were playing came to an end. ‘Too many flipping kids on the show.’ Holly and Artie nearly fell off their chairs.

      I managed to say, ‘This is the Secret Shed Show. I’m Radio Boy. Thanks for all your calls tonight …’ while inside I seethed.

      ‘Bless them, eh? You can see why there ain’t too many radio shows by kids for kids!’ said Grandad Ray.

      I really couldn’t find any words. I stared at the MIC LIVE sign. We were still on air.

      ‘Why do you say that, Ray?’ said Artie, in an ominous tone.

      ‘Well, son, I think only grown-ups know how to really tell a story. Even then, it’s only a few that are blessed like me to be storytellers. To be honest, kids just aren’t very good.’

      Artie and Holly glared at him, their eyes burning holes into his head.

      It was in that moment that I realised Dad had been right. Grandad ‘Cuckoo’ Ray had taken over the show. I glanced at the studio inbox where all our emails and texts came in. It was a non-stop blizzard of listeners asking who this rude old man was, ruining our show. The cuckoo had hatched and