‘The back garden,’ I said, and everyone stared at me. ‘I couldn’t get it without being seen.’
‘So how are we supposed to plan our route if you have no bike?’ Walker said.
‘I’ll just get on the back of one of yours,’ I said.
‘You should cycle Walker’s, with him on the back,’ Sumo said.
‘Good idea,’ Walker said. ‘My asthma’s really playing up.’ It wasn’t. He was just lazy. I’d been hoping for a rest after pooing my guts out and running five miles.
Everyone got onto their bikes. We all stood in a line – Johnny J, me with Walker behind me clinging on a little too tightly for my comfort, Sumo next and at the end Charlie. She was the only one with a basket in the front. So we agreed she’d take the bags.
‘Ready?’ I said.
‘Ready,’ they said, and we were off.
14
The Rehearsal
We started cycling. It took exactly ten minutes from the forest to Rolands’ Garage along the main road, cutting through Pearce Estate and over the bridge. When we got there, we parked our bikes behind a large container on the wasteland opposite the garage and hunkered down behind a grassy verge. Walker had binoculars he’d borrowed from his dad’s bedroom. He put them against his face and started telling us everything that we could already see.
‘Right, Roland’s in there and the oldest son – you know, the one with the ronnie and the bad teeth.’fn1
‘We’re only across the road, Walker, not a mile away,’ Charlie said.
He ignored her. ‘They’re laughing about something. Ronnie McBadteeth is eating a chocolate bar.’
‘Wow, that’s very helpful,’ Charlie said. She could be very sarcastic.
He ignored her.
‘Walker, check out those cameras,’ I said, pointing to the two cameras facing the petrol pumps. ‘Are they fixed or do they move around?’
‘Good question,’ he said, and he focused the lens and looked. ‘Nah, no swivel on them. They’re going nowhere.’
‘So if we come and go from the shop side, they won’t get us on camera,’ Johnny J said.
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘and I have a clear view of the entire street from right here. I can tell you if anyone is coming before they even hit the forecourt.’ Walker seemed happier about things. He focused the binoculars and pointed toward the public toilets. They were around a corner, so he couldn’t see anything really. He took the glasses away from his face. ‘How long do you think it takes a granny to pee?’ he asked, and Sumo made a face.
‘It takes my granny ages,’ Charlie said.
‘Mine too,’ Walker said.
‘How long do you think we’ll need to grab the money out of the tills and the back?’ Johnny J asked.
‘Ten seconds,’ Charlie said, ‘and we’ve practised tying up the granny just in case she doesn’t go to the loo.’
Johnny J wasn’t comfortable with that at all. We argued about it. I warned him we only had the time it took to play a match to get this done. If she had a strong bladder and we didn’t have a back-up plan, we were done for.
There was a lot of talking and arguing about that, and then Walker called for us to shush. ‘Ronnie McBadteeth is on the move.’ I looked at my Mickey Mouse watchfn2 and counted the seconds between him walking from inside the shop, outside to the courtyard and then around to the toilet.
‘Ten seconds exactly.’ Then we all waited, with me studying the second hand of my watch moving and counting, twenty seconds, thirty … fifty … one minute … one minute ten … twenty … I carried on with everyone watching until he emerged at just over two minutes and fifteen seconds. Then we counted the extra eleven seconds it took him to walk from the toilet back into the shop and behind the counter.
‘That means we have two minutes twenty-five seconds, loads of time,’ I said.
Walker corrected me. ‘We have two minutes – cut the time it takes to come and go. We don’t want to meet them on our way in or out.’ He had a point.
‘It will take a granny a lot longer to get from the loo and back,’ Charlie said.
‘That’s if she goes at all,’ Sumo said.
Then we argued again over tying up a granny. Johnny J said he’d rather not do the robbery than lay a hand on the lady. I agreed it was difficult. I wondered if he knew what I knew, that without America his mum wouldn’t last the summer. I didn’t say that though. I didn’t know how to and I didn’t want to. I couldn’t face it. We finally agreed that the robbery would only happen if the woman went to the loo. That’s when Charlie suggested that she bring some of her mam’s special home-made lemonade and sold it to her for 10p.
‘Why would someone in a shop buy lemonade from you?’
‘Well, first of all, it’s delicious, and secondly, I’m cute – she thinks I’m lovely, and I’ll pretend it’s in aid of the local football team.’
‘That’s brilliant,’ I said before I knew what I was saying.
‘It is brilliant,’ Johnny J said.
‘I AM BRILLIANT,’ Charlie said, and in that moment she seemed less brilliant.
So the new plan was that Charlie would go into the shop with a bucket of free lemonade for Jim Roland’s granny, then change behind the big bin on the wasteland back into her Ireland gear, but instead of face paint she’d put on her brother’s Darth Vader mask. After we’d agreed the new element of the plan, Johnny J ran across the road and stood outside Rolands’ with his walkie-talkie and I hid behind the verge with mine and we tested whether they worked.
‘Testing one, two, three. Are you there, Number One Buddy? Over?’ I said.
‘Loud and clear, Brown Bear,’ Johnny J said.
The others looked at me.
‘Brown Bear?’ Charlie said, and Walker and Sumo started to laugh. I blushed red.
‘It’s a code name,’ I said, ‘and anyway it’s cool.’
‘No, it’s not,’ she said, but I ignored her. I didn’t care what Charlie Eastman thought.
When Johnny J returned, we redrafted the plan for the one-hundredth time. We got back on our bikes and separated, cycling as fast as our legs could carry us. Johnny J was to take the same road back, Walker and I cycled down Clyde Road, crossed over the tracks and through Leonard’s Park, Sumo went through the Barns Road estates, but because there was a massive wall that separated the estate from the road, he threw his bike over it and climbed it. He arrived at the picnic table first. Charlie took the back roads by the canal. She came in last, but only because she met her mother on the road and she sent her to get a batch loaf. Johnny J arrived second and I got there third. I think if I wasn’t really sick and carrying Walker I would have come in second. Either way, we were all back in the park within twenty-five minutes. If we planned the robbery for the start of the match, that gave us all plenty of time to escape, hide the money and slip into Cornally’s pub before the match ended. It was perfect. As we parted we knew the next time most of us would see each other we’d be robbers.
‘Scared?’ I said as we all gathered in a circle around the picnic table. Everyone nodded. Everyone was scared.
‘We’ll be OK,’ Walker said. ‘We can do this.’ He had been the most against the plan, so it was comforting to hear that from him.
‘Let’s do this,’ I said, and the others mumbled, ‘Yeah.’ It wasn’t convincing, but I didn’t push it.
Johnny J took me home on the back of his bike. We didn’t talk – there was nothing else to say. When we arrived at the gate, I walked up to the door and put the key in the lock, holding my breath. No one in the hall, no one on the stairs. I closed it quietly and crept into my room, stripped off, jumped into bed, and when my heart stopped racing, I said a little prayer. ‘Please, God, please let us get away with robbing Rolands’ Garage and get enough money to save Johnny J’s mam. I promise I’ll never, ever do another bad thing. Thank you, all best, Jeremy. Oh, and Mary, Mother of God, if he’s not inclined to help, have a word, please. Thank you, all best, Jeremy Finn, over and out.’ I
was so tired I don’t remember anything after that.
15
The Lies
I spent the next morning helping my mam clean the house; I vacuumed the downstairs hall and carpet, dusted the sitting room and cleaned out the cooker to ease my guilty conscience. My mam was happier with my colour and she was sure the flat 7Up had sorted out whatever illness I was battling, but she was still determined to keep a close eye on me. Just my luck.
‘Are you positive you won’t watch the match with us in Cornally’s?’
‘We’re watching the first half at Sumo’s. Maybe we’ll come for the second half,’ I said.
‘You know they’re doing free chips for everyone.’
‘Yeah, I know, but it’ll be packed.’
‘Sure isn’t that half the fun?’ she said pleasantly, before sighing sadly and hitting me where it hurts. ‘It’s a special day, son. We’ve already lost Rachel. We should be together.’
‘We haven’t lost Rachel, Mam.’
‘Well, she’s not here, is she?’ she said.
I felt really bad. My mam always had a way of making me feel like I was doing something wrong if I wasn’t doing what she wanted me to do. ‘We’ll definitely come for the second half,’ I said, and she seemed happy enough with that.
I arrived at the den just after 2 p.m. Kick-off was at 4 p.m. Sumo was alone when I got there. He was playing a game of Space Invaders. I just stared at the screen. For ages we didn’t talk; we just sat together and yet alone all at the same time. Sumo’s mum broke our comfortable silence.
‘Ah there you are, Jeremy,’ she said after she’d knocked three times and Sumo called out for her to enter. She was holding a plate of Spam sandwiches.
‘Hiya, Mrs Lane,’ I said.
‘Would you like some sandwiches?’ she said.
‘No, thanks, Mrs Lane.’
‘How’s your mammy?’
‘Great, thanks.’
‘And your daddy?’
‘Good too, thanks.’
‘And Rachel? Is she still at nursing school?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And she’s still dating the doctor?’
‘His name is Rupert.’
‘Like the bear,’ Sumo said.
‘He wears a scarf too,’ I said.
‘Is it yellow?’ Sumo asked.
‘No,’ I said.
‘Your mammy must be very proud.’
‘She is,’ I said.
‘Are you coming inside for the match?’ she said, and Sumo stopped playing his game and just sat there and waited for me to answer.
‘We were going to watch it in Cornally’s pub with my parents,’ I lied.
‘Ah lovely,’ she said. ‘We’re having the McQueens over and the Simpsons. I’ll be doing sausages and burgers. We’re going to make an evening of it, so you and your parents are more than welcome to join us after the match.’
‘Thanks, I’ll say it to them,’ I lied again.
‘Right so,’ she said, and she put down the plate of sandwiches beside Sumo, who sat still, like a statue. She walked out and closed the door behind her.
‘What are you thinking?’ I asked him.
‘Dunno.’ He shrugged. ‘Just feeling bad about missing the match.’
‘Yeah, me too,’ I said.
Sumo turned to me. ‘Even if we get in trouble, it will be worth it, won’t it, Jeremy?’
‘I think so,’ I said.
‘Even if no one can fix Johnny J’s mam, at least we tried,’ he said.
I nodded, even though the thought that even if we succeeded it might not mean Johnny J’s mam’s survival had never crossed my mind. Ah no. That’s not going to happen.
‘That has to mean something, doesn’t it?’ he said.
I nodded. SHE WILL SURVIVE. SHE HAS TO. I’M NOT LOSING MY BEST FRIEND TO HIS AUNTIE ALISON AND ENGLAND!
Sumo sighed, sniffed and then picked up the joystick and killed another bunch of plodding aliens.
The others arrived a while later and suddenly the once quiet, tame room was alive with voices and nervous energy. Walker was pumped. Within two minutes he was dressed in his green shorts and T-shirt. He painted his own face with a green, a white and a yellow stripe. The face paint was really thick on his face. He paced the room like a panther, waiting for it to dry, almost walking a hole into the floor.
‘Are you nervous?’ Sumo asked him.
‘I don’t do nervous,’ he said.
‘I’m nervous,’ Sumo said.
‘Yeah, well, don’t be,’ Walker said. ‘Nerves get people killed!!!!’
We were in various states of undress and we all stopped what we were doing.
‘No one is going to kill us, Walker,’ I said.
But Walker wasn’t listening.
‘We need to set our watches to the same time,’ he said.
‘Why?’ Johnny J asked.
‘I dunno – they do it on the telly,’ he said.
‘I’m not wearing a watch,’ Charlie said.
Walker stopped dead. ‘Ah no, how are we supposed to rob a place when this one can’t even be bothered to put on a watch?’
‘We’re going together – there is no need for a watch,’ Johnny J said while trying to get his leg in a pair of green shorts that he chose to wear over his jeans. Johnny J didn’t do shorts.
‘I don’t know, lads, this is feeling very unprofessional,’ Walker said.
Charlie ignored him. She had been busily painting the Irish flag on Sumo’s face, but she was done, and when he turned toward us, it was weird – the flag on his face did make him momentarily unrecognisable.
‘That’s good,’ I said. I didn’t mean to give her a compliment. It just slipped out. I don’t think she heard me though because she was too busy attacking Walker.
‘If you want to weasel out, Walker, just do it,’ she said, and that really annoyed Walker.
‘Who are you?’ he shouted at her. ‘Since when are you a part of anything?’
To be fair to him, it was a good question.
‘Leave her alone,’ Johnny J said, but Charlie didn’t need Johnny J to defend her.fn1
‘I’m Charlie Eastman,’ she said, ‘the girl who’s robbing a garage this afternoon. Who are you?’ She was very cheeky but was funny too.
Walker scowled. He wasn’t used to anyone putting him in his place. He didn’t know what to say, which made a nice change. Walker usually had the answer to everything.
Johnny J laughed out loud. I laughed inside.
‘Well?’ she said. She wasn’t letting Walker off the hook. ‘Who are you?’
Everyone immediately looked to Walker. He shrank back a little. ‘Yeah … eh … erm … I’m a garage robber too.’ He was unconvincing if I’m honest, but he was trying his best, and when it looked like he might cry, Sumo walked over to him and punched him in the arm (lightly – if he had put some welly into it, Walker would have died).
‘It’s OK to be nervous,’ Sumo said.
‘I AM NOT NERVOUS,’ Walker said, fixing his glasses on his flag face and pushing Sumo away. Sumo just sniffed and went back to his game of Space Invaders.
Charlie painted all the rest of our faces. She took longest painting Johnny J’s. It made me want to puke. (Not really – my stomach felt surprisingly good.) Then we all put on the red beards and the big hats, except for Walker, who just kept touching his hairsprayed quiff and talking about, ‘Not the hair, no way, not the hair.’ Sumo wore a wig. The rest of us didn’t bother because it was really hot.
16
The Photo
It was a beautiful afternoon, the sky was a light, bright blue and the sun shone down, hot against our painted faces. We stood all together in Sumo’s garden in a circle. We could hear the TV inside the house, blaring pre-match analysis, and there was Irish music drifting down the street. Above us, a bird was squawking loudly and we just stood there in a circle, five green-white-and-gold-bearded football-fanatic-looking leprechauns.
‘Everyone knows what th
ey have to do,’ I said.
Charlie and Johnny J said, ‘Yeah.’ Walker and Sumo just nodded.
‘What time is it?’ Charlie asked.
Walker pointed to her. ‘You see?’ he said. ‘Watches are important. FACT.’
Just as he said it, the squawking bird pooed on his shoulder.
‘Ah nuts,’ he said, and we all laughed, even Walker. We probably only laughed for a minute or so, but it seemed much longer at the time.
‘Charlie, do you have the Darth Vader mask?’ I asked.
She pointed to it, sitting alongside a long cotton dress and a large flask of her mam’s famous home-made lemonade in the basket of her bike. Johnny J gave her the thumbs up and she blushed.
Before we had a chance to leave, Mrs Lane came at us with a Polaroid camera.fn1
‘Gerry,’ she said. ‘Gerry, would you come out here?’
Sumo’s dad popped his head out the door. He was drinking from a can of beer.
‘Would you look at them?’ she said, pointing to us five demented-looking, flag-faced, orange-bearded weirdos.
‘God Almighty, lads, you’re all out. Ha!’fn2
Mrs Lane insisted on us lining up in front of her so she could take the snap.
‘Take off the beards – I can’t see your lovely smiles,’ she said, and we all dropped our beards around our necks.
‘Ah lovely, say cheese,’ she said, and we all said, ‘Cheese.’ She took the photo, and when it popped out of the camera, she handed it to Mr Lane, who fanned it while she took another one.
‘Another cheese for me, kids – and, Jeremy, give me the thumbs up.’ I did what I was told and we all said, ‘Cheese,’ again, and by the time that photo was taken, the first one had developed in Mr Lane’s hand. He peeled off the cover and laughed to himself.
‘Ha, spot on, Mary, that’s a keeper. Yerrah, that’s one for the wall in work,’ he said. That meant he liked the photo.
We didn’t wait around to see it. We had somewhere to be.
‘Enjoy the match, boys,’ Mr Lane said, not realising one of the flag-faced leprechauns was a girl. Even though she would be wearing a mask, Charlie had insisted on getting her face painted, to be like the rest of us.
The Fearless Five Page 6