The Fearless Five

by Bannie McPartlin

  ‘We will, thanks, Mr Lane,’ I said. The others waved at him and it was time.

  We took off on our bikes, and as we made our way there, the streets became emptier and emptier. Everyone disappeared inside their homes, the homes of friends or neighbours or filed into the pubs. The bunting still fluttered above us, the flags flapped from upstairs windows and car aerials, but the excited chatter quietened, the music and electric excitement faded from the streets. That joy and thrill were somewhere else now, in rooms with flickering TVs. We wouldn’t be a part of it.

  For the first time, I felt really, really sad about that, but I didn’t say anything. None of us did. We just took it all in as we cycled the empty streets.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ Johnny J said.

  ‘It’s no big deal,’ I said, but it was a big deal. The greatest thing that had ever happened to Ireland (at least according to my dad) was happening right then and there and we were missing it, but for something way more important: Johnny J’s mam.

  By the time we reached the wasteland opposite Rolands’, it was four minutes to kick-off. Walker looked through the binoculars and confirmed that Jim Roland’s granny was sitting behind the counter, even though we could all see her. She wasn’t as fragile as I’d hoped. She looked tall and strong, and even though her face was wrinkled and her hair was grey, she was broad and solid. Maybe she was a ninja after all.

  Charlie put on the big old cotton black dress covering her football gear and took out the lemonade. ‘I’m going in,’ she said.

  ‘Good luck,’ Johnny J said.

  She walked across the empty road and straight into the station. We watched her ply Jim Roland’s granny with 10p lemonade.

  ‘Well, she’s thirsty enough,’ Walker said from behind his binoculars. ‘She’s drinking like a horse.’

  Ten minutes later, a pint of the best lemonade Jim Roland’s granny had ever drunk and a chat about how brilliant the girl scouts were in the 1920s, and Charlie was back beside us, with the black dress off, an empty flask and her Darth Vader mask hanging from her neck. All we had to do was wait.

  17

  The Robbery

  Jim Roland’s granny must have the strongest bladder in the history of bladders. It was thirty minutes into the game and she hadn’t budged. I was starting to panic.

  ‘Maybe she never goes to the loo. Maybe she’s a robot!’

  ‘She’s not a robot,’ Walker said with great authority. ‘If she was I’d know. Fact.’

  ‘We need a distraction,’ Charlie said as she put on her Darth Vader mask.

  ‘What kind of distraction?’ Walker asked.

  ‘We could kick out one of the exposed pipes and flood the loos?’ she suggested. That idea sounded pretty sinister coming from Darth Vader.

  ‘Oh, right, you mean add destroying property to the many other criminal acts on our ever-growing CV,’ Walker said. ‘Maybe we should just set the place on fire while we’re at it.’

  ‘OK, maybe you’re right,’ she said. ‘I’ve a better idea.’ Of course she did. ‘One of you tell her there’s a leak in the toilet. When she goes to investigate, we’ll lock her in there.’

  ‘How?’ Johnny J said.

  ‘There’s a key for the toilets beside the till. Roland locks them up every night so that poor people or freaks don’t move in and live there.’ It was a good idea. Charlie Eastman was born to be a criminal.

  ‘Live in a public poo?’ Walker said, aghast.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, nodding sadly. ‘Some people have terrible lives.’

  Living in a jail cell must be as bad if not worse than living in a loo, I thought. My stomach started to churn. Pull it together, Jeremy!

  ‘I like it,’ Johnny J said before he looked to me. ‘Well? Jeremy? What do you think?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘it’s good.’ At that point anything was better than hiding on a grass verge with paint melting off our faces on account of the unusually hot sun. Besides, it was a good plan. In fact, it was deadly. I really wished I’d thought of it.

  ‘So who’s going to tell her the toilets are broken?’ Charlie asked. She couldn’t, for obvious reasons.

  ‘I’ll do it, Vader,’ Johnny J said, and Charlie grinned. She liked being called Vader. That was something to worry about as far as I was concerned.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’ll do it.’

  But Johnny J fought me. ‘It’s for my mam, Jeremy.’

  I nodded. ‘OK, here’s the new plan: Johnny J goes into the garage and tells Jim Roland’s granny the loos are leaking. He brings her across to the toilets. As he’s moving around to the back of yard, Vader and I move in. Vader grabs the key and gives it to me, I run around and pass the key to Johnny J so he can lock Jim Roland’s granny in the loo and Vader grabs the money in the till and the money in the back room of the shop.’

  ‘What about me?’ Sumo said.

  ‘You’re still on the door.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘And Walker?’

  ‘He’s still on lookout here.’

  ‘All right then,’ Sumo said, before confirming, ‘I just stand there at the door.’

  ‘Yeah, but you’ll have the spray and the walkie-talkie. If Walker alerts you that some big burly man is on his way in before we’re done, you have to spray him.’

  He nodded as he felt the can in his inside pocket, but it was clear he was not happy. ‘It’s so mean,’ he said under his breath.

  ‘Remember to spray him, not yourself,’ Walker added, and laughed to himself. No one else laughed. We were too nervous. As we were leaving I handed Walker the walkie-talkie.

  ‘Good luck,’ he said, before adding, ‘Do not mess this up or I will kill you.’

  He was serious. I believed him. If any one of us could be a killer, my money was on Walker.

  As I scrambled over the grass verge and crossed the road to Rolands’ Garage, I remember thinking, This is it. After today I’ll be a robber. My heart sank in my chest and I really, really wanted to cry.

  Walker tested the walkie-talkie set as we made our way across. Despite making fun of us he must have liked the idea of code names, because he came up with two very quickly.

  ‘Cash, this is Tango, do you receive? Over.’fn1

  ‘…’

  ‘Cash? Come in, Cash.’

  Sumo stared at the walkie-talkie before pressing on the button. ‘Hello, Tango, er, this is Sumo. I think you’ve got the wrong number.’

  Walker sighed deeply. ‘This is Walker. Tango is my handle, Cash is yours. Over.’ I want to say I thought the handle names Tango and Cash were uncool, but I can’t. They were very cool. I was beginning to regret Brown Bear.

  ‘Oh,’ Sumo said, but he looked confused.

  ‘Just answer to Cash. OK? Over,’ Walker said.

  Charlie, Sumo and I waited around the side of the garage. She held the three bags, one inside the other, while Johnny J led Jim Roland’s granny out of the garage shop and around the back to the toilets.

  From across the road and lying on the grass verge on his stomach, Walker watched us all through the binoculars and held the walkie-talkie close to his lips. ‘The Eagle has landed. Over,’ he said.

  ‘What eagle?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Sumo. The granny is in the loo. Over.’

  ‘The granny is in the loo,’ Sumo repeated, and Charlie and I ran as fast as our legs could carry us into the empty shop. Sumo stood at the door, holding the can out, like a gun in a gangster film. Charlie grabbed the key from beside the till and threw it to me. I ran out and handed it to Johnny J, who stepped away from Jim Roland’s granny, who was bent over the toilet.

  ‘I can’t see anything, love.’

  The door slammed and Johnny J turned the key, locking the door.

  ‘Eh, I think the door is stuck, love. Love? Eh? Hello? Love? The door might be stuck?’ Jim Roland’s granny started banging on the toilet door as we ran into the shop.

  Charlie had already empt
ied the till into her bag. There wasn’t enough cash in the till to fill one bag. She ran to the back room.

  At the door, Sumo bounced up and down in one spot like he was desperate for the loo. ‘Any sign of anything, Tango? Over,’ he said, and Walker responded.

  ‘All clear, Cash. Over.’

  Sumo kept checking the can to make sure that it was pointing outwards and not toward his face.

  I followed Charlie into the back. The cash box was open, so she didn’t need to break into it, but there wasn’t that much money in it. Just a few fifty notes, a couple of twenties and some tens. Nothing like the amount we’d expected. She stuffed it in the bag and handed us the two empty bags. Then Charlie looked at me, and even though she had a Darth Vader mask on, I could tell she was scared. I saw actual fear in her eyes.

  ‘If we leave here with this money, there’s no going back. We’re robbers,’ she said, and I gulped hard, my stomach flipped and I nodded. Tears filled her eyes. ‘OK,’ she said.

  ‘OK,’ I said, and I wanted to hug her, but just for a moment. On the way out she didn’t lift up the countertop. Instead she just jumped over it. Show-off.

  18

  The Getaway

  As we reached the exit I looked around. ‘Where’s Johnny J?’ I asked Sumo.

  ‘He’s watching the granny,’ Sumo said. That was not part of the plan and I was a bit miffed.

  ‘Come on, let’s go,’ Charlie said.

  Just as we were leaving, Sumo’s walkie-talkie crackled to life.

  ‘Tango, come in Tango?’

  Sumo fiddled with the controls of the walkie-talkie.

  ‘Hello, Cash. Over?’ he said, and Charlie raised her eyebrows, which really annoyed me. Sumo wasn’t the one jumping over counters.

  ‘Eh … Johnny J is being chased around the forecourt by Jim Roland’s granny.’

  We all looked out the window. ‘Ah no!’

  I heard Walker say, ‘Cash out,’ but I was already running to Sumo, who was now just standing at the door watching a granny chase Johnny J around the petrol pumps.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I said to Sumo.

  ‘I’m not spraying a granny,’ he said, and he shook his head from side to side.

  I grabbed the bag of money from Charlie, shoved it into Sumo’s hand and shouted, ‘You and Walker just go.’

  Sumo threw the pepper spray up in the air and was off and running before I’d even finished the sentence. ‘We are on the move, Walker – I mean, Cash. Let’s get out of here,’ he said into the walkie-talkie as he ran from the garage.

  ‘Copy that. Over,’ Walker said. I could see him hang his binoculars around his neck, pocket the walkie-talkie and then the two of them got on their bikes and cycled off in separate directions. I don’t know if Jim Roland’s granny even noticed that Charlie/Vader and I were there, because she was so focused on Johnny J. He was pinned behind petrol pump no. 3. We needed to do something, and I had a plan.

  ‘You go. I’ll distract Jim Roland’s granny. See you later,’ I said to Charlie.

  ‘Are you sure?’ she said, and I was sure. She needed to go.

  ‘Go.’

  She ran off across the road to pick up her bike and scarper as I ran up to the granny and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around and eyed me up and down. Then I ran and she turned her back on Johnny J, just long enough for him to slip away from the pump he’d been cornered behind. It was then I saw a car roll into the garage and a man got out of it.fn1

  Jim Roland’s granny saw the same man and screamed, ‘Help! Help me.’ Then she pointed to Johnny J and me. ‘Bad boys,’ she screamed, and when he looked my way, I nearly browned myself.

  ‘RUN!’ Johnny J shouted, and so I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, off the forecourt, across the road, where I picked up my bike, jumped on, and with Johnny J right beside me, together we cycled down Clyde Road, crossed over the tracks and sped on into the forest. We kept looking back to see if we were being chased, but the Giant and Jim Roland’s granny were far behind us. We pedalled like we’d never pedalled before, eventually making it to our spot. Walker, Sumo and Charlie were waiting. I practically fell off the bike. My legs were shaking. Johnny J just stopped and stood over his. I think he was in shock.

  They had the bag of money in front of them. Walker was writing down figures on a piece of paper. No one looked happy.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Charlie asked Johnny J.

  He nodded.

  ‘What about you, Jeremy?’ she said, and I nodded.

  ‘I’m OK,’ I said.

  She looked from us to Walker. He pushed his giant heavy glasses up on his face.

  ‘How much?’ Johnny J asked.

  ‘Not enough,’ Walker said, and Johnny J and his bike sank to the ground. ‘There’s two hundred and sixty-five quid there,’ Walker went on. ‘With the money we earned off the boxing, our combined pocket money for this month and the tenner Sumo’s Auntie Julie gave him, that makes a total of five hundred and twenty-seven pounds, fifteen pence.’

  We were all quiet for a long minute. Finally Johnny J spoke. ‘How much more do we need?’

  ‘At least another five hundred, if we want return tickets, taxi fare, a few quid for the hospital shop while she’s there – you know, for grapes, magazines, 7Up.’

  We all stared at him. ‘Who cares about magazines and 7Up?’ Charlie said.

  ‘Eh, sick people,’ Walker said. ‘And besides, I’ve only allocated fifty quid for that – the rest is plane and taxi fares.’

  Sumo checked his watch. ‘We need to go, lads,’ he said.

  We left our bikes in the bushes and hid the bag of money in our secret spot before walking to Cornally’s. No one spoke. We were all pretty deflated. We had tried but we had failed.

  We entered through the back of the pub. All eyes were on the TV screen and the place was jammed with people; no one really noticed us. The game was in its seventieth minute and the people gathered were mesmerised. We just stood there and watched the Irish team play the last few minutes of mediocre football. It was as though nothing had happened, like we’d been there from the start. When the game ended at 0–0, some people groaned, others clapped a little and everyone started to look and move around. The pub emptied a bit – not much, but I saw my parents and waved over. Mam was delighted to see me.

  ‘Ah, son, I didn’t spot you there.’

  ‘Yeah, Sumo’s was boring. It’s better here.’

  ‘Ah yeah,’ she said. ‘The chips were lovely, weren’t they?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, and my stomach grumbled. I was starving.

  We got seats when a family of twelve left. Mr Cornally decided that the atmosphere wasn’t conducive to a boy-band performance and cancelled the post-football gig. It was the only real bright spot in Johnny J’s day.

  When I went to the loo, Walker grabbed me on my way in. He held my arm. He seemed anxious. I knew the feeling – it was why I was trying to reach the toilet.

  ‘So we’ll wash cars or we’ll sell some of Charlie’s mam’s lemonade – that stuff’s amazing. Have you tasted it?’ he said.

  I shook my head. I had not. ‘We don’t have that kind of time,’ I said.

  ‘Look, I know she’s given up the chemo, but that doesn’t mean she’s just going to die. She could be grand for ages,’ Walker said.

  ‘She won’t last the summer,’ I said.

  Walker let me go. ‘What?’

  ‘Johnny J’s Auntie Alison is coming to get him. We did it all for nothing. It’s over, Walker,’ I said, and then I went into the toilets, into the stall, closed the door, sat on the loo and cried.

  19

  The Gurriers

  The morning after the robbery I walked into the kitchen in time to hear Mam and Dad discussing the Rolands’ robbery AT OUR BREAKFAST TABLE!

  ‘How many of them were there?’ my mam was asking as I entered the kitchen.

  ‘At least two, maybe three,’ my dad said.

  ‘Poor Nellie,’ my mam said.<
br />
  I grabbed some toast and said nothing.

  ‘She’s some woman,’ my dad said. ‘She was out of that back window like Jack Flash and chasing the little gurriers off.’fn1 I’d never been called a gurrier before, at least not that I knew of. I didn’t like it.

  ‘How much did they get away with?’ Mam asked. I sat next to her, facing my dad and trying my very best to butter my toast without giving away that I, Jeremy Finn, was one of the gurriers they were speaking of and a fugitive from the law. Be cool, Jeremy. Just be cool.

  ‘Could have been thousands,’ my dad said. Eh, no, Dad, not even close!

  ‘And they found pepper spray at the scene,’ my mam said.

  ‘Pepper spray?’ my dad repeated. ‘What is the world coming to?’

  She shook her head. ‘Some people really are disgraceful,’ she said. Eh, it’s your pepper spray, Mam! I thought. I did not say anything.

  ‘Is the lady all right, Dad?’ I asked, and my dad looked at me and smiled.

  ‘Yeah, son, she’s fine. She just got a fright, that’s all.’

  ‘A fright at her age could kill her,’ my mam said.

  ‘Well, it didn’t,’ my dad said. ‘Still, it was a terrible thing to do, and when Ireland were on the field! Desperate times,’ he said sadly. He shook his head from side to side and sighed.

  My mam nodded along. ‘I hope they do time,’ she said.

  I felt sick again.

  ‘You OK, Jeremy?’ my mam asked, feeling my forehead.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘How’s that stomach of yours?’

  ‘Grand,’ I said, but it was doing somersaults again. I left before she could put me back to bed.

  It was another really warm day, blue skies and birds singing. I could feel the burn through my clothes as I walked into the forest. Walker was already there, sitting on the bench and using his inhaler.

  ‘Stupid allergies,’ he said, before blowing his nose and examining the contents of the tissue. I sat down beside him on the bench and leaned on the wooden picnic table, resting my head on my hands. We didn’t talk, he just spun his inhaler on the picnic table and I closed my eyes and listened to birds chatter above us. Johnny J and Charlie were the next to arrive. Sumo was last to the table. He squeezed in beside Walker and Charlie. Johnny J was next to me. I raised my head. Walker stopped spinning his inhaler and we all faced one another. We talked about the robbery and about how scared we were.