The Fearless Five
Page 20
3. Everyone I knew had carpet on their bathroom floor. Think about it, soaking into the carpet!
fn2 1. Lots of mothers back then believed that flat 7Up could cure anything – bad stomach, a cold, flu, a broken leg, a missing toe.
2. Anything that happened to any kid out on our road and you could hear the twist of a cap and the escaping fizz before their front door had closed.
3. To my knowledge, there is no medical proof to the theory that flat 7Up is a cure-all, but it tasted aces.
13. The Escape
fn1 1. There was only one phone in every household and it lived in the hall.
2. When you answered it, you didn’t know who was calling you. It could have been anybody!
3. Kids had to ask permission to use the phone, and when the phone bill came, dads went nuts and kids scattered!
14. The Rehearsal
fn1 1. Ronnie is the Dublin slang word for a moustache.
2. People said Roland’s son grew it to cover his rotten teeth.
3. It didn’t hide them. It framed them.
fn2 1. No, I didn’t like Mickey Mouse.
2. It was a communion present when I was seven.
3. The few times I ever wore that watch involved robbery.
15. The Lies
fn1 1. The word on the street was that her rugby-playing older brothers, Louis, Sean and Ben, were afraid of her.
2. I used to think it was a joke.
3. After spending time with her I began to think that it might be true.
16. The Photo
fn1 1. Camera phones didn’t exist.
2. Most cameras had film in them that had to be developed and that could take up to a week.
3. The Polaroid camera was the only instant camera on the market. It was state of the art back then.
fn2 1. Sumo’s dad was from the country.
2. Country people say weird things like ‘Ha’ and ‘Yerrah’.
3. I don’t know why.
17. The Robbery
fn1 1. Tango & Cash was a huge movie in 1989. Certificate fifteen. We weren’t allowed to watch it, but the trailer rocked and Walker had the poster on his wall.
2. Sylvester Stallone played Tango. Walker was no Sylvester Stallone.
3. Kurt Russell played Cash. Sumo was no Kurt Russell.
18. The Getaway
fn1 1. He was tall.
2. He was huge.
3. He had fists the size of dinner plates.
19. The Gurriers
fn1 1. Jim Roland’s granny’s name was Nellie.
2. There was a large window in the Rolands’ public loo that Charlie hadn’t thought to mention.
3. The definition of a ‘gurrier’ in the dictionary is a tough or unruly young man.
fn2 1. I also peed myself as I cycled down the Clyde Road.
2. I cried a little, passing over the tracks.
3. And I had to physically cover my mouth with my hand to muffle a scream as I reached the forest.
20. The Mastermind
fn1 1. Being caught for robbing is worse than being caught for driving without a licence.
2. Being caught for robbing and driving without a licence is worse than being caught for driving without a licence or robbing alone.
3. Being armed with really sore pepper spray while robbing and driving without a license was worse than … (Well, you get it.)
21. The Hummingbird
fn1 1. When Johnny J had his appendix out aged six, his Auntie Alison bought him a book on birds. It should have been boring but it was brilliant.
2. Johnny J and I read that book front to back and back to front, one million times, and birdwatched for an entire year before we discovered video games.
3. WE KNEW OUR BIRDS!
22. The Fear
fn1 1. Johnny J’s guitar was so old it had a hole in the side, which he covered with gaffer tape.
2. His speaker crackled.
3. The bike was missing one handlebar.
fn2 1. I heard later that Freaky Fitzer’s dad stood in his garden in his boxer shorts, a pair of white socks and brown sandals.
2. Freaky’s mam kept pointing the finger at Freaky and saying, ‘I’m going to kill you.’
3. Freaky shouted at his mam that he was running away and then he didn’t.
23. The Question
fn1 1. When she put her hand on my head and stroked my ponytail, her touch sent shivers down my spine.
2. I felt really scared.
3. And really ashamed of myself.
fn2 1. Italian food was considered fancy.
2. French food was seriously posh.
3. Mexican food was unheard of.
24. The Hiccup
fn1 1. It was a bad plan.
2. It was a terrible plan.
3. It was the worst plan in the history of bad and terrible plans.
25. The Wait
fn1 1. Waiting gives you time to stress, worry and think. I thought about my soon-to-be cellmate Stab-a-Rasher.
2. Stab-a-Rasher was the name my dad gave to a murdering butcher in a ghost story he told us kids one Halloween when I was eight.
3. I woke up screaming that night. Dad didn’t tell ghost stories after that, but the name stuck with me.
fn2 1. There was no plan that included Sumo sitting in the front seat of a security van.
2. Sumo placed his hands on the glass and mouthed the word ‘help’ as he passed us.
3. Big Tom’s window was down and he was playing the Pogues singing ‘Jesse James’. It’s a song about a train robber, and it doesn’t end well.
26. The Chase
fn1 1. Tom had seven grandchildren.
2. He was friendly.
3. He shared Sumo’s love of Spam.
27. The Panic
fn1 1. ‘Sold your soul’ is a saying for when people are willing to do something bad for money or a favour or even a miracle.
2. Big Tom didn’t know it, but Sumo had sold his soul.
3. We all had. Gulp!
fn2 1. My brother said my sister was a witch, and not just because she was mean to him.
2. She knew things, and I don’t know how she knew them.
3. Mr Lucey’s black cat always sat on her bedroom windowsill and it even followed her onto the bus once. (Walker says that black cats love witches. Fact.)
28. The Match
fn1 1. Packie Bonner drop-kicked a long ball, landing it in the Dutch 18-yard box.
2. The Netherlands keeper Hans van Breukelen scrambled for it, but he spilled it in front of our advancing Niall Quinn.
3. Niall Quinn slid and scooped the ball into the empty net!
29. The Gig
fn1 1. His job was to balance the sound.
2. They might as well have asked our dead budgie (Ralph, spring 1986 to autumn 1987, RIP) to control the sound.
3. Decko hadn’t a clue.
30. The Guards
fn1 1. He had jumped from his sister’s second-storey bedroom window and landed on an old trampoline they had in the garden.
2. He was calling me from a phone box down the street from his house.
3. There was no going back now.
31. The Money
fn1 1. Mrs Shanley was a piano and guitar teacher who gave Johnny J free lessons.
2. She had ten cats. Nine were alive and one was stuffed, with beads for eyes, and she kept it on her windowsill.
3. She was English, but to escape the bombings she came to Ireland as a child during World War Two.
32. The Ticket
fn1 1. Before everyone had computers, people had to buy plane tickets from travel agents.
2. You had to book way in advance.
3. The tickets were posted out to your home.
33. The Train
fn1 1. In the 1990s, people smoked on pretty much all forms of transport, including trains and planes, and in cinemas, restaurants, pubs, clubs and even in hospitals. The smell was gross.
2. Ireland’s most popula
r sandwich was dry bread, thick butter and a thin slice of ham. Also gross.
3. Carpet-upholstered seats can cause a rash. I don’t want to say where, but I think you know. Really, really gross.
fn2 1. Walker was the rudest and most sarcastic person I knew.
2. Older people mostly seemed to find him really endearing and funny.
3. Johnny J said that was because he was small and he had big hair.
34. The Town
fn1 1. Stephen Roche was a famous Irish cyclist.
2. He won the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia and the World Road Race Championship.
3. He was considered the fastest man in Ireland.
35. The Farm
fn1 1. The names came from the TV show Alvin and the Chipmunks.
2. I loved that show.
3. I knew the theme song off by heart and sang it in my head when I got nervous. I’d been singing it in my head a lot lately.
36. The Animals
fn1 1. Chickens peck, and pecking is the same as biting, except it hurts more.
2. Some chickens run sideways, which is very freaky.
3. A lot of them like to spread their wings and jump/fly into kids’ faces.
fn2 1. Back then, adults gave kids hammers and nails to fix fences without a second thought.
2. Kids left the house in the morning and only came back for dinner.
3. It was a very different time.
37. The Meal
fn1 1. She used to fall asleep in that chair and belch like a champion.
2. Her farts were so loud she’d wake the dog.
3. The dog would jump up and run into the wall.
38. The Work
fn1 1. James Bond is a spy with a licence to kill.
2. Indiana Jones is a professor with a bullwhip.
3. We were nerds when it came to spy and adventure movies.
39. The Beach
fn1 1. Sumo wore a Superman cape for an entire summer when he was eight.
2. He dressed as Batman every year on his birthday.
3. In the winter when it was really cold he wore a fur hat with pom-poms that his mother made in her home-economics class in the 1970s.
40. The Hero
fn1 1. A drowning victim’s first reaction will be to climb on top of you.
2. Use a buoy, or if you don’t have one use a T-shirt or a towel.
3. Only get close enough to throw it and tell the drowning person to grab on.
41. The Fight
fn1 1. They spelled my name Jermy. Rich thought that was hilarious and tried to get the nickname Germy Jeremy going. It went nowhere.
2. Charlie was referred to as ‘him’ halfway through the article. She didn’t seem to mind.
3. Walker was described as a little sickly fella and he went nuts.
42. The Secret
fn1 1. I’d never liked a girl before.
2. It made me want to puke and at the same time jump around.
3. I didn’t like it, but at the same time I did.
43. The Truth
fn1 1. I knew Johnny J’d hate me.
2. I hoped he’d forgive me, but I guessed he wouldn’t.
3. I’d been scared a lot by then, but that was the most scared I’d ever been.
44. The Fall
fn1 1. Sumo’s previous weird sayings included ‘Golly gumdrops’ and ‘Jiminy Cricket’. Anyone else would have been murdered by mean kids.
2. He also said the phrase ‘Please and thank you’ when he burped.
3. Once, his dad farted while putting in a new light bulb in the den. He said, ‘I’ll take that to go.’ Sumo was really like his dad.
45. The Traitor
fn1 1. Time froze. No one ate a sausage, a chip or a spoon of coleslaw.
2. No one drank a drop or even breathed loud enough to be heard.
3. Even Bernie stopped praying, and for a moment I forgot I’d betrayed my friends and we were going to kids’ jail.
46. The Station
fn1 1. ‘Yoke’ was the word my father used for people he didn’t like or know.
2. The yoke was calling us terrible names.
3. And he was trying to scrape the word ‘robber’ on the side of Dad’s car.
47. The Package
fn1 1. Esther Banbridge was the prettiest girl in Rich’s class.
2. She was also the smartest.
3. She was way out of my brother’s league.
48. The Confession
fn1 1. Auntie Alison always called Johnny J ‘Johnny’.
2. He hated when she did that.
3. And right then and there I hated her.
49. The Interview
fn1 1. He was the older of the two men.
2. He wore a suit but it was worn and he smelled of really strong aftershave.
3. His ear hair was bright orange.
fn2 1. Every now and then he’d lick the underside of one of his fang teeth.
2. He was wearing a leather jacket over a crisp white shirt, and a big fat red tie hung from his neck.
3. He looked like a cartoon character, except he wasn’t funny or cool or even very frightening.
50. The Caution
fn1 1. The DPP stands for the Director of Public Prosecutions.
2. They decide if they are going to charge people who commit crimes.
3. They sent Freaky Fitzer’s older brother Tomo to kids’ prison for shoplifting. (A LOT of shoplifting.) We were armed robbers!
51. The Future
fn1 1. Rolands’ and the security company both declined to press charges.
2. The travel agent refunded the ticket.
3. Uncle Ted gave back the spending money we’d put in the envelope for Johnny J’s mam, and our parents paid back the money we’d spent on train tickets, ice cream, chips and burgers.
About the Author
Bannie McPartlin lives in an ancient city once inhabited by Vikings and now Dublin people. She’s married to Donal, a drummer, guitar and piano player. He’s a man of many noises. Together they have four dogs: Trudy, Bonzo, Misty and Doris. Bannie has written fiction for adults for over ten years under the name Anna, but the kids she loves in her life call her Bannie, so the name change is for them.
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First published in Great Britain in 2019 by
PICCADILLY PRESS
80–81 Wimpole St, London W1G 9RE
www.piccadillypress.co.uk
Text copyright © Anna McPartlin, 2019
Illustrations copyright © Heath McKenzie, 2019
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
The right of Anna McPartlin and Heath McKenzie to be identified as author and illustrator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-84812-804-0
Piccadilly Press is an imprint of Bonnier Books UK
www.bonnierbooks.co.uk
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