by Claire Davis
Oskar Blows a Gasket
Claire Davis & Al Stewart
Beaten Track
www.beatentrackpublishing.com
Oskar Blows a Gasket
First published 2018 by Beaten Track Publishing
Copyright © 2018 Claire Davis & Al Stewart
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
ISBN: 978 1 78645 202 3
Cover Design: Noah Homes
Beaten Track Publishing,
Burscough, Lancashire.
www.beatentrackpublishing.com
Oskar Braithwaite is bold, brash and gorgeous. Just ask him.
With a designer backpack full of sequins, make-up and retro music galore, Oskar sets off for college. And, with attitude even spikier than his heels, nothing is going to hold him back. But his past is shouting louder than the 80s songs he adores and it won’t be ignored. Behind the effervescence are secrets, lies and sadness. Try as he might, not even Oskar can hide forever, and one day it isn’t only pop icon Simon Le Bon who’s going to catch up.
Enter Bear, with dancing eyes and secrets of his own. Bear’s kindness sparkles brighter than Lycra leggings, and everyone knows Oskar loves shiny things. Like every prophecy, their fates seem inevitably linked. As the walls of Oskar’s defence crumble, Bear shows that he has hidden strength aplenty, but will it be enough to save them?
Who is writing letters? And why is a spy secretly following them both?
Find out in this far-out, zany tale of fame, first love and retro DJs.
Acknowledgements
Thank you Ofelia, Amy, Dez, Andrew, Baz, Jor, Mike.
Thank you Noah, who read every word in daily instalments and was, of course, right in the end.
A special hug to The Wild Buzzycat of the Serengeti.
More than thanks to Debbie McGowan and Beaten Track Publishing for playing this one last song.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to Brinsted Gardens.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Dedication
I
Chapter 1: Life is a Dance Floor
Chapter 2: Barf Me Out
Chapter 3: Keep on Truckin’
Chapter 4: To the Max
Chapter 5: Make Some Noise
Chapter 6: Eat My Shorts
Chapter 7: Gag Me with a Spoon
Chapter 8: Work the Decks
Chapter 9: Music is Love in Search of a Word
Chapter 10: Don’t Pull That Plug
Chapter 11: Where’s the Beef?
Chapter 12: Can You Dig It?
Chapter 13: What’s Your Damage?
Chapter 14: You’re in the Mix
Chapter 15: Bad to the Bone
Chapter 16: I Jam Therefore I Am
Chapter 17: Bodacious
II
Chapter 18: Scream for Ice Cream
Chapter 19: Electric Dreams
Chapter 20: Preach That Saxophone
Chapter 21: Respect the Vinyl
Chapter 22: Pump It Up
Chapter 23: Dance Will Set You Free
III
Chapter 24: In Da House
Chapter 25: Dance to the Rhythm of Your Heart
About the Authors
By the Authors
Beaten Track Publishing
I
Chapter 1: Life is a Dance Floor
Oskar
The walls of Bangor train station toilets were plastered with names; perhaps ghosts of students past. Oskar spent exactly thirty minutes reading each entry, ranging from coarse witticism to cruel sexual assessment—I don’t know but I’ve heard it said, John the Ripper is shit in bed being the most noteworthy. Finally, he dragged his eyes away from this intriguing statement and stared at himself instead.
“Mirror, mirror,” he whimpered, “the train back to Leeds is in ten minutes. Help?”
But the cracked surface provided no answers except dubious splashes and a Tipp-Ex phone number.
“Please?”
A smallish face crowded by multicoloured hair stared back balefully; it provided nothing of a revelatory nature either, except what Oskar already guessed about needing new mascara.
“What should I do?”
The blurred visage was a pale ghost with huge, frightened eyes and waxen skin. Steam billowed around the edges. Blinking rapidly did not clear the mist. The ghost turned an unhealthy shade of blue.
“Shit. Oh my god. I’ve changed colour,” he almost sobbed. “The whole world is against me!” At the peripheral edge of the glass, something hovered. “I’ve gone blue! Either it’s the Smurf apocalypse or I’m actually, clinically speaking—dead.”
“Excuse me, but are you all right?”
Oskar frankly resented the interruption, having far better things to do than cavort with strange apparitions in the toilets of a train station. Meltdowns were not to be trifled with or undermined by others’ selfish needs.
“Can you hear me?” the voice persisted.
“No, thank you,” he answered reluctantly, with more than a hint of menace. “I don’t want a blow job or any of your nasty services. Can you leave me alone to disintegrate, please?”
“No! I was just… The glass is tinted to prevent drug users from seeing a vein. It’s why you look blue. You see? Sorry for startling you! I saw the label on your backpack. I’m going to the college too. Are you getting the minibus?”
Utterances about drugs, buses and whatnot made no sense to an already overloaded brain. But then, nothing much had for the last two years. Life had been a double-decker-bus journey hurtling round the corners of mania with no seat belts or visible exit sign.
Something tugged at his arm. “Can you hear me? Hello?”
Oskar finally looked sideways, fully expecting to see a Dickensian ghost wearing an old man’s coat. Disappointingly, it was a mere boy about the same age, one hand brandishing some kind of talisman. “College is due north,” he said earnestly.
“You what?” Brain neurons fired unhelpful signals looking for meaning in a desert of anarchy. Swiftly, they became white tiles and bleach smells. Oskar abandoned all reason and instead embraced nonsensical reality. The sink swayed. He was fucked.
“Now you really have gone a funny colour! Are you going to throw up?” The boy sounded far away.
“Need to sit down. I’m in Narnia. Might throw up.”
“Hah! I’m no Mr. Tumnus. I saw some seats outside.” The apparition helped Oskar stagger along the corridor and out into the station. “Here—sit for a minute.” A bottle of water appeared. “Have a few sips. Always makes me feel better.”
He drank obediently. Blinking did not clear the nauseous yellow vision but it was better than being sick.
“Shit. I thought I saw a ghost. Are you a ghost or a pervert? Is this that station to Hogwarts where we have to run into a wall?”
The boy’s response was to look worried. Dark eyebrows contorted across brown, familiar eyes. Oskar examined the boy’s face, trying to remember where he’d seen him before.
“I’m neither. Are you joking? I can never tell if people are messing about or serious. You’re in Bangor train station going to college to sign up. I think it’s college! Your backpack says college.” His eyes met Oskar’s. Messages were transferred. The lingering laste
d mere seconds; enough to be disturbingly intimate. Not willing to get into deep philosophy or any more of that nasty mutual eye searching, Oskar looked away.
“Is this the real life?” he suddenly sang. “I’m in a parallel universe, aren’t I?” Like looking through tinted 3D glasses, nothing added up. He closed his eyes.
“A what? Are you OK? You look a bit better now. I thought you were gonna pass out in there.” The boy held his paw out. “Hi.” Oskar ignored the hand, shocked anyone would think of physical contact in the aftermath of blue skin and Harry Potter from hell.
“Bodacious,” he replied. The word buzzed a short space from his lips, close enough to cause collateral damage. It was the meeting of an old friend; both familiar and not. Over two years ago, such phrases had been bandied about the kitchen regularly. “Bodacious. Bodacious?” He swallowed, tasting fish and chips, Friday nights, and memories of happier times.
“It’s probably low blood sugar. I got that one time I walked too far and didn’t take anything to eat. Did you eat today?”
Oskar shook his head, still shocked the B-word had popped out, natural as anything.
The boy talked faster and faster, eyes the colours of Mum’s amber earrings. “Then another time climbing trees! I just kept right on doing it all day until suddenly my legs went to jelly and I threw up.” The boy-ghost laughed in between biting his lip. “Sorry! I talk a lot when I’m nervous. Going to uni is a big step, right?” He covered his mouth with one hand, still gripping the talisman. It was a compass. “Tell me to shut up if I get on your nerves.”
“Why do you have a compass?”
Shadows crossed the boy’s face. “It’s lucky. I’m—I’m holding it to bring me luck. Do you want to see?”
Oskar’s neurons finally termed the mental state as exhaustion. “I’m knackered. Why not?” He took the compass. If his frantic calculations were correct, the train station and its inhabitants were approximately two seconds from witnessing an Oskar meltdown. Such an uncomfortable state would be followed by terminal, embarrassing sobbing. That would not do, not with no-one but this boy to witness his demise.
“Thanks. You can have it back now.” More calculations. “You’re getting the bus to college?” he asked carefully, wary of more trigger words like ‘bodacious’ slipping out. The boy nodded. Oskar checked his watch. Two minutes to decide. “I have a monumental decision to make.” He sat forward over his knees in thinking mode. As the boy reached out to take the compass, his hand brushed Oskar’s. The planetary plates shifted, releasing gas. It shot through Oskar’s ears into his brain like a song. He distinctly heard the words ‘hunger’ and ‘wolf’. He slapped the side of his head triumphantly. “What would Simon Le Bon do?”
“What?” The boy squinted, and that was how Oskar made the decision of his life. If the guy recognised the name Simon Le Bon, he’d get the bus with him to college and start a new life. Black six-inch heels would walk away from Mum and the flat. He would take no heed of it being an unbelievably selfish act of the kind only a lowlife would contemplate. The decision would therefore be made and he could rest easy knowing the future had been shaped by 80s music. After all, his past had certainly been formed by that era of pop and fluorescent yellow.
Bodacious.
If the kid didn’t know, Oskar would walk to the platform departures board without even the hint of a sigh. He would be brave and strong, and look good in the wake of such a magnanimous decision. Much later, when back home, he would apply new highlights.
“Well?” he demanded, eager now the responsibility of destiny had been assigned elsewhere. The boy scratched his head and picked at a backpack emblem of Bear Grylls. From nowhere, a quick-flash memory of watching TV with Mum shot across like clouds. “Oh my god! I know who you look like!”
The boy smiled, the kind of friendly grin Oskar thought most about, but only late at night and in the dark. “He’d probably ask if you’re hungry like the wolf.” He bit an already-ruined lip. “Simon Le Bon?”
Oskar met his eyes once more and it was a beach meeting the sea, a collision of elements. Fear coupled with excitement reflected off the boy’s eyes.
“Who do I look like? For sure, I don’t look like Simon Le Bon. I mean—he’s old.”
It was enough. “Of course he would! Hungry like the wolf.” Adrenaline shot through Oskar’s veins like synthesised music blasting through a hall. He punched the air, getting strength from the startled looks of people standing nearby. A quick shoulder adjustment and he was ready to roll. “You’re a genius, Bear Grylls. Which way?”
“Did I say the right thing?” The boy looked more terrified.
“Yes!” Oskar shouted, suddenly elated. He was going to college! Oskar Braithwaite was off to the far reaches of intellectual brilliance at last.
Bear pointed left. “The bus is next to the taxi rank. Follow me. OK?”
Oskar shoved arms through fake designer backpack straps, grabbed his suitcase and set forth. Something unprecedented occurred: running—actual running—accompanied by claps of thunder from high-heeled boots landing on tiles, cheering him on to a bittersweet new life.
****
Oh la la!
Unholy mother of Madonna and Rick Astley, the university accommodation room was a state! Absolute pits of peeling purple walls, a mattress with stains, and he was done. Absolutely done. No way could living be achieved in such a place of goth hell.
Oskar fanned his face, barely able to breathe through his chagrin. Talking out loud was better than being silent. “What would Simon Le Bon do?”
Obviously, the iconic star would advise covering up the walls using much the same technique as applying mascara on a Friday night—with gusto and dancing.
“Calm down,” he advised, “you’re not alone. Simon is here.” He unzipped a case and pulled out a thick wad of posters with Blu Tack already attached. Back at home, he’d been unsure about bringing 80s treasures, but the strange entanglement with Bear Grylls and the word ‘bodacious’ were clear indications it was time. “You’ll feel better once surrounded with love.”
A-Ha and Duran Duran went up first, next to the bed so he could talk to Simon Le Bon when not-sleeping at night. “Simon, baby, I may need your shoulder.” The distance from head to poster was perfect, but the ugly bed patch of what looked like piss was not. “No, no, no.” Gruesome was all around. Although able to withstand many of the avalanches of life, final reserves crumbled. “Shit.” Unpleasant lip trembles threatened to unleash the flood. “Oh god. What am I doing here?” He looked to the pop star poster—“Simon?”—whose eyes seemed to indicate the door. It was clear the guidance was to ask for help from the boy at the train station, the weird apparition who had somehow opened the mental door whence the bodacious had sprung.
He shouted into the corridor, “Hello? Bear? Where are you?” Coming had been a terrible mistake. “Please help me? I am having an altercation with myself! It’s an emergency!”
“Are you OK? Looks a bit gruesome, doesn’t it?” Bear Grylls appeared with ravaged lips and short hair a mess. The urge to kiss him gratefully was strong. Instead, a supercilious sneer won the day. “We’re the only boys, apparently. The man said they don’t normally put boys with girls, but they’re desperate this year ’cause the intake’s so high.” He rubbed his jeans while droning on about other students or it might have been strawberries for all it mattered. Oskar nodded, calculating how to prevent him from escaping to his own room. Ever. “Nice posters! Who are they? Wait—is that Eminem?” Oskar ignored the snub, or at least, he tried to. Not everyone appreciated the subtle tones of 80s pop. His top lip was not, however, successful in disguising powerful disdain. “So what’s up? An alter-what?”
Instead of being friendly, moaning ensued; slipped straight from Oskar’s lips like coconut from a penis colada. “The intake’s so high? On account of the luxury accommodation, no doubt. Is your room any better?” The bag bounced off the desk, not that he cared. “That mattress looks like someone gave birth on i
t.”
“Yeah. Come and see mine.” Bear grinned, not that Oskar was interested. Not anything except pissed off. “I’m right next door.”
“The actual room next door?”
“Yeah. If I knock, you’ll be able to hear. We can do SOS! Come see.”
SOS. The day was turning out darker than the deepest holes of hell. “Where’s the kitchen? I could murder a coffee.” Oskar stomped after Bear without even the tiniest flicker of relief at being roomed next door. Certainly he wouldn’t need the likes of him—very often. The corridor echoed behind and it was this that made him scoot along so quickly. “Probably haunted too.”
“Da-dah!” Bear waved his arm grandly, identical to Oskar’s room except for the colour. The mattress, however, was stain-free. “I think my bed is better than yours?”
“Disgusting. Loathsome. Did you see the brochures?” Oskar’s bitterness fought to be free. “Rooms with mini-kitchens and communal swimming pool? Twenty-four-hour gym?” A dramatic head shake was in order. “Free wi-fi?”
“There’s wi-fi here but not much else.” Bear held out a leaflet. “At least it’s single rooms. Lots of the better quality halls are communal. I’m sick of sharing rooms with other people.”
“Sharing?” With another boy. The suggestion lasted longer than it should… With another boy.
“Didn’t you read the leaflets?” Bear jumped up and down on the bed, t-shirt riding up.
Read, devoured every word. “But where’s the rooms in the brochure? Didn’t say nothing about sending people miles out to a nurses’ hovel.” Oskar shook his hair viciously, both to clear the image of Bear jumping and to ensure hair perfection. “It must be three miles at least to the uni buildings. I’m not a bloody nurse.” His voice slipped into the nasal tones of Brinsted Gardens. “Fuck sake.”
Bear grinned. “Yeah, I like how they didn’t tell us until we got here.” He shrugged. “I suppose it’s because we got our places late. I didn’t apply until summer. They don’t make us share with the just-eighteen-year-olds, thank god.”