Johnny J closed Rachel’s door quietly and quickly and put his finger to his mouth.
‘Numbnutbutt! Come out, come out, wherever you are,’ Rich sang out. My heart started to race. If he found us in Rachel’s bedroom, we were done for.
We could hear him walking in and out of the bedrooms.
‘You better not have left this house without telling me.’
Johnny J and I stayed silent. Neither of us moved and we held our breaths.
‘Where are you?’ he called out, and he banged on the wall.
Johnny J pointed under the bed. He got down on his belly and he crawled under. I followed. It was really dusty under there and I was sure there were spiders. I wanted to sneeze, but I held my nose. I tried to forget I was lying on the floor in a tight and dusty space. My stomach was doing somersaults. Johnny J spotted the box of pepper spray. He pointed vigorously and mouthed, ‘IT’S THE PEPPER SPRAY!’ I nodded furiously and gave him the thumbs up. He grabbed the box and we waited.
‘NUMB … NUT … BUTT!’ Rich screamed one last time, and I could tell he was directly outside Rachel’s door. Johnny J and I stared at one another, me holding my nose and him holding on to the box. We were under Rachel’s bed for a minute, but it felt like an hour. Eventually we heard him running down the stairs and the back door closed with a slam. We both scrambled out from under the bed and I sighed a sigh of great relief. Johnny J held out the box of pepper spray so I could open it and take one of the two cans out. I handed it to him.
‘This is it,’ I said. There was a cobweb hanging from his ear. It was gross. I pointed to it. ‘Spider house,’ I said. I don’t know why – the fright might have made me forget the word ‘web’. He brushed it off and examined the can intently as we walked onto the landing. I locked Rachel’s door and put the key back up on the ledge.
‘Do we even know if it still works?’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, does it have an expiry date?’
‘Ah no, I don’t know,’ I said. It had been under Rachel’s bed for two years.
We looked at the tin, but it said nothing about expiration. It was just covered in red Xs and health warnings.
‘We should test it,’ I said.
‘On who?’ Johnny J said with alarm.
‘Let’s see if someone volunteers,’ I said, knowing very well that no one would volunteer, except maybe Charlie because she was nuts. There was no way I was pepper-spraying her in the face, even if she was the most annoying girl on the planet!
We were halfway down the stairs and Johnny J was tucking the pepper spray into his inside pocket when Rich appeared from nowhere.
‘Volunteer for what?’ Rich said, and my heart nearly fell into my stomach.
‘Nothing!’ I said.
‘Helping with the old folks,’ Johnny J said. Good comeback. I wished I’d thought of it.
Rich laughed. ‘Yeah, right – old people freak him right out.’fn1 He didn’t believe us. ‘Where were you?’ he said, and he was pointing his finger in my face.
‘Upstairs.’
‘Liar.’
‘Not lying.’
‘I went up there. You weren’t there.’
‘Well, I was there and I’m on the stairs now. See?’ I pointed to myself.
Rich looked confused. ‘But I was up there,’ he said, looking around. ‘I didn’t see you.’
‘Well, I didn’t see you either.’
‘But?’ Rich said.
‘You need us for anything?’ Johnny J said, helpfully moving us off-topic.
Rich nodded slowly. ‘Come and listen to the band,’ he said.
‘No. I’m busy,’ I said.
‘Wasn’t talking to you. Johnny J, will you have a listen?’
We followed Rich down to the shed. Buzz, Fingers and Cap were practising their dancing.fn2
‘All right, lads?’ Buzz said.
‘Good, thanks,’ Johnny J said, and he leaned against the wall. I just stood there, not quite sure where to put myself. I’d never been allowed in the shed when the lads were practising before. They got in line and they started to sway even before they started singing, then they started clicking their fingers, even Fingers, which looked weird. I was mesmerised. Rich counted them in.
‘One, two, three, four …’ And they started to sing. They sounded like the vocal equivalent of nails on a chalkboard.
‘Well?’ Rich asked Johnny J when they had finished.
‘Your harmonies are all over the place – it needs work,’ Johnny J said. I just folded my arms and nodded along. I didn’t know what harmonies were, but I could definitely tell that they were all over the place!
Cap gave Johnny J a dirty look.
‘What does he know, Spots?’ he said to Rich, who had so many spots on his face it looked like he had a chronic case of the measles. Fingers grinned madly. He looked all right except for his missing fingers, and Buzz, well, Buzz was from another planet, wearing pink cords and his mam’s fur jacket. (He thought it looked cool. It did not.) He was really friendly but he freaked me out. I really wanted to get out of there.
‘Any chance you’d play with us some time?’ Fingers said to Johnny J.
‘Sorry, I can’t.’ He’d rather put his noodle in a blender. HA HA!
‘I think we’d sound great together,’ Fingers said. ‘We’re working hard.’
‘It’s not that. I’m just busy.’ And he’d rather put his noodle in a blender! HA HA!
Fingers nodded. ‘Yeah, sorry about your mam.’
‘Thanks,’ Johnny J said, and he looked away. He hated when people brought up his sick mother.
‘Well, think about it, maybe when you have some time on your hands,’ Rich said. ‘We’d love to have you.’
Yeah, well, he’d rather put his noodle in a blender! SO BACK OFF! I didn’t say it, I just thought it.
‘Sorry, just really busy,’ Johnny J said, and as we walked away, he mumbled, ‘Your brother’s a spacer.’
He didn’t need to tell me. I already knew. We were halfway up the garden path and laughing at the notion of Johnny J singing with my spacer brother and his spacer friends when Rich stepped out of the shed and called me.
‘Jeremy, wait up.’
Johnny J went into the kitchen and I turned back to my brother.
‘What?’
He walked right up to me and whispered in my ear, ‘You were in Rachel’s room,’ he said, and a little poo escaped.
‘No, we weren’t,’ I lied, but my face turned red, then purple, and my eyes felt like they were bulging out of my head.
Rich grinned and nodded his head while pointing at my tomato face. ‘Yeah, you were, and I’m trying to set up a gig. If I do, Johnny J is going to sing with us.’
‘No way.’
‘So I’ll tell Mam.’
I could have threatened that I’d tell her about the stash under his bed, but he’d just get rid of it before she got home and I couldn’t risk a war. If Rich told on me I’d be grounded for at least a week, and if I was grounded I couldn’t rob Jim Roland’s granny. All I could do was pray that no one in their right mind would give Fingers & the Fudge a gig before the end of the week. After that it didn’t matter if my mam grounded me for life.
I relaxed a little – no need to say anything to stress Johnny J out any further. What were the chances?