adjust to the light, he can see a twenty-metre-tall version of himself skateboarding downhill, chased by screaming Korean schoolgirls.
‘THIRTEEN,’ the crowd scream, as their feet stamp down the seconds. ‘TWELVE, ELEVEN . . .’
On screen, the girls knock Jay off his skateboard. As he tumbles a smartphone flies out of his pocket and when the girls see it they lose all interest in Jay and stand in a semicircle admiring the phone instead.
‘THREE . . . TWO . . . ONE . . .’
The four members of Jet emerge on stage, punching the air to screams and camera flashes.
Somehow, the cheering crowd always kills Jay’s nerves. Thousands of bodies sway in the moonlight. Cheers and shouts blend into a low roar. He places his fingers on the fret board and loves the knowledge that moving one finger will send half a million watts of power out of speaker stacks the size of trucks.
And the crowd goes wild as the biggest band in the world starts to play.
1. Cheesy Crumbs
Camden, North London
There’s that weird moment when you first wake up. The uneasy quarter second where a dream ends and you’re not sure where you are. All being well, you work out you’re in bed and you get to snuggle up and sleep another hour.
But Jay Thomas wasn’t in bed. The thirteen-year-old had woken on a plastic chair in a school hall that reeked of burgers and hot dogs. There were chairs set out in rows, but bums in less than a quarter of them. A grumpy dinner lady squirted pink cleaning fluid on a metal serving counter at the side of the room, while a banner hung over the stage up front:
Camden Schools Contemporary Music
Competition 2014
Debris pelted the floor the instant Jay moved: puffed wheat snacks, speckled with cheesy orange flavouring. Crumbs fell off his clothes when he stood and another half bag had been crushed up and sprinkled in his spiky brown hair.
Jay played lead guitar in a group named Brontobyte. His three band mates cracked up as he flicked orange dust out of his hair, then bent over to de-crumb a Ramones T-shirt and ripped black jeans.
‘You guys are so immature.’
But Jay didn’t really mind. These guys had been his mates since forever and he’d have joined the fun if one of them had dozed off.
‘Sweet dreams?’ Brontobyte’s chubby-cheeked vocalist, Salman, asked.
Jay yawned and picked orange gunk out of his earhole as he replied. ‘I barely slept last night. Kai had his Xbox on until about one, and when I finally got to sleep the little knob head climbed up to my bunk and farted in my face.’
Salman took pity, but Tristan and Alfie both laughed.
Tristan was Brontobyte’s drummer, and a big lad who fancied himself a bit of a stud. Tristan’s younger brother Alfie wouldn’t turn twelve for another three months. He was Brontobyte’s bass player and the band’s most talented musician, but the other three gave him a hard time because his voice was unbroken and there were no signs of puberty kicking in.
‘I can’t believe Jay gets owned by his younger brother,’ Tristan snorted.
‘Kai’s the hardest kid in my year,’ Alfie agreed. ‘But Jay’s, like, Mr Twig Arms, or something.’
Jay tutted and sounded stressed. ‘Can we please change the subject?’
Tristan ignored the request. ‘How many kids has your mum got now anyway, Jay?’ he asked. ‘It’s about forty-seven, isn’t it?’
Salman and Alfie laughed, but stifled their grins when they saw Jay looking upset.
‘Tristan, cut it out,’ Salman said.
‘We all take the piss out of each other,’ Tristan said. ‘Jay’s acting like a baby.’
‘No, Tristan, you never know when to stop,’ Salman said angrily.
Alfie tried to break the tension. ‘I’m going for a drink,’ he said. ‘Anyone else want one?’
‘Scotch on the rocks,’ Salman said.
Jay sounded more cheerful as he joined the joke. ‘Bottle of Bud and some heroin.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Alfie said, before heading off towards a table with jugs of orange squash and platters of cheapo biscuits.
The next act was taking the stage. In front of them three judges sat at school desks. There was a baldy with a mysterious scab on his head, a long-limbed Nigerian in a gele headdress and a man with a wispy grey beard and leather trousers. He sat with his legs astride the back of his chair to show that he was down with the kids.
By the time Alfie came back with four beakers of orange squash and jam rings tucked into his cheeks there were