High School Talent Show

MH Coleman

Description

After the summer holidays, Michael and Luke start a new chapter in their lives at a new school, the High School. The boys have to adapt to a more disciplined school, with staff who are strict and with lots of bigger students. The story follows the boys in their first year at school and tells of the things that young people and teenagers get up to in and out of school. As there is little else to do other than to play football with the older boys, they decide to form a band. Inspired by the announcement of the high school talent show. Told entirely from the view of a boy who is crazy about music. A realistic tale of school life and the trials and tribulations of two boys.For anyone who has left school, it will bring back memories from your old school days. As told by many parents to their children all around the world, "Enjoy your school days, they are the best days of your life."

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 14 septembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528984201
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

High School Talent Show
MH Coleman
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-09-14
High School Talent Show About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Synopsis Chapter 1 First Day at School Chapter 2 Assembly Chapter 3 Meeting Sir Chapter 4 School Dinners Chapter 5 Languages Chapter 6 Bus Ride Home Chapter 7 Hangin’ Out Chapter 8 P S H E Chapter 9 Physical Education Chapter 10 Football Trials Chapter 11 The New Boy Chapter 12 Luke Breaks His Arm Chapter 13 Luke’s New Guitar Chapter 14 Christmas Chapter 15 The School Trip Chapter 16 The High School Talent Show
About the Author
The author, MH Coleman, was born in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, where he attended Chaucer Comprehensive School. After two years of studying sport at college, he attended Sheffield Hallam University to study physical education.
After teaching for twenty years at the same school in Sheffield, his work reflects the experiences of teenagers and young people, both in and out of school. The style of his writing is such that it keeps the reader interested and develops their enjoyment of reading.
His first published novel, The Stag , published in 2019, was written during a period when he lived in Amsterdam. The High School Talent Show is a series of books that follows the lives of teenagers and young adults who participate in a whole host of life-changing experiences. The other books in the series are High School Prom and High School Trip .
Dedication
Dedicated to my grandmother, Doris.
I would also like to dedicate this book to my uncle, Bernard.
Copyright Information ©
MH Coleman (2020)
The right of MH Coleman to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528984195 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528984201 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
I would like to thank Jassen Scharifie for providing the artwork for the front cover.
Synopsis
The book is a fictional story that follows two 11-year-old boys who are in their first year at a local secondary school. The story follows the main characters who decide to form a band and enter the school talent show. The story is about the experiences of young people and teenagers, and the trials and tribulations of the institutions that they all have to attend, called school.
As with all young people, they get bored quickly. They develop an interest in music and practice each evening in a garage. On the final day of school, just before the summer holidays, there is a talent show at school. The boys decide to enter it and practice each evening before the event. The story is told through the eyes of Michael, an eleven-year-old boy. His experiences of school life and how young people behave at school and interact with their friends are both shocking and hilarious.
A coming of age novella that will keep you laughing until the very end.
Chapter 1 First Day at School
Michael is just like every 11-year-old boy in the world. He likes football, music and computer games. In his bedroom, he has a small single bed in the corner of the room, with posters on the wall of Oasis and Pulp, which cover up the woodchip wallpaper.
“Oh no, it’s time. The day I have been dreading for six weeks,” I say to myself. It’s seven o’clock on Monday morning early in September. It is the start of high school for most eleven-year-olds today.
“Mike, it’s time to get up,” my mum calls from the bottom of the stairs.
“OK, I’m going to get a wash and brush my teeth,” I shout down the stairs to her.
Michael pulls back his duvet covers, and he walks to the bathroom next to his bedroom in just his underpants. His pyjamas are already on the bedroom floor.
As I brush my teeth, I think to myself; I wonder if the older boys do put your head in the toilet or is it just what my brother tells me, to scare me. I think it is called first-day nerves, and I am not looking forward to the first day at my new high school. But, I’ve got to go as all of my mates are going. Last night while in bed I was thinking of asking my mum if I could have the day off due to illness, but she would have known that I am not ill as she knows me too well.
“Michael,” calls my mum again. She sometimes calls me by my full name when I don’t do something straight away.
“What?” I reply.
“Don’t ‘what’ me, young man, it’s pardon,” Mum shouts, sternly.
“Sorry, Mum.”
“Luke is on the phone,” she shouts from the bottom of the stairs.
“I’m coming down,” I reply from my bedroom, then I rush downstairs and pick up the phone.
“Is that you, Luke?”
“Yeah, what time shall I be at yours for?” he asks.
“About seven forty-five, the bus is at eight,” I respond while still yawning.
“OK. By the way, I’m bricking it,” he admits to me.
“Bricking it!” I say to him down the phone, “I didn’t sleep much last night, to be honest, I’m nervous as hell, but don’t tell anyone.”
Ten minutes later, someone rings the doorbell. My father answers it.
“Good morning Luke, are you looking forward to your first day at the big school?”
“No, not really,” replies Luke with a scared look on his face.
“Why? It will be great. You’ve got a new teacher, you will make new friends, you might even get a girlfriend,” my dad smiles as he jokes with my best mate.
“I’m not sure about that, Dave,” Luke replies to my dad as he smirks.
I walk downstairs after using up a full can of Lynx and about half of all my hair gel. My hair is as stiff as a board. Luke and Dave are talking to one another.
“You’re early!” I say to my mate.
“I know, my mum was giving me a lecture about making a good impression an’ all that, so I had to get out,” Luke replies. He looks a little stressed and scared.
My dad and I start laughing. I attempt to make Luke laugh to calm both our first-day nerves.
“Parents these days,” I joke.
My dad replies with a smile on his face,
“That will be straight to bed when you get home then.” They both start laughing at me, rather than at my joke.
“Are you walking to the bus stop with Gareth?” Mum asks.
Gareth is my older brother. He is two years older than me, so he is going to be in year 9 today.
“No way, I’ve got my image to protect,” Gareth responds while checking out his hair in the lounge mirror that stands above the fireplace. We all burst out laughing, apart from my brother. He’s 13, nearly 14, but thinks he’s 23.
“Right, off you all go for the bus. You can all walk together. Gareth, it doesn’t mean you have to sit with them,” Mum tells Gareth as he looks unhappy at the thought of taking his little brother on the school bus in front of his mates. Although my brother and I both now attend the high school, we both still kiss our mum before leaving for school.
All three of us start walking up the road to the school bus stop. As we wait for the bus, Gareth gives Luke and me some advice.
“When you get on the bus, sit downstairs. Upstairs is for us year 9’s and the older kids. If you go up there, they will make fun of you. When you get off the bus, go straight to the hall, you have an assembly first.”
“Where are you going when you get off the bus?” I ask.
“I have to go to my classroom,” he says.
The bus arrives, our friends are sitting on the downstairs of the bus, at the back. Pat, Victor, Glen are all sitting on the back seats, they all went to primary school together, with Luke and me. Victor’s first name is Simon, but everyone calls him Victor as it’s his surname and he prefers to be different. They are all wearing new jeans, new trainers and Fred Perry T-shirts, and we all have a ridiculous amount of gel on our hair. The back seats of the bus smell like a perfume counter in a posh departmental store.
“Al reyt lads, this is gonna be different to primary school,” I say in a Yorkshire accent.
“It’s gonna be mint,” Pat replies.
“Mint? What do you mean by that?” Luke asks.
“There are gonna be some reyt birds at the new school,” Pat responds as if he is only interested in meeting the girls at the high school. Everyone starts laughing. He is putting on a strong Yorkshire accent to try to look cool.
“None of the birds are gonna fancy you, are they?” Vic informs Pat, with a hint of sarcasm.
They are always making fun of each other; usually, it’s about football, but now they have moved on to girls.
“They won’t be able to resist me,” Pat responds.
We all laugh so loudly that everyone on the bus turns around to look. All of the older boys are sitting upstairs on the bus. The younger students sit downstairs, probably to avoid the intimidation and any form of humiliation. On the journey to school, it is quiet downstairs, but you can hear roars of laughter from the students on the upper level of the bus. The bus stops to pick up some more students. Two boys and two girls get on and go upstairs; they also look like year 7’s. Two other older boys get on the bus at the same stop. They must be in year 11 and already sixteen years old as one of them has facial hair.
“Morning, Terry,” one of them speaks to the bus driver.
“Have you had a nice summer?” the boy continues to ask the driver.
“Not too bad, thanks. It probably wasn’t as good as your