Totally Unrelated

TOTALLY
UNRELATED

Tom Ryan

ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

Copyright ©
2013
Tom Ryan

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in
writing from the publisher.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Ryan, Tom, 1977
Totally unrelated [electronic resource] / Tom Ryan.

(Orca limelights)

Electronic monograph.
Issued also in print format.
ISBN
978-1-4598-0459-3 (
PDF
).--
ISBN
978-1-4598-0460-9 (
EPUB
)

I. Title. II. Series: Orca limelights (Online)
PS
8635.
Y
359T6
7
2013       
jC
813'.6       
C
2013-901914-6

First published in the United States, 2013
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013935383

Summary:
When Neil starts to compose and play his own music, it conflicts
with the traditional Celtic music he performs with his family's band.

Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for
its publishing programs provided by the following agencies:
the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the
Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia
through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

Design by Teresa Bubela
Cover photography by Getty Images

www.orcabook.com

16    15    14    13    •    4    3    2    1

For Liam, Calum and James, the best brothers
I ever could have asked for.

Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Acknowledgments

One

It'd be a lot easier to kill Bert, my best buddy since kindergarten, if I could find the guy. I know he's somewhere in this massive abandoned warehouse—there's no way out, for either of us. I'm locked and loaded and adrenaline is coursing through my veins, but if he tracks me down first, none of that matters.

I move slowly down the dimly lit hallway, my back against the wall. When I get to the corner where the corridor makes a right turn, I stop and take a second to gather my nerves, then quickly flip around and make my move, hoping to catch him by surprise. Unfortunately, Bert has the same idea, and before I realize what's happening, he's jumped out in front of me from behind a pile of packing crates.

I yell as I start shooting, but he's too quick for me, and the bazooka he's packing unloads, tossing me backward in slow motion. I slam into a pile of rubble as
Game Over Sucker
scrolls across the screen to the sound of some kind of futuristic sad trombone. I whip my joystick at the couch on the other side of the room and try to ignore Bert's hoots and hollers. Not always the easiest task, considering he's the loudest person I know.

“Yes!” he yells. “Yes! Yes! Eat my dust, loser!”

I get up to leave.

“Aw, c'mon,” he says. “One more game.”

“Sorry, man,” I say, grabbing my hoodie from the couch. “Gotta bounce. Big family dinner tonight.”

Bert's an only child, and, as annoying as he can be, his basement is pretty much my refuge from the world, especially during the summer. He even has his own bathroom. It usually stinks, but still. My house is packed to the rafters—one senior citizen; two middle-agers; three, sometimes four, teenagers; and two preteen girls in a four-bedroom house with one and a half bathrooms. You do the math.

“You guys have a big family dinner every night,” he says.

“Yeah, but Kathy gets home from college today, so my parents want everyone there.”

“Oh, really?” he says. “How's old Kathy doing, anyway?” I know this isn't an innocent question. Bert has been in love with my older sister since the moment girls stopped being gross.

“I haven't seen her yet,” I tell him. “She's supposed to land this afternoon sometime.”

“Make sure she knows I'm around in case she's feeling lonely.”

“Whatever, man,” I say. “Catch you later.”

I'm already halfway up the stairs when he yells after me, “Oh hey, Neil, wait!”

“What?” I call back over my shoulder.

“Seriously, come here for a minute. I want to show you something!”

Reluctantly, I walk back down and stand in the doorway. “What is it? I'm going to be late.”

He rummages in a pile of crap on the coffee table and pulls out a page torn from the newspaper. “I almost forgot,” he says. He leaps over the back of the couch and shoves the paper at me. “Check this out.”

He's circled an item in the community-announcements section with red pen.
Deep Cove Talent Show
, the caption reads.

“Talent show?” I ask. “What, are you going to start juggling or something?”

“No, man,” he says. “Keep reading.”

“‘To help commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Deep Cove Days, there will be a live talent show on the waterfront,'” I read aloud. “‘Three judges will choose the winner from local acts. Deadline for registration is July fifth. Grand prize five hundred dollars.'”

“What do you think, man?” he asks. “Seriously.”

“I don't know,” I say. “What are you planning on doing?”

“You mean, what are
we
planning on doing?”

“Yeah right,” I say, handing him back the paper. “You want to do a magic routine? Saw me up in a wooden box?”

“No, man,” he says, frustrated. “We'll start a band, like we've always talked about.”

“I don't think we've ever talked about starting a band, Bert.”

“Sure we have! Remember when we had to watch that stupid documentary about Bieber at Joanie's birthday party and you were all like, ‘
We could do a better job than that guy'?
”

“I'm pretty sure I was joking,” I say.

“Okay, whatever, but you can really play, Neil! All you need to do is learn a couple of songs that people actually want to listen to, for a change. Come on. I know you're dying to finally play some real music. Use your powers for good, Neil. Think about it.”

I make a face at him. I won't lie; I've always wanted to play music I actually like, but banging out tunes with Bert for a talent show isn't really what I had in mind. “What are you going to play?” I ask.

“Drums, meathead!” He points to a huge pile of clothes in the corner of the basement, and I'm reminded that, yes, there is a drum set under there.

“Bert,” I say, “you've played those twice in your life. If that.”

“Well, there's no time like the present,” he says. “Besides, I've been practicing. Wanna hear?”

“I'm good,” I tell him.

“Look,” he says, “the show is in a month. You know we can get one good song down by then. I'll drum and do the lead vocals too.”

“Yeah right,” I say. “I've heard you sing. Forget about it.”

“Okay, fine, so we find ourselves a singer, give ourselves a name and there you go, we're rock stars.”

I look at the announcement again. The show is on a Thursday, which is my only guaranteed day off from work. Against my better judgment, I begin to soften.

“Let me think about it,” I say. “I really have to go.”

“What's the big rush? It's only three o'clock—you won't be eating for a few hours.”

“Dad wants us to squeeze in a practice before dinner,” I tell him, knowing exactly how Bert will react.

Sure enough, he grins and breaks into a spastic dance, kind of a cross between an Irish jig and a Russian wedding dance.

“Fiddle dee deedle dee deedle dee doo,” he yells gleefully, spinning in a circle and kicking wildly, his bent arms flapping in and out.

“Yep, that's what we do at practice, Bert,” I say, doing my best to ignore him. It's no use. He's graduated to flying kicks.

I turn to head back up the stairs, pretending not to hear him as he yells after me, “Don't forget to come visit when you're done playing the bagpipes!” The last thing I hear as the screen door to his porch slams behind me is what sounds like a goose singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” during mating season. Good old Bert.

Two

I bomb up the driveway on my bike. I can already hear the squeak and whistle of the sound system being tweaked in the garage.

I lean my bike against the side of the building and come around front. The garage door is open, and I can see right away that, as usual, I'm the last to arrive. Everyone else is already in there, moving around, all business, running like a well oiled machine. I stand at the corner of the door, watching them for a moment before they notice me. Dad is going over some sheet music with my mom and my older brother, Shamus, who's seventeen and ready to enter his senior year of high school. Molly and Maura, the twins, are in the corner of the room, practicing some dance steps for Kathy. She stands back and scrutinizes them, suggesting small changes. The twins look pretty scrawny and goofy in black leggings, their masses of red curls pulled back into scrunchies, but their faces are serious as they listen to what Kathy tells them. On the opposite side of the room, my younger brother, Johnny, lies practically upside down in a beat-up old armchair, cleaning the mouthpiece on his chanter.

The Family McClintock, they call us. That might sound kind of obvious, since (a) we're a family and (b) our last name is McClintock, but we're not just any old family McClintock. We're
the
family McClintock. Our name doesn't just show up on our phone bill; it gets printed in the papers and on the websites that promote our shows. It gets spelled out in big block letters on announcement boards outside the schools and community centers where we play most of our gigs, and it pops boldly off the covers of our self-produced CDs, which fill cardboard boxes in our garage.

We play traditional Celtic music—have for about ten years, since I was five. At first we just played small local shows around our hometown, Deep Cove, Nova Scotia, but a few years ago things took off and we found ourselves getting requests to do performances up and down the coast of Cape Breton Island. Now we're booked solid for most of the summer season, sometimes even driving off the island to do concerts and festivals in other parts of the Maritimes. We always get a good reception; tourists love good old-fashioned fiddling and stepdancing.

Not that that's all we do. Kathy has a voice like an angel and uses it to belt out the sweetest Gaelic tunes you ever heard. Shamus can really kick it on the bodhran, a traditional Celtic drum. Johnny pulls beautiful sounds out of the bagpipes, and no, I'm not being sarcastic. Trust me—it's even harder than it sounds. The twins are famous not only for their stepdancing but also for their Highland fling, which they execute like a pair of Olympic-level synchronized swimmers in kilts.