Here. You know that Kevin? Kevin. Got that stupid bloody moped. Off Barry. Yeah, that’s him. I think it was nicked, that’s why it was so cheap. Anyway, I saw him this morning. On his moped, he was. Come round the corner and pulled up at the lights on the High Street, down by the Exchange. Yeah, going towards the bridge.
So he comes round the corner, and he pulls up like that, and I’m, like, crossing the road. So I saw him and I says oy Kev and he turns round and oy Kev I says, what’s that you got on the back of that bloody moped? I’m sure it was nicked.
Anyway, on the back of his moped, coming out of where the exhaust comes out, he’s got this big bloody metal thing, shaped like, well, shaped like a trumpet I suppose. Like a trumpet, I’m telling you. But sort of squashed so it was taller than it was wide if you looked at the back of it straight on. Alright, alright, oval then. But like a trumpet, bigger at the back than at the exhaust end. It was so big at the back it was taller than the moped. Made of metal, looked like he’d knocked it together himself. Covered in rivets and bits of messy welding.
It was attached to the moped with loads of, like, string and that. Loads of it. And, I’m not making this up, there was an old skateboard stuck on the bottom with a big clump of brown packing tape, so he could tow it along without it scraping along the ground. What’s that on the back of your moped, Kev? I says, and he says to me, that’s my rocket engine Dave.
So I says, you what? And he says I made this rocket engine out the back in me mum’s shed. I got all this metal off Barry cheap. So you can bet that was nicked and all. And I thought I know what I’ll do, I’ll make a rocket engine.
A rocket engine? I says. You sure? And he’s like, yeah, well, I haven’t tested it yet but it should work. Got the plans out of this old book my old man had. And I thought he was winding me up like. Well, you would, wouldn’t you, someone tells you they’ve made a rocket engine and stuck it on the back of their moped with string and a skateboard. Either that or they’ve gone gaga and the men with the butterfly nets are coming for him. But then I remembered that time with the pogo stick, do you remember? When he blew them bins up round the back of Lidl’s?
When you testing it then, Kev? I says to him, thinking this is gonna be good. I’ll go round and have a look, like. And he flips down the visor on his crash helmet and says, now and he leans over and there’s this computer keyboard stuck on the, like, on the handlebars there. One of them old ones. No, not Vic 20, what’s that other one, with the rubber keys? That’s it, Spectrum. He leans over and taps some of the keys and goes doodle-eh-doot, like that.
And nothing happened. So I thought here we go, I thought. Kev’s finally gone and lost it. And I was just about to go into Smith’s when the trumpet thing at the back starts to rumble. Whhrrrrrrrr! It goes. And then it gets louder and louder. WHHRRRRRR! And flames start coming out of the back of the trumpet thing and the skateboard’s rattling on the tarmac and I can feel the ground starting to shake under me feet. Car alarms start going off, the lot.
So Kev looks at me and sticks his thumb up, and then – BOOF! He’s just gone! I’ve never seen anything like it. He’s just over the bridge and off, with a big smoking trail following him. He only went and did it, didn’t he? Made his own rocket engine!
Anyway, I seen him again earlier. I said, you did it, didn’t you? And he reckons he went up in space but that’s got to be fucking bollocks.
