Titanic 2020

Carmichael blinked at him for several moments. Then he said, 'And they'll eat eighteen thousand slices of pizza. Plus twelve thousand pounds of chicken . . .'

'God almighty!'

Jimmy jumped out of his seat and charged down the aisle. Carmichael, taken by surprise, took several moments to lever himself up out of his own seat and follow him.

Jimmy stared down at the bus's instrument panel, trying to decide which button controlled the doors. He just wanted to sit on the edge of the dock and breathe in some nice, cool sea air. But the bus was old and decrepit, and whatever symbols the buttons and levers and switches had once possessed had long since been worn away.

'Step away from the controls!' Carmichael shouted as he trundled down the aisle. 'Don't touch that . . .!'

But he was too late. Instead of gambling on one button, Jimmy pressed them all. He spun around, confident that the doors would open, freeing him to jump from the bus.

***

Jimmy Armstrong was not known as 'Lucky' Jimmy Armstrong by the teaching staff of East Belfast High. He was more commonly referred to as 'that damn boy', 'that idiot boy Armstrong', or simply as 'Trouble'. As in, 'Here comes Trouble.'

But sometimes it was a two-way thing. For instance, this time, as Jimmy saw the swing doors at the far end of the corridor open, the headmaster come through, flanked by two police officers and followed by Carmichael the bus driver and his teacher, McDowell, he was able to think to himself, Here comes trouble. The driver was soaked to the skin. McDowell's face was so pale he looked like he'd been raised from the dead. There was smoke coming out of the headmaster's ears. The omens were not good.

The headmaster, Mr McCartney, rapped on the smoked-glass panel in the wall above Jimmy's head. It slid open immediately and Mrs James, his chubby- cheeked secretary, peered out.

'Were his parents called?' the headmaster asked.

'Yes, Mr McCartney, but they're refusing to come. They've had enough.'

The headmaster looked down at Jimmy. 'Right — inside with you!'

Mr McCartney grabbed his arm and led him into his office. He pushed Jimmy towards a chair then turned to his companions and said, 'Five minutes, gentlemen, please.' He rolled his eyes, then closed the door on them and crossed to his desk. He sat glaring at Jimmy for nearly a minute, drumming his fingers on the desk the whole time. Finally he said, 'What are we going to do with you?'

Jimmy shrugged.

'Shrugging isn't good enough any more, Jimmy.'

Jimmy shrugged again.

The headmaster sighed. 'Just to be absolutely clear, Jimmy, as to the sequence of events — and please, correct me if there are any inaccuracies. First of all, on arrival at the dock, you were warned to keep quiet several times by Mr McDowell. Then you gave young Higgins a bloody nose. As a result of this you were sent back to the bus. When Mr Carmichael tried to engage you in conversation you told him to "shut his big fat cake hole". After this you ran up the bus and pushed a button which released the handbrake, causing the bus to roll backwards and almost fall into the water. Mr Carmichael managed to stop it just in time. Shaken and upset, he pursued you outside. You deliberately stepped out of his way, causing Mr Carmichael to stumble over a mooring rope, as a result of which he fell over the edge of the dock some ten metres into the water below. Luckily for you, he was immediately spotted by Harbour Police and rescued.' The headmaster cleared his throat. 'Now, Jimmy, would you say that that was a fair and accurate summary of what you achieved today?'

'I was just trying to get the doors open.'

'Did anyone give you permission to do that?'

'No, but what was I—'

'ENOUGH!' Mr McCartney banged his fist down hard on the desk. 'In all my years of teaching I have never, ever come across such blatant indiscipline, such disrespect, such . . .'

Mr McCartney stood abruptly and crossed to a window. He studied the flowers and bushes in the school garden. His left leg seemed to be vibrating uncontrollably. His lips moved silently, as if he was counting. He turned to face Jimmy again, but remained by the window. 'Tell me, Jimmy, what would you do in my situation? Faced with this kind of behaviour.' Jimmy stared at the ground. 'Come on, Jimmy, I'd really like to know.'

'Well, I'm sure you could get another job.'

Mr McCartney shook his head sadly. 'Always something funny to say, isn't there? As long as there's a laugh you don't care whether someone has a broken nose or is nearly drowned or whether you almost lost us a school bus worth tens of thousands of pounds! As long as you can come out with some smart-aleck comment! Well how about this for a great laugh, Jimmy — you're expelled! Get out of my office! I never want to see your face again!'

***

Jimmy wandered around the city centre, browsing in the shops, but as the day wore on he was gradually drawn closer and closer to home, until, at just after seven that evening, he found himself perched on a small hill in an overgrown stretch of wasteland just behind his house, trying to work himself up to facing his family's fury. He had hoped that his parents would go out to the pub, as usual, but by nine o'clock it was clear they weren't going anywhere. They were waiting for him. It was dark now and he was starving. He was beginning to contemplate eating flowers and weeds or licking a rusty Coke can when a voice suddenly came out of the darkness.

'Hey — Jimmy . . .' Jimmy shot to his feet and was already halfway down the other side of the hill when it sounded again. 'Jimmy . . . Jimmy — it's only me.'

Jimmy peered back up the hill. He could just make out the outline of a slightly stooped figure standing where he had been just moments before. 'Granda?'

'Who else? Jimmy lad, you've been sitting up here for hours.'

'What? You've seen me?'

'Jimmy, we've all seen you. When are you coming down?'

Jimmy shook his head, but now felt confident enough to join his grandfather on the brow of the hill.

'You 're just like your dad,' Granda said. 'Stubborn.'

Jimmy shrugged.

'Well, if you're going to stay out here, maybe you could make yourself useful.'

Granda removed a small brown envelope from his back pocket. 'The other day I was up rooting around in our roof space amongst all the old stuff my dad left behind when he died. And guess what I found.'

'A lot of unpaid bills, with our luck.'

'No, Jimmy. Look.' He upended the envelope and a single copper coin fell into his palm. 'I think this is Lucky Jimmy's lucky penny.'

'His what?'

Jimmy squinted at it. It was about five times bigger than a normal penny, and though it may well have been made of copper, it had long since lost its shine.

'I thought it went down with him on the Titanic,' Granda said. 'Believe it or not, lad, there was a time when everything went right for the Armstrongs. The first Lucky Jimmy was given this as a child, and he grew up to get a job on the Titanic, and free passage to America. In those days it was like winning the Lottery. Anyway, I'm thinking maybe that the first Lucky Jimmy decided he'd had all the good luck a man needs, so before he left he passed it on to his little brother, so that he could have good luck as well.'

'And then he went out and drowned.'

'Perhaps he thought he was doing the right thing.'

Jimmy, who was barely acquainted with the concept of doing the right thing, shook his head. 'He shouldn't have bothered. I mean, look at our family. If they made a documentary about us it would be called The Armstrongs: One Hundred Years of Disaster and Catastrophe.'

Granda flipped the coin up into the air and caught it. 'What if the coin was good luck, but somehow by giving it away too soon, the first Lucky Jimmy turned it to bad luck? If the coin's been in our roof space ever since, maybe that's what's been keeping us back. Maybe it's been responsible for everything that's gone wrong.'