Magnificent Megan and Sneaky Sam

Aoibheann's drawing of her story

My name is Megan Swift I’m nine years old and an ordinary kid. Sorry I lie a lot. I wear hearing aids so I am deaf. That’s not really ordinary then, is it? I want to tell you about the day I became the most popular kid in school, all because I am deaf! On with the story...

On a hot Wednesday evening in June the whole class were excited about going to Sam Gordon's concert. If I haven't told you yet, Sam Gordon is one of my absolute idols! You can barely get into my room without causing an avalanche of my Sam Gordon CD collection and a snowstorm of all his posters hanging up in my room. Don’t ask me how do I even manage to climb into my own bed! My other pop idol is Eddie Froth, who actually lives really close to Sam’s concert venue. My friends Lucy and Marabella hate Eddie, I don’t know why as his music is awesome too.

So anyway we chatted the whole way to the concert saying how cool Sam is and arguing over which song was our favourite. We got told off by our teacher Miss Finn as she’s not a fan of Sam Gordon. She sounded grumpy, telling us we were giving her a headache and Sam's going to make it worse.

When we finally arrived at the concert, we rushed to buy bubblegum and Slush Puppies. We got brain freeze! Lucy even threw up and trust me it wasn’t pretty… Miss Finn scolded us for eating too much.

When Sam came on stage even I had to cover up my ears! When he started to play my favourite song (The Acorn Tree - ‘tis an old classic), I started to dance wildly, bopping my head around. I often get laughed at for my dancing, people say it looks crazy! I must have bopped my head so madly that my hearing aids were thrown clear out of my ears. I bent down searching for them and tied my laces when I was down there. I’m not the quickest at tying laces.

Finally I stood up. That's when I noticed everyone acting peculiarly. The crowds were staggering like robots towards Sam, even Miss Finn was doing it! I knew something was wrong if Miss Finn was following him, she hated Sam. I hesitated, wondering if I should follow the robot crowds backstage or simply run. Sam seemed to telling the fans how they had to capture Eddie Froth. Fans had to force their parents to empty their bank accounts and buy up all the Sam Gordon merchandise. How greedy!!! They were chanting to Sam as their leader.

Now I realised his plan, he was jealous of Eddie, a popstar slowly gaining more popularity than himself. Selfish Sam didn't care about his fans. I had to stop him. I kept my fists from clenching, as I knew they could give me away. Removing the gum from my mouth, I sneakily popped it onto his microphone so Sam could no longer be heard. The crowd became as deaf as me without my hearing aids. The trance was halted. People stopped acting robotically, turning instead into a confused state.

It was at this point Sam spied me, I took to my heels. I knew where I was going, to his rival Eddie’s house which was close by. I knocked on Eddie's door and saw the figure behind the glass approach. He looked startled when he saw me: “Can I help you…?” I hurriedly explained. Eddie slammed the door behind him yelling: “My goodness, I don’t believe it!” I didn’t know if that meant I don’t want to see you anymore or be right back?! But within minutes blue lights of police cars came flying down the street, rocked up at the concert and arrested Sam. I watched as Eddie pointed straight at me, telling the police he now had a witness to say Sam had been brainwashing his fans as he had suspected all along but had never been able to prove. He’d been targeting them, hypnotising them at concerts, sending subtle messages at low frequencies hidden amongst lyrics in his albums (that I’d never heard because my hearing aids didn’t detect these frequencies). I guess there are benefits after all from not having perfect hearing. Everyone else had been fooled.

So yeah that was the day I realised being deaf isn’t so bad, if I’d never danced so crazily and dropped those hearing aids I might have been sent into a trance too. Eddie would have been captured and our families would have had no money! My classmates thought I was pretty awesome. Miss Finn let me off homework for a month. I even got interviewed on TV and radio for weeks afterwards. What adventures will my hearing aids lead me to next?