“I’ll have to get off school,” Dave said worriedly. There might be trouble about that.

“You may have to leave school, Dave.”

Dave gulped. He wondered if that was true.

Eric finished: “Meet me at Euston station at ten in the morning. I’ll have your tickets.”

Dave hung up the phone and stared at it. He was going to be on It’s Fab!.

It was beginning to look as if he might actually make a living by singing and playing the guitar. As that prospect came to seem more real, his dread of the alternatives grew. What a comedown it would be now, if he had to get a regular job after all.

He called the rest of the group immediately, but he decided not to tell his family until afterward. There was too much risk that his father would try to stop him going.

He kept the exciting secret to himself all evening. Next day at lunchtime he asked to see the head teacher, old None Above.

Dave felt intimidated in the headmaster’s study. In his early days at school he had been caned in this office several times for such offenses as running in the corridor.

He explained the situation and pretended there had not been time to get a note from his father.

“It seems to me you have to choose between getting a decent education and becoming a pop singer,” said Mr. Furbelow, pronouncing the words pop singer with a grimace of distaste. He looked as if he had been asked to eat a can of cold dog food.

Dave thought of saying: Actually, my ambition is to become a prostitute’s minder, but Furbelow’s sense of humor was as scant as his hair. “You told my father I’m going to fail all my exams and be thrown out of the school.”

“If your work does not improve rapidly, and if you consequently fail to gain any O-level qualifications, you will not be admitted to the sixth form,” the head said with prissy exactness. “All the more reason why you may not take days off school to appear on trashy television programs.”

Dave thought of arguing about “trashy” and decided it was a lost cause. “I thought you might regard a trip to a television studio as an educational experience,” he said reasonably.

“No. There is far too much talk nowadays about educational ‘experiences.’ Education takes place in the classroom.”

Despite Furbelow’s mulish obstinacy, Dave continued to try to reason with him. “I’d like to have a career in music.”

“But you don’t even belong to the school orchestra.”

“They don’t use any instruments invented in the last hundred years.”

“And all the better for it.”

Dave was finding it harder and harder to keep his temper. “I play the electric guitar quite well.”

“I don’t call that a musical instrument.”

Against his better judgment, Dave allowed his voice to rise in a challenge. “What is it, then?”

Furbelow’s chin lifted and he looked superior. “More a sort of nigger noisemaker.”