We present an extract from The Grand Central Cinema Club, the new book for younger readers writen by Alan Nolan and illustrated by Shane Cluskey, set in 1937 Dublin where, at the Grand Central Cinema on O’Connell Street, the children of Dublin watch their Hollywood heroes on the silver screen...
When posh Sylvie meets tenement boy Jem and his daredevil sister Juno, they bond over their love of movies. But an accident means Juno will miss the latest film at the Grando, so they hatch a plot to hijack the movie reel and do a top-secret private showing instead! Meanwhile, a sneak thief called The Magpie has his eye on the Grand Central Cinema too. Can Sylvie and Jem revive Juno's ailing spirits by bringing the movies to her? And will they foil The Magpie’s feather-brained plan in time?
As Sylvie walked towards the Grand Central Cinema, she could see that it lived up to its name – it was certainly grand. She took out her viewfinder from her bag and stared at the cinema through her rectangular cardboard movie screen; she thought it was simply beautiful. Its entrance was a huge, ornate stone archway with carved flowers at the top, to the left and right. Either side of the arch were tall Doric columns, and the white stone of the building's façade rose steeply upwards to a parapet with a triangle-shaped pediment over it. Above that was a copper-plated dome that reminded Sylvie of the massive dome on top of the Custom House. Seagulls wheeled around in the sky above and Sylvie could hear their far off CAWWWs.
To Sylvie’s surprise there were very few children queueing outside the cinema, and as she reached the doors, she could see why: the doors were firmly shut and, inside, an usher was hanging a hand-painted sign reading HOUSE FULL on the glass. Sylvie put the viewfinder safely back in her bag and looked at her watch; it was only twenty-five past ten! The cinema must have filled up very quickly this morning. The few kids who, like Sylvie, had arrived on time but somehow found themselves to be late, skulked off in irritation, resentfully kicking stones and tin cans as they went. Sylvie’s shoulders slumped in disappointment, and she began to walk back towards O’Connell Street Bridge, wishing she could find a stone or a can to kick too. She couldn’t quite believe that although she had left her house in plenty of time, walked all the way to the North of the river to a brand new picture house, she had still somehow managed to miss the Saturday morning movies.
Coming up to the corner of Eden Quay, and still annoyed with herself, she stopped to cross the road. Looking left she noticed two small boys furtively looking up and down the Quays before disappearing into an alleyway. That alleyway must lead to the back of the Grand Central. After a quick look around herself, she nonchalantly strolled up to the lane’s entrance and peered up into the lane. Despite the morning sunshine, the laneway was dark, hemmed in as it was on all sides by the rears of tall buildings. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she could see that two boys she had noticed entering the alley had completely vanished. Where had they gone? Sylvie looked at her watch again and GRRRRed a quiet GRRRR of annoyance. Half past ten. She should be in the cinema right now, watching the first of the cartoons. With a quick exhale of breath, Sylvie threw back her shoulders and marched into the dark alley.
There were smelly, rusty metal bins to her right, and on her left were doors, mostly padlocked, and rows of high windows with metal bars on the outside of each. She walked slowly until she came to a set of double doors, both marked with the initials G.C. The Grand Central! Neither of these doors was padlocked. Oh, thought Sylvie, they must be fire exits for the picture house, or maybe that’s where they take deliveries? She reached out a hand to the metal bar that served as a door handle, when a RAWRRRR noise from behind her made her jump in fright. She whirled around in time to see a bedraggled-looking tabby cat jump down from a bin and slink around a pile of discarded cardboard boxes. Shaking her head and giving an eye-roll, Sylvie turned back to the door and pushed the handle inwards. The door didn’t budge. The back door was as firmly shut as the main entrance doors. Ugh! In exasperation, Sylvie grabbed the metal bar with both hands and shook the door as hard as she could.
To her astonishment, the door swung inwards and both her hands were grabbed by another pair of small hands. She quickly found herself being pulled inside, and the door clicked quietly shut behind her. Sylvie stood in utter blackness, not knowing who or what had captured her, or even if she had been captured at all.
'Hold on a minute,' said a girl’s voice, 'You’re not Jem!’ Sylvie blinked, her eyes adjusting to darkness for the second time that morning. ‘I ...’ she said, ‘No, I’m Sylvie.’
'Nice to meetcha!' said the other voice, ‘I’m Juno!’ As Sylvie’s eyes squinted in the murky cinema corridor she could make out the shape of a small girl, and the harder she squinted she could see that the small girl had a mop of untidy brown hair under which sat a pair of huge, bright blue eyes. The girl was wearing a shabby, shapeless navy dress with an old-style collar, or at least, half an old-style collar – Sylvie couldn’t help noticing that one of the dress’s collars was almost completely ripped off. The other thing that Sylvie couldn’t help noticing was that this girl, Juno she said her name was, was still holding on tight to both of her hands. ‘C’mon,’ said the girl, ‘if we hang around here for more than a few minutes, we’ll get caught.’ She began to lead Sylvie down the corridor. ‘The last thing we need,’ she said as she led the way past some stinky toilets and to an arched doorway covered by a curtain, ‘is for old Captain Buggs to catch us sneakin’ in – he’d turf us out the front door and ban us both for a year!’ Juno stuck her head through the curtain and then turned back to Sylvie. ‘We’re grand,’ she said with a wink, ‘The ghost is clear!’ She threw back the curtain and steered Sylvie into the auditorium of the Grand Central Cinema.
The first thing Sylvie noticed about the cinema auditorium was the size of it – there were at least seven hundred seats, and every single one of them seemed to be occupied by one, and sometimes two – sometimes even three – excited children, all eating ha’penny chews and slurping at sticky lemonade bottles as they sat staring rapt at the absolutely massive screen in front of them. That’s a much bigger screen than anything on the Southside, thought Sylvie as she craned her neck up to see the top. At the rear of the auditorium was a steep, raked balcony that was also jam-packed with children, all of whom looked like they might be in danger of toppling off at any moment and tumbling into the crowded seats below. Under the balcony, set into the back wall was the projection booth window, from which emanated strong rays of silver light. Above it all was spectacular domed ceiling, that reflected the glow from the silver screen and made the dust motes sparkle like fairy dust in the rays of light from the projector.
‘C’mon, Sylvie,’ said Juno in a half-whisper, dragging her towards two boys who were sitting in the very front row, their faces lit up with both laughter at the cartoon that was showing, and with the glow from the screen, ‘you can sit with us!’ She pulled one of the two boys up out of his seat and plonked him down into the same seat as the other boy. Neither of the boys took their eyes off the screen, despite her intrusion. ‘Skootch up, Mario,’ hissed Juno, as she hauled the boy across, ‘you an’ Bren-Bren can share. Make way for the new girl.’ She sat in the now empty seat and pulled Sylvie in beside her, ‘You can sit with me!’
The Grand Central Cinema Club is published by The O'Brien Press
