Beat the Band (Swim the Fly #2)(77)

“Yup.”

He repositions me and then pulls his hand away from my eyes in a ta-da gesture.

Holy crap. For a second I feel like we’ve entered someone else’s house. The basement has been completely renovated. Hardwood floors, a brand-new bar, beautiful carpet laid out across half the space, and a fresh coat of buttercream paint on the walls. It looks like it belongs in a magazine.

“Wow,” I say. “It’s amazing, Dad.”

“It’s almost all recycled stuff I got from the junkyard.” He smiles proudly, standing up tall. “You think your Mom’ll like it?”

“Uh, yeah. Maybe too much. She’ll probably make you get to work on the rest of the house now.”

Dad laughs. “Good point. Maybe we don’t show it to her until I’m back at work full-time. Which shouldn’t be too long hopefully, since I started sending out resumes again.” He grabs my shoulders. “Okay. You ready to see the best part?”

He spins me around, and what I see makes my mouth fall open in shock. In the far corner of the basement is an entire band setup.

A really bizarre looking setup. But a full one, nonetheless.

There’s a Pearl drum kit with orange flames painted on the shells and a demon airbrushed on the bass head, stacks of beat-up Marshall amps covered in old bumper stickers, four dented microphones in listing mic stands, a neon-green electric guitar with a spread-eagle naked woman painted on it, and two gigantic keyboards with chipped, yellowing keys.

I look at him, confused. “Where’d you get all this stuff?”

“Made a few calls.” He’s acting all caszh but I can tell he’s pretty pleased with himself. “Got in touch with my old band members. When I told them our situation, they offered to loan us their instruments for the performance.”

I walk over to the gear, take a seat behind the drums, grab the drumsticks, and twirl one around my fingers. “I already told Mr. Grossman we weren’t going to be able to play.”

“Well, tell him you can now.”

I give the floor tom a little tap. The head is loose and muddy sounding.

I think about what this means. That I’ll now have to perform in front of the entire school with Helen. That my chances of tagging all the bases — any of the bases — will be officially shot. But the thought of being up onstage with Helen no longer fills me with dread. Not after everything we’ve been through, and everything I’ve learned about Prudence.

I look at my dad, who’s still struggling not to bust into a huge grin. He did all this for me. For us.

“Dad?” I say. “You think we have a shot? You know. To win?”

He smiles. Considering the question. I expect to hear the “as long as you’re in it, you’ve got a shot to win it,” speech, even though I wouldn’t quite believe him.

But what he says to me is, “Who knows?” He shrugs. “But, really, who cares? At the end of the day, it matters shit one what anyone else thinks about you. Just have a good time. That’s what rock and roll is all about anyway.”





“NO FREAKIN’ WAY,” Matt says, staring at the sprawling-naked-woman guitar.

Tomorrow night’s the Battle of the Bands, and I’ve called an emergency rehearsal so that we can shake off the rust and get used to our new instruments. Of course, we can’t get started until I convince Matt to play the pornographic six-string.

“Oh, my God,” Helen squeals. “It’s obscene.”

Valerie laughs. “Well, at least they’ll have something else to focus on besides your music.”

“Jesus.” Sean shields his eyes like the image is blinding him. “You can practically see her pancreas.”

“It’s not so bad.” I tilt my head to get a different perspective. “It’s like . . . a work of art.”

“They should hang it in a museum, then.” Matt crosses his arms. “Because I’m not playing that thing.”

“You have to,” I say. “It’s the only guitar we have. People will love it. It’s rock and roll.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Matt huffs. “You have a demon on your drums.”

“Yeah, but he’s also naked.”

Matt glares at me. “He’s red. And he’s got no . . . bits. So it doesn’t really count, does it?”

“All right, just a minute.” Valerie looks around the basement. “What if we cover her up with something?” She marches over to Dad’s toolbox and grabs a roll of duct tape. “With this. We can fashion a little tape bikini. Problème résolu.”

“That’s genius,” I say, taking the duct tape from Val.

Ten minutes later, I’ve cut out a tiny silver bathing suit and magically we’ve gone from an X-rated guitar to one you could safely play in front of a group of kindergartners.

“Better?” I hand the instrument off to Matt.

“Much,” he says, lifting the strap over his head.

Sean plunks away at his ancient synthesizers. “Hey. Some of these keys are dead, you know?”

“How many?” I ask.

Sean counts them out. “Six that I’ve found so far.”

“Can you work around them?”

He shrugs. “I’ll guess we’ll find out.”