G'day, America Page 8

  “Tina Turner. New York, 1984.” Niki looked at us meaningfully. “Textbook ’tude. You getting this yet?”

  The images came thick and fast, each one accompanied by Niki saying the word “’tude”. I couldn’t help but notice all the rockers Niki told us had ’tude came from the 1980s or before.

  Just like Niki.

  I glanced over at Kasey. For something that was supposed to be turning The People into a competition-winning band, the rock-and-roll boot camp didn’t include much actual, y’know, music. Up to this point, we hadn’t played a single note.

  “Stick with it,” Kasey whispered.

  I nodded. This ’tude training was all well and good, but the idea I’d had back at Gudonya was itching away inside my head. I wanted to run it past Kasey to see if she thought it was as totally, massively awesome as I did, but so far, Niki wasn’t giving us a spare second.

  The plan would have to wait.

  IF WE THOUGHT Niki’s first Rock-and-Roll Boot Camp was weird, Boot Camp 2 the next night got a whole lot weirder. And I STILL hadn’t had a chance to share my big idea with Kasey.

  “One word,” Niki said. “Hair.” He pointed to his bald head. “Great big rocker hair is the next most important thing after ’tude. No big hair, no can rock. It’s like Samson in the Bible. If a rocker cuts their hair, or it falls out, he or she just can’t rock. They can’t. It’s science.”

  “Pretty sure it’s not science,” Kasey whispered.

  Miller ran his hand nervously across his shaved dome.

  Niki opened a cardboard box and pulled out what looked like a small animal. He gave it a shake. It wasn’t an animal: it was a bright yellow wig.

  “Come up here, Changmeister,” Niki said.

  Jason stood up and walked toward Niki about as enthusiastically as a chocaholic taking a seat in the dentist’s chair.

  Niki placed the wig on Jason’s head. “Amazing!” he gasped. “You look totally awesome!”

  Jason did NOT look awesome. Jason looked totally unawesome. He looked like a nerd wearing a wig. He looked ridiculous.

  Niki pulled out two more wigs and put them on me and Miller. Jason had looked ridiculous, but we looked insane.

  “Kasey,” Niki said, “I know you’re not in the band, but would you like a wig too?”

  Kasey held up her hand. “I’m good, thanks,” she said, and smirked at me.

  Niki pulled out a wig and slipped it on. This one was the biggest and thickest by far. Niki flicked his head back and the hair cascaded around him. He gave us a full rocker salute and then grabbed the microphone with one hand. “HELLO, CHICAGO!” he screamed. “ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?”

  In that moment I knew the idea I’d had back in the cafe would work. A tingle ran up and down my spine. There we were in our garage, looking at my boring, baldy, middle-aged, substitute teacher wearing a stupid ’80s wig. It should have been the dumbest, most uncool thing in the history of the known universe … and yet … and yet … it wasn’t.

  It was perfect.

  Having Niki Blister, rock legend, right there in front of us was like being in a time machine. I could almost hear the roar of the Chicago crowd, the twang of guitars being tuned, and that first rat-a-tat as the drummer got ready for the first song. Whatever anyone says about Niki, the dude has ’tude. Yep, my big idea was definitely going to work.

  That is, once I’d run it past Kasey. It wasn’t that I didn’t know this was a solid platinum answer to The People winning the KRMY Comp … but I did want to have my Aussie bestie on board to check I wasn’t making some humungous mistake. But straight after Rock-and-Roll Boot Camp 2 (and I mean straight after), Kasey zipped off to Phoenix for her gnext roller derby match. My double-check would have to wait until she got back. That was okay, I was pretty confident. It hadn’t just been me getting that spine tingle at the sight and sound of Niki Blister yelling at an imaginary Chicago crowd. Miller and Jason must have had it too because, by the end of Boot Camp 3, we were all in full rock-and-roll mode. Okay, it was full rock-and-roll mode with a HUGE chunk of cheese thrown in … and it looked like our rock-and-roll guide, Sergeant Niki Blister of the 23rd Rock-and-Roll Commando Squadron, was stuck firmly somewhere in 1988 … but it worked.

  The People had found their mojo. We were a band. We had ’tude. Nothing could stop us now.

  Except maybe one thing.

  Something none of us had seen coming.

  WHAT WITH NIKI BLISTER and the Rock-and-Roll Boot Camps and all the ’tude and The Big Idea and Kasey going to Phoenix and stuff, I hadn’t been paying much attention to the rest of the Khatchadorian family. To be honest, I don’t usually pay much attention to anything Georgia does, and Grandma Dotty can be, well, a bit dotty, so I tend to zone out a little with all things Grandma Dotty-related … but I was definitely surprised to find Mom had turned into a full-on zombie without me noticing.

  “I am not a zombie, Rafe,” Mom said with a sigh. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  I spooned a mouthful of Chokko Mellos (so good) and watched Mom walk like a zombie across the kitchen. It was breakfast time at the Khatchadorians but only me and Mom were there. Grandma Dotty was at her aquarobics class and Georgia had already gone to school. Kasey was in my room Skyping her dad in Australia.

  “Mmoomorkbikeabumlee,” I said.

  “What?”

  I finished chewing. “I said you walk like a zombie.”

  Mom gently lowered herself onto a chair, wincing in pain. “It’s my back,” she groaned. “It’s killing me.”

  I pointed my spoon at her like a tough New York detective who’d found out the flaw in the suspect’s alibi. “I thought that sweaty yoga was meant to be good for your back? Aren’t you yogis supposed to be bendy?”

  “That’s what I thought.” Mom winced again as she opened another bottle of painkillers. “I must’ve pulled something at the diner.”

  I nodded, but now I was applying the full Rafe Khatchadorian brainpower to the problem, I wasn’t convinced Mom had gotten her bad back at Swifty’s. Something had been off about Gudonya last night and I’d just figured out what it was.

  There hadn’t been a bendy person in sight.

  I took another spoonful of Chokko Mellos and chewed them thoughtfully, but for some reason, they didn’t taste quite so good.

  OKAY, I’M GOING to fast forward over the next week because it was another of those times when not much happened … except for the one weird thing I’m going to tell you about later.

  I went to school every day, worked my shifts at Gudonya, did some drawings for Dingbat Wall, ate and slept and walked Junior, and generally did all the million and one boring things everyone does every day. Y’know, the usual stuff. I also practiced like crazy every night with The People. We were getting better and I was finding out that doing stuff with a bunch of other people felt different. Like good different, if you know what I mean.

  We were a team.

  That one weird thing that happened was something I’m not real proud of, but I’m going to have to mention it anyway. When I’m telling a story, I have to tell the whole story, right?

  This one weird thing happened one night in Gudonya. Sid had been busy on his laptop, getting things ready for the yoga festival, which was coming up in three weeks’ time. He’d been on KRMY a bunch of times, talking up the event, and must’ve tapped into some massive yoga shortage around Hills Village because tickets were selling fast. Around seven, Sid asked me to lock up the place once the last customer had gone. This was something he’d been doing more and more, but I didn’t mind.

  Anyway, when I was shutting up shop, I noticed Sid had forgotten his laptop. Hills Village isn’t exactly America’s Crime Capital, but I still thought I’d better put it somewhere safe. Then, as I was closing the lid, a ping signaled an incoming email. Now, I’m not someone who would ever open up someone else’s email, but I couldn’t help reading the little notification bubble that popped up on the screen. It was an email from an airline confirming Sid’s flig
ht to Miami. I only glanced at it, I swear. I closed the laptop and locked it away in a closet under the coffee counter.

  It wasn’t until I got home that I realized why Sid’s emailed flight notification was bugging me. After all, there was nothing wrong with Sid taking a flight to Miami. Plenty of people fly to Miami. I’ve heard it’s a great place. No, what was bugging me was the date of the flight. It was the day before the Hills Village Yoga Festival. Which gave me some thinking to do. As a rule, I try to avoid thinking too much—I don’t want to strain my brain if I can possibly help it—but Sid booking a one-way ticket to Miami on the day of the yoga festival smelled fishy.

  The question was, what was I supposed to do with that information?

  IN THE MORNING I still hadn’t figured out the whole Sid/Miami question. It just seemed a bit grown-up for me to be worrying about that stuff. Besides, if I told Mom, she’d think I’d been spying on Sid’s emails. She’d be okay about it, I figured, but there was a weird niggle at the back of my mind that also worried Mom would maybe think a little less of me … no matter what she said. The last thing I want to do is make her “disappointed” in me. That’s the word that always hurts most.

  So I did what I always do when there’s a problem I can’t fix right away. I parked it down a quiet side street in my brain called Laters Alley. Things don’t usually stay in Laters Alley for long. It’s just somewhere I can forget about things for a while.

  On the Friday before the competition, Niki had called up and told us it would be a good idea to put in a whole weekend of practice. And, even though I was supposed to be working at the cafe that Saturday and Sunday, I should try hard to get the time off.

  “You’ve got to decide if you’re really going for this,” Niki had said. “There’s no time to lose.”

  Miller the Killer and Jason didn’t have part-time jobs, so they had no problem. And with that Sid/Miami thing parked over in Laters Alley, I wasn’t real keen on getting over to Gudonya—even if that did mean work slowed on Dingbat Wall. Yep, I still hadn’t forgotten THE MISSION. So I called Sid and asked to have the weekend off.

  “Yeah, yeah, Ray,” he said. “Okay, whatever.” Then he hung up without asking why I wanted time off. He seemed distracted. He’d called me Ray. It made me more twitchy about the Miami plane ticket. Maybe I’d have to get that problem out of Laters Alley sooner than I thought.

  At practice, Niki worked us hard. We went through every song we knew. There were eight in total—four we’d written and four old Spiderzz tunes. By Sunday, we knew them all pretty well.

  “One more time through ‘Everything Sucks’ and we’ll take a break,” Niki said. “Miller, watch that finish. Jason, let’s see some more frills on the solo, and, Rafe, give it plenty of ’tude on the mic, man. Don’t hold back!”

  We didn’t hold back. In fact, we nailed it. Everything didn’t suck. As the last chord died away, I looked around at the rest of the band and smiled. I really thought we might have a shot at winning this KRMY thing.

  To make things even better, Kasey was back from Phoenix. I caught her eye and she winked and gave me a thumbs up. I made a mental note to get our heads together to explain my big idea (not to mention getting her advice on the Sid/Miami sitch) once rehearsal finished.

  “Not too bad,” Niki said, nodding. “Let’s break for ten and then we’ll run through ‘Parmesan Cheese Smells Like Baby Sick’ and ‘Fight The Stricker’. I want you to finish on ‘Fight The Stricker’, boys. Make it your big finale at the competition.”

  I put down my guitar and stretched as Niki made his way over to me. “What time are we on next week?” he asked. “At the competition, I mean.”

  I shrugged. “Sid hasn’t said anything about that.”

  Niki frowned. “We’ll need to know to make sure we’re ready. And it’d be good to get a look at the venue. Where are we playing?”

  I shrugged again.

  “Don’t tell me—Sid hasn’t told you.” Niki took out his phone and checked out the KRMY website. “Says it’s at the Rio.”

  The Rio used to be Hills Village’s movie theater. It closed down years ago and re-opened as a music venue.

  “There you go,” I said. “We’re playing at the Rio.”

  Niki gave me a hard look. “I’ll give them a call and find out the details. If there’s one thing the music biz has taught me, Khatchadorian, it’s to never take things for granted. Promoters, venues, managers, and record companies will all try to take advantage. It’s a jungle out there.”

  WHEN NIKI CAME BACK IN, I could tell by his face he didn’t have good news.

  “It’s not good news,” he said.

  See? Maybe I was a mind-reader or something. Niki held up his phone. “I called up KRMY to ask them which slot you’re in next Saturday.”

  “Is it a good slot?” Miller asked. “I hope we got a good slot. It’d be good if we got a good slot!”

  “It’s not a good slot,” Niki said. “It’s not a bad slot either.”

  Kasey cocked her head to one side like a curious parrot. “That sounds good, but I’m guessing it’s not.”

  “Correct,” Niki said. “It’s not a bad slot because there is no slot.”

  “Wait,” Miller said, his face clouding over. “I don’t get it. Have we got a good slot or a bad slot?”

  “No slot,” I said, turning to Niki. “How come? How is that possible?”

  “We haven’t got a slot because the station manager at KRMY has never even heard of The People. She’s not all that enthusiastic about Sid either. To her, he’s the hipster guy who comes in to talk about the yoga festival. She told me she’s sick of the sight of him.”

  Kasey’s eyebrows knitted together. “Why would Sid tell us he’d got us a slot if he hadn’t? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Niki said, frowning, “Unless …” He looked at Kasey, who somehow seemed to know exactly what he was thinking. Maybe it was a kind of weird Aussie mindmeld.

  “Unless,” Kasey said, her eyes widening, “he’s a Great Australian Blowhard.”

  EVEN WITH THAT EXPLANATION, I figured there had to be more to the story. We knew Sid had lied to us about being on the KRMY bill, but I wasn’t sure him being a blowhard (even a Great Australian Blowhard) got close to covering all the bases. Still, now wasn’t the time to wonder why Sid had stitched us up. No, now was the time for one thing and one thing only: PANIC!

  The first thing we needed to do was find Sid. When I couldn’t get Sid on the phone, we raced over to Gudonya. With it being a Sunday afternoon, the place would be packed with Hills Village’s new hipsters swilling down turmeric lattes and guzzling deconstructed all-day breakfasts while listening to cheesy retro choons.

  But it wasn’t packed.

  There were no hipsters, no turmeric lattes, and no deconstructed all-day breakfasts because Gudonya was about as dead as an eighteenth-century Belgian composer.

  “Well, this isn’t good,” I said.

  “You better believe it,” Kasey muttered. “I don’t like the look of this,” Niki said.

  Miller scratched his head. “So do we have a good slot or not?”

  A strange, sickly feeling—exactly like the feeling I get after one of Grandma Dotty’s mac and cheese Tuesday specials—settled in the pit of my stomach. I had been banking on us getting an explanation once we got to the cafe. “Of course!” we’d say, as Sid explained why everything was still totally cool and we’d all laugh like this was one big misunderstanding. Ha-ha-ha-ha. But the reality was that the door to Gudonya was shut, the lights were off, and the nearest thing to a turmeric-latte-swilling hipster was Old Man Schultz coming out of the Piggly Wiggly down the block.

  I remembered I had a set of keys to the cafe and fished them out. I unlocked the door and pushed it open. It swung back with a long, slow spooky creak like we were walking into an abandoned castle. “Hello? Anyone here? Sid?”

  My voice bounced off the concrete floor and corrugated-tin ceiling. The hipster toy
rabbits nailed to the wall seemed to be laughing at me. If you’ve ever been laughed at by a hipster toy rabbit nailed to the wall, you’ll know that’s never a good experience. Creepy is what it is. Flat-out creepy.

  Niki headed behind the counter. “Looks like everything that could be taken is gone,” he said, waving an arm at the empty record racks, the space where the coffee machine used to be, and the missing cash register. I couldn’t blame Sid for leaving behind the creepy rabbits.

  Kasey jogged my elbow. “Look,” she said, pointing at Dingbat Wall—or what was left of it. It was empty. Every drawing had gone. Even the one of Hairy Harry. “It’s kind of a compliment.”

  “How do you figure?” I didn’t know what Kasey was talking about. A compliment?

  “He’s only taken things that are worth money,” she explained.

  Kasey might have been right, but it didn’t make me feel any better. With Sid lying about us being on the KRMY bill and Dingbat Wall disappearing, my chances of impressing Jeanne Galletta had gone from “pretty good” to “absolutely zero”. As if she knew what I was thinking, Kasey put her hand on my shoulder. I noticed Miller staring at her hand, so I patted it and moved away. With everything going wrong, I didn’t want to add a pounding to the list.

  “We need to find Sid,” Niki growled. He looked mad—like properly, steaming mad—and even though I wanted to see what Sid had to say, I was glad he wasn’t around right then. The last thing we needed was Niki slung in jail for doing something stupid.

  “Something tells me we’re not going to find old Sid,” Kasey said.

  Niki kicked a wastepaper basket across the shop floor, which I took as him agreeing with Kase. Leaving the others to pick their way through the rest of the cafe to see if Sid had left behind any clues to his whereabouts, I looked out of the window. It had started to rain and I let out a long sigh as I watched the raindrops spatter the dust on the glass.