Hector fist-bumps me. I stick my head out the side door to
make sure that my dad is going into the house, then slip back
to the workbench and twist the volume knob way down. “So
everybody is good to go on the twenty-fourth?”
“Count me out,” says Tim.
Damn! That’s right! He hasn’t been able to ride in the van
since we had the new engine put in, due to a rare french fry
allergy. Seriously, his doctor told him that the air inside a
veggie oil–powered van would be as toxic to him as the atmo-
sphere on Venus.
I guess Tim is one of those people who are just sensitive to
environmental pollutants.
Or, maybe not.
“Plus, I’m at level
nine in Shoot and Blow
Stuff Up II, so, yeah.
No. When I’m
not gagging
roaches, I’ll be
on the couch
wreaking havoc
with my Xbox.”
Respectful nods all around. Level nine is pretty awesome,
especially on SABSU II.
Okay, so Tim can’t go. That’s one down.
Hector messes with the tuners on his guitar and says,
I look at Pierce, and
he nods. Sure.
We’re set. All I have to do is maintain the whiny, victimized
attitude with my parents about having to drive my grandma’s
Pilates machine to her house. No problem. Whiny and victim-
ized are my default settings.
“Great,” I say, switching to my mastermind mode. “We’ll
eventually need to make a Costco run for provisions and
twenty gallons of canola oil. That’ll be insurance to get us
home, in case we can’t scrounge enough fries to squeeze into
the van’s tank.” I look down and notice a puddle of saliva form-
ing around my shoes.
I should know better than to mention Costco with Hector
in the room. The dude’s hungry most of the time, but once the
thought of those barrel-size containers of cashews and beef
jerky gets his salivary glands working, the only thing to do
is tie a beach towel around his neck and hit the warehouse. I
start looking around for a mop before Hector’s digestive juices
electrocute us all, when . . .
All of our band practices are closed sessions, so the only
people who know we’re here are my parents and the neighbors,
who always whine about the noise. I guess we’ve reached the
point where the complaints start before we even play a chord,
which I take as a huge compliment. Looking back at the guys,
I shrug and they shrug back. Then I take a deep breath and
open the door.
I don’t know about you, but when confronted by a group of
excited girls in cutoff jeans, I step back and listen. Resistance
is futile. D’ijon flaps her hands a few times and stifles a squeal.
“Okay, okay! You know the sucky public-service project we
got?”
“Sunscreen for Freckled Children,” explains Autumn.
Then Sara stamps her foot and yells, “I wish you guys would
stop calling it sucky! It’s a good cause!”
“All right, all right. I’m sorry again,” groans D’ijon. And
then she starts jumping up and down, re-excited. “Anyway,
we had this great idea that Goat Cheese Pizza could be the
spokesband for the cause!”
Deafening silence.
“You know . . . to really get attention for the fund-raiser
we’re putting together,” chimes Sara. “What do you think?”
The guys and I look at each other. Then Hector clears
his throat and says, “I think that we should go pick up those
cashews now.”
It’s hard to argue with that kind of logic, and I immediately
start to see the merits of the idea, thanks to the way Sara is
scratching my back. Tim rolls his eyes and turns to leave when
that’s going to work.
Okay, it’s working.
“And it would be so cool,” Sara says as her fingers trace the
outline of the knobby trail of my backbone, “if you could write
and record a song for the Freckled Children that we could
sell.”
“Like burning some CDs,” I say.
“Or posting an MP3 and asking for donations,” suggests
Hector.
Pierce runs over to his drum kit yelling, “No! No! Wait! I
got it!”
“Vinyl,” I repeat.
“A real record,” confirms Pierce. “We write a song, record
it, and have it pressed. We could even have the Goat Cheese
Pizza logo embedded in it! What could be cooler?”
That has to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.
But now it’s actually starting to sound better to me.
“Cutting a record would be kind of cool,” I say.
“Not just cool,” says Pierce. “Epic. Epically cool. Epicool.
And I know exactly how we can do it.” Then he lowers himself
onto the ground and herds Sara, Autumn, and D’ijon out of the
garage. “Come with me, girls.”
Hector and Tim look at me. There’s a long, awkward silence
as we try to figure out what we just agreed to do, and then I say
the only thing that comes to mind.
CHAPTER 5
n the three weeks and two days since I agreed to drive the
Pilates machine back to my grandma’s place, our plans and
I
supplies for the road trip have expanded like a marshmallow
Peep in a microwave. But the day is finally here and it feels
awesome. The girls don’t know it yet, but we’ve decided to
write and record the Freckled Children track on the road . . .
as if this trip wasn’t cool enough already!
Hector loads the last batch of snacks we’ve just picked
up from Costco into the van while I arrange them. And by
“arrange,” I mean jamming as much stuff as I can under the
stupid Pilates machine, which takes up most of the floor space
back here. He heaves a plastic barrel full of Red Vines up and
shoves it toward me. For empty calories, they weigh a ton. I
kick it into place against the dried meats and hot sauces just in
time. Nice. That and a couple of bungees should keep it from
overbalancing and smashing anything on the chips pallet,
which is strategically placed within easy reaching distance of
the driver’s seat. In fact, the whole van is a junk food paradise.
I predict that my mom will be changing the PIN on her ATM
card after this.
“Once we get the rest of the stuff in here, it’ll lock every-
thing in place snackwise,” I say, with no small amount of pride.
I learned to pack a vehicle from watching my dad get us ready
for family vacations. Nobody can cram more unnecessary
junk into a vehicle than my dad.
I’m just getting the cocktail weenies wedged between the
Skittles and the Roquefort-stuffed olives when I see Pierce
and Hector stick their heads in the door.
“What did I tell you?” says Hector to Pierce. “This should
get us there and back, no matter where we’re going.”
“Impressive,” says Pierce.
�
�Yeah, speaking of that,” I say, breaking the seal on the
Twizzlers. “Where are we going?”
Pierce sighs, reaches behind me for a chunk of beef jerky,
and settles in. “Sheboygan,” he announces through the pep-
pery meat chaw.
“You shouldn’t talk with your mouth full of dried beef,
because it sounded like you just said Sheboygan,” says
Hector.
“I did,” Pierce confirms, wiping the grease off his mouth
with one hand and pulling his phone out of his pocket with the
other. “Sheboygan via Kickstarter. It’s a beautiful plan. I have
it all worked out . . . observe:”
“Whoa,” says Hector.
“Agreed,” I say. “Where do I send the money?”
Pierce clicks out of the Kickstarter page and grins. “With
a little luck, this video is going to pay for veggie oil and any
expenses we’ll need to make this record. Anything left over
gets donated to the cause.”
“No offense, but Sheboygan seems kind of random,” I say,
tearing open a package of Funyuns.
Actually, that is kind of cool.
“But half price is still six hundred bucks, dude,” say Hector
as he taps on his maps app. “Plus, Sheboygan is four hundred
forty-one miles away. That’s about three hundred and fifty
bucks’ worth of french fry grease alone. Is the Kickstarter
going to make that much money?”
“I dunno. Maybe. Who cares?” Pierce shrugs. “We can use
my emergency credit card for expenses.”
I have two thoughts here: One, our drummer has actually
come up with a workable plan, and two, he has a credit card???
Pierce scrolls through the website, then stops. “The Kick-
starter has been live for twenty-seven minutes, and so far
we’ve raised . . .”
“That’s good, right?” he asks.
“Yeah. That’s, um, good,” Hector says, staring at me.
I look over Pierce’s shoulder and read something else.
“Plus some guy who owns a chicken wing joint in
Bloomington says he’ll give us eighty gallons of used veggie
oil for fuel.”
My dad has always told me that making money is a hard,
slow process, and he was right. That took part of an afternoon.
“So, are we ready?” Pierce has clicked out of the Kickstarter
site and is shoving a crate of some kind behind the Cheetos. I
look at Hector and he shrugs.
“Let’s do this,” he says, and I start the engine, which
drenches us in the sweet aroma of fast-food grease.
“Smells like independence,” I say, rolling the window down
anyway. Suddenly I’ve become aware of the overwhelming
smell of hand lotion and spearmint gum wafting in my direc-
tion. “Bye, Mom,” I say without even looking up. And slip the
van into reverse.
“And your Triple A card? Do you want me to make a list
of emergency phone numbers you can call, just in case?” My
mom is clinging to my window frame like it’s the last slow
dance at a junior high prom.
“Yes, Mom. No, Mom. Don’t worry, Mom. We’ll be fine.” I
mentally calculate the parental blowback I’d get if I just started
rolling up my window, but it’s pretty warm out, so I don’t.
“Did you bring enough clothes? It might rain.” Typical
Mom, always assuming that we’re still a bunch of immature
middle schoolers instead of responsible young adults. I con-
sider telling her how we each thought ahead and packed a pair
of clean boxers. Pierce even brought a toothbrush that we can
share if necessary, but she would probably find something to
criticize about that, too. Guys travel light. Given the choice
between three suitcases or fourteen liters of Mountain Dew,
the Mountain Dew wins.
“What about floss?”
“Mom . . .”
“You know how your father feels about dental hygiene.”
“I know. He’s an orthodontist. He can’t help it.”
“Do you have a map to Grandma’s condo?” I feel an invis-
ible leash tightening around my neck, but I keep my cool and
politely answer between pleasantly gritted teeth.
“I have her address in my contacts and a smart phone. I
could find her in a bunker, Mom.”
“How long do you think the trip will take?” I feel Hector
shift in his seat and Pierce’s eyebrow rings jingle softly as his
eyes roll upward. We’re sitting in the middle of the street now,
and it feels like the whole neighborhood is watching my mom
change my diaper or something.
“At this rate, about thirty-six hours. Mom, I’m fine! Now
just let us go, okay?”
“Well, be sure to call and tell Grandma when to expect you,
but—”
And then I hit the gas—well, veggie oil—and we are rolling.
Freedom! Hector reaches over and spins the volume knob
on the stereo, I hang my elbow out the window, and life is good
again. Sort of. What is it about not telling your parents the
whole truth that seems almost dishonest?
“If it makes you feel any better,” Hector says, “my mom
made me promise, like, ten times that I would stay out of trou-
ble and use my head. This is the first time I’ve gone anywhere
by myself! I don’t even know what my misbehavior options
are!”
It’s obvious that this trip is a totally cool thing to be doing,
but we need some witnesses if we’re going to get the full ben-
efit. What good is being cool if nobody is there to see it and
tell other people about it? So I hang a left and start cruising
down some streets where we’re likely to be seen by somebody
we know. A band survives on reputation and legend, and this
is the time to start building ours. No such luck.
We must have driven through half a dozen neighborhoods
and haven’t seen a single— Wait! Around the corner and about
halfway down the block I see Chelsea-from-My-Econ-Class
sitting on a towel in the grass. I hang a left and yell at Hector
and Pierce that I spotted somebody, which, as I’m doing it,
already seems like a mistake.
The words are barely out of my mouth before Hector is
practically in my lap and Pierce is trying to scramble over the
backseat. He plants a foot on the bottom case of Strawberry
Quik, and I hear it start to slide across the floor. “No! No! No!
That’s too much weight on this side! You guys back off!” In my
rearview mirror I can see the whole stack of drinks tilt left and
then start to fall. I slam on the brakes, but it’s too late. There’s
a small, surrendering groan from the suspension, and the last
thing I see is a slow-motion sideways view of Chelsea-from-
My-Econ-Class getting it all on video.
Well, that could have turned out better.
“Sara’s house is, like, a block from here,” I say as I start the
engine. “Let’s just swing past and say good-bye.”
“Mistake,” mumbles Pierce from the back, where he’s
restacking the tortilla tower that’s now more of a plateau. The
snack food avalanche smashed most of our chips, so we
’ll be
scooping bean dip and salsa by hand. It’s a major bummer, but
at least the guy in the back will have room to straighten his
legs now. Hector starts noodling with a melody (in a minor
key) on his guitar, and I pull off the curb as carefully as pos-
sible in order to avoid any further YouTube exposure of our
group lameness. Man, even the van seems bummed. When I
push on the accelerator, there’s less power than usual. In fact,
a LOT less power. Pierce cocks his head and listens.
“Sounds like a clog in the fuel line.”
“Yeah,” I agree without knowing why. And then the van
limps the last few yards to Sara’s house like a tree sloth with a
bad case of plantar fasciitis. Question: Could this trip get any
suckier?
Answer: What do you think?
Sara pokes me in the chest and says, “You know, we have
been busting our butts making posters and planning this
thing for weeks.”
“That’s right,” agrees D’ijon. “How’s that song coming?
Huh? We need that record in three days. Almost finished?”
“Almost started,” answers Pierce from deep inside the
engine compartment.
“You know, we could just do this thing without you. In fact,
it might be better if we did,” snaps Autumn in Pierce’s direc-
tion. Those two don’t really get along too well. She’s wound
pretty tight, and, as my mom would say, Pierce’s thread is
barely on the spool.
“Good suggestion, Autumn,” hollers Pierce.
“Thank you. Oh! And guess what? We just found out that
we have to use the school parking lot for the fund-raiser, so
there’s even more space to fill with people!”
This community service project is starting to lose its
appeal. All the guys and I wanted to do was to have a good
time recording a song while the girls did most of the work.