The Prom Goer's Interstellar Excursion (24 page)

Nobody was sure what to do about the piece of wood protruding from Skark's neck. There wasn't time to go to a hospital and still make the gig, but he clearly needed some sort of medical attention. Cad wanted to pull the stick out and see what happened, while Driver offered to use his thick hands to break it off at the base but leave the rest of it where it was, if only to make sure that Skark didn't accidentally hit it on something and push it in farther. Sophie was rolling her eyes at the scene, pointing out that it was
probably
better to skip the festival and get Skark the help he needed, but each time she repeated the suggestion, Skark shook his head. He wasn't missing Dondoozle.

Skark was sitting against the wall that Ferguson had bolted to the side to cover the hole, staring brokenly at the bald interior of the bus. Even the rugs were gone. The mobile opium den that I had encountered when I had first climbed aboard now resembled the kind of abandoned clunker where a hobo might hide from the rain. Skark touched the skin around the drumstick with his fingers and winced. He opened his mouth and tried to speak, but nothing came out but spittle and air.

We stood around, looking at him. Walter was next to me, banished to the closet no longer, contorting his body to pull the last bits of goop out of his fur with his teeth.

“What do you think we should do?” said Driver.

“I already solved one of your problems,” said Walter. “You're on your own for this one.”

“How did you
find
us?” said Cad.

Walter told us that he had been picked up by a couple of teenagers going to Dondoozle. When he had said he had also been going to the festival—against his will, but still going—the teenagers had asked who he wanted to see. Walter had replied that he didn't want to see anybody, and that he had been a prisoner of the Perfectly Reasonable.

The teenagers had never even
heard
of the Perfectly Reasonable, so they had looked up the band on their phones and spent several minutes mocking old promotional photographs of the group, dissecting song lyrics, and generally treating the band like the prehistoric oddity they considered it to be. Walter had joined in the fun, finally getting a chance to expunge himself of years of resentment.

“One of the band photographs had Ferguson in it,” said Walter. “I said to myself,
Huh, that's the guy I saw creeping around while I was staring out the window at the Dark Matter Foloptopus gig.
”

“You
saw
Ferguson?” said Driver. “Why didn't you tell us?”

“Why would I ever tell you
anything
?” said Walter. “That's when I put it together that Ferguson might have been the one who hijacked the bus, since Skark is talking about him all the time. The teens looked up where Ferguson lived on their phones and dropped me off. Simple as that. They set me down in the wrong spot, so I had to
swim
across that horrible lake, but I made it.”

“Why did you come back?” said Cad.

Walter nodded to me.

“Bennett was the first one in four years to pay attention to me,” said Walter. “He gave me grass. I figured I owed it to him to at least try.”

“So if it wasn't for Bennett—” said Cad.

“You would still be there, absolutely,” said Walter. “Forgive me, Sophie. I'm only talking about the band here. You seem sweet, and I don't mean to sound like I'd intentionally maroon you somewhere.”

“Don't worry, I wasn't taking it that way,” said Sophie.

“Ghack,”
said Skark. It was the first noise we'd heard him make.

“I'm willing to take that as a positive sign,” said Cad.

“As am I,” said Driver. “Skark, save your strength. Everybody think of ways to disguise that stick in his neck.”

“You could hang a white surrender flag from it,” said Sophie.

“Ghack ghack,”
said Skark, his distressed eyes momentarily flaming to life. Regardless of the woebegone nature of his situation, he was clearly insulted by the idea that someone thought he wouldn't find a way out of this.

I had to say, it was kind of admirable. As
unaccommodating
a presence as he had been my first few days on the bus, over the past twenty-four hours I'd come to like him. Stripped of his wine, his voice, and all his possessions, he still wanted to get to the gig and do his job.

He gripped the end of the drumstick and wiggled it around. I heard it squish.

“Relax, Skark,” said Cad.

But Skark did not relax. He gave the drumstick one more jiggle, then defiantly
yanked it out
, leaving a bottle-cap-sized hole in his throat.

“Oh my
God
,” said Sophie.

Skark might have looked somewhat human from the outside, but it was clear that his insides were nothing like ours—the tissue on the other side of his skin was white and had the consistency of Styrofoam. There was no blood, no fluid, no tendons, just
nothing
but a hole in his voice box. He looked like a smoker who'd had a tracheostomy but forgotten to ask for the speaking valve.

That said, his decision to pull the thing out seemed to have had little effect on his ability to talk—he was still making the same wheezing,
ghack
ing sounds, except now there was an unsightly neck crater as visual accompaniment to the gasping and croaking.

“You could have given a heads-up that you were going to do that,” said Cad, looking a little disturbed. “Kind of messed up.”

“Ghack,”
said Skark.

The band was in trouble.

The Dondoozle Festival took place on a largely abandoned, sod-covered planet in a remote galaxy known as Dnarp 229, which Cad informed me was considered a kind of galactic Wild West—if you killed somebody in a more civilized region and wanted to make sure you were never found, you came to Dnarp 229. Except for one weekend a year, that is.

Not only was Dondoozle the largest music festival in the universe, it was the only one that really mattered. A good performance here, and your name was on the tip of every in-the-know tongue in creation. A bad performance, and you never got invited back.

The fact that the Perfectly Reasonable had given a strong performance at the festival years before was the only reason
they were able to play Dondoozle again. They had been the headliners a decade earlier, when they had been in total command of their powers, and it was this magisterial performance that had catapulted them to the height of their stardom. At the time, they had been coming off
The Perfectly Reasonable Is in Your Kitchen and They're Hungry
, which was their biggest-selling album to date. Cad had just joined the group and had been burning for success. Driver had been in better physical condition, which had provided him greater power in his drumming. Skark had thought he was about to change the universe with his music.

But today, the fans at the festival were there to see anybody
but
the Perfectly Reasonable. They were the first band playing—always the least desirable time slot, because attendees were still arriving and wanted to check out the schedule, stretch their legs, and generally get settled. The only reason the band was being allowed to play at all was that the festival programmer was doing them a favor as a nod of respect to their triumphant gig years before. How big a favor was debatable, given the way they had been buried in the schedule.

The festival was located on a borderless stretch of flat, burned ground, and the lack of vegetation meant that it was possible to see the ten stages that had been set up, stretching all the way to the dead mountains on the horizon.

Due to the lack of cover, it was
hot
, and to stay cool the fans milling about wore little clothing, which made for a crash course in alien anatomy. Because of the nature of the
festival—bands from all over the universe coming to one place—it was
by far
the most diverse place I'd ever been. I saw wood-colored clouds disappearing from one side of the festival and materializing at the front of the lines at the busy beverage stands. I saw sheets of water whooshing through the crowd, avoiding overheated sand trolls that were trying to leap through them to cool off. I saw sentient chunks of asphalt rolling unsteadily along, and enthusiastic chairs walking about, carrying their girlfriends, who were also chairs, which was kind of cute. I saw lime-green shadows swooping down and snatching pretzels from the hands of patrons who actually looked like oversized pretzels, which made me wonder if some sort of cannibalism was going on. The grounds were crowded and the heat was oppressive, and yet everybody seemed to be in a jubilant mood—hugging, chatting, drinking, eating, comparing terrible tattoos.

But I saw all these things from a distance, because I was backstage, trying to help get the band ready for their performance. Driver was caking makeup on himself and Cad to cover the bruises, cuts, and signs of exhaustion they had accumulated over the previous couple of days—but no amount of makeup was going to bring back Skark's voice.

Skark was sitting in front of the vanity mirror, wheezing through his throat hole, willing his voice to come back. He was still going through the motions of getting ready, putting makeup on over his eyes while the rest of us stood around, unsure what we should be doing in the meantime. The Perfectly
Reasonable had made it to the festival, but they weren't going to be able to play.

A stage manager poked her head into the dressing room. She looked like a tote bag turned upside down—canvaslike skin propped on top of a pair of spindly legs, eyes in the middle of her body like two buttons.

“Fifteen minutes, guys,” she said. “You know, I don't normally interrupt bands as they're getting ready, but I'd just like to say I'm a longtime fan and I can't
wait
to see Skark in person. I hadn't heard anything about you guys in
years
—to be honest, I thought you were dead—and then I saw you on the bill. I figured it was a mistake, but the promoters said no, they're really playing. I couldn't believe it. Where have you been?”

Skark made a hacking sound:
“Ghack.”
Bits of phlegm escaped from his mouth, landing on the stage manager's headphones.

“Guess that's why you're never supposed to meet your heroes,” said the stage manager. “Fourteen minutes until showtime.” She hustled away.

Skark silently finished painting his customary stripe over his eyes. His jumpsuit was streaked in grime. I watched him open his mouth, wheeze, shake his head, and run his hands through his hair. I'd never seen him look so desperate.

“What are we going to do?” said Cad. “Push him out onstage and have him hack into a microphone? Who's going to sing?”

Skark leaned back in his chair, looking at the ceiling, gathering his thoughts. He pointed at me.

“Bennett doesn't know our songs,” said Driver.

Skark grabbed a tube of lipstick and wrote on the vanity mirror:

DO YOU HAVE A BETTER IDEA?

“I've never sung in public before,” I said.

Skark wrote again:

FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING

“Not to be a stickler for rules,” said Driver. “But
contractually
I don't think we can trot out a new lead singer when they're expecting
you
, our famous front man.”

Skark thought about this, then leaned forward and wrote on the sliver of mirror that was still clear:

DRESS HIM UP LIKE ME

HE'S ALREADY TALL AND WEIRD-LOOKING

“I can't sing like Skark…,” I said.

“If we say that you're slightly under the weather, I'm sure nobody will begrudge you a few high notes,” said Driver.

“I really don't think—”

Sophie grabbed my face and
squeezed.

“
The faster
you get out there and do this, the faster we get to prom,” she said. “Now be a man—or actually, be whatever the hell Skark is—and get out there and
sing.
”

Message received, but there was still something I wanted to mention to Sophie before I did this.

“I don't have a tux,” I said.

“What?”

“For prom. I don't have a tux. It's been weighing on my mind.”

“
We can worry about that
later
,” said Sophie. “Priorities, please.”

“Fine, I'll do it,” I said. Skark got up from his makeup chair and offered it to me. I sat down, and he began drawing a stripe across my eyes.

“This is such a bad idea,” I said.

Over the next ten minutes, Driver used foundation to make my skin the same pale hue as Skark's, while Skark completed the fetching metallic yellow stripe across my eyes. Sophie used a chemical solution from an on-site first-aid kit to dye my hair orange, then spiked it with some of Driver's spit, which had the stickiness and consistency of Elmer's glue and smelled a bit like sausage.

Skark removed his sweat-stained jumpsuit and filthy tiled jacket, stripping himself naked except for a Dondoozle Festival program he was holding over his nether regions. He offered the clothes to me in an unappealing wad, and I put them on. I gave him my scrubs; the pants ended halfway up his calves, like a pair of out-of-style capris.

We shoved pages of the festival program into his size-20 shoes to help them fit me more snugly, but the extra stuffing was little help. I have no idea how women walk in high heels—I felt like I might tip over in
any
direction at any time, and I had no idea where to put my weight.

Sophie and the band looked me over.

“It's actually not a bad style,” said Sophie. “If you'd done this in high school, you definitely would have gotten more attention.”

“Think it's enough for him to pass as Skark?” said Cad.

“If nobody comes to see us, it doesn't matter what he looks like,” said Driver.

Skark hacked a few times and shrugged. Apparently he thought the resemblance was good enough.

“Ladies and gentlemen…welcome to the Dondoozle Festival. And there is nobody we'd rather have starting us off than our next band, making their comeback. Please put your hands together for Dondoozle veterans and current one billion fiftieth greatest band in the universe…”

“When did we drop to one billion fifty?” said Cad.

“
Universal Beat
released new rankings last night,” said Driver. “I found out about it when we landed, but I didn't want to say anything.”

“…the Perfectly Reasonable!”

The band waited for applause to welcome them to the stage, but none came.

“The announcer and us are the only ones who know we're making our comeback,” said Cad.

Driver looked at me.

“Time for you to be a star,” he said.

Driver walked out onto the stage, followed by Cad, but when it was time for me to make my entrance, I couldn't move—my stomach was knotted and I could feel sweat cutting streaks through my makeup. I had never been onstage before.

On the back of my leg I felt a supportive hoof that nearly sent me toppling from my platform boots to the ground.

“You can do this,” said Walter.

From behind his drum kit, Driver was imploring me with his sticks to
come on.
I took a few steps…and then fell over into the base of the public-address system mounted at the front of the stage.

“Fantastic,” I heard Cad say.

I stumbled again as I tried to get up, nearly knocking over the drums this time, then tripped a third time, whereupon I decided to cut my losses and crawl across the stage to the microphone. I grabbed the stand, pulled myself to my feet, and straightened my guitar.

The positive thing about my botched entrance was that nobody was there to see it except Sophie, who had no
choice
but to watch us play and had—intimidatingly—positioned herself in the open field
directly
in front of the stage. The only festival-goers looking in our direction were a few by the food carts in the distance, killing time as they covered their hot dogs with ketchup or mustard or Minotaur blood or whatever it was that aliens used for condiments.

“Hello, Dondoozle,” I said into the microphone, my voice echoing over the empty lot in front of us. “I am Benn—I'm Skark Zelirium.”

I glanced over at Cad and saw him giving me a
hurry it up
gesture.

“All right. Okay. I'm doing it. It's great to be here.
One, two,
three, four
,” I said, because that's what confident rock stars did. Driver and Cad began playing behind me, shooting vibrations up my back…

…and I froze.

I couldn't remember a
note
of a Perfectly Reasonable song. I mean, I'd only
heard
the songs once or twice, and I had just the
vaguest
idea of the lyrics.

Cad stepped away from his microphone and walked over to me, plucking his bass.

“What the
hell
is going on?” he hissed.

I stared at him.

“Play,”
he said. “
Sing something.
We'll play over you—nobody will be able to tell the difference. What's wrong with you?”

I looked down at my guitar, then up at the vacant field in front of me. Sophie was still the only one there, imploring me to get it together.

“Come
on
!” she yelled.

The stage manager motioned me on from the side of the stage, waving her tote-bag tendrils around to show her concern.