VIP: I'm With the Band

by Jen Calonita

  “Hungry?” Zander asked with a smile. “We have tons of cereal if you want me to pour you a bowl before school starts.”

  Zander was going to make ME breakfast? Maybe he really had forgotten about the Roaring Dragon Nightmare!

  “You’re welcome to my private stash of Froot Loops, but be warned, I’ve, um, picked out all the Froot Loops that are the color—”

  “Green, I know,” I couldn’t help but interrupt. Zander looked at me curiously. “I’m… sort of… a big fan.” And now I was blushing.

  “Really?” Was it my imagination, or did Zander just move closer? “What else do you know about me? I mean us—the band?” Jilly cleared her throat. I ignored her.

  The words came flying out of my mouth before I could stop them. “Well, your favorite number is five, like mine, and you hate escalators, so I’ve sort of stopped using them myself. You hate green food, and you started singing when you were sixteen months old and fell in love with the show Monster Rock. You were singing at weddings by the time you were eight and had an agent by the time you were eleven and then were discovered by Briggs. The rest is history.”

  Zander smiled. “Wow, I had no idea you were such a fan.”

  MELTING!

  “Okay, everyone, let’s get to work!” Krissy said, interrupting my first good Zander moment. The two of us walked over to the table where Jilly, Kyle, and Heath were waiting. Heath seemed to be making spitballs. Zander took a seat next to him, and I slid into the only one left, next to Kyle. He gave me a little wave.

  “Heathcliff, those aren’t what I think they are, are they?” Krissy asked, her voice sounding way less mousy and sweet.

  “No, Krissy!” Heath sang. “I’m working on that solar system project you gave me that is due this week.” He smiled innocently and held up a small paper ball. “This is, um, Mars.”

  “Oh, good,” Krissy said, relieved. “I don’t want to walk off this bus with any notes or spitballs stuck to me again.” Heath tried to suppress his laughter. “Now, if you’ll all turn to your current social studies assignment and begin reading the next chapter, I’ll help Mackenzie settle in.” Zander yawned, and the others stared at Krissy blankly. “Textbooks! Now!” she said forcefully, and everyone began opening books. Krissy trained her big brown eyes at me. “Now, Mackenzie, your teacher tells me that you were studying the American Revolution, so I’d like you to start reading the chapter on the 1765 Stamp Act. You’ll find that working with a teacher on the road requires much more independent learning, but the benefit is that you will become more self-reliant and that will help you…”

  I tuned out and nodded as if I understood completely. What exactly did she mean by “self-reliant”? As in get my homework done on my own? Because I did that already. My mom didn’t get home most days till almost seven. Did she mean “self-reliant” as in choose my own subjects to study? Because if she meant that, I was going to concentrate on art and get this first Mac Attack comic book done in no time!

  “Since we’re going to be on the road for most of the day, I’ve decided to work straight through our three-hour block and finish up before lunch,” Krissy said, holding on to the kitchen counter as the bus started to move.

  Everyone groaned.

  “Three whole hours?” Heath whined. “Usually we work a half hour and take a break.”

  “I was in the middle of writing a song,” Kyle spoke up. “If I wait three hours to finish it, I’m going to forget what I was writing about. Could I maybe get an hour break? Just this once?”

  “No way!” Zander piped up. “Kyle isn’t the only one who should get a free pass. I should, too! Piper and I are supposed to go over a list of radio stations we’re trying to get to do interviews. Remember how I wanted to mention you on your hometown station, Krissy?” I saw our teacher start to blush. “Well, how am I going to do that if I miss the meeting on radio stations? You know I’ll make up the time later today. Please? I’m good for it.” The other boys started talking over each other, and Jilly said something about life experience on the road trumping schoolwork.

  Everyone was huffing and puffing and sighing and whining, and all I could think was:

  THERE ARE ONLY THREE HOURS OF SCHOOL A DAY?

  I was used to six plus! Three hours sounded like heaven, but I wasn’t about to break from the pack and say this out loud.

  “I don’t want to hear another word about it,” Krissy said tightly, “especially since no one came to see me in Orlando during my extra-help hours at the hotel.” There were more sighs. “Now please start reading your assignments.” The bus hit a bump, and I slid into Kyle.

  “Sorry,” I said sheepishly, and then I had a horrible thought. Did I brush my teeth this morning? Oh my God, I had been talking to Zander, and I probably had sleep mouth! I had to get some toothpaste STAT. The guys must have some. My arm shot up. “May I be excused to go to the bathroom?”

  Everyone laughed. “This isn’t a classroom.” Zander gave me a big smile. “When you gotta go, go!”

  “Bathroom breaks are the only acceptable breaks,” Krissy agreed. “I need to make a call, but I’ll be back to check on all of you soon.” She headed to the front of the bus, and I went to the back. Our buses seemed to be set up the same, so I figured the bathroom would be just beyond the bunk beds.

  Bunk beds that belonged to Perfect Storm! I didn’t think it would hurt if I took a quick peek.

  I pulled back the first curtain. I knew immediately it was Zander’s bed. We both sleep on the top bunk! That has to be a sign. Zander had a down comforter, fluffy pillows, pictures of himself with fellow celebrities, and a cutout of his face on a cereal box from Japan (the band is already huge there).

  There was also a big picture of him holding a Grammy, which the guys haven’t won yet, and above it he’d written, “If you can believe it, you can achieve it.” Zander is so dedicated.

  The bunk below Zander’s was super neat, and there were only a few pictures on the wall. It was Kyle’s—there was a picture of him smiling with his family, a postcard of a London double-decker bus, a photo of a cute little white dog with a pirate patch covering its left eye, and some lyrics pinned up to a corkboard. He really writes a lot!

  When I heard Krissy reprimanding the group for a spitball attack, I knew I’d better hurry up. I quickly glanced at the third bunk and tried not to laugh when I saw how messy it was. The bed wasn’t made, there were dirty socks and shirts piled in a corner along with Heath’s fake tattoo sleeves, and Marvel superhero pictures were taped to the wall. As I closed the curtain, I noticed a Tigger stuffed animal peeking out from the messy sheets. I couldn’t believe a guy like Heath slept with such a cute stuffed animal!

  I had guessed right about the bathroom having toothpaste, so I brushed the best I could with my finger. But as I was leaving, I spotted a sign a little farther toward the back of the bus that said MUSICAL GENIUS IN PROGRESS. The guys’ bus jam room! I’d seen it in their videos, and now I was thisclose to standing inside it. I looked up front again. I didn’t think anyone would notice if I was gone just a little longer. After all, I was doing some independent learning about the band! I slipped inside and shut the door behind me.

  “What are you doing in here?” Mikey G. asked as he jumped up from his seat on a tiny stool and fumbled with the remote to the flat-screen TV. As he moved around, notebooks fell off chairs, a guitar tipped over, and I caught a microphone stand about to tumble.

  “I-I-I,” I stuttered, staring at menacing Mikey G. He had to be about three hundred pounds of pure muscle. He was wearing a white tee that said DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS and jean shorts.

  “This room is off limits!” I was afraid he was going to pop a blood vessel, he looked so upset. He kept pressing buttons, but the TV wouldn’t shut off. I was about to apologize when I saw what he was watching.

  “Hey, is that Life After Life?” I asked excitedly. “My mom and I love that show!” Mikey G.’s face went blank. “I’m obsessed with Crystal. She’s so diabolical, you know
? And Patrick Hamilton is so mean, I’m not sure if I want to hit him or take him to my middle school to scare all my teachers. Did you watch Friday’s show? I could not believe it when—”

  “That’s just it!” Mikey G. interrupted. “That’s the only episode that didn’t tape, and you know the Friday show is always the cliff-hanger.” I nodded sympathetically. “I can’t wait till Monday for the recap.” He started hitting remote buttons again. “The guys probably erased it as a practical joke, and when I figure out which one did it, he’s dead.”

  I did not want Zander dying over a soap opera. “I could tell you what happened if you want.” Mikey G. seemed interested, and when I say “interested,” I mean he wasn’t yelling, so I continued. “Let’s just say someone’s mother is no mother at all. She’s Judith from the insane asylum, and she had surgery to change her face to Carla’s!”

  “No!” Mikey G.’s jaw dropped. “But Judith’s car went over that cliff three weeks ago!”

  “They never found the body,” I said. “Marlee patched her up. She has a medical degree.”

  “Thanks for the recap.” His eyes narrowed again. “Just don’t tell anyone about this, okay? The boys know, but if it got out publicly, it could ruin my bodyguard cred.”

  Mikey G. could be scary when he wanted to be, but I had a feeling he was secretly a teddy bear. At least I hoped so. “Your secret is safe with me.”

  He smiled, revealing a gold tooth. “Good. Now get out of here!”

  I hurried out the door again and made my way back toward the kitchen. Krissy was still on the phone, and everyone else was pretending to read but secretly doing something else.

  “Did you get lost?” Heath asked, and they all looked up.

  My hands felt clammy. They knew I was snooping! “Mikey G. was in the bathroom, so I had to wait,” I lied.

  “Geez, you’re lucky—or not so lucky—the mate wasn’t in there for an hour,” Kyle told me. “He likes to read Personal Detail Monthly in there.”

  “Don’t worry, Mac,” Jilly assured me. “We don’t usually have school for three hours in a row. Sometimes we have school an hour in the morning and then two hours later in the day.”

  “One time we had school at a McDonald’s rest stop,” Zander said, sounding amazed himself. “I wrote a personal essay on their fries: ‘Deadly but Delicious.’ Krissy gave me a B.”

  “So you can basically study whatever you want?” I asked excitedly.

  “Well, no,” Kyle spoke up. “At least I can’t. I’ve got a different set of books than the others.” He held up a history textbook with Big Ben on it. “But I think as long as you hit all your study requirements, you get credit. Krissy picks what we work on each day. She stays on top of our schooling and talks to our parents, or in my case, my older brother.” I’d seen Kyle’s brother around. Jilly had explained he was the only band member who didn’t have his parents with him. Kyle’s parents work at a university and couldn’t get away.

  “Krissy is on the tour full-time,” Jilly explained. “It’s the law that she be with us whether we’re in school that day or not. She’s got to work with us on independent study until we’re sixteen and can take our GED or choose to keep studying on our own.”

  “See what I’m stuck with?” Heath slid over his textbook, which was open to a page on Pearl Harbor. “I asked if I could watch the movie and write a report, but she said no. How am I going to summarize a whole attack from a boring textbook?”

  “My great-granddad was at the attack on Pearl Harbor,” I told Heath, and all the guys looked at me in awe. “I did a paper on my great-granddad in January, and I think I got it back before we left. Maybe it’s still in here.” I looked through the folders Mom had brought from home. I saw the bright-red A staring from the pile and pulled the paper out triumphantly. “Here you go!”

  Heath leaned over the table to high-five me before snatching the paper. “You’re all right, Cap!” He pointed to the Captain America shield on my T-shirt and then to his own Hulk T-shirt, which said HULK SMASH.

  Krissy cleared her throat, and everyone got quiet again. That’s when I noticed the sticky note on top of the chapter I was supposed to read. “Write a report on the Stamp Act by this Wednesday!!!!!” it said with five exclamation marks. Gee, you’d think a teacher would use better grammar. Wednesday meant I had only four days. I groaned, and everyone looked up. “Krissy gave me four days to write my first paper, and it’s on the Stamp Act from before the Revolutionary War.”

  “Maybe one of the big, bad Brits you Americans broke away from can help,” Kyle joked.

  “Oh, I…,” I started to mumble. Kyle was offering to help me? I glanced at Zander. He had tuned out of this conversation and was doing work again.

  “My studies are pretty light this week,” Kyle continued. “Don’t tell Krissy I said that.” He smiled at me, and I noticed how white his teeth were. “And I like writing. Papers are my favorite things to work on.”

  “‘Papers are my favorite things to work on,’” Heath mimicked, and Zander threw a paper airplane at Kyle’s head. They really acted like brothers.

  “SHHHH!” Jilly hushed them, looking warily at Krissy.

  “If you let me finish up this song I’m working on for a bit, we’ll do ‘independent study’ and work on your paper together after,” Kyle suggested.

  “Okay,” I said, pleasantly surprised. “That would be great. Thanks.”

  Kyle pulled out his notebook. I noticed there were song lyrics all over it. His book looked a lot like my journal—minus the artwork. I took out one of my notebooks that didn’t have PS pictures drawn all over it. This one had a drawing of Cody, the dog next door.

  “Brilliant!” Kyle pulled my notebook to him before I could stop him. “You drew that?”

  “Mac is an incredible artist,” Jilly said proudly.

  Zander glanced at the book and smiled at me. “Ever draw a picture of the band or me?”

  I started to giggle nervously. I mean, Zander was staring right at me!

  Then Kyle hit Zander on the head with one of his notebooks. “Oi, mate! She drew us those T-shirts back in New York! Remember?”

  “Oh yeah,” Zander said, looking at me blankly. “Right… I think so.”

  Krissy cleared her throat again, but this time it sounded like a bullhorn. Some mouse she was turning out to be. All eyes went back on their books—except mine.

  I looked around the table at everyone pretending to read as the countryside flew by. Jilly was whispering to Heath, and Zander kept stopping what he was doing to scribble on Kyle’s book. In just a few minutes Heath had a fresh pile of spitballs ready. I smiled.

  I had a feeling going to school on the road with these guys was going to be fun.

  Monday, February 29

  LOCATION: Tour Stop #3—Nashville, Tennessee

  We survived our big three hours of school on Sunday, then the rest of the day took a major left turn. Hours before we were scheduled to be in Nashville, we got a call from the other bus. Briggs said the boys needed to do a last-minute radio interview with a Nashville station that was getting hundreds of requests a day for “I Feel Blue.” They’d have to go straight from the radio station to the Grand Ole Opry that night to perform with Lemon Ade, but Mom said it was worth it. Wave One’s app had calculated that thousands of people had already created Perfect Storm stations since Zander pulled Lola onstage in Orlando, and the boys’ social media follower totals were continuing to climb.

  Score: Lola 1, me 0.

  It was a hectic Sunday night, but the good news was that Lola didn’t make it to Nashville! And we’re staying here till Thursday, which means I’ll actually be able to sleep in the same bed for more than two nights in a row! We even had today off just to chill out and sightsee (after schoolwork, of course), and Mom promised we’d check out the life-size replica of the Parthenon at Centennial Park. Jilly told us there’s an art museum inside it and a forty-two-foot statue of Athena with a six-foot replica of Nike in her right palm.
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  The bad news was that Jilly couldn’t stay in Nashville to sightsee with us. She flew out for her stepbrother’s birthday this morning and will meet up with us again in San Antonio, Texas. Thankfully, I have Mikey G. around to keep me company while Mom does tour manager stuff. Mikey G. texted me (I have his cell number!) that he read Peaches and Raul are getting back together on Life After Life this week. We even made plans to watch it together!

  For a few days I’m the only girl on the road with PS (well, if you don’t count my mom). This is the perfect time for me to get Zander’s attention. If I was ultracool like Mac Attack, I’d know what to do. Unfortunately, I’m anything but cool. As evidence may I present the Roaring Dragon Nightmare.

  So when I saw a tweet that Zander posted this morning about how he couldn’t sleep in Nashville and was up early, I jumped out of the comfy hotel bed, got dressed, and began pacing the hallway, hoping to bump into him. The hotel hall was quiet. To get to our floor, you have to have a special room key. That key also gives us access to a rooftop restaurant and room service menu. Zander and I are sleeping seven rooms apart—not that I’m counting—so it wasn’t hard to keep an eye on his door. I was hoping I’d run into him and he’d say: “Mac, what are you doing today?” And I’d say, “Sightseeing. Want to come?” and then we’d see Nashville together and talk about our love of the Caribbean.