Puckers Up

by Mark Peter Hughes

  “Um … what’s going on?” I asked.

  “This just got delivered,” Clea informed me, barely hiding a smirk. “It’s addressed to you.”

  I still didn’t understand. I wasn’t expecting a package and, in any case, so what? What was the big deal? But Tim cleared up that mystery by contorting his face into a fourth-grade version of a suggestive leer and saying, “We think it’s from your boyfriend! Open it up, Stella! We want to see what it is!”

  His equally sophisticated twin, Andy, started making loud kissy noises, which triggered peals of laughter from his brother. Even Clea seemed to fight back a snicker.

  Now, by that time I was pretty much immune to their childish taunts, and anyway, I was too curious to care what they said. I ran to the box. There was no return address, but even before I recognized the familiar handwriting I noticed that the postmark said Lubbock, TX, which for me was evidence enough of who had sent it. My heart leapt.

  Rajeev!

  The package was big enough to hold a cocker spaniel but not heavy. I shook it a little. Nothing inside seemed to move.

  “Go on,” Clea urged. “What are you doing, savoring the moment? Open it.”

  So I did. I grabbed a pair of scissors from the kitchen drawer, and a few seconds later all four of us were staring eagerly into the darkness of the box as I peeled back the top flaps and saw what it was.

  A cowboy hat.

  Dusty black with a weathered look, a pinch-front crown and a wide brim, it was like something you might see on a lone-wolf drifter in an old western.

  There was also a handwritten note:

  Howdy, pardner,

  Please accept this token of esteem from me and the great state of Texas, where the sky goes on forever and the tumbleweeds drift free.

  Yours even across a great distance,

  —Rajeev

  I lifted the hat from the box and held it in front of me. It was by far the coolest thing I’d ever seen in my whole life. I sent out a silent thank-you to the boy I missed with a fiery passion, the one who seemed to know me so well it was scary. And then, for the first time ever, I placed that amazing hat on my head and felt its untamed power settle over me.

  Even my sister and stepbrothers were wowed into respectful silence.

  The world is a mysterious place.

  The very next night, with only two weeks before we had to return to school, when there was little reason to expect the summer would have anything else in store for us, my friends and I were hanging out listening to music in my basement when my phone rang. I almost hit the ceiling when I saw who it was.

  Sista Slash.

  Blunt and friendly as ever, Sista told us she was glad she’d reached us, and that she was sorry things hadn’t worked out for us at the festival. She added that things hadn’t worked out too well for her either. (Which we knew, of course, since it had been all over the news how she’d sunk a lot of her own money into that festival and had ended up losing it.)

  “Believe it or not, my blasted accountant is telling me I’m practically broke, at least on paper,” she said with a calmness I found hard to understand. “But that’s rock and roll for you. One day you’re soaring like a jet and the next day your engines burst into flames. No worries, though. I’ve been down once or twice before and I’ve always come back. No doubt I’ll do it again. In the meantime,” she said, “I have another idea, if you guys are interested.”

  While we crowded around the speakerphone, she explained that she’d decided to waste no time picking up the pieces and was getting right back into the game. If Sista Slash was anything, she was a survivor. She’d already scheduled a special end-of-summer engagement—three whirlwind evening gigs at a small club in her hometown of Sweetwater, Texas, where she’d gotten her start. Her plan was to record her next album there. She’d written more than a dozen new songs that she was going to record live in front of her most devoted fans, and a film crew was going to capture every onstage and offstage moment for a later video release.

  Sista was calling us, she said, because she wanted to know if Lemonade Mouth would be interested in doing it with her. She wanted us to be her opening act.

  “You kids are a perfect fit, and we’ve already seen how well you come off on camera,” she said. “It’s short notice again, I know, and the truth is I can’t fly you guys down, but if you can convince your parents to get you and your instruments to the Lone Star State somehow, I have a friend with a gigantic house that we can all stay in together for a few days—you guys plus your families, whoever you want to bring along.”

  My mom was with us too by then. She must have recognized the voice from upstairs, because she was at the top of the basement steps listening in.

  “Look,” Sista went on, sounding even more earnest through the speakerphone, “it may not be a megastadium or that Too Shy to Cry tour you guys were supposed to do, but it should bring you more exposure, and who knows, you might even get some useful recordings out of it, especially if you have new material. Either way, I promise it’ll be good food, great fun and at least a memorable way to end your summer. Think of it as an adventure. So what do you say?”

  For a few heartbeats nobody answered. Charlie was saucer-eyed, frozen in the middle of taking a bite from a slice of pizza. Wen and Mo looked like they’d lost the ability to talk.

  But it was Olivia who had my attention. When our eyes met, it was as if she was reading my thoughts.

  “I have a question,” I said into the phone, keeping my voice steady. “How far is Sweetwater from Lubbock?”

  “Oh, not so far. A couple hours by car, I guess. Why do you ask?”

  Olivia raised an eyebrow at me.

  Inside, my emotions were in such a whirl that for a few seconds I could hardly breathe. What seemed to be happening was too incredible to take in. Suddenly all the chaos of our lives, everything that had seemed so random and unfair, was falling smoothly into place, as if all along everything had always been pointing us in this direction.

  As if somehow this was meant to be.

  I have to admit, my friends, that at that moment I almost found myself believing in Olivia’s mysterious conductor. In my mind I could practically hear Lemonade Mouth’s train roaring forward, carrying us headlong down the tracks of destiny.

  OLIVIA

  Praying for a Moment

  Dear Naomi,

  Lives have a way of taking unexpected turns. Doors close, windows open, and who can predict any of it ahead of time?

  I remember the night we all sat around at Stella’s trying to figure out how the heck we were going to get to Texas for the first of Sista Slash’s three shows, which was only five days away. We’d called another War Room meeting—an emergency gathering of our families and closest friends. It wasn’t hard to convince everyone that this was a great opportunity and that we should grab it. The Banerjees, especially, were glad to have an excuse to fly to Texas, where they could also reconnect with Rajeev’s family after so many years. But not everybody could fly. Money was an issue, and besides, we needed to get not only ourselves but also our instruments down there. Just shipping Charlie’s drums would cost a fortune.

  It was Sydney who had the solution. “Wait a minute,” she said, “we still have Penelope, and she’s in good enough condition to make the trip, right?”

  “Well, sure,” Wen’s dad said, a little surprised. “She could definitely do it, I guess.…”

  “So there’s the answer. We postpone selling her. There’s plenty of space. We can just load up the equipment and drive.”

  Wen’s dad stared at her like he wasn’t sure she was serious.

  “But Sydney,” Wen jumped in, “we’re not talking about a ride around the block. The trip from here to Texas is … I don’t know … far. It’d be one heck of a long drive.”

  So we looked it up. The journey would take thirty-two hours—and that was without stopping to eat or sleep. Plus, there was the ride back home to consider. At first I thought the idea was nuts. But I no
ticed Wen’s dad was looking at Sydney again, and a smile was starting to spread across his lips.

  “You know,” he said, “in my twenties I drove across the country with my buddies a couple of times. I like road trips. If we split up the driving we could make it to Sweetwater in just a couple of days. They’d be long days but fun. An adventure.”

  “And on the way back,” Sydney added, “we could take our time and see part of the country. A mini-vacation.”

  Wen’s dad reached for her hand. “I like the sound of that.”

  “Me too,” Sydney said softly. For a weird second it seemed like maybe they were going to kiss. Wen must have thought so too, because he suddenly looked uncomfortable.

  But they didn’t. Not just then, anyway.

  After that the momentum started to build. First they asked who else wanted to come along. “With all the seats in, the van fits up to fifteen. If we rent a trailer for the luggage and equipment, then we’ll have space to reinstall however many seats we need. Who’s in? It’ll be an end-of-summer road trip to remember!”

  Next thing I knew, Brenda was accepting the invitation (which meant I was doing it too), saying she thought it could be fun. I had to admit that as crazy as it seemed at first, traveling in the van did solve a lot of problems. Then Charlie announced that he wanted to come, and his mother said she did too, and offered to share in the driving. Stella was in on it next. As each of my friends agreed to this, I was actually getting more excited about the idea.

  Mo was the last to say yes. “All that time on the highway?” she said. “I don’t think so. What on earth are we going to do for thirty-two whole hours?”

  But Stella already had the answer. “Didn’t you hear what Sista told us? She said we ought to have some new material to record down there. Well, we don’t—not yet, anyway. But answer me this, guys—how many new songs do you think the five of us can come up with in two days?”

  We looked around at each other.

  And that’s how it happened.

  In retrospect, it’s amazing how quickly everyone pulled their plans together. It felt like a dream, as if we were all swept up in the excitement of a crazy idea. But when I later wrote to my father about it, his take was that sometimes the biggest and best ideas arrive that way, from quick decisions made on the spur of the moment—even when meaningless choices, like what to eat for lunch, might take us ages to decide.

  So there we were on a Tuesday morning with our bags packed and Penelope all ready to go. On such short notice Wen’s dad had managed to find an enclosed trailer just big enough to fit Charlie’s drums and most of the luggage, but not everything. A few items still had to be strapped on top of the van. A cooler. Tents and sleeping bags, in case we wanted to camp. Some other odds and ends. We wrapped it all in weatherproof tarps, strapping the bundles to the giant plastic hot dog, which helped to secure it all and would also give some added protection from any bad weather. Wen and I stood on the sidewalk gaping at the sight. We were going to make quite an impression traveling down the highway, all nine of us in an ancient yellow bomber complete with a trailer, a bundled roof and the ends of an enormous plastic bun sticking out at either end.

  The morning was unseasonably cool. It felt like an early taste of fall. Even though we were setting out just after dawn, a small crowd came to see us off, including many of the same people who were going to fly down a day later to meet us in Texas: the Banerjees, Stella’s mother, Mrs. Reznik, Mr. Hirsh—and of course you and Lyle too. Scott and Liz brought bagels for everyone, which was nice of them. They’d also offered to stop by our house every day to check in on the cats. By then Daisy, our wild, troubled child, had taken to burying herself in a shady spot so only her head would show. At least she was leaving the other cats alone. Plus, she seemed content, so who was I to judge?

  As for my mother, I was already planning to send her a postcard from Memphis, where, according to her, she’d spent the happiest days of her life. A day or two earlier I’d received a note from her. She was doing better, she wrote, and she wanted me to know I had an open invitation to visit any time I liked.

  Ours was never going to be a perfect relationship. I realized that now. But at least she was trying.

  And so was I.

  Wen’s dad started the engine. He rang the bell and everybody waved and called out to each other as we pulled away. The next thing we knew, Stella was leaning back in her seat, her new cowboy hat (which had hardly left her head since it’d arrived) pulled forward so it partially covered her grinning face. She was already improvising a new uke riff, a progression with a vaguely country feel. Soon Charlie picked out a rhythm on a set of lap bongos. Mo joined in. Since there were only nine of us in the van (including Wen’s little brother, George), there was just enough extra space in the empty back row for her bass, as long as she played it at an angle. Wen added a melody. He’d brought along his trumpet mute, which was his idea, but no one objected since in that small space the volume might otherwise have driven us all nuts before we even reached Connecticut.

  In hindsight, of course, everyone knows that the music we created during that long, wild ride to Texas would end up being the key that opened the floodgates for us. Fate had more in store for my friends and me in Texas than anyone suspected, and our self-released “Sweetwater Unplugged” album would later become our first big international hit. I couldn’t have known that then, but I already sensed that this new music was different from anything we’d created before. Something about it felt like uncharted territory. A new and unexpected direction for us.

  And already my pulse was racing.

  Before joining in with vocals, I decided to let this sound, so familiar and yet unfamiliar, play out a while, allowing it space to explore possibilities and discover its own mysterious equilibrium. Wen gave me a look that said he understood. I put my hand on his shoulder. Outside the window, the world whizzed past, but my thoughts were focused on this giant new phase of my life that had just begun and was happening all around me. Even in the middle of a grand adventure it’s the little things that ground you to the moment and make you feel the most alive. For a long time I sat there taking it all in: The low rumble of the engine under the pulsing music. The glow of the rising sun against the glass. The smell of Mrs. Hirsh’s coffee. The softness of Wen’s shirt against my fingers. These were the things that mattered, the important details that pass you by if you don’t take the time to notice them. But I never wanted to lose this feeling. I wanted to keep it with me.

  I held my breath, closed my eyes, and prayed that this moment would never end.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Much help goes into the creation of a book. I’m grateful to the many people who gave me their support along the way, including Dr. Jean Brown, The Commando Writers (Michael A. Di Battista, Peter DiIanni, Scott Fitts, Geoffrey H. Goodwin and David A. Kelly), Susan Green, Shauna Leggat, Andy McNicol, Barbara O’Connor, Bhavini and Hemant Patel, Jenny Silberman, John Taxiarchis, Lauren Whitney and Janet Zade.

  Stephanie Lane Elliott, my editor and friend, deserves a special acknowledgment, as do all the good people at Random House who helped make this book happen, including Krista Vitola, Beverly Horowitz, Trish Parcell, Colleen Fellingham, Elizabeth Krych and others too numerous to list but whose efforts I truly appreciate.

  Thanks also go to Debra Martin Chase and Gaylyn Fraiche for leading the charge that brought the Lemonade Mouth revolution to an even wider audience.

  Finally, I wish to thank my children, Evan, Lucy and Zoe, for reading the various manuscript drafts and giving me their insights, and my wife, Karen, for her unwavering friendship and love.

  MARK PETER HUGHES is the author of such celebrated books as A Crack in the Sky; I Am the Wallpaper, a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age and a Book Sense Children’s Pick; and Lemonade Mouth, an ASTAL Rhode Island Book of the Year, a Bank Street College of Education Best Children’s Book of the Year (Outstanding Merit), and a Boston Authors Club Award Finalist. Lemonade Mouth was
also adapted into a Disney Channel Original Movie. Mark was born in Liverpool, England, and lives in Massachusetts, where he is currently sipping lemonade, strumming a ukulele, and preparing for the revolution. Join him at markpeterhughes.com.