by Dan Gutman
The other birthday present that Richard cherished came from his grandparents—a drum machine.
The Micro Rhythm Trak was a silver box no larger than a big piece of cake. It had twenty buttons on it. By pressing the buttons in different combinations, you could simulate virtually any drumbeat in any tempo, and create new ones as well. If you plugged the drum machine into an amplifier or decent set of speakers and closed your eyes, you would never know it wasn’t a real drummer playing. His grandparents bought the Micro Rhythm Trak on eBay for forty dollars.
Richard didn’t care about winning a Hummer. He didn’t even know what a Hummer was. At eight years old, being able to drive a car seemed like something that would happen in the next century. But the night he found out about the talent show, Richard went home and shut himself in his room. He climbed into bed with a pad and paper, took out his rhyming dictionary, and turned on the drum machine. He punched in a beat that felt right, nodded his head with the rhythm, and started brainstorming.
He thought about what had happened to the people of Cape Bluff, and what was going to happen next. When words started coming into his head, he scribbled them down on the pad as quickly as he could. The rhymes came fast. He only had to use the rhyming dictionary in a few cases. Sometimes the words just flow.
Once he had the basic structure of his rap down, he tinkered with it, changing a word here or there, crossing out lyrics that didn’t fit, and inserting replacements. He didn’t even notice that two hours flew by until his mother knocked on the door and told him it was bedtime.
“One minute, Mom!”
Richard looked at what he had written. There was always room for improvement, of course, but it was good. Really good. He read it one more time from start to finish, changing just a few words to make the syllables fit the beat perfectly. He turned off the drum machine and smiled.
He was going to blow them away at the auditions.
Chapter 10
The Kid’s Got Talent
Whether it was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or running a talent show, when Mary Marotta decided to do something, she did it right.
In the four days leading up to the Friday night auditions, Mrs. Marotta was a ball of energy. She put flyers up in the windows of every Cape Bluff store. She got in touch with Mr. Linn, the man who offered to donate his sound and lighting equipment. She had to make sure the custodian would be around to open the school on Friday. She had to make sure there would be enough hand sanitizer and toilet paper in the bathrooms. She had to deal with pushy parents who thought their amazing child was the second coming of Judy Garland. She had to deal with whiny third graders who couldn’t decide if they should sing “You Are My Sunshine” or “I’m A Little Teapot.” It seemed like there were a million details to nail down. She knew that if she didn’t do it, it wouldn’t get done.
Mrs. Marotta even found the time to write a letter to Justin Chanda in care of his lawyer in New York. It was a long shot, but maybe Cape Bluff’s most famous talent might be willing to come home and make a surprise appearance at the talent show for the sake of the town. It couldn’t hurt to ask.
After dinner on Friday, Mrs. Marotta dropped Elsie and Edward off at the babysitter’s house and drove to Cape Bluff Elementary School for the auditions. As she was parking her car on the blacktop, she noticed a group of boys shooting hoops on the old rusted backboard in the corner. She watched them for a minute, recognizing a sixth grader named Tyler Harvey who lived in her neighborhood. Sometimes he came around to rake leaves or shovel snow in order to earn money.
“Hey, Tyler,” Mrs. Marotta shouted, “are you and your friends going to audition for the talent show?”
“No, thanks, Mrs. Marotta,” he said, snickering for the benefit of the other boys.
“Talent shows are lame,” one of them said.
“Yeah,” said another. “That stuff is for girls.”
“No, it’s not,” said Mrs. Marotta. “Lots of guys are going to be participating.”
“Oh, yeah?” Tyler said. “Like who?”
Mrs. Marotta looked at the list on her clipboard.
“Paul Crichton and his band The BluffTones are going to be in it,” she said. “Then there’s Cutter Whitley, A. J. Campinha, Cole Roberts, Chris Flint. We’ve also got a rapper named Richard Ackoon and a singer named Aidan Baker. There will be lots of other boys too.”
“I’m not getting up on a stage and singing some stupid song,” one of the guys said.
“Me neither,” said another.
“You don’t have to sing,” Mrs. Marotta told them. “You can do anything you’d like.”
“No, thanks,” said Tyler. “We like to play ball. We don’t do put on shows.”
Mrs. Marotta shrugged, got her bag out of the trunk, and started walking toward the school. Then she stopped and turned around to look at Tyler again. He had a point. There were more girls auditioning for the show than boys. The show really needed some more guys in it, and more variety of acts too. Besides, she had a feeling that Tyler and his friends would really like to be part of the show, but they were embarrassed. Probably in their eyes, singing and dancing just weren’t cool. Or manly.
“What if I gave you guys costumes to wear?” she shouted to the boys.
“What kind of costumes?” Tyler asked.
“I know they have some gorilla suits backstage from the school play last year,” she told them. “Nobody will see your faces.”
“Gorillas are cool,” one of the boys said.
“And we don’t have to sing?” Tyler asked.
“No.”
“Do we have to dance?” asked Tyler.
“Nope,” Mrs. Marotta said. “Like I said, you can do whatever you want. You can be basketball-playing gorillas for all I care. Come on, it’ll be fun.”
“Well … okay,” Tyler said, “as long as we don’t have to sing or dance.”
Tyler and his friends followed Mrs. Marotta into the school. She told them where to find the gorilla suits in a closet backstage.
The multipurpose room was already filling up with children and parents who arrived early. Some kids were putting on costumes they had made or were lugging elaborate props they had built.
As more people arrived, the noise level gradually went up until it reached the point where you could accurately call it a commotion. Kids were running around like crazy, which is what kids tend to do when they’re unsupervised. Mrs. Marotta fully expected it. That’s why she brought a whistle and a bullhorn in her bag.
An ear-piercing whistle filled the room.
“Attention!” she bellowed into the bullhorn. “Quiet! Ah, that’s better. Everybody sit down, please!”
Everyone sat down. Mrs. Marotta wasn’t sure if it was because she had yelled at them or because they noticed that the panel of judges had arrived—Mayor Rettino, Principal Anderson, and Reverend Mercun. Honest Dave Gale had walked into the room too.
“Who’s gonna win my Hummer?” he asked everyone cheerfully.
Mrs. Marotta posted the list of acts on the wall and announced that she would call each act to the stage one at a time, so students should listen for their names. She also requested that everyone be quiet and respectful of the person on the stage. Performing in front of an audience was a very difficult thing to do, Mrs. Marotta told them. It took a lot of courage to get up on a stage and be judged by other people.
She called out for a boy named Jimmy, a quiet little third grader. He climbed up on the stage with a violin and played Beethoven’s “Violin Sonata Number 7 in C Minor.” It was obvious that he had been playing for years, and he received a nice round of applause from the kids and their parents in the audience.
“Very nice, Jimmy,” Mrs. Marotta said as the three judges gave him the thumbs-up and words of encouragement.
None of the kids knew this, but from the start Mrs. Marotta and Principal Anderson had agreed that the talent show would not be just like the popular TV show American Idol. There would be judges and a gra
nd prize—the Hummer—of course. But nobody would be rejected. Any child who wanted to could participate, no matter how awful their act was. Nobody would be criticized, poked fun at, humiliated, kicked off an island, voted out, or made to feel bad. The talent show was supposed to be a positive experience, not a negative one.
After Jimmy went back to his seat with his violin, a sixth-grade girl in a wheelchair sang an off-key version of “Under the Sea” from The Little Mermaid. She was followed by four cheerleaders who threw one another up in the air, a boy who played a lovely Chopin sonata on the piano, a trio of Irish step dancers, and two boys who did the old Abbott and Costello “Who’s on First?” routine. Or tried to, anyway, until they got confused and forgot the name of the third baseman (“I Don’t Know”).
“Very good,” Mrs. Marotta yelled into the bullhorn after each act had reached its two-minute time limit. Next!”
Some of the acts were very good. Elke Villa, as expected, was amazing. She sang “Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz, and a few of the grown-ups who were hanging around were all misty-eyed. The little third grader, Richard Ackoon, did what he called his “Cape Bluff Rap #1.” As he predicted, he blew the audience away.
Other acts weren’t quite as polished. A young juggler tried to keep three clubs spinning in the air, but he kept dropping them. A magician pulled a rabbit out of a hat, but it was obvious that the rabbit had been stashed in the box that was right under the hat. It was also obvious that the rabbit was a stuffed animal. A ventriloquist had a really lifelike dummy, but the dummy’s voice sounded just like the ventriloquist’s, whose mouth was moving.
Then there were the acts that were just plain weird.
A nerdy-looking boy named Ricky got up on stage. He didn’t have any props, instrument, or prerecorded music.
“What’s your talent, Ricky?” asked Mrs. Marotta. “You didn’t write it on the sign-up sheet.”
“I do impersonations,” he replied. “I will now do my impersonation of a piece of bacon frying.”
Ricky got down on the floor. First he started shaking. Then he slithered around the stage and slowly pulled his legs in to make it look like his body was shrinking. The whole time, he was making sizzling noises. It actually did look a little bit like bacon frying. The judges gave him a nice round of applause.
Next, a girl named Amy got on the stage holding a short stick and a ball of yarn.
“What’s your talent?” asked Mrs. Marotta.
“I am going to crochet,” she said.
“Did you say you’re going to play croquet?” asked Reverend Mercun in the front row.
“No, I’m going to crochet,” Amy repeated.
She sat down on a chair and started pulling loops of yarn through the other loops.
“It’s not the same as knitting,” Amy said as she worked. “You don’t use two needles, and only one loop is active at a time.”
The judges watched her for two minutes, and put their heads together to discuss things.
“I have to admit it,” said Mayor Rettino. “The kid’s got talent.”
“You’re in, Amy,” said Principal Anderson.
The next contestant, a boy named Eric, climbed up on the stage carrying a laptop computer.
“What’s your talent, Eric?” asked Mrs. Marotta.
“I’m going to do a PowerPoint presentation,” he announced.
The judges put their heads together to talk things over.
“I’m sure your PowerPoint is wonderful, but I’m not sure that it qualifies as a talent,” said Mayor Rettino.
“How come that girl before me was allowed to knit, but I can’t do my PowerPoint?” asked Eric.
“It wasn’t knitting!” Amy yelled from the back of the room. “It was crocheting!”
“We have to draw the line somewhere,” said Reverend Mercun. “We’re really sorry.”
“Fine!” Eric said, and he left in a huff.
While the other acts were performing at the front of the stage, The BluffTones were told to set up their drum set and other equipment. Paul Crichton gave a copy of the “Stacy’s Mom” lyrics to Mrs. Marotta, as required by the talent show rules.
“One … two … three … four!” Paul called out.
Stacy’s mom has got it going on.
Stacy’s mom has got it going on.
Stacy’s mom has got it going on.
Stacy’s mom has got it going on.
The band ran through the song without missing a note. All the kids, who had been fidgeting during the other acts, stopped and stared at The BluffTones. Toes were tapping. Heads were bobbing. By the second verse, some of the kids were up and dancing.
I know it might be wrong, but I’m in love with Stacy’s mom.
Paul hit the last chord and looked up. They had totally nailed it. Kids were clapping and whistling. The BluffTones took a deep bow. Clearly, Elke Villa had some competition on her hands.
The panel of judges—Mayor Rettino, Reverend Mercun, and Principal Anderson—had a brief whispered conversation.
“Excuse me,” Mayor Rettino said. “Will you boys come over here, please?”
Paul, Jim, Victor, and Rob put down their instruments and hopped off the stage confidently. They figured the judges were going to tell them how great they sounded. Reverend Mercun was looking at the lyric sheet to “Stacy’s Mom.”
“Guys,” Principal Anderson said, “you’re terrific, but I’m very sorry to tell you that you can’t sing that song in the talent show.”
“Why not?” Paul asked. “Is somebody else doing it?”
“No … ,” the principal said.
“I find that song to be … suggestive,” said Reverend Mercun.
“Huh?” Jim asked. “Suggestive of what?”
“Are you saying the song is dirty?” asked Paul.
“The singer is in love with his girlfriend’s mother,” explained the Reverend.
“Yeah, so?” asked Rob.
“Well, that’s inappropriate,” Reverend Mercun said.
“Are you kidding me?” Paul said, his voice rising. “It’s just a song. It’s funny.”
“So just because you think it’s dirty … ,” said Rob.
Victor shot them a look to get them to shut up. You don’t talk back to grown-ups. Especially when one of them is a reverend.
“We could play ‘Satisfaction,’” Jim said.
“The song by The Rolling Stones?” asked Reverend Mercun. “That’s suggestive too.”
“What’s suggestive about it?” Paul asked. “That’s ridiculous!
“How about ‘Wild Thing’?” asked Rob.
“That song is also quite suggestive,” said Reverend Mercun. “There must be something else you boys can play that wouldn’t offend anyone.”
“‘Stacy’s Mom’ won’t offend anyone!” Paul said. “It was a big hit. It was on the radio. It was in a Dr Pepper commercial!”
“Why don’t you fellows play ‘Wipeout’?” suggested Mayor Rettino. “I heard you played that at a birthday party recently. The kids loved it. And it doesn’t have any offensive lyrics.”
“It doesn’t have any lyrics at all!” Paul pointed out.
“We’re not playing ‘Wipeout,’” Victor said firmly. “Anybody can play ‘Wipeout.’”
“I’m terribly sorry,” Reverend Mercun told the boys, “but the talent show has to maintain certain standards of decency. There will be lots of parents and grandparents in the audience. I’m sure you understand.”
“I don’t understand!” Rob said.
“Come on, guys,” said Victor. “Let’s get out of here. We don’t need this.”
“Hang on,” Paul said. “Can we have a minute? Band meeting.”
The BluffTones went off to the side of the stage and huddled up like a football team.
“This is bull, man,” said Victor. “They can keep their stupid talent show. We don’t have to take this.”
“What are we supposed to do about it?” asked Jim.
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p; “What if we changed the words?” Rob suggested. “Like, ‘Stacy’s Mom is the bomb.’”
“That’s lame,” said Paul, “and it doesn’t have the right number of syllables, either.”
“‘Stacy’s Mom can really sing a psalm,’” said Victor, which made everybody crack up.
Paul took a minute to think things over. His dad had told him a lot about rock and roll history. He had learned one thing—nobody ever got famous in music by following the rules. They said a white guy couldn’t sing black music, and then Elvis came along. They said guitar groups were on the way out, and then The Beatles came along. They said you should treat your instruments with love and care, and The Who and Jimi Hendrix came along and destroyed them right on stage. They said rock music was dead and played out, and then along came punk, heavy metal, and rap.
The way to get famous, Paul decided, isn’t to do what you’re told. If you want to be famous, you break the rules and piss off the powers that be. Rock and roll is about freedom and rebellion. If he compromised now, when his career hadn’t even started yet, he would be compromising for the rest of his life. This was a moment of truth, a turning point.
So he came up with an idea.
“Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do,” Paul told the band. “We tell them we’ll play another song. Whatever they want to hear. ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat.’ I don’t care. Then, on the night of the talent show, we get up on stage and do ‘Stacy’s Mom.’ That will blow their minds!”
“We’re gonna get in trouble, Paul,” said Jim. “You know that, right?”
“Good,” Paul said. “Let’s get in trouble! Let’s be rebels.”
“Yeah, what are they gonna do?” asked Victor. “Suspend us?”
“Let ’em,” Paul said. “We’ll be rock and roll outlaws.”
“Okay,” Rob agreed, hesitantly. “I’m in. Let’s do it.”
The BluffTones broke their huddle and went back to talk with the judges.
“So what’s it going to be, boys?” asked Principal Anderson.
“Put us down for ‘Wipeout,’” Paul said.