by Martha Maker
“A can of coffee?” Bella looked confused.
“It’s empty,” her father said. “I thought it might make a good metal drum? You know, a waterproof one.”
“Awesome!” said Sam. “Do you have any other waterproof cans?”
Bella’s dad smiled. “Of course! I’m a chef, remember? I have tomato cans, jalapeño pepper cans, and olive oil drums, plus huge plastic containers from the restaurant supply store.”
Sam followed Mr. Diaz to the kitchen. When he returned, his arms were full. “These are going to be even better drums than the ones I made before!” he exclaimed.
Seeing Sam with the metal cans, Maddie suddenly had an idea.
“Mr. Diaz?” she asked. “Can I have the piece of metal that came off the roof?”
“What for?” asked Bella.
“Oh, you’ll see,” said Maddie mysteriously.
Chapter 7
Starting All Over
The next week was a busy one as the four friends struggled to repair and replace their damaged instruments. Bella was pleased to find a jumbo-size cereal box in the recycling bin, which made a better guitar body. She found more pasta boxes too. However, she ran into a new problem.
Boing! Boing!
“Ow!” said Sam. A rubber band had popped off Bella’s guitar and flown across the room, striking him on the elbow.
“Sorry!” said Bella. Twang! Another rubber band broke off her guitar. “I don’t know if I can make this work. These rubber bands keep popping off or breaking.”
“Have you tried using bigger ones?” asked Sam. “I can bring some in tomorrow. My dad has a whole bunch for rolling up his architectural drawings.”
“That would be great!”
“Meanwhile,” said Emily, “some of my shakers survived the rain, but listen.” She shook her bell shakers while the others listened. “I made the holes too close together, so the bells can’t jingle. Guess I’m going to have to start over after all.”
“I’m actually glad I had to make new drums,” said Sam. “Check this out.” He hit his drums in turn.
“They each have a different sound,” observed Emily.
“I know,” said Sam. “Before, they sounded the same because they were the same material. But these are different sizes and different materials. So now the beats make all sorts of sounds!”
“Maddie, when are you going to show us what your instrument is?” asked Bella.
Maddie was hunched over something, her back to her friends. They could see that she was tying a bow around the back of her neck.
“Now!” she said as she turned around.
Maddie was wearing the piece of corrugated metal that had come off the roof as if it were a long bib. It hung from a ribbon around her neck. She was holding a metal soup spoon and a wire whisk, which she proceeded to scrape up and down the zigzag surface of the metal, producing a really cool scratchy sound.
“Wow,” said Sam. “What is it?”
“It’s called a zydeco washboard,” announced Maddie. “My uncle Alvin lives in New Orleans. He plays one in a band. Emily helped me trim the sides and bend the top edge so it sits right on my shoulders.”
“I can’t believe it, but our instruments are even better than before!” said Bella. “I guess we have the rain to thank.”
“Rain, hard work, patience, and the best friends ever,” said Maddie, whisking her washboard with a flourish.
“I think it’s about time we start practicing!” suggested Emily.
After all, the talent show was in three days!
Chapter 8
Practice, Practice, Practice!
The next day the band members gathered at the Craft Clubhouse, ready to practice.
“Okay, why don’t we start with a simple song?” said Bella.
“How about ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’?” suggested Emily.
“Sure!” said Bella. And she started strumming her guitar. “And a one, and a two, and a three, let’s go!”
Emily joined in using her shakers and bells. Sam picked up the beat on his drums. And Maddie whisked along on her washboard.
When they got to the end of the song, the friends looked at each other.
“Not bad,” said Bella.
“But not great,” said Emily.
The friends tried a few other songs, but none of them were quite right. Then Bella had an idea.
“Maybe,” she said, “we should play something different. Like . . . our own song?”
“How would we do that?” asked Sam.
“Well, in my guitar lessons, we used to improvise sometimes,” Bella said. “Like this: Sam, drop a beat.”
Sam began tapping out a rhythm on his drums.
“Now I’m going to add my guitar.” Bella began strumming, paying attention to Sam’s beat but weaving in her own twangy notes.
“Maddie, you ready to jump in?” Bella asked.
Maddie nodded and began skritch-scratching away.
“Guessing that means it’s my turn,” said Emily, and she picked up two shakers so she could add two distinct sounds to the song they were forming.
Slowly, smiles came to all four faces.
“We sound . . . not bad!” said Bella. The others nodded in agreement.
“If we keep practicing, we’re going to sound great!” said Sam.
And so they practiced for the rest of the afternoon.
By the time Maddie’s, Emily’s, and Sam’s parents came to pick them up, the kids were exhausted.
As Maddie was walking out, she suddenly gasped and turned around. “Guys, we don’t have a band name!”
Chapter 9
Four Surprises
The day before the talent show, all of Mason Creek Elementary was buzzing with excitement.
To Emily, Maddie, Bella, and Sam, it felt like the longest school day ever. Finally the bell rang. The four friends grabbed their things and practically ran out of the school building.
“Hey, what’s that?” asked Emily, noticing Maddie was carrying an extra bag.
“It’s a surprise,” said Maddie mysteriously.
And when they all arrived at the craft studio, Maddie showed her friends what exactly was in that bag.
She pulled out four black T-shirts. Each one had a band member’s name scrawled on the back in silver fabric paint. Maddie had then decorated the backs with patches and buttons and designs out of multicolored threads. Each one was unique.
“These are so cool!” Emily exclaimed.
“But there’s one thing missing,” said Maddie. “There’s nothing on the front of the shirts because we haven’t picked a band name yet!”
“Fantastic Four?” threw out Sam.
“Craftastic Four?” Bella chimed in.
“What about Craftastic Crew?” Emily suggested.
At that suggestion, a smile spread across the face of each kid. That was it!
Maddie had brought her silver paint with her. She grabbed brushes from Sam’s Painting Pavilion and passed them around so everyone could add their new band name to the custom T-shirts.
“Hey, speaking of painting, I have a surprise too.” Sam pulled out a roll of paper from a long tube he had borrowed from his dad. He unrolled it to display a gorgeous painted backdrop for the band.
“That’s amazing, Sam!” said Emily.
“I left room for the band name,” Sam pointed out. “And I think I have some regular silver paint that would match the T-shirts perfectly!”
“I also have a surprise,” said Emily. She went to the back of the shed and pulled out a wooden storage crate to which she had added wheels and a handle. “This way we can bring our instruments into the auditorium more easily.”
“And I borrowed some extra microphones from the music room, plus speakers to rig them up to,” said Bella.
“Wow,” said Sam, admiring the shirts, the instruments, and the gear. “We make a pretty great team, don’t we?”
And it was true. They really did make a good team. But that team a
lso knew they needed just a little more practice.
Following Bella’s lead, the kids picked up their instruments and got in position. The talent show was the next night, so it was their last chance to get their sound just right!
Chapter 10
Rock On!
“Good evening! Welcome to the Mason Creek Elementary School talent show.”
Principal Park stood at the microphone, beaming. Bella, Maddie, Emily, and Sam waited backstage. They were surrounded by jugglers, gymnasts, singers, dancers, and other talented classmates.
Sam tapped his drumsticks nervously. He could hear the audience clapping and laughing as Lyle and Cory did their infamous pulling-a-frog-out-of-a-hat magic trick onstage.
“We’re next,” said Bella.
Suddenly Maddie gasped. “Where are my whisk and spoon?” she asked frantically.
Everyone searched about, but they were nowhere to be found.
“What am I going to do?” Maddie knew her washboard would work only if she had something to play it with. Meanwhile, the magic act was about to end and they would be going onstage soon! Maddie was close to tears. All that hard work only to have it ruined by a last-minute mix-up.
Bella, who had been digging through her backpack, pulled out two objects and held them out to Maddie. “Try using these instead!”
“Really?” asked Maddie.
Bella shrugged. “What do you have to lose?”
Before Maddie could reply, Lyle and Cory returned triumphantly and the friends heard Principal Park introducing the next act.
“I’m proud to introduce four students who are so creative, they don’t just make music. They make their own musical instruments, too! I present to you: the Craftastic Crew.”
The big moment had arrived. The four friends marched onstage and set up their instruments.
Sam looked at the others, gave a nod, and began to tap out a beat on his drums.
Tap, tap, tap-tap-tap.
Bella joined in, twanging away at her strings. Emily came in next, adding the rhythm of her various shakers to the mix.
Maddie took a deep breath. “Here goes nothing,” she whispered. Then she took the two Brushbots Bella had handed to her and scratched their stiff bristles tentatively across her washboard.
Scritcha-scritcha! Scritcha-scritcha!
The scratchy noise was perfect! Encouraged, she flipped the switches and the Brushbots sprang to life, scrubbing away. She moved them up and down on her washboard, producing a faster scratching sound than before, which sounded great.
Then the audience started clapping along!
It’s like a real jam session, thought Sam, drumming away excitedly.
The audience really likes our sound, thought Bella. She closed her eyes and imagined herself rocking out in a huge stadium.
When they finished playing, there was a brief moment of silence.
Then thunderous applause!
The friends could not stop grinning even after they were backstage.
“We did it!” said Bella, jumping up and down.
• • •
That night, even though it had been a long and exhausting day, Bella couldn’t seem to fall asleep. She picked up her homemade guitar and plucked its strings, remembering how it felt to perform in front of the whole school with her best friends. It was funny how they’d started with nothing, not even an idea. Then they’d lost everything to a leaky roof. But they didn’t give up. They had worked together and—Bella stood on her bed, strummed a chord, and struck a pose—the Craftastic Crew had totally rocked the talent show!
How to Make . . .
A Cereal Box Guitar
What you need:
Cereal box
Spaghetti box
Craft knife
Rubber bands
Glue
Corks
Straw
Paints and paintbrush
Step 1:
Paint the boxes any way you like!
Step 2:
Cut out a circle from one side of the cereal box.
Step 3:
Stretch the rubber bands over the middle of the cereal box.
Step 4:
Attach the spaghetti box to the cereal box with glue. This creates the guitar neck.
Step 5:
Draw or paint “strings” onto the neck.
Step 6:
Cut holes on the sides of the spaghetti box and insert corks for the pretend tuning keys. Use glue to keep these in place.
Step 7:
Below the hole on the cereal box, glue a straw underneath the rubber bands. This creates the bridge, which will help make a sound when you strum! Now rock on!
Here’s a sneak peek at the next Craftily Ever After book!
Maddie was just adding the final touches to her latest design sketch when a familiar, mouthwatering smell reached her. “Mmmmmmm! Dad’s pancakes!”
When she finished eating, she visited her mom in her sewing studio.
“Hi, sweetie,” said Margie Wilson, looking up from her sewing machine. “Do you have time to give me some feedback on my designs? I need someone with a critical eye and a passion for fashion.”
“Sure!” said Maddie. It was fun to have a mom who was a seamstress. Maddie thoughtfully studied several pencil sketches with swatches of fabric taped to them. “Hmmm . . . that dress would look amazing if you added some sequins to the hemline. And maybe using a brighter color, like coral, would make it pop—”
Just then Maddie’s dad burst in, holding out a phone.
“It’s him!” he whispered urgently.
About the Author
Martha Maker is a dedicated crafter who is always working on a project—or several! When she’s not writing books, you can often find her at her favorite community garden with her paint set. She lives in Washington, DC, with her family, which includes two kids, two dogs, and two guinea pigs.
Xindi Yan left behind a small city in China to realize her dream of being a published artist. Having always wanted to illustrate children’s books, she buried herself in countless books and drawings, collecting them even today. Xindi currently lives in Brooklyn with her husband and dreams about having a puppy in the near future.
Little Simon
Simon & Schuster
New York
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First Little Simon hardcover edition March 2018
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Designed by Laura Roode.
The text of this book was set in Caecilia.
Jacket illustrations by Xindi Yan
Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for this title from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-5344-0911-8 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-5344-0910-1 (pbk)
; ISBN 978-1-5344-0912-5 (eBook)