by Lisa Yee
But all Harley could hear was the sounds of the animals.
“Good food. Lots of space. Great acoustics.” Harley began. She looked up at the ceiling as she kept repeating herself. “Good food. Lots of space. Great acoustics. Good food. Lots of space. Great acoustics.” Suddenly, Harley leapt to her feet. “I got it! I know where we should hold the Battle of the Bands!”
Steve tiptoed around the rat traps and brought the teens another pie. But instead of a pizza pie, it was an apple pie. “It’s made from locally grown apples from Poison Ivy’s garden,” he said. “Dig in, it’s fresh out of the oven.”
Steve noticed Harley staring at him…very intently.
“Um, is there anything else I can do for you?” he asked.
“You betcha!” Harley said. “You can host my Battle of the Bands here!”
“I don’t understand,” Steve said. “Here?”
“Here!” said Harley. “You have good food. Lots of space. It’s perfect!”
“It is perfect,” Wonder Woman chimed in. “We can transform your parking lot and that area where the animals are into an arena….”
“And the café can provide food stands,” Katana explained, “and the Supers will help man them. But you can be in charge of the menu, Steve!”
“And your acoustics are awesome,” Harley said. She raised her hand and yelled, “Shhh! Everyone be quiet!”
All were silent as they listened to the sound of a green hippopotamus mumbling about needing ice cream.
“What’s going on here?” the green hippo said.
“Beast Boy,” Harley enthused. “Tell Steve here that Capes and Cowls would be the perfect venue for BOB.”
“What she said,” Beast Boy said, turning back into a boy.
“Think of the publicity!” Harley added.
“I don’t know,” Steve said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “It’s a pretty big deal, the Battle of the Bands. Everyone will be watching.”
“Exactly!” Harley said, nodding.
The girls agreed: The café would be just the place. It was centrally located and had everything they were looking for. Plus, the BOB wasn’t until after the animals were to be relocated to the zoo’s wildlife area.
Just then, the bell on the door signaled another customer. “It’s Pied Piper!” Katana said. “Hello!”
The music teacher had been working with the Supers and teachers who had entered the contest, and everyone couldn’t help but adore him. Walk past his music room at any hour of the day and you could hear The Flash breaking up more sets of bongos than he was willing to admit, and the retro-rock sounds of Teacher Teacher with Liberty Belle singing lead and backed up by Doc Magnus on the synthesizer and Red Tornado on the electric guitar. And no one could ignore—or stand—the vivacious vocal stylings of Beast Boy.
“Pied Piper is the best!” Harley was saying as she watched him nodding his head to the music playing on the jukebox.
“Yes, and he’s deaf and uses that to his advantage,” Katana added.
Harley raised her eyebrows.
Pied Piper waved at the girls as he picked up his to-go order and left.
“Deaf? No way!” Harley insisted. “But he’s the music teacher!”
“And an incredible one,” Katana added. “Pied Piper can feel the music in a much more powerful way than the rest of us. Plus, the rumor is that he can read lips so well the government has used him as a spy since he also understands several languages!”
“How did I miss that?” Harley asked.
“You’ve been busy,” Katana said. “Harley, sometimes you’re so busy you don’t notice what’s happening around you, or even have time to spend with your friends.”
Wonder Woman nodded. “It’s true!”
Harley wondered if her friends were trying to tell her something. She made a note to talk to them about it, when she had more time. Then she burst out laughing. Like, when am I ever going to have more time? she asked herself.
There were so many students clogging the corridors that Principal Waller asked the head hall monitor to add extra hours.
“Keep it moving,” Hawkgirl said as she flew up and down the flight lanes that flanked the walkways. “Nothing to see here!”
“But everything to listen to,” quipped Harley as she stood outside the music room. “It’s sounding great in there.”
She was right. Pied Piper had helped whip the musical acts into shape. Many of them had been good, but under his direction, now they were great.
“Less feedback on the keyboard amp!”
“Your falsetto is sounding false!”
“Love the harmony, keep it up!”
“Dueling pianos, I want more ritardando!”
The only time the competitors weren’t listening to him was when they were arguing among themselves.
“As lead singer, I should be able to pick the song,” Liberty Belle was saying to Red Tornado.
“Well, it better have a great acoustic guitar solo,” he countered.
“Cheetah, could you do your warm-ups over there?” The Flash asked as he broke another pair of bongos. “You’re distracting me.”
“No, you move,” she said, raising her voice.
“Miss Martian? Miss Martian, are you with us?” asked Poison Ivy.
“I’m here,” the shy invisible alien said quietly as a cello made its way across the room.
“I could stand here listening all day,” said Harley as she looked in from the doorway and waved to her friends.
“And I could write you up,” Hawkgirl said good-naturedly. “Anyway, shouldn’t you be working on that assignment for Fox’s class? It’s due tomorrow.”
Harley tried to hide her surprise. “Oh! It’s due tomorrow? Good thing I’m almost done. Um. Could you remind me just what we’re supposed to do?”
The truth was, Harley was so busy with Battle of the Bands that her schoolwork had begun to slip. And so had her time with her friends, and most everything else. On the plus side, her viewership was rising at a rocket’s pace. BOB updates were rotated at regular intervals, and then viewers stayed for Harley’s exclusive Super Hero High gossip clips and laughed along to reruns of “Super Heroes’ Super Blunders.”
Luckily, Harley’s team of BOB volunteer judges had winnowed the thousands of auditions down to the final fifty. Harley herself would pick the top ten, but she was having trouble deciding. Every audition sounded like a winner, and she had difficulty rejecting anyone because that might make them sad.
“Please pass your assignments to the front of the class,” Mr. Fox said. “I am looking forward to reading these. As a preview, we will go around the room and each of you will provide a one-sentence summary of your report. Ms. Quinn, we’ll start with you.”
Harley gulped and looked desperately at Miss Martian, trying to get her attention. Read my mind, Miss Martian! Read my mind, and tell me what to say! Harley had her eyes screwed shut and was thinking hard. Whisper what the assignment was and what I should say!
“Harley, are you okay?” Mr. Fox’s brows were knit together as he scrutinized her face.
Harley unscrewed her eyes. She looked at Miss Martian, who refused to meet her gaze. “Yes, sir, Mr. Fox, sir!” Harley said.
“And your sentence would be…?” he prodded.
“Well, my report is about all that stuff that is so important and that we need to know about and that we were supposed to write about. And that’s what my report is about!” she said.
“Please stay after class, Ms. Quinn,” Lucius Fox said. “Now, Wonder Woman, please put your hand down. Yes, you can go next.”
“So then he tells me that not only do I have to make up my missing assignment, but I need to write an additional paper on the Power of Powers,” Harley said, moaning.
“I can help you with your homework,” Supergirl volunteered. A group of girls was hanging out in Harley’s room.
“Would you?” Harley said, sitting on the clothes on top of the books on top of her bed. It was hard to
tell where the pile ended and the bed began, but that never seemed to bother Harley. “That would be swell! Could you have it done by Tuesday?”
“I said I would help, not do it for you,” Supergirl said, sounding friendly but firm.
“But I’m sooo busy with the Battle of the Bands,” Harley explained. “We have less than a week to go!”
“Don’t I know it?” Supergirl said. She was on Harley’s amphitheater committee along with Wonder Woman and The Flash. They were charged with creating a band shell now that the temporary wildlife sanctuary had been moved out.
“Pleeeeease,” Harley begged.
“No!” Supergirl replied.
Harley looked exasperated and blew a wisp of hair out of her eyes. “Fine. Homework. Check. Moving on. What’s everyone else up to?”
The food committee was headed up by Steve Trevor. Wonder Woman had volunteered to be on that committee, too, as well as on the parking lot committee and the crowd control committee. With Hawkgirl as stage manager, Batgirl was assigned to check in the contestants. Big Barda was in charge of the sound system. And Bumblebee was talent wrangler. The entire Capes & Cowls Café was the designated greenroom. With the waiting area sure to be packed, Bumblebee’s ability to shrink made her the ideal candidate to weave in and out of the crowd of hopefuls.
“A greenroom is just what they call where the talent hangs out before they go onstage,” Batgirl explained. She knew this, having been a contestant on TechTalk TV.
“But it’s not green,” Poison Ivy pointed out. “Though I could fix that.”
Suddenly Harley leapt up and began jumping on her bed, holding her hands up so she wouldn’t hit her head on the ceiling. “It’s time! It’s time!”
“What’s time?” Ivy asked.
“I’m going live in ten minutes to name the finalists,” Harley blurted out. “This is gonna be big! Maybe the biggest thing ever!”
As Harley turned on her video equipment, Big Barda stopped in. “Hey, Harley, me and some of the others are starting a glee club. I’m thinking of calling it Mighty Melody Makers. Wanna join us? It’ll be fun!”
“Fun! Who has time for fun?” Harley said, looking serious, then grinning ear to ear. “I’m about the make the big announcement and I barely have time to eat and sleep. There’s no time for glee!”
Adam Strange and Arrowette were hard at work in Centennial Park. Since Harley anticipated overflow crowds, video screens were sent for. That way, spectators could watch off-site and still be a part of the festive atmosphere.
Adam was in the air, hovering with the power of his jet pack. “Is it straight?” he asked, holding up the last giant screen that needed to be placed.
“A little to your left,” Arrowette said. She pulled three arrows from her quiver in quick succession, took aim, and shot. Each arrow made a satisfying twang when she let go. They stopped an inch from Adam’s hand and secured the screen to the wooden post.
“Hey, you almost hit me,” he called out.
Arrowette reached over her shoulder for another arrow from her quiver. “If I wanted to hit you, I would have,” she said with a wink.
Harley couldn’t stop moving or talking. “Thisisgonnabesobig! Iwouldn’tbesurprisedifIbustedtheInternetwithsomany viewers!” she said as she cartwheeled backstage.
“You’re going to have to slow down if you want to be understood,” Hawkgirl barked. The amphitheater was still under construction, but it was taking the shape of a giant open oyster shell. Katana had painted the impressive red-and-gold Battle of the Bands sign that hung overhead. Harley had asked her to add her HQ logo, and with the help of art teacher June Moone, Katana created one in neon lights.
For the stage itself, Poison Ivy had suggested that they reuse the dance floor. However, Hawkgirl pointed out that it was pocked and damaged due to one hundred tap dancers and various others.
“Besides,” Harley was quick to remind everyone, “this is gonna be BIGGER than the last special, and YOWZA! We need lots and lots and lots of room for the live audience!”
Poison Ivy gave this some thought and absentmindedly began braiding her long red hair before proclaiming, “I’ve got it! Let’s use recycled wood from the old Schumacher Shoelace factory that was recently torn down!”
She had barely finished her sentence when Wonder Woman and Supergirl were on the job. Not only did they think this was a great idea, but later they even stacked boulders they had recently cleared from an avalanche in Denver to flank the sides. For extra oomph, Poison Ivy created a cascade of fragrant flowers and then a huge canopy of tulip trees, saucer magnolias, and ropey vines to shade the audience. The result was spectacular, like nature herself was the architect.
Steve Trevor had several Capes & Cowls Café booths set up around the perimeter. Some sold tropical fruit and berry smoothies, others featured freshly baked cookie crisps in the shapes of musical instruments, and still others sold pizza, veggie burgers, and sweet potato fries. Each booth was manned by volunteers from the zoo and students from Super Hero High. Since the proceeds were going to the wildlife sanctuary, Principal Waller had offered community service points to those who helped out.
“The contestants are starting to arrive,” Bumblebee reported from the greenroom. “Ukulele United from the island of Kauai is here and they’re passing out fresh orchid leis to everyone. They smell lovely.”
“Got it!” Hawkgirl said into her headset. She turned to Harley. “One hour to showtime!”
The Capes & Cowls Café greenroom looked the same as the restaurant always did: cozy and comfortable, yet with a trendy edge to it. The only difference was that Katana had created several posters, one for each of the finalists, with their names and Welcome! on them.
“We’re better-looking than that,” Captain Cold said, sending a chill around the room. “Well, I am. Not so sure about them.” He laughed as other members of CAD Academy’s heavy-metal band hauled in their instruments.
Magpie, the drummer, was dressed in a tattered black dress anchored with steel-tipped boots. Ratcatcher had spiked his hair so that it stood up in every direction and could have doubled as a weapon. Captain Cold wore ice-blue mirrored sunglasses and a distressed leather bomber jacket with CC on the back.
“Hey!” Harley yelled at Ratcatcher. Big Barda stood behind her and crossed her arms. “Stop tearing the other groups’ posters down or ya get disqualified.” She turned to the camera and when the red light went on, Harley began, “In a short while we’ll go behind the scenes of HQ’s first-ever Battle of the Bands. And at the top of the hour, stay tuned for the live competition where you, the Internet viewers, have a front-row seat!”
She was grateful that Batgirl had created a portable video control console so that she could record, broadcast, and even edit her shows from anywhere. And the best part was that the whole thing could fit in her pocket!
As the other musicians entered, Beast Boy, whom Harley had designated as the official greeter, welcomed everyone with a “Hello! Hello! Congratulations on making it to the finals!” Then, with her trademark efficiency, Batgirl logged them in. Finalists included Female Furies’ Apokopella group with Mad Harriett as the lead, a marching band from Korugar Academy, and Black Canary and the Birds of Prey. Soloists included former Super Hero High student Mandy Bowin on violin, and current Super Hero High student Cheetah, who, in an uncharacteristically low-key move, had not made a big deal about her singing.
“I’m going to catch everyone off-guard,” she confided to Sapphire, who nodded her approval, “and knock ’em over when they hear me sing.”
The contestants eyed each other. Some looked nervous, like Mandy, but most were supremely confident, bordering on belligerent.
“Oops!” said Mad Harriett as she pushed her unruly green hair off her orange face and “by accident” spilled apple juice onto Silver Banshee. “Sorry about that.”
Silver Banshee grabbed a napkin and wiped the fruit juice off her costume. Her fluorescent blue pupils began to glow, and her skin
flushed briefly before turning pale white again.
“Tell me it was an accident,” Silver Banshee said. Her bandmates stood behind her, frowning.
Female Furies Stompa and Speed Queen stood behind Mad Harriett. All grinned menacingly.
Big Barda, who had once been a Fury, stepped between the feuding bands. “No fighting, please.”
“Did someone say fighting?” Captain Cold asked. He whipped out his ice blaster and covered the whole café with icicles.
“That’s cold,” Cheetah said, racing around and breaking the icicles as members of Korugar Academy’s band marched over them, making crunching noises.
“Ouch! Hey, watch it!” Ratcatcher squealed when he was accidentally stomped on.
Soon mayhem broke loose as musical instruments flew. When Mandy Bowin retreated to a corner booth, Barda hurried to protect her. “I’ll keep you safe,” she promised. “By the way, I’m a big fan. Your music has meant so much to me. It’s beautiful and soothing and happy.”
“Thank you,” Mandy said, cradling her violin and ducking nanoseconds before a pizza would have hit her head.
“Contestants! Please cease!” Silver Banshee said. When everyone ignored her, she raised her voice to supersonic levels. “STOP. NOW.”
The whole room rattled. Everyone looked startled and covered their ears.
The room went quiet.
“Thank you,” Silver Banshee said. A sly smile crossed her face. “We’ll fight it out on the stage.”
Harley basked in the applause. As it washed over her, she felt like she was home. “Harley! Harley! Harley!” the audience chanted. Each time the curtains of flowers behind her billowed, it sent out a fragrant scent so lovely, no one would have known that just days before, wild animals had congregated there.
“Aww, you guys!” Harley said, looking out over the massive crowd. “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” She cupped her ears. “And what about y’all watching from Centennial Park? I can’t hear you either!”