T. Bear waited in the ballroom as the band tuned their instruments and tightened their drum skins. Anji Wax looped her bass guitar over her back and sat back in a stink. T. Bear could tell she was feeling down. Something wasn’t right within the band.
‘Can I get you anything?’ asked T. Bear, trying to be helpful.
Anji shook her head, her sharp fringe wobbling across her face.
‘Right!’ shouted Mr Sweet, marching into the ballroom. ‘Band meeting, now!’
‘Dude,’ said Suzi Suzi, ‘we need to practise.’
‘Do as I tell you,’ threatened Mr Sweet. ‘I am your manager!’
T. Bear shrank back against the ballroom wall so as not to be seen. There were very few people T. Bear didn’t like, but he’d quickly realised Mr Sweet was one of them.
Suzi put her guitar down and crossed her arms. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re not the boss of me.’
Kool Bananas hammered his sticks on to a tom-tom. ‘Nor me,’ he said.
‘I think you’ll find I am,’ growled Mr Sweet. ‘Without me you’re nothing.’
Kool leant forward, pointing his sticks at Mr Sweet. ‘Without us you’re nothing,’ he said.
‘Is that so?’ said Mr Sweet. ‘And what have you got to say about this, Anji?’
Anji snarled and threw her bass guitar to the floor.
‘Like I thought,’ said Mr Sweet. ‘Nothing. So this is it then?’
‘If that’s how you want it, dude,’ said Suzi. ‘You’ve got a bad thing going on. It’s bringing me – heck, it’s bringing all of us – down.’
An angry Honey Badger is a terrifying sight. Mr Sweet looked as though he was about to explode.
‘Then we are done,’ he snarled. ‘And so is the band. And I’m taking the roadies with me. Good luck being a bunch of nothings for the rest of your miserable lives.’
Mr Sweet powered out of the ballroom, throwing a chair against a wall as he went.
T. Bear stepped out of the shadows.
‘Sorry you had to see that, dude,’ said Suzi. ‘He is just one big bad vibe.’
‘I’ve seen his type before,’ said T. Bear, knowing he wasn’t much different to Mr Ruffian of the Glitz. ‘You’re better off without him.’
Anji Wax nodded in agreement and T. Bear was certain he caught a glimpse of a smile on her face. She picked up her bass guitar and checked it over.
‘I hope so, dude,’ said Suzi. ‘This is the biggest gig of our lives coming up. I guess we’ll have to wait and see, yeah?’
Kool Bananas tapped a two-four beat on his drum, and just like magic the band powered up and blasted out the most ferocious, loud and brilliant tune T. Bear had ever heard.
