KASEY AND I let the Sid argument slide for a day or two. And once she’d stopped looking like she wanted to start in with the whole shin-kicking thing, I took her back to Gudonya. Although she wasn’t wild about the idea, in the end she did kind of bury the hatchet with Sid. They were never going to be best buds, but at least we weren’t operating at North Pole temperatures.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

What difference did it make if Sid was laying the Aussie on thick? And so what if Kasey was right about him pretending to be an Aussie? He could pretend to be a space alien as far as I was concerned. Sid was cool to me, from his glossy man bun down to his bare feet.

As it happened, I didn’t have much time to think about that because Kasey assumed the role of manager of The People. (Miller finally agreed to drop the “Village” part once she convinced him that a band called The Village People already existed.) And she worked us harder than a Marines drill instructor. There were times when the whole band seemed like a total monster pain in the butt. My fingers bled genuine red blood from plucking all those C’s and E minors and whatever the other one is called. Guitar strings are sharp! Who knew?

But, even though I was literally bleeding for the rock-and-roll cause, being whipped into the shape of a real band by Kasey Moran was roughly 98.65% fun. Before long we started to sound a little less like a runaway train hitting a glass truck carrying bone china and more like a band that wouldn’t make your ears beg for mercy. I’m not saying we were good or anything, but we had definitely left Trainwreck Town behind us.

The week before Kasey was due to head off to compete in her next roller-derby match, we’d settled into a routine: school (Kasey had to come along as part of her deal about being allowed to tour with the Spitballers, heh-heh-heh), followed by band practice every night at the Hills Village Rehearsal Studios aka the Khatchadorian garage. By Friday, we’d come up with four songs: our punk anthem “Everything Sucks”; the catchy “Parmesan Cheese Smells like Baby Sick”; a ballad called “O, Gail Jenetta” (which was secretly about Jeanne Galletta); and “Fight The Stricker”, a protest song about the injustice of school detentions.

Between them, The Changmeister and Kasey were getting Miller and me up to speed PDQ on drums and guitar. And for a 400-pound mountain gorilla, Miller was a fast learner.

“Good rhythm, Millo,” Kasey said. “You’re doing great!”

Like all Aussies, Kasey liked adding the letter “o” to the end of people’s names. “Millo” didn’t seem to mind when Kasey called him that, but I wasn’t going to risk it.

“Um flobble, shnumbumble,” Miller mumbled, turning the color of a sunburned tomato.

The Changmeister looked at me and rolled his eyes, which was about as chatty as Jason got.

Hmmm. I’d noticed recently that, whenever Kasey was nearby, Miller’s tongue seemed to have trouble forming actual words. It was a bit like me when Jeanne Galletta was within … Wait a minute!

Questions began circling my brain like bats around a Transylvanian tower.

Was it possible Miller the Killer had a thing for my shin-kicking Aussie buddy?

Would I be able to fill the Gudonya wall with totally cool drawings?

Why does dropped toast ALWAYS land butter side down?

Did our band really have a shot at the KRMY competition?