IN THE WORDS of Miller the Killer, we totally krushed it.

With Niki Blister (AUTHENTIC ROCK GOD!!!!!) at the mic and the rest of us playing as well as we possibly could—which, considering we’d only been practicing for six weeks, was not too shabby—we really did kick some rock-and-roll butt.

After “Kangaroo Krush”, we went into “Parmesan Cheese” before heading straight into another couple of storming Spiderzz tracks—“Armageddon Highway” and “Wild Hair Boogie”—when Niki shoved me in front of the microphone.

“This next one’s kind of personal to Rafe,” Niki said into the mic. “It’s about a special someone out there. You know who you are.”

The crowd roared and I went about as red as a sunset on Mars. I glanced over at Kasey, who was standing in the wings taking photos. She put a finger down her throat and mimed gagging.

“Uh, hi,” I said, into the mic. “This one’s called ‘O, Gail Jenetta’.”

As Jason began the slow keyboard intro to the song, I did my best to look like I knew what I was doing. I knew Jeanne was in the audience because she’d told me she was going and I hoped she knew it was about her. My voice cracked a bit on the opening line, but I kept it together and by the middle of the song half the audience were holding up their cell phones as torches.

At the end of “O, Gail Jenetta”, Niki took back the mic and we finished the set with three big numbers: “Fight The Stricker”, “Everything Sucks,” and one more “Kangaroo Krush,” during which (despite being warned not to by the Fire Department) Niki got his guitar to shoot flames across the auditorium.

“Oops!” Niki shouted. “My bad! Good night, Hills Village!

The mosh pit went crazy—that’s right, we had a mosh pit—and, with a shock, I saw Mom crowd-surfing. As she passed close by the stage, she waved to me.

“My back’s fine!” she yelled. “Woo-hoo!”

Miller gave one final drumroll and crashed the cymbals so hard one of them spun across the stage and almost decapitated a stagehand.

People fainted, cameras flashed, Mom’s bad back was cured by crowd-surfing across the mosh pit and, most importantly, my cool status at Hills Village Middle School soared to record heights. Everything most definitely did not suck! I was going to be a rock star!

Nothing could stop me!