THE POINT OF NO RETURN

It was the big night. We had done all we could. Everything was in place.

The sketches I’d done for the Outsiders’ shoot were framed and placed on three easels on a small stage at one side of the waterfall. I called the drawings Zombie Movie Sketches because, well, they were sketches of the zombie movie. I’m clever like that. Biff had put up a big banner with the title, which hung over the easels. It made me feel pretty special.

Last night the Outsiders and I had broken about nineteen billion laws to set up what we needed inside the surf club. We didn’t get much sleep, but we didn’t care.

Tonight was payback time.

Ellie and I—she was dressed as Frankenstein’s monster and I went as Igor—arrived around seven o’clock. As we neared the entrance, I could see through the windows that the place was already knee-deep in pirates and princesses, Elvises and Ewoks, superheroes, aliens, and ballerinas.

Bradley, with about as much imagination as a jellyfish in a coma, had gone as a 1970s surfer, and Belinda was a punk rocker. Kell was a werewolf—spooky, right?—and my mom had gone as what looked like Wonder Woman’s second cousin.

Just outside the entrance, a gorilla was cooking sausages on a giant grill. As Ellie and I walked by, the gorilla removed his head to reveal a sweating Mayor Biff Coogan, who looked like he was beginning to regret his choice of costume. Maybe he should’ve stuck with the chicken suit, puke stink and all.

“The star of the show!” Biff said as he saw me. He waved a plate of sausage sandwiches at us. “Sausage sanga, Picasso?”

I felt my stomach lurch and shook my head. I was so nervous that I was sure anything I ate would come straight back up. “No, thanks,” I said, and darted inside.

Before I knew what was happening, Mom grabbed me and pulled me toward a man dressed all in black with a gray beard. “This is Frost DeAndrews, the famous art critic,” she said. “He’s come all the way up from Sydney!”

“Hi,” I said. “What’s your costume?”

DeAndrews looked puzzled, then pursed his lips. “We don’t do fancy dress in Sydney.”

“Oh,” I said. “Okay.”

“I’m so proud of you, Rafe. The drawings look great!” Mom gushed. “Don’t they, Mr. DeAndrews?”

“Quite,” DeAndrews said, bending his lips in what I imagined was meant to be a smile. He looked like he had something smelly right under his nose. “I’m sure the folks in Happy Valley would find them utterly delightful.”

He leaned in a little closer toward me.

“Didn’t you get time to finish them?” he whispered. He waved his hand at my drawings. “Frankly, from what Mayor Coogan told me, I was expecting a bit more than doodles. Drawings are so passé.” Frost DeAndrews shuddered. “Maybe next time, dear boy, you should try some ideas—proper art. Hmm? Something that knocks my socks off. This whole trip is beginning to look like a complete waste of time.”

This conversation clearly wasn’t going too well. Before I said something I might have regretted, Biff Coogan’s voice came over the speakers, welcoming everyone to the exhibition.

Just like his brother back in Hills Village, Biff Coogan liked the sound of his own voice. Next to me, Ellie checked her watch and then pulled me across to a quieter corner of the lobby.

“We’d better get into position,” she said.

“You still think this is a good idea?” I whispered back.

“Why? Are you getting cold feet?” she said.

“No,” I said, lying through my teeth. I was more nervous than a sackful of turkeys on Thanksgiving. Then I thought of Frost DeAndrews. If nothing else, he would see what I’d really made for the exhibition. I hoped he had good socks on, ’cause I was about to knock them off.

“Psst!” someone hissed close to my ear.

I turned to find myself looking at an asteroid.

A panel in the asteroid slid back to reveal Nico’s face. “Ready?” he asked.

“An asteroid?” I said. “How do you go to the bathroom dressed like that?”

“Never mind that!” Nico said. “Are you ready?”

I was still curious about the asteroid costume and the toilet problem, but I didn’t push it. Nico was right—we had bigger fish to fry.

“Mikey and Dingbat are on standby,” Nico reported. “Are we a go?”

I took a deep breath and nodded. “Let’s do it.”