Q.T. PIE

If that whole football thing made me think Flip was crazy, the thing that happened next clinched it for sure.

I guess Junior had really cleaned out his ears, because right after that, Flip sat up and looked around.

“What’s that music?” he said.

“It’s not music,” I said. I don’t usually call We Stink a “band,” because that would be an insult to bands everywhere.

“Let’s go see,” he said.

“Let’s not,” I said, but Flip was already heading outside. “Okay, but don’t blame me if your brain starts bleeding,” I told him.

We Stink usually practices in our garage. Mom brings a pie to the landlord, Mr. Tinker, every week, and he lets Georgia use the garage for practice. So I know what Mr. Tinker gets out of it (delicious pie) and I know what Georgia gets out of it (somewhere to practice). But meanwhile, all the rest of us have to listen to a group that—let’s face it—calls itself We Stink for a really good reason.

Georgia plays the electric guitar, but she’s never taken a single lesson in her entire life. Trust me—that becomes pretty obvious as soon as she plays her first note (if you can call it that). The other members of We Stink aren’t much better.

So far, they’d played one and a half shows. One was a birthday party for Mari, the bass player. And the other was a bar mitzvah where the mom paid them extra to stop early. I’m not even kidding. My sister’s like some kind of genius in school, but she’s never going to get rich playing that guitar of hers.

Right now, they were in the middle of playing one of their “greatest hits.” That’s what Georgia calls them, so I guess she does have a teensy-weensy sense of humor about it all.

This one was called “What’s the Square Root of U?” (Which tells you everything you need to know about my sister.) And it goes something like this: