The Battle of the Bands was held beside Turquoise Lake, the same place where Cory and Blue had gone to see the nymphs perform Swan Lake and Rina had caused an accident. It was the largest park in the area and ideal for the expected crowd. When the members of Zephyr arrived, a huge crowd had already assembled. There were three platforms set up in front of the lake; Cory could see her drums set up on the center stage.
When Cory reached the stage with Blue and Macks, Olot came over to see them. “Twark, Skweely, and I got here a couple of hours ago. Jack Horner had the bands pull straws to see where to set up. I got the middle-size straw, so we got the second stage. I supervised setup, but Twark and Skweely are going to work out just fine as roadies. They did a good job and didn’t need much direction.”
“What do you know about the other bands?” asked Blue.
Olot turned to point at the first stage, where three ogres and two ogresses were dressed in old-fashioned hides. “That group is called Boulder of Ages. They dress like ogres used to, but they play heavy rock.”
“I know the big ogre with the tuft of hair,” said Blue. “That’s Sidnee. We were in band together in Junior Fey School. He’s a great guy.”
Olot turned to face the other way. “The fairies and elves climbing on the third stage make up the band ‘2 by 2.’ There are two sets of fairy twins and two sets of elf twins in the group. They play folk music.”
“Shouldn’t they be called 2 by 2 by 2 by 2 since there are four sets of twins?” Macks said with a laugh.
“Yeah, really!” Cheeble said as he came up to listen to Olot. “Did Jack tell you about the rules?”
Olot nodded. “We’ll be playing three songs. Each band will play one, then it’s the next band’s turn. If there’s a tie, the two tied bands will play one more song each.”
The other members of Zephyr had gathered around. “What songs are we going to play?” Daisy asked.
“I thought we’d start with ‘Morning Mist,’ then ‘Lily Rose’ and ‘June Bug Jamboree.’ If there’s a tie, we should play ‘Summer Heat,’ ” said Olot.
“Oh, no,” said Daisy. “We should play ‘Lily Rose’ last. It’s so beautiful and I think we should end with that.”
“I agree,” Chancy declared. “I still cry when I think about that song. Put it at the end.”
“You mean the third song?” said Olot. “Why do you want everyone to cry at the end?”
“Not the third song. The tie-breaker song. Even if there isn’t a tie, you should play it after everyone else has finished,” one of Skippy’s girlfriends said. “It will make them remember it even more, and it’s so beautiful.”
“Is that what everyone wants?” asked Olot. When no one disagreed, he nodded. “Then ‘Lily Rose’ will be our tiebreaker, even if we don’t need one.”
“I believe it’s time to warm up,” said Perky. “Everyone else is getting started.”
Blue and Macks left the stage while Cory hurried to her drums. Picking up her sticks, she did a warm-up exercise until Jack Horner climbed onto the first stage. The noise didn’t die down until he held a horn to his lips and said, “Quiet, please!” The horn amplified his voice so that it was even louder than the ogres in the audience and everyone could hear him.
“I have got to get one of those horns,” Cory heard Cheeble mutter.
“Welcome to the Battle of the Bands!” Jack Horner announced. “We have three bands with us today. Boulder of Ages,” he said, pointing at the ogre band. “Zephyr, and 2 by 2!” He pointed to the others in turn.
The noise was deafening as the audience screamed and shouted, and the ogres in the crowd roared.
“The rules of the Battle are as follows,” Jack said when the noise had died down again. “Each band will play three songs. The audience will judge the bands’ performances and show how much they liked them with their applause. The band with the most applause will win. If there is a tie, the tied bands will play one more song. The winning band will receive the title of Best Band, a gift card for Jack Horner’s restaurants for each band member, and a recording contract with Abracadabra Music. And now, let’s all listen to Boulder of Ages play their first song, ‘The Boulder I Get, The More I Love You’!”
The audience applauded again as the band began to play, but the music quickly drowned out everything else. The ogres’ song started out loud and got louder. Instead of traditional instruments, they banged rocks together, pulled the tails of cats so they’d screech, broke boards over one another’s heads, and screamed the words to the song, most of which Cory couldn’t make out. They were so loud that Cory felt sorry for the people directly in front of the stage.
After watching the band in disbelief for most of the song, Cory turned to look out over the audience. The ogres among the crowd were going crazy, but most of the other beings there had their fingers in their ears. When the song ended, they actually looked relieved.
Jack Horner jumped onto Zephyr’s stage and held up his hand. As the audience grew quiet, he said, “And now we’re going to hear Zephyr playing …”—he turned to Olot, who whispered in his ear. “ ‘Morning Mist’!” Jack repeated through the horn.
“Boo! Boo!” cried some fairies in the audience, but the cheering soon drowned them out. Cory noticed that a few fairies were giving her dirty looks. Apparently, some of the guild members who were still mad at her had come to the concert. It bothered her until she started to lay down the beat for the song, and then she forgot all about them.
Although “Morning Mist” was a quiet song, it soon drew everyone in. The spirits of the fey are in tune with nature, and they felt it as they heard the sounds of a day just beginning. When the song was over, even the fairies looked contented. The applause was just as loud as it had been after Boulder of Ages played.
When Cory put down her drumsticks, Jack Horner was already standing on 2 by 2’s stage. “And now, 2 by 2 playing ‘C U 2morrow.’ ”
Cory watched, interested, as the fairies and elves began to play. She counted two sets of pan pipes, one set of wind chimes, one long, curled horn, a tiny hand drum, a fiddle, and two members who did nothing but sing. The music was soft and sweet, but didn’t carry well enough for her to make out the words.
Although the fairies and elves in the audience seemed to enjoy 2 by 2’s music, the ogres quickly got bored and started talking to one another. A fight broke out when some elves tried to shush their noisier neighbors. When a fairy punched an ogre in the nose, the ogre picked up the fairy and hurled him toward the lake. The fairy would have ended up in the water if he hadn’t turned small and sprouted wings. Two FLEA officers forced their way through the crowd to break up the fight that was starting to spread. People hardly noticed when 2 by 2 finished their song. Only the fairies and elves who weren’t fighting applauded.
When Boulder of Ages started their next song, “You’re the Pebble in My Shoe,” Cory thought it sounded just like their first. As far as she could tell, the only difference was that they had howling wolves instead of screeching cats. The ogres in the audience seemed to like it just as much.
“June Bug Jamboree” got the audience involved the way it always did. Ogres swatted at the june bugs that weren’t really there, while the rest of the audience either acted like they saw the bugs, or ducked to avoid the ogres’ meaty hands. Cory no longer saw any fairies glaring at her.
When 2 by 2 played their second song, “2 Late 4 Love,” the fairies and elves tried to listen, but the ogres started shouting until no one could hear the band at all.
“Get ’em off the stage!” shouted one ogre.
“They stink!” screamed another.
Cory wasn’t sure when the band’s song ended.
The only instruments that Boulder of Ages used in their third song, “Stone Dust,” were rocks. They smashed rocks with other rocks, pounded rocks with rocks, and slammed rocks onto the wooden stage, splintering the floor. Cory thought they sounded like workers in a quarry, but the ogres in the audience seemed to love it. When one of the band members fell into the hole he’d made in the stage, Cory thought they might stop playing. They didn’t, though, and the ogre climbed out and started throwing rocks at his bandmates. The ogres in the audience went insane.
It was Zephyr’s turn to play next. They started playing “Summer Heat” and the audience became quiet, acting as if they actually felt the heat of the sun, the dry grass beneath their feet, and the cool water of the stream. As the song ended, there was a loud sigh as if from every throat. Suddenly, the crowd went wild, from the most delicate fairy to the toughest ogre and everyone in between.
Cory glanced at her bandmates and saw the pleased looks on their faces. We’ve got this, she thought.
And then it was time for 2 by 2’s third song. It was called “2 Day + 2 Night = 4 Ever.” The band members looked nervous when they started to play. As soon as the ogres began to shout, the twins all grabbed their instruments and left the stage.
Jack jumped onto the abandoned stage and held the horn to his lips. “I guess that leaves us with two choices for Best Band. Let’s hear it for Boulder of Ages!”
The ogres clapped, cheered, and roared, but nobody else did.
“Now tell me what you think of Zephyr!” shouted Jack.
Everyone cheered and clapped, including the members of Boulder of Ages. The ogres roared even louder than before.
“I think we have our winner!” cried Jack. “I now proclaim that the title of Best Band goes to Zephyr!”
Cory and all her bandmates grinned. She spotted Blue in the audience and saw that his smile was even broader than her own.
The crowd was screaming when Olot took the horn from Jack. As soon as Olot started talking, the audience became silent. “My band and I would like to play one more song, if that’s all right with you.”
The crowd screamed until Olot held up his hand. “The name of the song is ‘Lily Rose’ and it was written by Cory Feathering.”
Handing the horn to Jack, Olot picked up his lute and waited for Cory to start. By the time the rest of the band joined in, she was already lost in the music. People in the audience began to cry after the first few stanzas. Within minutes, tears glistened in everyone’s eyes. When the song was over, Cory finally looked up. She felt awful at first; fairies, ogres, elves, satyrs, nymphs, humans, and every other kind of being that was there was crying. Tears flowed, people wailed or sobbed. But it wasn’t until they turned to one another and began crying in each other’s arms that Cory knew what was really happening. They weren’t just feeling sad, they were feeling the loss of a great love, the way Lily Rose did in the song.
Cory turned to her friends in the band who were crying just as much as the people in the audience. “Should we play a happier song now?” she asked.
“No,” said Cheeble, who was standing closest to her. “Let’s leave it with that.” Taking a handkerchief out of his pocket, he blew his nose, then gave her a watery smile. “That song was perfect.”
When the cheering started, Cory thought she might go deaf. People cheered even as they wiped tears from their eyes. Ogres and fairies who had been fighting only a short time before were standing there with their arms around each other, and they were all cheering for her song.
Cory had never felt so proud.
After Jack presented Olot with a plaque for Best Band and gave him the gift cards and the information for Abracadabra Music, the crowd cheered again. When it was finally time to go, and the crowd was leaving, Blue joined Cory on the stage. Twark and Skweely were both red-eyed when they started to pack up the instruments.
“That was fantastic!” Blue said as he picked up Cory and spun her around. “You have an amazing talent!”
She laughed and kissed him back when he kissed her. “I guess the song struck a note with a lot of people,” she said when he set her down.
“With everyone!” said Blue. “I even saw the FLEA officers crying. I didn’t know that some of them had tear ducts.”
Cory glanced at the members of the audience who were trailing behind. She saw ogres talking to fairies, she saw FLEA officers wiping their eyes, and she saw Macks and Estel in a passionate embrace.
“When we get married, you aren’t going to want a traditional ogre wedding, are you?” she asked Blue.
“No,” he said. “My parents didn’t even have a traditional ogre wedding.”
“Good,” said Cory, relieved.
Cory felt as if she were floating for the rest of the day. Creampuff prepared a big celebratory supper, and her grandfather toasted her with apple wine. “To my granddaughter, who has more talents than I ever imagined!” he said.
“Thank you, Grandfather,” Cory told him. “I wasn’t the only one who played, though. Everyone in Zephyr deserves the credit.”
“Yes, but it was your song that everyone is still talking about,” said Blue. “It was amazing.”
“You’re both biased,” Cory said with a laugh.
“Of course, but it’s also true,” Blue replied.
After a long and stressful day, Cory went to bed still excited and unsure if she’d be able to go to sleep. She was lying in bed, reading a book she’d borrowed from her grandfather, when she heard scratching on her balcony door. Jumping out of bed, she opened the door and let Shimmer into the room. The little dragon flew onto the bed and curled up in the middle, then promptly fell asleep. Cory had to push Shimmer to one side to make room for herself. Climbing back into bed, she read another chapter and was about to turn out the light when she heard another sound outside. Shimmer must have heard it, too, because she got up suddenly and flew to the door, crying until Cory opened it.
Certain that they must have heard some sort of animal, Cory waited for the little dragon to return. When time passed and she didn’t come back, Cory pulled on her robe and went downstairs to knock on Blue’s door.
“I think there might be something outside,” she told him when he opened the door. “Shimmer went to investigate and hasn’t come back.”
“Just a moment,” he said, and shut the door. He was back out a little while later wearing his robe over his pajamas and shoes on his feet.
“Is everything all right?” Macks asked from two doors down.
“We’re going to see what Shimmer found outside,” Blue told him.
Macks grabbed his shoes and followed them down the hall. They went out the back door onto the terrace and stopped to look around. There was a full moon, and everything stood out in an eerie light.
“Is that fire coming out of Shimmer’s den?” Blue asked, peering into the darkness.
Cory looked toward the den and saw a bright glow on the ground outside the opening. She jumped when she heard a horrible bellow and the glow flashed brighter. All three of them began to run.
“Shimmer! Are you all right?” Cory called.
Blue reached the den first. He stopped just outside the opening. Macks stopped beside him and said, “Who is that?”
Shimmer was standing a few feet inside her den with her back to the opening. A being as tall as an ogre faced her from the other end of the cave. Big and broad-chested, he had a blocky head and knobs sticking out from either side of his neck. When he saw Cory, he let out a half-hearted roar.
Taking it as a challenge, Macks roared back. The full-blooded ogre’s roar was enough to make the walls of the den shake. The creature cowered as if someone had hit him.
“May I ask what you’re doing in my dragon’s den?” asked Cory.
“Hiding, until I could jump out and scare you. At least that was my assignment. But when I got here and saw that you hang out with ogres, I figured you wouldn’t find me all that scary.”
“Are you a member of the Itinerant Troublemakers Guild?” asked Blue. “Because if you are, I need your name and membership ID number. I’m FLEA Officer Blue.”
“This just keeps getting better and better,” the being said. “And I was told this would be an easy assignment! Technically my name is Frankenstein’s Monster, although I prefer Frankenstein. I have my guild ID card here somewhere.” He started patting his pockets. “I was supposed to be here a few weeks ago, but my last job terrorizing villagers in the mountains ran a little long.”
“You shouldn’t be here at all now,” said Macks. “The ITG contracts on scaring Cory were all canceled when the guilds that placed them lost the court case.”
“You have got to be kidding me! I’ve been hanging out here, trying to figure out how to do my job for days now and the contract was canceled? No one told me! I’ve got to talk to somebody in the main office. I have three other villages I’m supposed to visit back in the mountains, but I came here instead. I can’t believe the guild loused up my schedule like this! I’m not the only one, either. Wolfie’s going to be mad when he hears that he didn’t need to come to town.”
“Who is Wolfie?” asked Blue.
“A friend of mine. If you’ll call off your dragon, you can talk to him yourself. No more fire, okay? I really hate fire.”
“Come here, Shimmer,” Cory called. The little dragon turned and ran to her, flying into Cory’s arms with one beat of her wings.
“If I’d known there was a dragon here, I never would have taken this job,” Frankenstein muttered as he stomped out of the cave.
Cory rubbed her nose as he passed her. Frankenstein smelled awful! “He must be the one Weegie was telling me about,” she told Blue.
When Frankenstein was well outside the den, he opened his mouth and howled three times. He was about to howl again when something moved among the trees and a werewolf slunk into the moonlight. “That’s enough already! I heard you the first time!” said the werewolf.
“We don’t have to hide anymore,” Frankenstein told his friend.
“I wasn’t hiding! I was waiting for the full moon to come out. It makes a bigger impression when I do this.” Positioning himself so that he stood with the moon behind him, the werewolf threw back his head and howled.
Even though Cory could see the source of the sound, she shivered and grabbed hold of Blue’s hand.
“You’re right,” said Macks. “That was very impressive.”
“So why did you call me?” Wolfie asked Frankenstein.
“The contract was canceled and the main office didn’t tell us! We came here for nothing!” the monster said.
“Is that so? Well, if that’s the case, I’m going home. If I lope fast enough, I should be home before dawn. See you later, Frankie!” the werewolf said, and disappeared into the darkness.
“Not if I see you first!” Frankenstein called after him.
“About that guild ID card …,” said Blue.
“I swear I’ve got it here somewhere,” the monster said, patting his pockets again.
“Don’t worry about it,” Blue told him. “Just go and don’t ever come back.”
“With pleasure!” Frankenstein said. With a wave of his hand, he tromped off into the darkness, leaving nothing but a lingering odor behind.
“I hope that was the last of the ITG members coming after me,” Cory said with a yawn.
“So do I,” said Blue. “You don’t deserve to be harassed.”
“I was more concerned about getting some sleep. No maid of honor wants to look like something the monster dragged in.”
This time when Cory crawled back into bed, she fell asleep right away. Shimmer had stayed outside, so Cory was confused when something in the room woke her a few hours later. She looked around, wondering what had woken her, when she spotted a vague shape at the foot of her bed. Cory peered at the figure, which seemed to be reaching toward her.
“Lorelie …,” the figure moaned.
“Who is Lorelie?” Cory asked as she sat up. She turned on the fairy light beside her bed and realized that she could see through whatever was standing there.
“Turn that off!” the creature ordered.
“You’re a ghost, aren’t you?” said Cory. “Do you want the light off because you think you’ll be scarier?”
“No! I want it off because I’ve been in the dark all night and the bright light coming on like that hurts my eyes. Turn it off, will you?”
Cory sighed and turned off the light. “You didn’t answer my question. Who is Lorelie?”
“You are, of course,” said the ghost.
“No, I’m not,” replied Cory. “There is no Lorelie in this house.”
There was a rustling sound as the ghost riffled through a small stack of leaves. “Are you Chloe? Winnie? Francine? Cory?”
“Yep, I’m that last one. I’m Cory.”
“Dang! I must have gotten my leaves mixed up again. You were supposed to be my last visit of the night. Oh, well. At least I found the right house.” The leaves vanished as the ghost began to moan, “Cory …”
“Are you a member of the ITG?” Cory asked. “Because if you are, you shouldn’t have come. The contracts to harass me have been canceled.”
“Nope. No connection,” said the ghost. “Cory …”
The door to the room suddenly burst open and three putti ran in brandishing squirt guns. “I told you I smelled a ghost!” cried the chef, Creampuff. “I have the best sniffer in the house!”
“You can smell ghosts?” Cory asked, even as the ghost floated away from the putti, moaning.
“Putti have amazing sniffers,” Orville said, touching his nose.
“Stay away from me!” cried the ghost.
“Ghosts don’t like us because we’re one of the few beings that can sense them,” said Orville.
“Us and cats,” Creampuff told Cory.
“Leave me alone!” the ghost wailed. “I have a job to do.”
“Not in this house!” said Orville. “Get out and don’t come back!”
All three putti started shooting their squirt guns at the ghost. Shrieking, it fled through the outside wall.
“Thanks for that,” Cory told the putti. “I’m curious, though. What do ghosts smell like?”
“Freezer-burned bananas,” said Creampuff.
“What’s in the squirt guns?”
“Lemon juice,” Orville declared. “Ghosts can’t abide anything citrus. Why don’t you keep this one? You never know when you might need it. I’ll put it in here.” Walking around Cory’s bed, he tucked it in her nightstand drawer.
“You learn something new every day. Thanks again for your help,” she said, lying down. “But I really need to get some rest.”
“Good night, miss,” Orville said, and hustled the other putti from the room.
Cory was just drifting off when it occurred to her that she had no idea why the ghost had been there. If only the putti hadn’t come in quite so soon, she thought before she fell asleep.