The Prom Goer's Interstellar Excursion (23 page)

Then, through the window, I saw something peculiar—an object in the lake was
moving.

At first I thought it might be a piece of debris, but then I realized it was changing direction—every time it came to a large slab of ice, the odd dot would slowly paddle its way around the chunk and keep pressing on, getting closer to our island. When it was confronted with an unbroken sheet of snow, I saw it dive, disappearing for perhaps half a minute before reemerging
through a fissure near the shore, where it remained motionless for several seconds before beginning to paddle again. As it got closer, I could see it was purple, and as it finally climbed up onto the bank and slumped on its side, catching its breath, I knew what the thing was.

“It's Walter,” I said. “He's
outside.
”

Skark, Cad, Sophie, and Driver joined me at the window. Walter had begun trudging up the hill toward the house, still covered in purple gunk.

“How did he
get
here?” said Skark.

“Rams are known for being resolute,” said Sophie.

“Walter!”
yelled Cad. He hit the glass with the side of his fist, then quickly pulled it away. “Man, it is
cold
out there.”

“Don't get frostbite from the glass—we need your fingers for Dondoozle,” said Skark. “I have an idea.”

Skark held up his rings to the window, attempting to reflect the morning sunlight to get Walter's attention. Halfway up the hill, the ram winced and stared straight at us.

“Walter!”
shouted Skark.

Walter put his hoof underneath his beard and made a slicing motion across his neck, like he was telling Skark to knock it off. His fur was slicked down with the purple goo, but he had clearly managed to gain some degree of flexibility in his joints, and he continued stiffly trudging up the hill.

Walter walked up to the door of the Interstellar Libertine and gave it a firm
whack
with his hoof. The door opened. He climbed the steps one at a time, getting his feet set before each
jump like he was scaling a cliff, and then disappeared inside the bus.

“Does he know how to drive?” said Sophie.

“I don't see how he would,” said Cad. “He has no hands.”

The door of the control room opened and Ferguson walked in. He pressed the intercom button, and his voice rang through the speakers.

“Your bandleader has arrived,” he said. “Let's lay the song down so we can move on to the next one. We've got a lot of time to make up for.”

“We?”
said Skark, outraged.

Skark straightened his back and slowly walked up to the control room, showing Ferguson his full eight feet of height. Overnight, he had sweated out the chemicals in his system, and what I supposed was his normal pinkish-purplish color had returned to his skin. Apparently his pallid countenance had had more to do with what was going into his body than with heredity.

Skark put his palms on the window of the booth and stared down at Ferguson, looming over him like the specter from Ferguson's past that he was.

“You will
never
be in this band again,” boomed Skark. “We
fired
you because you could no longer balance your lifestyle with your commitments to this band. We
fired
you because you embarrassed us in front of our fans. We
fired
you because you were a
pestilential
presence on the bus, draining us before and after shows. We
fired
you because you thought you were
bigger
than the rest of the band.”

Skark looked back at Cad and Driver.

“All right, I
realize
that I did those things as well, but please forgive a bit of megalomania in your front man. Once again, I'm sorry.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Cad.

“You
can't say
that my new song isn't good,” said Ferguson.

Skark focused his gaze back on Ferguson.

“Isn't good?” said Skark. “I would wish
deafness
on this entire
universe
so that nobody would have to hear your song. I would destroy every instrument in
existence
if it meant your song would forever go unplayed. Last night the Perfectly Reasonable became a
band
again, wholly and magnificently
without
you. If I had a choice between this barren, worthless little planet exploding beneath me or putting you back in the band, I would
select
that fatal boom—”

CRUNCH!

On cue, Ferguson's house was ripped apart by the out-of-control Interstellar Libertine. The bus was spinning through the air, pulling a large piece of metal behind it where it had broken free from Ferguson's ship.

Apparently Walter's plan had been to just hit the gas and see what happened.

Because we had been in the process of watching Skark reaming out Ferguson, nobody was prepared for the bus to come crashing through the house or for the foam walls to tear open or for the subzero air to bite our skin. It felt like we had stepped into a twister. I grabbed Sophie and was holding her
tightly, trying to shelter her from the collapsing house, when Skark collared us with his thin hands and tossed us into the bus. Driver climbed in behind us, breathing heavily and carrying Cad, who seemed dazed, with dilated pupils and pieces of foam in his hair—he'd been whacked in the head by some sort of debris.

“Skark, come
on
!” yelled Driver, but Skark was waving him off. He was searching the rubble for instruments. I watched a guitar fly into the bus, followed by Cad's bass and most of Driver's drum set.

“Your cymbals are somewhere out here,” said Skark.

“
Forget
about the cymbals,” said Driver.

“The cymbals make things
funky
,” said Skark.

Skark pulled a high hat from the debris and was about to toss it in the bus when—
DING
—Ferguson appeared on the other side of the combat zone, covered in dust, ice in his hair, gripping his triangle.

“You're
not
leaving here,” said Ferguson.

Skark looked at him and shook his head.

“I'm sorry, Ferguson,” said Skark. “I don't have the time it would require for you to tap me to death with your wand. If you get out of this, I'll have a pair of tickets waiting for you at Dondoozle so you can enjoy the show, provided you're the one wearing the straitjacket this time. Good day.”

Skark stepped onto the bus, where Walter was sitting in Driver's seat, hooves still on the controls, covered in purple goo, looking woozy from the crash.

“
I had to turn the ignition with my mouth, and I couldn't stop the bus without hands,” said Walter apologetically. “I was trying to just
nudge
my way through the wall.”

“I've got it from here, Walter,” said Driver. “You did well.”

Walter and Driver switched places, Walter falling out of the driver's seat and stumbling to the back of the bus. I looked down at Sophie, who was lying next to me on the floor where Skark had thrown us inside.

“You all right?” I said.

“About half a second from frostbite, I think,” she said. “Same as you, apparently.” Our exposed flesh—our faces, my chest, her neck—was blotchy with deep blue spots, where the skin was trying to keep itself alive.

I looked around for a blanket, but there weren't any. I was shocked at how empty the Interstellar Libertine was. When Ferguson had cut the hole in the side of the bus, everything had been sucked out of it—the furniture, the kitchen appliances, the beds, Skark's sleeping pod, the secondhand amplifiers the band had purchased outside Jyfon, the contents of the wet bar, and the entirety of Skark's wardrobe. The only thing left was a pair of Driver's drumsticks, stuck in the armrest where he stored them while he drove.

Driver pulled back on the controls and the bus lifted off the smashed floor of Ferguson's recording studio, pointing its nose through the broken roof. He hit the accelerator. It felt like a normal takeoff, but then there was a burst of heat and the sensation of suddenly being jerked
downward.

“
Dammit, that chunk of Ferguson's ship we're pulling is too heavy,” said Driver. “Somebody open the emergency door and get rid of it
now.
”

Skark ambled toward the back of the bus, lumbering like an old-time Hollywood monster to keep his balance. He looked dazed, which maybe made sense considering he had just learned his entire wardrobe had disappeared. All he had left was his jacket and the jumpsuit on his bony back.

Slipping and careening, Skark made it to the emergency exit, where he crouched and yanked the lever of the door, throwing it open with a sweep of his arm. A blast of icy air shot through the bus. Skark swung his leg in a powerful arc, kicking the cable that was tethering the bus to the piece of Ferguson's ship. The cable snapped through the air like a snake, and the Interstellar Libertine lurched forward ferociously, liberated from its anchor.

And then we had another problem to solve.

Straining against the heavy anchor had caused the engine to overheat, and with an ominous
VVVTT
, the Interstellar Libertine stalled. The interior lights went black, and the bus began to drop from the limited altitude we'd struggled to achieve. Driver was pounding on the wheel and the dashboard to no effect. We were about to crash back down into Ferguson's house.

“I can't get it to start,”
said Driver. The bus was already starting to tip on its side. When it hit the ground, it was going to roll.

“Let me try,” I said. “I have a trick for whenever my pickup stalls.”

Driver stared at me. He could see I wasn't kidding.

“Whatever you're going to do, do it
fast
,” Driver told me, bolting up from the chair and hanging on to the railing of the door to steady himself. I took his place, and through the windshield I could see the ground roaring toward us.

I stared at the wheel. Then I reached forward, rubbed its underside three times, and whispered to it.

“I love you,” I said.

I turned the key, and the bus roared to life, gaining altitude and tacking sideways, righting itself.

Driver was staring at me, stunned.

“How did you
do
that?” he said.

“Sometimes all a car wants is a little appreciation,” I said. “Your turn to take over.”

Driver switched places with me behind the controls, and I made my way to the back to see if Sophie was okay. I found her gripping the frame of the closet, holding Walter.

“You used the
I love you
trick, didn't you?” she said.

“Cars are the same everywhere,” I said.

Behind Sophie, I saw Skark grab the handle of the emergency door, twist his body, and bolt it shut with an authoritative
clang.
The Interstellar Libertine shot toward the outer reaches of the planet's atmosphere. Sophie lost her grip on Walter, who slid on the floor past me and crashed into the wall. Cad hung on to his pull-up bar as the bus rapidly ascended. As I seized the frame of the bathroom door and Sophie clutched the sink, I saw Driver's drumsticks whiz past at a hazardous speed.

“We're almost out,”
said Driver.
“Hold on….”

We skyed upward. I looked out the window and saw a coatless Ferguson standing in the rubble of his broken island home, taking pained steps as he tried to make his way toward the shelter of his ship. I couldn't fathom how in that cold, without any protective clothing, he was going to survive. I watched him bend over to pick something up—from the shape of the object, it might have been his triangle case—but soon he was too small to see and all I could make out was the remnants of his home, haloed by the frozen pond and endless meadows of snow. He had the entire hemisphere to himself, and it seemed like that was where he was going to stay.

He would not be rejoining the band.

There was a thud of impact and the sound of warping metal as the Interstellar Libertine's front grille crunched its way through the atmosphere, and then we were drifting again, sequined stars and pinpoints of light all around us. I saw Driver slump back in his seat and shift the bus into a lower gear.

“Never much cared for that guy,” said Driver. He glanced into the back of the bus. “Skark, stop being so quiet. It's time to celebrate. Looks like you'll get the chance to play Dondoozle after all.”

There was no response.

“Skark?” said Cad.

Everyone turned to look at Skark, who was sitting against the back wall of the bus, pointing to his neck.

“Mrmrff,”
he said.

One of Driver's drumsticks was stuck through his throat.