Ace's Basement Read online

  Lisa shuts down the computer. The bell is ringing. We look at each other.

  “Let’s do it,” I say. “We don’t want to busk forever, right? What have we got to lose? If it sucks, we don’t post it and nobody sees.” Lisa doesn’t say anything.

  I have a brain wave. “And if it works,” I say, “Nadia and Alison are going to be really jealous.”

  Lisa starts to smile, then bites her lip. Outside, the hall is getting noisy.

  Finally she nods. “Okay,” she says. “But we say if it’s good or bad. Oh no, I’m gonna be late.” She grabs her stuff and heads out, texting like mad. “Later,” she calls.

  I grab my stuff too. The chocolate milk has made everything sticky. Wow, I think, that was easy. So why can’t I ask her to a movie?

  Chapter Four

  Amazingly, my chocolate-milk shorts have gotten me excused from gym class. This is great, because I hate wrestling. Guys my size get turned into pretzels. Instead, I get to untangle and refold all the volleyball nets in the equipment room.

  After school I tell Denny, “We’re gonna go for it.”

  “Sick,” Denny says. He tweets the news to the world as we walk to my house. “We should talk over shots for the video. I’ve got a notebook. You write them down.” He unzips his backpack. Then he says, “Hey, look. I almost forgot.” He pulls out a shiny action figure.

  “Doom Master!” I laugh. “Where’d you find it?” When we were little kids, we both had Doom Master toys. Everybody did. We’d have action-figure wars with them.

  “In my basement,” Denny says, “after we saw the movie. I thought my mom had thrown it out.”

  I take the toy from Denny. I hook its mechanical claws to the lip of a litter bin. “Doom Master escapes!” I say. Denny whips out his cell phone and takes a picture. “What else can we pose him with?” he says.

  “I know,” I say. “C’mon. I’ll show you at my place.” The video can wait. This is too good.

  When we had our old band, Denny and I practiced in my basement a lot. Denny hasn’t been over as much since he started with video club. This is Denny’s first look at the man cave Chuck is working on. “Cool,” he says when we get downstairs. “I think. Is he going to fill in the wall around the washroom?”

  “Well, yeah, Den. He’ll probably even hook up the toilet too. But look at this.”

  Chuck’s power tools are lying around. I pose Doom Master by the electric drill. With the drill bit pointing out, it looks like he’s battling a giant death ray or something.

  “Awesome.” Denny takes the picture. We put Doom Master on the circular saw and in the jaws of a monkey wrench. We pose him holding a screwdriver as big as he is. “I wish there was more zoom on this camera,” Denny says. “I should come back with my mom’s.”

  Archie the cat comes down to join us. Arch is not interested in taking Doom Master for a ride on his back. I think I’ve had enough of Doom Master too.

  “So let’s think about the video, Den,” I say. I dig out my notebook and pen. They smell like chocolate milk, and the book is a little soggy. Maybe I should wash out my backpack.

  Denny is busy. He’s got Doom Master clutching a guitar string that was lying around. He’s hung the string from a nail on one of the two-by-fours framing the bathroom wall. He swings Doom Master back and forth. Now Arch is interested. He bats at Doom Master with a paw. Denny takes more pictures.

  “Den,” I say. “The video?”

  “Yeah. Okay. In a sec.” He takes a few more pictures. Then we flop into the two beanbag chairs, the only furniture down here right now.

  “So,” I say, “it starts ‘What’s up? I’m down / When you’re not around…’”

  Denny says, “For that, let’s have you two singing on a roof. No, wait! You playing guitar on a roof, Lee singing down below on the street, like.”

  “It better be a flat roof,” I say. “I’m scared of heights.”

  “We could tie you to a chimney or something.”

  I like that it would look as if Lisa was singing to me, but I don’t say that. I write roof on the last page of my notebook. It’s got a faint brown stain across the bottom. Oh well, if we get famous, we can probably auction this page off for a million dollars. Stains and wrinkles will make it cooler.

  “Okay, next words,” I say. “I could trip, I could fall / Would you hear if I called?"

  “Easy,” Denny laughs. “That’s my shot of you messing up while you’re busking.”

  “Dream on, Den. No way.”

  “Just kidding,” Denny says. “What if we had a cell phone falling into a toilet?”

  We can’t agree on whose phone to waste, so that idea is a no-go.

  “I know,” says Den. “A shot of Lisa singing, and then she dissolves!”

  “Yeah, like she shatters into a million pieces—”

  “In slow motion!”

  “Yeah, in slow motion,” I say, writing it down.

  “Hey,” Denny says, “know how we could do it? If we filmed Lisa looking in that big mirror in your front hall. We’d have to break it though. Do you think your mom would let us?”

  “Hmm. Maybe. She’s always saying it makes her look fat. We’ll ask when she gets home.” I write mirror in my notebook too. I’m getting kind of excited. This video could be even more original and creative than songwriting. I mean, I know other people have used these ideas once or twice—okay, a few times more than that—but probably not all together, the way we’re going to. That will make it special.

  I look up from my notebook. Denny has left his beanbag chair and is posing Doom Master again. There’s this silvery hose coming out of the bathroom wall behind the new sink. It’s drooping, not hooked up to the sink yet. Denny is trying to hook Doom Master’s feet under the handle near the end of the hose. He gives the handle a twist. Water blasts across the man cave. Denny yells and jumps away.

  “At least it’s not chocolate milk,” he says when we finally get it turned off. By the time we finish mopping up, I’ve gotten a text from Lisa: got sat off 2 shoot cu @ lunch w/ideas.

  Chapter Five

  I get to the music room for lunch before Lisa does. Other kids are here today, but they don’t seem to mind if you hang out. Maybe that’s why Lisa likes to meet here.

  “Can’t stay,” Lisa says when she hurries in, texting. “I forgot I have a math test next period. I have to study. Walk to my locker with me?”

  “Sure,” I say. I’m good with being seen with Lisa anytime.

  We walk. I hope she doesn’t notice the sour-milk smell coming from my backpack. I really have to wash it. I tell her the video ideas Denny and I thought up.

  Lisa frowns. She looks even hotter than normal when she frowns. Then she says, “I think Denny should just film us playing the song.”

  “Playing the song? That’s it?” I’m stunned.

  “I’d rather do simple and good than tricky and sloppy. And it’s not like those are new ideas. We’ve all seen that stuff a million times.”

  “Yeah, but it’s how we’d put them together.”

  “Ace, this is Denny we’re talking about.”

  Lisa has a point. Besides, I don’t want to be tied to a chimney, and my mom’s already said we can’t smash her mirror. We turn into the hall where Lisa’s locker is.

  “Okay,” I say. “Where should we film?”

  “We’ll busk,” she says.

  I freeze, remembering how I goofed up last Friday. Lisa keeps moving. “Come on,” she says, looking around and not at me. “It’ll be okay.”

  I should say, You’re right, you make everything okay or something like that. Before I can even try for it, we’re at Lisa’s locker. Now she looks at me. “Tell Denny, okay? Noon Saturday in front of the liquor store.”

  I nod. Then, as she’s about to turn away, I get bumped from behind, and I stumble into her. She grabs me before we both get squished into the lockers.

  Behind me, a girl’s voice calls, “Nice pic. What a happy couple. Who should we send it
to?”

  “IIIIIIII knowwwwwwww,” says a different girl’s voice. I get myself turned around in time to see Nadia and Alison twitching their butts as they hurry off down the hall.

  Lisa swears. She starts texting again. I back away. I don’t think she even hears my “See you Saturday.”

  What was that all about?

  Chapter Six

  I tell Denny Lisa’s plan. Denny says he’ll tweet up a flash mob for an audience at the liquor store.

  Why am I not surprised when no one but Denny shows up? “They’re just late,” he says. “Flash mobs always are.”

  Lisa rolls her eyes. I don’t even try to be sarcastic. I’m nervous. Maybe it’s good that no one is here.

  “Cool clothes,” Lisa says to me as she takes her guitar out of its case. I’ve got on my best torn jeans, my black Hendrix T-shirt and a straw porkpie hat. I bought the hat last summer, but I never wear it. You don’t want people thinking that you’re trying to be cool. Besides, my mom said it looked cute.

  I don’t say that to Lisa. What I do say is, “Back at you,” because Lisa looks fantastic. She’s wearing skinny black jeans. She’s changed her hair around, and I think she’s wearing makeup, because her eyes look darker somehow. But what really knocks me out is her top. It’s clingy and hot pink and lowcut, and it’s either super tight or Lisa has, um, grown overnight. Whatever. Like I said, she looks fantastic. She slings her guitar strap over her shoulder and starts tuning.

  I put on my guitar. It covers Jimi on my T-shirt. Oh well, it’s not my top everyone is going to be watching. I take off my hat and put on my harp rack. It pretty much blocks my face from my nose down. Oh well, it’s not my face everyone is going to watch either. And it hides the three zits on my chin.

  “Wait,” Denny says as I reach for my harmonica box. “Use this instead.” He hands me a tiny kid-size harmonica. It’s so small, it’s like a toy. You could practically fit it up your nose.

  “See,” Denny says, “I’ve been thinking.” He goes back to posing Doom Master in the guitar case.

  “Thinking what?” I say. I try the harmonica. “This doesn’t even play all the notes I need. It’s stupid.”

  “Don’t you get it?” Denny says. “This way we see you better. You don’t have to really play it. I’ll just overdub the sound later, from your recording.”

  Lisa strums a chord and says, “I guess that explains why there’s no sound equipment.”

  “Right.” Denny grins. “Sweet, huh? And way easier. It doesn’t even matter if you really play.”

  “So we just stand here on the street corner and pretend? Gee, Den, there’s a great way to draw a crowd. We won’t feel stupid.” I’m so bugged that for a second, I forget Denny doesn’t get sarcasm.

  Lisa just says, “But we have to play in sync with the recording or it won’t work.”

  “Hey!” Denny spreads his arms. “I told you, Lee, I’ve been thinking. That’s why I brought along a boom box”—Denny starts looking around— “with the song loaded”—he’s looking some more—“on a USB.” Denny stops and scratches his head. If there’s a boom box around, it’s invisible. “At least, I think I did. I was going to. Maybe I didn’t.”

  “Oh, super,” I say. By this time, I don’t care if Denny gets sarcasm or not. “What do we do now?”

  “I have it on my phone,” Lisa says. “Maybe we could share the earbuds.”

  I put the little harmonica in the rack—right side up, not that it matters. It’s kind of wobbly in there. Not that that matters either. Then I lean in for an earbud. The cord is too short. My guitar bumps Lisa’s, and my fretting hand ends up way too close to where she’s gotten bigger.

  We try filming with Lisa using the earbuds and playing along to the recording while I try to follow her. It doesn’t work so great, so we switch and she tries to follow me.

  That doesn’t work so great either. We’re always a bit off. Denny films us anyway as we play the song twice more. We all know it’s no good. Plus, I feel dumb pretending to play the mini harmonica, and I feel silly wearing my hat. The few people that walk past stare at us. The only good thing is that I don’t fall into the guitar case.

  “This isn’t working,” Lisa says finally.

  Denny has taken time out to film Doom Master on a parking meter. “It’ll be better with the flash mob,” he says. “What time is it?”

  “Face it, Den,” I say. “No one’s coming, and this sucks. What’ll we do instead?”

  We go to the park. Denny films us on the swings. I wear the earbuds and play guitar while Lisa sings. Did you know it’s hard to swing on a swing and play guitar at the same time? Especially if you’re trying to keep the swing chains from scratching the guitar? And that swinging makes earbuds pop out? And that it is not easier if a hot girl wearing a tight pink top keeps swinging past?

  While I’m learning all of this, I’m getting seasick from the swinging. Denny films us on the slide. He films us leaning against a lamppost. He films us running across the grass. “I still wish there was something we could smash,” he says. There isn’t. “What if Ace stands on top of the climber and plays?” he suggests.

  “No,” I say.

  “Come on,” says Denny. “You were going to stand on a roof, remember?”

  “That was different,” I say. I’m not going to tell him there was no way I would have actually stood on a roof. I think fast. “This might wreck the guitar.” Which reminds me of the scratches I’ve already put in it. Maybe they’re not that bad.

  We settle for me standing on top of a picnic table. It’s not exactly an exciting shot.

  “Hey,” Denny says, “from this angle I can see up your nose.”

  “Let’s try the merry-go-round,” I say.

  We have to wait until some little kids get off. Denny passes the time filming Doom Master on the climber. The little kids see it and run over.

  “What are you all doing?” asks one of their parents. He’s a big guy, and I can’t tell if he’s suspicious of us or if he thinks we’re funny.

  Denny babbles away about our video and plays some of it back for the guy. I don’t go over to look. I watch the guy instead. From the way he bites his bottom lip to keep from grinning, I’d say he thinks we’re funny. I guess this is better than him thinking we’re suspicious, but not much.

  Denny says, “It’s just raw footage. Like, there’s no soundtrack yet, and I’m going to overexpose some of it and do some slo-mo, you know?”

  Now the guy definitely thinks we’re funny. His eyebrows go up, and his shoulders start jiggling. Oh, great.

  “Let’s go to the teeter-totter,” I say.

  Anywhere is better than here, I’m thinking.

  Call it my bad.

  Chapter Seven

  At the teeter-totter Denny says, “Let’s get some shots of Ace on harmonica.”

  I’m glad to put the guitar down. When I take out the harmonica box, though, it’s not there. Maybe it’s on vacation with the boom box Denny forgot.

  “I can’t play this little one in the rack,” I say. “It slips around.”

  “Then just hold it in your fingers,” Denny says. “I’m overdubbing anyway, remember?”

  Lisa and I sit on opposite ends of the teeter-totter. It’s a pretty good balance. I’m not very big. I hold the little harmonica with one hand and try to play it as we bounce up and down. Denny films us. I’ve still got the earbuds in, so I try to keep us bouncing in time to the music. The thing is, Lisa’s top bounces in time to the music too—a lot. Right in front of my eyes. I have to close them to keep from staring.

  “Look happy!” Denny calls.

  I open my eyes. How can I look happy? I feel like a dork. Then I see he might not be yelling at me. Lisa definitely does not look happy.

  “Stop,” she says. “Stop!” She’s flapping one hand. Something white is poking out of that low front on her top. It doesn’t fit the way it did before.

  Then, as her end of the teeter-totter goes down, Lisa hops
off—while I’m in the air. I slam down butt first and fall back into the dirt. The earbuds pop out, and the harmonica pops into my mouth.

  “Hey!” I squawk, except that what comes out is a sound like an accordion in a fish tank. I’m too stunned to move. I start to struggle up, trying to spit out the stupid harmonica.

  Someone grabs me around the waist from behind, hauls me up and Heimlichs me. The harmonica pops out with a soggy gurgle, and I almost blow a few chunks along with it.

  “Ho-ly!” Denny says.

  The arms around me let go. “Are you okay?” Lisa pants behind me.

  “I—Yeah, I think so…” I rub the skin under my rib cage, and I turn to Lisa. She’s red in the face and all messed up. The white thing is poking from her neckline again, and another one is about to fall out where the bottom of her top has come away from her jeans.

  I guess she sees me noticing this, because her face gets even redder, and she spins away. Then she hurries over to her guitar case, stuffs something inside and snaps the fasteners.

  “I have to go now,” she says without turning around.

  “We’ve probably got lots anyway,” Denny says.

  “We do?” I say. I’m still a little shaky. Plus, my butt hurts, and something is choking my neck.

  “Sure,” says Denny. “We only need, like, three minutes and whatever.”

  “Okay,” Lisa says. “Sorry. Gotta go, there’s stuff I have to do. Sorry. I forgot. I’ll text you or something, Ace.”

  “Yeah, okay.” I’m guessing this isn’t a good time to ask if she’s busy tonight. Then I remember. “Hey, I’ve got your phone.” I limp over, unwinding the earbud wire from my neck. That’s what was choking me.

  “Thanks.” Lisa takes the phone from me. She’s still red in the face. I’m trying not to look at her deflated top. “Later,” she says and heads out of the park, texting.

  “Wow, how cool was that?” Denny says when I limp back to him. “She popped her chicken cutlets.”