Battle of the Bands Read online

  “Stupid?” My eyes twitched. The band I loved more than almost anything else in this world (other than Mom, Iris, Scarlet, and Jilly, of course) was looking at me with such anger, I couldn’t stand to be in the same room as them. Especially not when I saw Kyle’s face. It said it all. Madam Celeste had seen the storm coming, and I had completely ignored it. “You guys don’t trust me.”

  “Mac…,” Jilly started to say.

  “No, it’s true,” I said shakily. “It doesn’t matter what I tell you right now. You guys don’t trust me.” Heath looked at his fingernails, which were painted a deep purple. “I thought after all the time we’d spent on the road together, you knew I always had your backs.” Zander stared at the ceiling. “But I guess I’m just another fan.”

  “Mac,” Kyle tried to butt in.

  “Maybe that’s what I should go back to being.” My lips quivered. “Maybe it would be a good idea if I left the tour.”

  I waited to see if one of them would protest. To see if Kyle would throw himself across the table and shout “NOOOOOO!” Instead, all I could hear was Briggs and Mom on their phones. They had no idea what the guys and I were talking about.

  “We’ll cover Jeremy’s hospital bills,” we heard Briggs say. “Do whatever it takes to keep that nose of his from winding up in a Bad Kitty vlog. That kitty is going to ruin all our careers!”

  I knew the boys thought this was my fault. “I’m out of here.” I rushed out of the room before they could see me cry and went up an escalator to the main lobby of the hotel. It was crowded with people. A high school band was in town for a competition. A convention had just let out, and people in suits with shiny name tags walked by talking about where they could eat. I just wanted to disappear. Where could I go? My hotel room was the first place they’d look.

  “Hey, Mac! You okay?” I ran into Mikey G. carrying a huge box of WHEY OUT! bars.

  “I’m fine.” I wiped away my tears. “Don’t say you saw me, okay?” Mikey G. nodded. “I just need some peace and quiet to think.”

  “You can have the bus to yourself if you want,” Mikey G. said. “I’m on my way there to drop off these bars and then the place is all yours.” He shifted the large box in his arms. “I could use the help getting on the bus actually.” He blushed. “These WHEY OUT! boxes are so huge, I can’t open the door by myself. I have to leave the bus unlocked when I go pick up a delivery so I can just nudge the door open when I get back and get inside.”

  “You leave the bus unlocked?” I said slowly.

  “For ten minutes max,” Mikey G. reassured me. “And only when I get a WHEY OUT! bar delivery. I have no clue who is sending me these things, but I love that they come every week like clockwork! I have four cases on the bus already!”

  THAT WAS IT! The tour bus was unlocked. That had to be how Bad Kitty was getting her hands on my journal, and the bus was unlocked right now! I could catch that kitty in the act if I hurried! “I’ll meet you at the bus!” I yelled to Mikey G., and then I pushed my way through the crowd again, banging into a boy carrying a tuba, and hit the button for the elevators to go down to the garage. The tour buses were all parked on the lower level.

  I could have sworn I heard someone calling my name, but I had to be wrong. I was in PS exile. Heath was probably having Briggs make up WANTED posters with my mug on it. When the elevator opened, I jumped inside and hit the close button frantically, but the elevator wouldn’t listen. It took its sweet time, and that’s when someone’s pale arm appeared between the closing doors.

  “Mac!” Kyle was out of breath. “I’ve been chasing you”—DEEP BREATHING—“through the lobby. Blimey, you’re fast.” The doors shut behind him.

  “Just go back to the guys and leave me alone,” I said, but it was too late. The elevator whisked us away from the loud lobby, and I grew silent. I could hear the sound of Kyle’s shallow breathing. I don’t think the boy ran much. “I would never give Thunder and Lightning your song,” I blurted out. “You wrote it for me! Why would I want stupid Jeremy and Cody Callum singing it instead of you?!”

  Kyle touched my arm. “I know you didn’t give them my song. I don’t think you talked to Bad Kitty about us, either.”

  “I didn’t—What did you just say?” I stopped yelling. “You believe me?”

  “Of course I believe you,” Kyle said. “That’s what I told the guys before I ran after you. I said, ‘Mac is the most loyal mate we’ve got, and we should trust her over some vlogger we don’t even know.’” Kyle’s eyes were magnetic, and I couldn’t stop staring. “I know you’d never want someone else singing your song. Even if T and L did find lyrics in your journal, it was an accident. You guard that thing with your life.” He looked at our shoes. “I just hate that the song was written for you and now that jerk Cody gets to sing it instead.”

  Aww… was Kyle jealous of Cody? Did that mean Kyle could possibly, maybe, just a smidge, like me as more than a friend?

  I grabbed Kyle’s hand before I could overthink it. “Then let him sing it. You’re going to write an even better song, and when you do, I want to be the first one who hears it.” We stood there and grinned goofily at each other until the elevator doors opened. I could hear someone singing in the distance. I almost forgot why I was rushing down here in the first place. To catch Bad Kitty!

  Kyle frowned. “Do you hear someone singing my song?”

  I pulled Kyle out of the elevator to listen. No doubt about it. It was Jeremy Callum! Was he Bad Kitty? “If he’s in so much pain from breaking his nose, should he really be singing?” I wondered aloud.

  Kyle grabbed my arm, and we quietly made our way behind parked cars until we got close enough to the tour buses to see. Kyle pulled us behind a minivan, where we had a perfect view. There was Jeremy Callum in a red hoodie. He was black and blue around his nose, but he was clearly well enough to stand outside the Perfect Storm tour bus and sing “The Story of a Girl”!

  I watched as Jeremy knocked on the door to the PS tour bus. “Hurry up!” I heard him hiss. “He’ll be back soon.”

  Mikey G. was probably still struggling with his WHEY OUT! bars, and I realized Jeremy knew that, too. He must have been the one sending Mikey G. the bars in the first place. It was all starting to make sense!

  “Calm down! I’ve got it.” A girl in a black hoodie walked off the tour bus carrying the Life After Life DVD case. It was Bad Kitty, and it was clear that she knew Jeremy and they both knew exactly where to go to find dirt on Perfect Storm!

  “MY JOURNAL!” I whisper-shouted. I took a leap forward, and Kyle held me back. He covered my mouth with his free hand, and we watched as Jeremy and Bad Kitty started flipping through my journal pages, taking pictures of the new entries with her camera phone. When they were done, they stuck the journal back in the DVD case, and Bad Kitty put it back inside the tour bus.

  I was so angry I could have breathed fire. Jeremy and Bad Kitty were working together! The picture was becoming clear now. Jeremy hated Perfect Storm as much as Bad Kitty did. Now they were using my journal entries (which are written out of love, I might add) to try to destroy my favorite band!

  It was time to confront them. “I need to see who is under that hood,” I whispered, trying to get away from Kyle (for probably the first and only time in my life!).

  “Think for a second!” Kyle whispered in my ear (IN MY EAR!). “We need proof. And backup. We can’t take them on alone.” I tried to protest. “Now that we know they’re working together, we need a plan to stop them.” He grinned. “You know they’re going to strike again, and next time, we’ll finish off all of that cat’s nine lives.”

  Saturday, July 9

  LOCATION: A top secret location in Miami Beach, Florida

  Knock, knock, knock!

  “Password?” I asked gruffly. I was trying to sound tough. After we arrived in Miami today, Kyle and I called a secret meeting with Jilly and Mikey G. to share what we found out about Bad Kitty (and to find out what Jilly was working on). Privacy was key.
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  “Password?” I heard Mikey G. grumble. “Why would I need a password? I’m the band’s bodyguard. My job is to be on the same side of the door as you guys, and you asked me to meet you here!”

  He had a point.

  Kyle opened the door for him, but Mikey G. wasn’t alone. Zander and Heath were with him, which was strictly against the rules of this meeting.

  Mikey G. was calmly eating a WHEY OUT! bar. “Can we come in?”

  I glared at Heath and Zander. “You can,” I said to Mikey G. “Alone.”

  Heath dropped to his knees and proceeded to beg. “We’re sorry we wigged out on you. We know we were wrong.” He touched his head. “Look, I even dyed my hair turquoise because it’s your favorite color.”

  “Kyle texted us about what happened,” Zander said, and I looked at Kyle, who smiled weakly. Zander held out a bouquet of gorgeous orange, yellow, and red wildflowers I recognized from a display in the lobby. “We should have known you would never betray us.” He batted his eyelashes at me. “I mean, you once told me you were Perfect Storm’s biggest fan and knew everything there was to know about me, so I’m hoping that’s still true.”

  Grrr… I hated how often Zander liked to bring that up. “And yet somehow you forgot that last night,” I reminded him.

  “Well, you’re not completely innocent,” Zander pointed out. “You did lose your journal long enough for Thunder and Lightning to steal Kyle’s song.”

  “Allegedly,” Kyle pointed out.

  “Probably,” Zander countered, “and that blows because, dude, your song was amazing and the perfect first single for our new album. That’s probably why I’ve been so stressed about Thunder and Lightning. I hate them getting anything that awesome.”

  Kyle’s grin exploded like fireworks. “Thanks, mate. That’s decent of you to say.”

  “We’re a team; we’ve got to have each other’s backs,” Heath agreed. “But we wouldn’t be where we are without our friends, and Mac is one of the most loyal ones we’ve got.” He was still on his knees. “We know you would never do anything to hurt us on purpose. That would be like Iron Man being against Captain America.”

  “Um, isn’t that the whole premise of the Civil War comic series?” I asked.

  Heath’s hands dropped to his sides. “I forgot about those. Bad example.”

  “The point is, we were wrong and you were right,” Zander said. “Now we just want to help you take down Bad Kitty and save our reputation.” He ran his hand through his hair. “If only we knew who she was.”

  “Has anyone seen Jilly?” I asked, and sent another WHERE ARE U???? text. The guys shrugged. Where could she be?

  “So do you forgive us, O Comic Book Goddess, best friend and tour mate ever?” Heath clung to the bottom of my tank top. Zander dropped to his knees and started begging, too, which is something I never thought I’d see.

  “Please, Mac? PLEEEEASE?” Zander sang. Heath joined in harmony.

  “I forgive you!” I said with a laugh. Heath and Zander practically tackled me. Kyle dived over, too, and they made what they called a Mac sandwich.

  “Now that you’re mates again, let’s get everyone up-to-date on what we do know,” Kyle suggested, closing the door to the room to give us all some privacy.

  We were meeting in the rooftop lounge of Blue, our hotel in Miami. Kyle got permission to take it over by telling the hotel manager he needed to practice singing a top secret song in private. (Kyle also gave the manager tickets to tomorrow night’s show for his kids.) With floor-to-ceiling glass windows that overlooked Biscayne Bay and comfy leather furniture, the lounge was a relaxing oasis. But today it was our command bunker. With Jilly still MIA and not answering texts, Kyle and I filled everyone in. We taped up a timeline from the night at the recording studio when my journal first went missing to last night, when we spied Jeremy and Bad Kitty taking my journal off our tour bus. Scarlet and Iris joined us on speakerphone to weigh in after e-mailing us all of Bad Kitty’s vlogs on Perfect Storm.

  “Hi!” Iris said nervously. “I just wanted to say it feels nice to be included, and I feel like we can really contribute to the conversation because I read everything there is to read about Zander—I mean, Welling. I mean, the band!”

  Zander was too focused on Bad Kitty to realize what Iris had said. “Okay, people. Let’s stop Bad Kitty. What do we know?”

  Mikey G. tossed the WHEY OUT! bar he was eating into the nearest trash. “I know I’ll never eat another one of these babies again. I can’t believe they were sending me my favorite protein bars as a trap! How did they know the WHEY OUT! bars case was so heavy I had to leave the bus unlocked to carry them in? I was only gone a few minutes!”

  “And that’s when they’d strike,” Heath admitted. “It’s pretty clever of them to send the big guy snacks and then use the delivery time to sneak on the bus.” He scratched his turquoise head. “I’ll have to remember that one.”

  “I’ve failed Bodyguarding 101,” Mikey G. moaned. “Mac, you trusted me with your journal, and I failed you.”

  “You didn’t know what they were up to.” I hugged him so tight I didn’t hear the door to the lounge open. “They tricked you. Now we can’t put my journal back or they’ll read this and know I’m on to them.” I paused. “But if we don’t put the journal back, they’ll know we know and we can’t catch them.” This was getting complicated.

  “I just don’t get how they knew I had your journal and that it was in the DVD case in the first place,” Mikey G. complained.

  “They knew because someone overheard you say it that night at the Beacon.” Jilly rushed into the room with a stack of papers in her hands. “And I know who.”

  “Who?” we all cried.

  “Lola!” Jilly said gleefully. “Remember when Mikey G. had thrown her out of that first concert for not having a confidentiality agreement signed?” I nodded. “We went out the same door to talk about Mac’s journal. I’m pretty positive Lola overheard us.”

  “Impossible. Why didn’t we spot her?” Mikey G. asked.

  “We didn’t spot her because she was wearing this!” Jilly slapped a photo of a girl in a black hoodie down on the table.

  “Bad Kitty!” I exclaimed. “Wait, are you saying…?”

  “YEP!” Jilly bounced up and down excitedly. “Lola Cummings is Bad Kitty!”

  Everyone started talking at once while Scarlet and Iris were yelling into the speakerphone (“What’s happening?”). Jilly whistled to get our attention.

  “This is how I know,” she said, and produced another piece of paper. “Lola is the one who e-mailed Popstar! magazine.” We stared at the offensive e-mail that claimed I was the one leaking all the band’s secrets. “That editor was lying when she said she didn’t know who sent the e-mails.” She threw up her hands and grinned. “When Jeremy got thrown from the bull at the photo shoot, I looked at the message she’d printed and memorized the e-mail address. Then I had a tech guy at Rock Starz find out where the e-mail came from, and, voilà, Bad Kitty is Lola Cummings.”

  “You traced the e-mail?” Heath asked. “Impressive. You’re like a real spy.”

  “I just don’t get why Lola would turn on us,” Zander said. “She loves me—I mean us—I mean me. She follows the band to every city. She’s a huge fan.”

  “Yeah, but you haven’t been treating her like your biggest fan lately,” Scarlet weighed in. “And knowing Lola, that was probably the problem.”

  “We did tell her that job was already taken—by Mac,” Iris added.

  We were all silent for a moment. “So do you think Lola did this because she was jealous of me?” I wondered aloud. I was completely shocked.

  “It kind of makes sense,” Jilly said. “We always teased Lola that you were PS’s biggest fan; and the last few times we saw her, the guys didn’t give her the time of day. She must have been steamed.”

  “But she was so nice to me that day at Hurricane Harbor,” Zander pointed out.

  “She was probably tryi
ng to dig up more dirt,” Jilly guessed.

  “What’s that jerk Jeremy got to do with any of this, though?” Heath asked. “Why would he team up with Lola?”

  “I know the answer to that question, too. Cody!” Jilly yelled. “You can come in now.”

  Cody Callum walked into the lounge!

  “No way! I don’t trust this guy,” Heath said. “I don’t care what he told you.”

  “Just hear him out,” Jilly said. “I already interrogated him, and I believe him.”

  Wow, Jilly really was a secret agent. Amazing.

  “Jeremy was really mad you ignored us that night at SoundEscape,” Cody said. “We were really nervous about our demo, and you guys just blew us off when we asked for your advice.”

  “Dude, we’d been recording for over ten hours,” Heath said. “We were toast.”

  “We still could have talked to them,” Kyle realized. “Remember when we got our big break? The least we could have done was give them a few minutes.” He looked at Cody. “I’m sorry, mate. But that still doesn’t give Jeremy the right to tear us down.”

  “I knew he and Lola were talking trash about you guys, but I had no idea they had taken things this far,” Cody said. “I feel so stupid. One time I even saw him coming off your bus, but when I asked what he was doing, he said he was returning something he borrowed. I guess it became easier for me to just let Jeremy do his thing.” Cody stared at the floor. “I hate when he gets mad at me.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us he was sneaking around our bus?” Heath demanded.

  “Jeremy’s my brother,” Cody said. “Things had gotten so bad. I had to take a side, and I chose his.” He looked miserable. “But I always felt bad about Kyle’s song. I swear I didn’t know the song was stolen! I thought it was weird how we got it right before we had to record the demo, but Jeremy wouldn’t tell me who gave it to him.” He looked up. “WAIT. I just remembered something.” Cody locked eyes with Kyle. “Jeremy was talking to a girl outside our recording studio the night we met you guys. She gave him a piece of paper, and I thought it was her phone number!” He hung his head sadly. “It must have been Kyle’s lyrics. I’m such an idiot.”