true, I can’t.”
And then she shakes it off. “Okay, number two. I should have insisted Jeremy make the mix tape, not this Monster guy. Can somebody’s name really be Monster?”
“Probably a nickname,” I tell her, moving out of the way for a skinny kid whose locker I’m blocking. “I mean nobody’s going to name their kid ‘Monster.’ Nobody who’s sane, anyway.”
“They’re crazy as loons,” a voice booms. “That’s a fact.”
Sarah and I both jump. Standing in front of us—no, make that looming over us—is a Mack truck of a guy, six-two at the very least, in overalls and a tie-dyed T-shirt, his long red hair pulled into a ponytail. He shoves his hands in his pockets and leans back on his heels. “Monster Partin Monroe. It’s right there on the birth certificate. I’ll drive down to the county courthouse and get you a copy if you want.”
“Um, no, that’s okay,” I tell him, feeling my cheeks go hot with embarrassment. “But, uh, why?”
“Why ‘Monster’?”
I nod.
“You think I’m big now, you shoulda seen me when I was born. Thirteen pounds, six ounces.” Reaching out a long arm toward a locker a few feet to the left of me, he begins fiddling with the combination. “All my people are big. My grandaddy’s big, my daddy’s big, my mama’s big. We are, genetically speaking, just a goodly sized people.”
Sarah has seemingly been struck dumb for the last minute or so, but she finally finds her voice. “And do you play bass? Because Jeremy Fitch said you might make me a mix CD—uh, tape—of inspirational bass music.”
“He did, huh?” Monster grins as he pulls a solitary notebook from his locker. “By inspirational, do you mean that which inspires you to visions of God and all his angels?”
“No,” Sarah tells him. “I mean, music that will inspire me to play bass.”
This seems to stop Monster Monroe right in his tracks.
“You wanna play bass?”
Sarah nods. “For the Jam Band.”
“Ain’t that something?” Monster turns to me. “How ’bout you? You wanna play bass too?”
“Um, no,” I say. “I was sort of thinking about singing, I mean with the Jam Band and everything, but I probably won’t. I, uh, don’t really like to sing in front of other people.”
“You got to live bigger than that,” Monster admonishes me. To Sarah he says, “I’ll make you a mix. Teach you how to play bass, too, if you want. You got a bass already?”
“Not yet,” Sarah says. “I don’t actually know the first thing about finding a bass.”
Monster looks at us appraisingly. “So we got a singer who don’t really want to sing, and a bass player who don’t know how to get her hands on a bass. Y’all need help.”
Then he puts one hand on my shoulder and the other hand on Sarah’s and leads us down the hallway, the crowds parting like the Red Sea before us.
Chapter Ten
The Ladies’ Sewing Circle and Anarchist Cookbook Society
When I get home, Avery is sitting at the kitchen table, tears streaming down her cheeks, her favorite pink T-shirt in tatters on the table in front of her. My mom stands next to her, looking defeated, a copy of Fabulous T-Shirt Makeovers in her left hand, a pair of scissors in her right.
“I don’t know what went wrong,” she says with a sigh when she sees me. “The book made it all look so simple.”
I put my backpack on a chair and pick up the shirt. It’s nearly impossible to see what my mother was trying to do, other than completely destroy it. Sensing my confusion, my mom says, “You’re supposed to cut off the bottom five inches and then sew a cute ribbon around the bottom of the remaining T-shirt and reattach the part of the T-shirt you’ve cut off by sewing it to the ribbon. Does that make sense?”
I squint, envision, and nod. “Yeah, I think so. Basically you’re inserting the ribbon as a band around the middle of the shirt.”
“Exactly!” My mom brightens at being understood. Then she frowns again. “Only I guess these scissors aren’t the best for cutting fabric.” She holds up the scissors for my inspection. They’re the ones she uses to cut pizza with. No wonder the shirt’s in tatters.
“Yeah, unless your fabric’s made out of, I don’t know, steel wool,” I say, unable to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
My mom looks hurt. “They were the only scissors I could find.”
“So do you want me to try to repair it?” I ask warily. It’s