I gasped for breath. My chest hurt from laughing so much. “You know they really do call you Captain Ahab in Burnt Ends, right? I never knew why.”
“What does that have to do with anything? That’s because I got my harvester stuck in that mud pile that one time.”
“Yeah, that’s totally it,” I said, still laughing.
I pulled my helmet on. Sam did the same.
His helmet had antlers glued to it. To my left, Tito and Axel were tuning their guitars. They, too, had their helmets decorated. Axel had a silver spike at the top of his that was actually one of Lulu’s old butt plugs that we’d pulled from the destruction of the house. Luluclaimed she’d never actually used it. Tito’s helmet was covered with the finned ends of chaff missiles that we’d printed too many of.
Harriet was originally going to be onstage with us, but because we’d changed the plans, she was with the old people who weren’t participating in the defense. Ariceli, however, had decided to stay. She carried a massive Conquistador gun like it was a regular pulse rifle. In addition to the camera, we had taped a maraca to the end of it. She had pink fur from one of the mechs glued to her helmet. She also had a pink feather boa draped over her shoulders.
My own helmet was covered with a fuzzy green sheet of fabric to emulate grass. And on the green fabric, I’d glued a dozen of the plastic dinosaurs that had survived the destruction.
I adjusted the heavy helmet so it sat properly on my head. I kept the screen up.
Rosita moved from Ariceli to me. She started affixing a camera to my snare drum. She had her bracelet up so she could see the shot, and she adjusted the angle until it had me fully in frame.
“Better adjust it slightly down,” I said, “so it’s not the top half of my head. Just the lower half of my face and below. Don’t want people looking too closely at the helmet.”
She grinned. “Camera shy?”
I grinned back.
“I’m more worried about people seeing that drum machine bullshit you have there on the floor,” Sam said.
“I’ll only use it if I have to,” I replied.
Sam grunted. “People are going to call us poseurs if anyone sees it.” He paused. “Do you feel bad? I mean, about us doing this while all those others are on the wall fighting.”
Actually, I did feel a little bad about it. But when I realized how exposed we were here and how important this was, it eased my worry.
“Should we do a sound check?” Axel asked before I could reply to Sam.
“We don’t have time,” Sam said. “We should make sure the microphones don’t do that feedback thing again, but as long as Lulu stands behind…Where is she anyway?”
“I’m here,” Lulu said, appearing out of nowhere. She had a package wrapped under her arm. “It’s getting a little dicey out there.”
Rosita stopped what she was doing to stare. “Wow.”
“Holy shit,” Sam said, looking at my sister as she moved to the microphone.
Tito and Axel just looked at each other and then everyone looked at me to see my reaction.
“Uh, Lulu,” Sam said, “not that I’m complaining too much, mind you. But aren’t you a little cold there?”
“Oh, I’m feeling just fine,” she said, using her farm girl voice. She gave Sam a wink and shot him with a finger gun.
Lulu was fully embracing her Farm Girl Gigi persona. She was wearing pink cowboy boots, a thong, cow-patterned chaps, and a bikini top, also with a cow pattern. All things she’d managed to rescue from the wreckage. She was wearing an armored jacket, sort of, but the arms were ripped off, and she had it open, so she was wearing it like a loose vest. Her hair was in pigtails.
She unwrapped the package she had under her arm, revealing it to be Mr.Gonzales’s giant white cowboy hat. It’d been cleaned since that night he’d died. She put the giant hat on her head. I was expecting it to completely cover her face, but the hat had been adjusted to accommodate her.
She looked absolutely ridiculous. She fit right in with the rest of us.
“Mrs.Gonzales made the adjustments for me,” Lulu said. She pulled something else out, and I could smell it before Lulu fully unwrapped it. “She also made us these with the tiny kitchen in the shelter.” She lowered her voice. “The new shelter. Can you believe it?”
They were cinnamon rolls. The big gooey kind, and they were still warm.
“Hell yeah,” Sam said. He leaned his bass against the back wall ofthe stage and rushed forward as the rest of us did the same. We each reached for one.
