And Then There Were 4 (The Monkees: Mike Nesmith & Davy Jones (friendship/TV personas); Trapped)
Title: And Then There Were Four
Author: Crystal Rose of Pollux (rose_of_pollux)
Claim: The Monkees: Mike Nesmith and Davy Jones (platonic/friendship; fictional personas from the show only!)
Table: DIY
Prompt: Captured/Trapped
Rating: PG
Summary: Impending rent hikes send Mike and Davy auditioning for a talent show offering a cash prize, where they meet a pair of friendly rivals... and more trouble than they bargained for
Cross-posted to FFN and monkeesfic (in 2 parts; it's all one part here).
Notes: The part of my "origins" story that explains how, as I see it, the TV-verse Monkees got together. Again, this is meant to apply to the TV/fictional personas of the Monkees only!
*********************************
Malibu, CA; one year prior:
Mike and Davy’s act had done well in the months since its creation-a year and a half later, and it was still going strong. Mike was the creative force of the duo; he wrote the songs and would back Davy up on guitar as the English boy sang. And although Davy was fine with this arrangement, he did wonder why Mike opted out of singing himself; he had offered to let him sing many times, but Mike always had insisted that Davy should be the one to do the singing.
The only downside to their venture was that the income they gained from it was neither steady nor predictable. Davy soon found himself spending almost all of his lodging reimbursement to cover Mike’s share of the rent during the slower times when he wasn’t able to make his half, which meant little to no money left to take out the girls on dates-for him, truly the ultimate sacrifice.
With Davy’s summer break on the horizon, things were going to get even more difficult; the previous summer had told them one thing-there was no lodging reimbursement during the summer. And while Davy’s grandfather had expected that, he had also expected Davy to get a steady summer job to pay for wherever he was being put up for the summer’s duration-something he had spelled out in the letter Davy had received from him at the start of his previous summer break.
“Davy…” Mike had said, happening to have read the letter over his shoulder. “Your gramps does know you live in a beachhouse with a roommate, right?”
Davy’s hesitance in replying had given Mike the answer-as had the fact that the envelope had been addressed to the school, who had to forward it themselves to Davy.
“You don’t understand!” Davy had replied. “I can’t let him know that I’m rooming with a musician while trying to be a musician myself! That… isn’t what he expects of me.”
“Why should he have to expect anything from you?” Mike had wondered. “You’re just a kid!”
“That’s just the way he is; he wants me to make something of myself.”
“Okay. And what do you want to do?”
“I want to keep on doing this act with you. I want to be a musician.”
“Well, Tiny, you’re in luck-that’s what you are, and that’s making something of yourself. And if that’s what you want to be, that what you’re going to be. You’ve got that spark and fire alive in you, so don’t you ever let anyone tell you that you can’t be a musician-or else you’ll have to answer to me.”
And that had inspired Davy to keep on going, and, somehow, the two of them had made it through that summer literally singing for their supper-and breakfast, lunch, and rent. Once classes started again and the rent pressure was off for a bit, things got easier. But with summer here once again, the two of them were ready to do it all over again.
As per normal on these summer mornings, Mike had taken a walk to the nearest newsstand and returned with the morning paper, searching for any sort of audition or opening for a musical act. On one such morning, Davy was busy preparing their morning toast as Mike looked through the paper; Davy wasn’t really paying attention-at least, not until Mike suddenly let out a quiet gasp.
“Oh, no…” he murmured.
“What’s wrong?” Davy inquired.
“Oh, no,” the Texan repeated, seemingly not hearing him.
“What’s the matter?”
“Oh, no.”
“For pity’s sake, Man-what is it?!” Davy asked, loudly enough to snap Mike out of it.
“This,” Mike said, handing him one of the pages of the paper.
Davy blinked, not quite sure what it was he was supposed to be looking at.
“‘Priceless ancient jade monkey sculpture stolen from museum-’” Davy began to read, but Mike cut him off.
“Not that! The column next to it!”
“‘State Legislature voted “Yes” yesterday to property tax increase.’ Is that all?”
“Are you kidding, Man? Do you realize what this means?”
“I’m trying to work that out now. This Legislature thing-that’s like Parliament, right?”
“Look, the only thing that matters is the second half of that sentence: property tax increase.”
“Well, I can figure that out,” Davy said. “I can also figure out that we’ve got nothing to worry about; we don’t own any property!”
“We don’t,” Mike agreed. “But Mr. Babbitt does-and when he has to deal with that property tax increase, he’s going to pass the buck on to us!”
Davy now let out a nervous little “Ooh!” as it finally sunk in.
“You said it,” the Texan agreed. “And if you may recall, we only just managed to make our rent payments last summer. We’re going to have to do better than last year if we want to meet the new rent rate and keep our stomachs filled.”
“But our line of business is never a sure thing!” Davy said. “You don’t know where the next gig is coming from-or when!”
Mike gave a nod.
“That leaves us with only two other options,” he said. “One: we try to find another place-one that’s cheaper than here. And seeing as though this was the cheapest place around when I found it, that isn’t going to work.”
“So… what’s option two?”
“We take in another roommate-simple as that.”
“I don’t think that’s such a great idea, either,” Davy said, frowning. “I mean, it took us nearly two months until we started talking to each other, and then another three months until we realized that we even cared about each other. Having another roommate is going to complicate things a lot. We’ve only got two bedrooms, anyway. And besides that, how do we know that we’d get along with this other roommate? I just don’t think this will work.”
“In defense of my idea, the ‘I just don’t think this will work’ argument was going through my head the day I decided to take you in. I say we give it a try-at least a trial period. We’ve got the strength in numbers to kick the guy out if we decide we can’t live with him.”
“This is true…” Davy said. “But how do we go about it?”
“Well, I was going to recommend fliers,” Mike said. “That’s what I had in mind two years ago-of course, you ended up sparing me the humiliation of sticking fliers all over town. Anyway, it’s not as though we have to do this overnight; that new property tax doesn’t kick in until the next fiscal quarter. But that is still a limited window of time that we have to work with, so we can’t put it off forever, either.”
Davy nodded, but then blinked as something on the other side of the newspaper page caught his eye.
“Hey!” he exclaimed. “I think we might have a temporary solution, at any rate! Look at this!”
“Look at what? I never got past that other page…”
“‘Amateur Talent Competition tonight at the Great Oak Theatre, 8:00; auditions to be held at 4:00; those selected in the auditions will be competing for cash prize of $250!’” Davy read. “…How much is that in English money?”
“Who cares? It’s a month’s worth of rent, and that’s all that matters!” Mike replied. “We need to win that thing! We’ve got to come up with a good set…”
“Each act is allowed up to ten minutes; going over that counts against you,” Davy said, as he read on. “The way I figure it, we can do two songs, plus give them a little embellishing if we have to; that ought to do it.”
“Hmm…” Mike mused aloud. “I say we give them a taste of a feel-good number, and then one to get ‘em bawling. Shows our vast repertoire, don’t you think?”
“What about that song you were working on the other day?” Davy asked. “That was really nice and upbeat-what did you say that one was called?”
“Papa Gene’s Blues.”
“…There’s nothing blue about that; I was going to choose it for our feel-good number! Why did you call it that?”
“Because I can, Tiny. Because I can…” Mike said, with a smirk. “Anyway, after that, I say we give ‘em a taste of ‘Nine Times Blue’ and see if we can get everyone to turn to their handkerchiefs.”
“See, now that song actually is sad; I’ll buy that title,” Davy said, and then he hesitated. “Hey, why don’t you sing lead on one of them?”
Mike turned to Davy in surprise.
“…No, I’d better not.”
“Okay, that’s it,” Davy said, determined to get an answer this time. “Mike, why do you insist on not singing? It’s not that I mind doing all the singing, but… Well, they’re your songs! You should be singing at least some of them!”
“Look, I write the songs and play guitar, you sing and play tambourine and maracas, and the people love it. We’ve got a saying over here in the States: ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’”
“But we could try something different for once!” Davy said. “I’ve heard you sing-you’ve got a wonderful voice!”
“Well, that may be, but… it might not be enough.”
Davy blinked in surprise.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well… before you came along, I wasn’t doing too well with my music-that’s why I had that waiter job in the first place. But then you came along, and we started going places. The songs were the same, but the person singing them was different. And now I think I’ve figured out why. The fact of the matter is, Tiny, that you’re a kid from the other side of the world-that automatically intrigues people, including the audience. Think about it-an intriguing English kid who goes to a high-class private school? Davy, you’re what’s in right now. Add to that the fact that you’ve got the looks, too; it’s a cinch that the audience would prefer to look at your pretty face rather than this ugly thing I’ve got here,” Mike added, absently feeling his sideburns. “It’s a no-brainer, so give ‘em what they want.”
Davy’s shoulders slumped; he had no idea that Mike looked down on himself so harshly. In reality, Davy had wished he could be able to churn out a song so easily as Mike did; Mike had so much talent, and Davy had been looking up to him all this time. And now, that pedestal he had put Mike on was starting to break-because Mike was taking a sledgehammer to it himself.
The younger boy walked over to his companion, placing his hand on his shoulder.
“But what about all that stuff you were telling me last year-that no one could tell me I couldn’t be a musician if that’s what I wanted to be?”
“Oh, that still applies. I know I’m a musician; I’m up there on stage with you, aren’t I? And I know that if I was still in Texas, I probably could’ve flown solo just fine. The atmosphere’s just a little different here, so we’ve got make adjustments to that.”
“I just don’t see why we couldn’t give them some of what they want and some of what we want, too.”
“Well, with only ten minutes to work with, that’s going to have to wait anyway,” Mike said. “With a month’s rent at stake here, I don’t want to pick today for any experiments.”
“Fair enough,” Davy said, but he hoped that Mike was serious about actually giving singing a chance and that this wasn’t just some stalling tactic to avoid discussing the issue any more.
**********************************
The duo spent the morning practicing the two songs they had decided upon; once the afternoon rolled around, they headed to the Great Oak Theatre-in costume, which did earn them several double-takes from the parking lot to the door.
“See, now I’m glad I didn’t wear the hat,” Davy murmured, holding the door open for Mike, who had to lug his guitar in its case.
“I still think you would’ve looked great in it-taller, too,” Mike replied, and he led the way to the stage, where the various acts were registering and being told where to sit.
“Name of your act?” the man with the sign-in sheet asked.
“Lone Star and Union Jack,” Davy replied.
“And what do you do?”
“We’re musicians,” Mike said, wondering why the guitar case he was carrying didn’t give him a clue.
“Okay,” the man said, getting it all down. “You’re entry 18-right after Connecticut Yankee and the California Dreamer. They’re sitting over there in those seats; you should take your place next to them, and we’ll be calling you up one at a time for the auditions.”
“Thanks,” Mike said, suppressing an eyeroll as he and Davy headed to their seats next to the act before them.
The two members of the act-a taller blond boy around Mike’s age and a younger brunet around Davy’s age-observed them as they sat down, glancing at their outlandish costumes. Mike gave them a nod of assent as they looked his way.
“I think we’re in for quite a wait” Davy said, looking around at the long line of people still waiting to register. “Everyone and their dog seems to be here…”
“Well, $250 isn’t small change; I can’t blame them…” Mike said. “We’re really going to have to stand out.”
He set his guitar case down, accidentally knocking it against a set of gold-painted drums.
“Oh, sorry…”
“Eh, that’s okay…” the brunet boy said. “They didn’t exactly give us a lot of room to work with.”
“Yeah,” said the blond, adjusting the guitar strapped to his own shoulders. “I kept my case in the prop room so that no one would trip over it.”
“Uh-huh,” Mike said.
They lapsed into silence for a while until the brunet spoke again.
“So you guys are in this to win the money, huh?” he asked.
“Aren’t we all?” Davy asked.
“Well, we sure are,” the blond said. “We ran out of money for the bed and breakfast we’ve been staying in. We’ve got to win this; that’s our lodging money up there.”
“It’s a living, though,” the brunet said, shrugging it off. “We’ve just gotta believe we can win this.”
Davy and Mike exchanged uncomfortable glances.
“…Was it something I said?” the blond asked.
“That’s your lodging money?” Davy asked. “That… just happens to be our rent money, too.”
“We’ve got the crankiest landlord in the history of landlords…” Mike said, realizing that getting their rent money meant these two guys possibly spending a sleepless night on the town. And that brunet kid couldn’t be too much older than Davy was-he shouldn’t have to go through that…
The blond and the brunet now exchanged uncomfortable glances, as well.
“…Well, this is awkward,” the brunet said.
“You said it,” Mike said, wryly.
More silence followed. There didn’t seem to be an easy way out of this; someone was going to lose.
Nobody said anything, and it was soon time for the auditions. Mike and Davy and their seat-neighbors watched as the various performances took place; some of them were good, and some of them fell flat on their faces.
“Entry 17,” the judge called. “Connecticut Yankee and the California Dreamer?”
Mike and Davy’s seat-neighbors now got up and onto the stage, the brunet quickly setting up his drums. As he was doing this, he launched into an impression of James Cagney, proceeding to address the drums as “dirty rats,” as though trying to intimidate them into submission as the blond melodramatically begged him to “go easy on them.”
Davy couldn’t help but chuckle, and Mike had to give them credit for working in the time it took to set up the drums into the act itself.
“Well, they’re funny,” the Texan conceded. “But how are they musically? That’s the $250 question here.”
He soon got his answer; the duo launched into a rather haunting song about words. Davy and Mike both stared with wide eyes as they realized that they were, in fact, very good.
“Davy, my loyal compatriot… I think we’ve got our work cut out for us.”
The English boy continued to stare, nodding.
The duo finished up to an applause louder than anyone else had been given so far. Even the judge looked impressed.
“Let’s just get out of here and try to find something else,” Davy said, shaking his head. “Even if it does come down to the two of us, whoever loses ends up in trouble, and at least we’ve got a little bit of time to come up with the money…”
“No,” Mike said. “This is our big test; we need to show them how good we are, too. The money’s a matter for us, too, and we can’t wait to cross that bridge when we get to it. We can’t afford to back out any more than they can.”
“Entry 18,” the judge now called. “Lone Star and Union Jack?”
Mike and Davy stood up now heading to the stage; they passed the Connecticut Yankee and the California Dreamer coming down the stage steps; the blond gave them a nod and a smile, as though silently telling them to break a leg.
Mike sat down on the chair on the stage, flicking his hat brim out of his eyes as he gave a good-natured smirk at the audience; Dave gave them one of his winning smiles and gave Mike a nod to let him know he was ready.
They forgot about the pressures upon them as they began. Mike lost himself in his guitar playing, and Davy focused his entire consciousness on singing-keeping time with the tambourine was much more of an instinct for him. If they had been paying attention, they would’ve noticed the blond and the brunet boys watching with the same amount of awe and nervousness that Mike and Davy had when they had been watching them.
The audience loved “Papa Gene’s Blues;” more importantly, the judge did, too. He continued to watch with expectations as the duo launched into “Nine Times Blue.”
It was partway through that song that it happened-it was a quiet little twang, but to Mike and Davy, it was as loud as a clap of thunder as the G-string on Mike’s guitar snapped. Davy’s eyes widened as he heard it, and then as his accompaniment halted in its tracks, he glanced over his shoulder and caught a fleeting glimpse of Mike with a deer-in-the-headlights look.
At that point, instinct took over-for the both of them. Davy dashed across the stage and held the microphone out so that they could both sing into it, and Mike, who had gone on this long without singing, now started singing.
Davy suddenly got a mischievous look in his eyes as he started harmonizing, forcing Mike to sing the melody of his song, and sing it louder-Mike gave him a look, but his eyes betrayed the smile that he was trying to hide, and the two managed to finish the number a cappella-and finished it to an applause that indeed rivaled the applause that had been given to the blond and the brunet from the previous act.
They didn’t breathe a sigh of relief until after they had gotten off of the stage, after which they both exchanged glances-and relieved chuckles.
“What’re the odds that G-string had to go at that precise moment?” Mike asked.
“I don’t know, but I’ll tell you one thing,” Davy said. “You sang. And it wasn’t a disaster, now was it?”
“Well, no,” Mike conceded. “And I’ll admit… that was fun.”
“Then you should do it more often,” Davy said, giving him a good-natured punch on the arm. “And you can bet I’ll be seeing to it that you do.”
“Oh, come on, Tiny; that was a fluke…”
“That was no fluke! Not only was it not a disaster and not a fluke, the audience liked your singing.”
“Gosharooney, you bet we did!” the brunet boy said, as Mike and Davy returned to their seats (Mike rooting through his guitar case for another G-string). “I’ll bet you anything that tonight’s gonna come down to you versus us!”
“Yeah!” the blond agreed, and then he blinked. “You… you didn’t actually plan for that string to go, did you?”
“Are you kidding, Man?” Mike said, with a bemused look on his face.
“I didn’t think so…”
Mike just smiled again, but his smile soon faded as his search through his guitar case came up empty.
“Agh, I don’t believe it-I don’t have a spare G!”
Davy winced.
“You mean we have to go out and buy one?”
“Well, you don’t have to; you’re more than welcome to stay here and check out the rest of the competition. I can go and make a quick run to the nearest music store.”
“Hey,” the blond said. “I’m sure I’ve got a spare G in my guitar case; you can have it!”
Mike looked up, blinking in surprise.
“Really?”
“Sure! Just because we’re rivals doesn’t mean we shouldn’t help each other out.”
“Well, I’m much obliged, Shotgun,” Mike said, tipping his hat.
“You’re welcome… I think. First time I’ve ever been called that…”
“He means it as a term of endearment,” Davy assured him. “Same reason why he’s always calling me ‘Tiny…’ I’m Davy, by the way-and this is Mike; you can probably guess from the accents and the costumes that he’s Lone Star, and I’m Union Jack.”
“I’m Peter,” the blond said. “Connecticut Yankee.”
“And that would make me the California Dreamer,” the brunet said, with a grin. “Name’s Micky.” He turned back to Peter. “Hey, I thought you were gonna give them that G-string?”
“Oh, right!” Peter exclaimed. “I’ll go get it…”
“Actually, maybe I’ll follow your example and leave my guitar case in the prop room, too,” Mike said, picking it up. “Lead on.”
Peter indeed led the way, and the conversation continued as they walked.
“So how long have you guys been doing this act?” Micky asked.
“About a year and a half,” Davy said. “You?”
“Oh, we’ve been at this for a while-couldn’t even tell you how long,” Micky replied. “Peter and I have been traveling around Southern California, just playing for anyone willing to hire us.”
“It’s not going too well, though,” Peter confessed.
“Yeah, I figured that when you said that you were kipping at a bed and breakfast,” Davy said.
“…Kipping?” Micky repeated.
“Oh, you Colonists…” the English boy mused, rolling his eyes.
“One of these days, we’re writing a British-slang-to-Texan-drawl phrasebook,” Mike deadpanned.
Micky and Peter both got a chuckle out of that, and Peter now opened the door that they had arrived at. Inside the room were rows and rows of shelves with a vast array of items and props stored upon them; Peter’s guitar case had been proper up against one of them, and it only took him a moment to find the G-string.
“Here you go,” he said.
“Thanks; you saved me a lot of trouble,” Mike said, stringing it onto his guitar and testing it out. He then rooted through his pockets. “I’ll pay you for it if you just give me just a second to find my money.”
“Oh, no; please, don’t bother!”
“Come on, Man; it’s only right-”
“I insist-no strings attached!” Peter said. “…Well, no strings except the actual string, obviously…”
“But you only said just a few seconds ago that you don’t have enough money!” Davy pointed out. “For the second time, I might add!”
“It’s just a guitar string; it’s not like it’s… well, something like that,” Peter said, glancing at what looked like a jade sculpture of a monkey on one of the shelves.
Davy glanced at it, and he suddenly frowned.
“What’s wrong?” Micky asked.
“I’ve seen that thing somewhere before,” Davy said, taking it off of the shelf. “But where?”
“Well, it’s probably just a prop from some show you must’ve seen here,” Micky said, waving it off. “Come on; I want to go back to the stage and get a look at the rest of the competition!”
“Hold it,” Mike said, now looking at the monkey sculpture, too. “Hold everything for just one second.”
He searched his pockets again, this time coming up with the page of newspaper from the morning; he had been carrying it with him since it had the address of the theatre; the article about the stolen jade sculpture had been right opposite of the advertisement.
“Davy? I think I found where you saw that thing before…”
The others crowded around him, looking at the article that Davy had glanced over early that morning.
“That picture of the missing jade sculpture looks just like that prop!” Peter exclaimed. “Wow, what’re the odds of that?”
There was a bit of silence as the four looked from the paper to the figure in the English boy’s hands.
“…It is a prop, right?” Peter went on. “I mean, it has to be a prop! This is a prop room; everything in here is supposed to be fake!”
“Yeah-supposed to be,” Micky said, resting his chin in his hand as he pondered. “That’s also why it’d make sense to stash something here-no one would give it a second look since they’d pass it off as a prop.”
“There’s that,” Mike agreed. “And never mind the fact that all of the objects surrounding where that thing had been are covered in a layer of dust-while that thing didn’t even have a speck of dust on it…”
Davy gulped, staring at the thing in his hands.
“You know, it is quite heavy…” he said. “Is… is there an easy way to tell real jade from a replica?”
Micky suddenly paled.
“Well, offhand, I’d say the fact that there are three angry guys standing by the door, blocking any and all means of escape we might have, kinda suggests that we might have the real McCoy here.”
The other three turned to face the door in shock, staring down the three thugs in suits glaring back at them-one of them had his hand in his coat pocket, obviously going for some sort of weapon.
“What do you think, Guys?” Micky squeaked, his nervousness making itself known in his voice.
Mike exhaled, his mind racing as he positioned himself so as to shield Davy from view as much as possible.
“I reckon we just got ourselves headlong into a whole mess of trouble,” the Texan declared.
**********************************
Nobody said anything as one of the three thugs pulled out a switchblade knife from his pocket.
“Well, that’s a lovely little knife you got there,” Mike said, after a while.
“Shut up, Cowboy,” the man holding the knife said. “We want the jade.”
One of the other two thugs now stepped forward, pulling Davy out from where Mike was trying to shield him.
“No…!” the Texan exclaimed, but he was rewarded for his concern with a forceful shove that sent him crashing back into Micky and Peter.
“Mike!” Davy cried, trying to get back to him, but his captor hooked an arm around his shoulders, lifting him off of the ground.
The man with the knife now stood in front of them, holding the tip of the blade up, a few inches from English boy’s neck.
“N-Not the throat, please…” Davy said, his voice quivering. “I need that throat; I’m a singer…”
“Then tell us what you did with the jade; you must’ve palmed it or something. And we want it.”
“Let him go!” Mike ordered, as Micky and Peter helped him to his feet. “He’s just a kid!”
He moved forward to try to help him, but the third thug blocked his way.
“Davy!” Mike cried.
“The jade, Shorty. Where is it?” Knife Man asked again.
“I have it!” Peter blurted out, unable to take any more of this. “He gave it to me when you guys showed up. Please, let him go!”
The blond stepped forward, holding out the jade figure, but Mike held out an arm to stop him and took the figure from him.
“First you hand Davy over to us, and then you get your jade.”
“You ain’t in a position to bargain, Cowboy,” Knife Man said. “Unless you want your midget friend here receiving a tracheotomy, I suggest you comply with our demands rather than try making up your own.”
Davy cringed as he felt the tip of the blade make contact, and Mike’s resolve crumbled to dust.
“Okay, take it! Take it! Just don’t hurt him!”
He handed the jade figure over to the man blocking his way. Knife Man put the weapon away and gave a nod to Davy’s captor, who callously shoved the boy across the room, where he landed at Mike’s feet.
“Davy…!” the Texan gasped, kneeling beside him. “Davy, are you okay?”
“I think so,” the English boy said, bravely.
“I’m sorry,” Peter said. “I know you gave the jade to me to keep it safe, and I tried not to say anything…”
“You did the right thing, Pete,” Micky said, placing him on the shoulder. “You couldn’t let them hurt him-or any of us.”
“Before we start relaxing, I don’t think we’re out of the woods just yet,” Mike said, as he glanced back at the three thugs. They seemed to be discussing something.
“Just get rid of ‘em; they know too much.”
“We can’t make any decisions without the final word from the boss,” Knife Man reminded him. “We’ll lock ‘em up here until he tells us what to do.”
“Lock us up?!” Micky yelped. “In here?! But there’re no windows in here! We’ll suffocate!”
“Well, that’ll solve our problem, then, won’t it?” Knife Man mused. “Saves us the trouble of finishing you off. Anyone will think you got locked in here accidentally-and that’s what we’re going to bank on.”
The four boys charged for the door as the thugs departed, but Knife Man quickly locked the deadbolt lock behind him. They pounded on the door, hoping that someone would hear them, but no help came.
“What do we do?” Peter asked, worry etched into his face. “Micky’s right; with four of us in here, the amount of air is limited.”
“We’ve got to try to break that door,” Mike said. “If not all the way open, then at least get it off one of its hinges to let some air in here. Peter, I need you to help me try to kick it. Davy, you and Micky look for an ax.”
“An ax?” Davy repeated.
“Anything that can hack into this door!” Mike exclaimed. “There has to be something remotely sharp among those props! I’ll even take a screwdriver to undo the hinges-just look for something!”
“Right,” the English boy said.
He and Micky started searching through the shelves as Mike and Peter took turns kicking and tackling the door-and then trying to do so in tandem. Time ticked on and on; all four of them were sweating from their seemingly fruitless efforts and the stuffiness of the room they were in.
“It’s not even weakening,” the Texan grumbled, massaging his shoulder after having charged into it repeatedly. “Are you guys having any luck?”
“Nope,” Micky sighed. “It’s like they child-proofed this room and locked away anything remotely dangerous.”
“…That’s it, then,” Peter said, sinking to the floor in despair. “There’s no way out.” He cringed. “This is all my fault! Why’d I have to go store my guitar case in here?! Argh! I really am stupid…!”
“It’s a prop room, Shotgun; you did the logical thing,” Mike assured him.
“If anything, it’s my fault for ever giving that jade a second look,” Davy sighed. Frustrated, he kicked a small storage box; it scooted a couple inches across the floor, and that was when Davy noticed part of the grate in the wall that had been obscured by the box. “Hey, what’s this?”
“Eh, it’s just a ventilator shaft,” Mike said, casting a glance at it.
“Oh,” Davy said.
A moment passed, and the four looked from the grate, to each other, and back again.
“A ventilator shaft!?” they repeated, in unison.
“Air!” Micky added, staring at it with almost-shining eyes. “We’re saved!” He pushed the box out of the way and sighed as he felt the breeze from the grate. “Ahh… …Hey, look, Guys! There aren’t any nails or screws holding this grate in.”
“So?” Mike asked.
“Oh, come on!” Micky said, pulling out the grate with a few sharp tugs. “I’ve seen this in a ton of movies-you get someone to crawl through the air ducts and get out at the next grate-and then he’s free!”
Mike’s eyebrows arched, not so sure that would work.
“That’s an awfully tight fit,” Peter said, looking at the rather skinny duct. “We’d need someone really small and skinny…”
Davy’s eyes widened.
“I bet I could manage it!” he exclaimed, eager to try.
“Okay, hold it…” Mike said, deciding to stop this before it went any further. “Davy, don’t do this. You don’t know what’s in there-fan blades or venomous spiders or… all sorts of nasty things. We don’t need to try to recreate the Great Escape; we’ve got a source of air in here, and that’s the most important thing. Yeah, those creeps are going to get away with that jade statue, but at least we’re going to get out of this eventually.”
“Unless their boss says they should make sure we’re out of the picture,” Micky said. “And then they come back here and see we’ve got this vent. Then they’ll find some other way to finish us off…” He shuddered. “Okay, I’ll go.”
“Be careful!” Peter pleaded.
“Look, I don’t think this is such a good idea…” Mike said, but he may as well have been addressing the wall.
Micky tried to scrunch up his shoulders and fit through the grate, but it soon became clear that his shoulders were too broad; he only made it about a couple feet down the duct before he couldn’t move any further.
“…Uh, Guys? Guys? …I’m stuck…”
“Well, stop kicking, and we’ll get you out,” Mike said, dodging one of Micky’s flailing feet.
It took them a moment, but they managed to free the brunet from the ductwork.
“Guess it’s back to me,” Davy said, moving to try.
Mike seized him by the collar of his costume.
“Don’t even think about it, Tiny.”
“Why is it with him you just said it wasn’t a good idea, and for me, it’s ‘don’t even think about it?’” the English boy asked, frowning. “It’s because I’m short, isn’t it?”
“No; it’s because I’ve only known him for half an hour, and, because of that, I can’t tell him what to do.”
“Well, you can’t tell me what to do, either,” Davy informed him. “You’re not my mum!”
“Yeah, well, I’m the closest thing you’ve got to one over here!”
Davy gave him a perplexed look.
“…Somehow, I don’t think you quite meant to say that…”
Mike massaged the bridge of his nose; in his concern, his tongue had gotten ahead of his head.
“Okay, I’m the closest thing to family you’ve got,” Mike said. “I know we didn’t plan for that-in fact, we tried our best to avoid it, but there’s no going back now. And that means that I can’t let you go crawling around in the ductwork.”
“So, don’t let me,” Davy said. “I’ll still go, anyway. You can ground me after I free you all. And I will get you out of here.”
“Davy-!”
The English boy leapfrogged into open duct, prompting Mike to grab him by the boots and try to pull him out. Micky and Peter moved forward to help him, but Davy slipped out of his boots and kept crawling down the ductwork.
Mike looked at the two empty boots in his hands in frustration.
“Davy! Man, you’d better get back here, or you’re in big trouble!”
But Davy had gone selectively deaf, whistling as he worked his way further down the duct. Mike gritted his teeth and let out a frustrated growl.
“You must really care about him a lot,” Peter said, softly.
Mike looked back at the blond in surprise, but nodded; it must’ve been obvious from his reaction, he supposed.
“You know, if it wasn’t for the obviously different accents, you probably could pass as brothers,” Micky said. “Pete and I have been asked if we’re cousins before-I guess the hair was different enough that they didn’t have to guess that we were bro-”
He was cut off as, from within the ductwork, came a horrible creaking and groaning of metal, followed by a cry of alarm from Davy, which was then cut off and followed by a thundering crash.
All the color drained from Mike’s face as silence followed.
“Davy!?” Mike cried. “DAVY!?”
Micky and Peter watched on, horrified, as there was no reply. Mike made a fruitless attempt to try to fit through the duct, but couldn’t get more than his head into the space. Mike now got up, crossing to the door and pounding on it, trying with renewed drive to try to force it open.
“Why didn’t you listen to me?!” he hissed, but there was no mistaking the horror and unbridled worry in his voice.
Once again, the door refused to budge, and after Mike had expended all of his energy, he sunk to his knees, staring blankly at the floor, drowning in his helplessness.
“I’m so sorry…” Micky said, blinking back tears. “I shouldn’t have come up with that dumb idea; I didn’t think that… this would happen…”
“Maybe he’s okay,” Peter said, trying to hang onto some thread of hope. “Maybe he just ended up somewhere out of earshot…”
But Mike was inconsolable, his mind focused on “if onlys”-if only he had gone after Davy’s ankles after he had slipped out of his boots… if only he had allowed his concern to set off his righteous anger enough to have intimidated Davy into not going…
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed; it might have been days for all the worrying that he had been doing. But, suddenly, they heard the deadbolt on the door unlock. Mike got to his feet, ready to tackle their captors if they were about to enter, but he halted in his tracks as Davy stood on the other side of the door-covered in dust and cobwebs, but grinning from ear to ear.
“Davy!” Micky and Peter exclaimed, grinning with relief to see him safe and alright.
Mike was still too dumbstruck to say a word.
“I told you I’d get you out, didn’t I?” Davy said, as he nonchalantly picked up his boots and put them back on as though nothing had just happened. “Piece of cake, that was; there’s a whole level of rooms down there-some of them run right under the stage. That’s where I landed, actually-right on a pile of old stage curtains. I would be lucky enough to get a soft landing…”
He trailed off as Mike suddenly seized him by the shoulders.
“Davy,” he said, in a dangerously quiet voice. “You have no idea how much I want to absolutely throttle you right now. We are going to discuss this later, but for now, we’re getting out of here.”
Mike released him and stormed out of the room, leaving Davy standing there, stunned.
“Mike…?” he asked.
Peter clapped Davy on the shoulder.
“He was really worried,” he said. “And he had every right to be; from where we were standing, it sounded really bad.”
“Yeah, and seeing as though he warned you about going in there…” Micky said. “Well, you know…”
Davy blinked, stunned, and then picked up Mike’s guitar, case and all, running after the Texan.
“Mike!” Davy called. “Mike wait!”
The Texan looked back, but then paused, silently waiting for Davy to hand over the guitar. He took it without a word.
“I’m sorry, Mike.”
“You oughta be!” he retorted, but then sighed as Davy flinched. “Davy… just tell me one thing. Why?”
“…I had to get you out of there,” the English boy said, quietly. “Micky was right-I mean, there was a possibility that they could’ve come back to finish us off. I couldn’t let that happen-not when you’ve been such a good friend to me.”
Mike sighed, looking upward in exasperation. Why is it that every time that Davy did something that gave him the right to get righteously angry, Davy’s motivation was so unselfish that Mike just couldn’t stay angry?
He placed a hand on Davy’s shoulder, managing a wan smile.
“Don’t you ever scare me like that again.”
The smile found its way back onto Davy’s face.
“Deal.”
“Hey, you’re both smiling again!” Peter observed, as he and Micky caught up with them. “That’s great! Now we can all get out of here!”
“Oh…” Micky said, wincing. “My drums are still in the wings. I know I should be more concerned with getting out of here, but if I don’t have those drums, we’ve got no act! And if we’ve got no act, we won’t be able to get any money for food or lodging or anything once we do get out of here!”
“Well, maybe they’ll give us a reward once we return this,” Davy said, pulling the jade monkey figure from his pocket.
The other three stared at him.
“I thought I gave it to them after you gave it to me!” Peter said, scratching his head. “How did you get it back?”
“It was down in the storage room I fell into,” Davy said. “They must’ve left it there while they called their boss.”
Mike’s eyes widened.
“We need to get out of here-now!”
“I thought we already established that?” Davy asked.
“No; they’re going to head to that room after hearing you fall in there-and then they’ll see the missing jade and the broken ductwork and figure out that we must’ve gotten out-if they haven’t already! They’re probably on our way up here!”
“Then let’s grab my drums and split!” Micky suggested.
Mike gave a nod; yes, he knew that perhaps Micky’s priorities were somewhat skewed in this case, but Mike understood, being a musician, too; he wouldn’t leave his guitar behind-especially not in a case like theirs, when their instruments were the things that kept food on the table.
The four hightailed it to the stage, where Micky gathered his drums onto the wheeled cart he had brought to store them on.
“Ah, there you are!” a voice said.
The boys jumped, but calmed down as they realized that the one talking to them was the talent show judge.
“Are you going somewhere?” he asked, seeing them pack up.
“Uh, yeah, we’re leaving. Extenuating circumstances,” Mike said, tipping his hat. “Thank you for the lovely time.”
“You can’t leave!” the judge said. “You’re both scheduled to open the show in less than ten minutes!”
“What?” Peter asked. “You mean we made it past the preliminaries?”
“Never mind that; you mean it’s 8:00?” Mike asked. They had been locked in that room for that long?
“That’s right; where’ve you boys been? You-Connecticut Yankee and California Dreamer-you’re opening. And Lone Star and Union Jack, you’re right after them,” the judge said.
“Look, that’s great and all, but we’re really going to have to withdraw,” Mike said. “So thank you and good evening!”
“You can’t withdraw!” the judge exclaimed. “Boys, I have our show’s sponsor-the owner of the Vincent Van Gogh-Gogh Club-in the audience. I was absolutely raving to him about your two acts; he’s expecting to see you. And if he picks a favorite, that lucky duo might end up with a summer-long gig at his club.”
Four heads turned to the judge’s direction.
“You must be joking!” Davy exclaimed. “Solid source of money for the entire summer? As in, our rent payment?”
“As in, our food and lodging money?” Micky added.
“Fellas!” Mike said, sharply.
“Mike’s right,” Peter said. “Money won’t mean anything if we’re… well… not here to spend it.”
Mike nodded and moved to lead them off, giving his apologies.
“We’re really sorry for running off like this, but we’ve got circumstances beyond our control…” He stopped in his tracks, trailing off as he saw the three thugs furiously searching backstage-obviously for them. “…Sweet mother of mercy…”
Mike now pulled an about-face, dragging the others back.
“Actually, we can play,” he announced.
“What?!” Davy, Micky, and Peter asked, in unison.
“Excellent!” the judge said.
“On one condition,” Mike added. “We’re not playing as two separate acts; we want both of our acts on stage together.”
“What?!” Davy, Micky, and Peter repeated, with more intensity.
Mike gritted his teeth and jerked his head in the direction of backstage. The other three took a look and paled, now shrinking back to where Mike was standing.
“Both acts together?” the judge repeated.
“Yeah,” Mike went on, spontaneously. “It’s the best way to be able to compare us-side by side, rather than one after the other. It’s a whole lot fairer that way, too-no worrying about first impressions or lasting impressions…”
The judge’s eyebrows arched, unaware of what they seemed to be fretting about.
“Well, if that’s what you want, have at it-you’re on in five.”
“And after that, we’re splitting,” Mike added. “And when I say we’re going to run, I mean we’re going to run.”
“Fine. But I’ll need your addresses and phone numbers so that we-and the manager of the club-will have a way to contact you as to the results of the contest.”
“Mike and I are at 1334 North Beechwood Drive, Malibu,” Davy rattled off, also giving their phone number, as Micky and Peter exchanged glances-for they had neither an address or phone number.
“Got it,” the judge said. He looked to Micky and Peter. “And you two?”
“…Can we get back to you on that?” Micky asked.
The judge gave a shrug and left the stage, and Mike motioned for the others to follow him onstage.
Micky set up his drums, casting a nervous glance offstage; any second now, those three thugs could make it to the wings and see them onstage. And if that happened before the curtain rose and they were in view of people… well, there was no telling what their fate would be.
To the relief of all four of them, the curtain did open, and as the emcee announced that the two favorites to win would be playing together, Mike turned to the others.
“Y’all ready?”
Three fervent “No”s replied him.
“Well, neither am I. So play like our lives depend on it,” the Texan said, casting a nervous glance into the wings. “Because they do.”
Micky gulped, and as Mike started to lead with a riff on his guitar, the brunet randomly played on his drums with a beat that he hoped fit. Peter joined in with the bassline, and Davy kept time with his tambourine, every so often casting a nervous glance at the jade in his pocket.
Mike gave a sigh and then started to sing; random words came to his head, and he sang them-something about a circle sky and extraordinary scenes. About halfway through, the three thugs did make it to one of the wings and saw them there onstage, but knew very well that they could do nothing in front of all of those witnesses. And if it hadn’t been for the thugs’ looming presence offstage, Davy would’ve probably been thrilled to see Mike singing lead on his own volition.
Mike drew the song to a close after running out of lyrics; somehow, they managed to stop playing at the same time rather than as an unorganized mess. Mike threw a thanks to the audience as Micky hurriedly stacked his drums on their little carrying cart.
“What now?” Davy asked, seeing the thugs just waiting for them. Knife Man had one side of the stage covered, and the other two had switched their positions to the other wing in order to prevent their escape.
“Tactical retreat!” Mike announced.
He grabbed his guitar case and leaped from the front of stage to the choir bleachers below them. Davy and Peter followed suit, with Micky taking the front stage steps so as to get his drums down without damaging them.
Everyone stared at them as they dashed through the aisles-some of them clapped and cheered, thinking it was part of their act. But the boys didn’t stop until they were out into the evening air.
“We made it!” Micky exclaimed.
“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Mike informed him. “We need to deliver that jade to the police-and it’s a cinch that our friends over there will be following us.”
“But we’ll never be able to outrun them!” Peter exclaimed. “We don’t even have a set of wheels!”
“But we do!” Davy said, indicating Mike’s GTO.
“Oh, Man…” Micky breathed, staring at the car with wide eyes. “That is one groovy ride! Have you thought about getting it customized?”
“Hasn’t really crossed my mind,” Mike said, unlocking the trunk.
“It’s one of Micky’s life goals to customize a car,” Peter explained. “He loves mechanical and technological things…”
“Yeah, unfortunately, I’ve never had a car to customize,” the drummer said, with a resigned shrug.
“Well, if I ever decide that this thing needs anything added to it, you’ll be the first to know,” Mike promised, as he helped store all of the instruments in the trunk.
Davy suddenly let out a yelp.
“Don’t look now, but they’ve found us!”
The front door of the theatre opened, revealing Knife Man and his two flunkies. Mike and Davy made a break for the front seats while Peter and Micky scrambled over the back of the car and into the back seats.
Knife Man made a grab for Micky as he ran towards the car, but Mike pulled out of the parking space and sped off, leaving him grabbing empty air.
“Uh-oh…” Peter said, turning around to see the thugs getting into a second car. “They’ve got wheels, too.”
Mike responded by speeding up; his hat flew off his head, only to be caught by Peter just in time.
“Where exactly are we going?” Micky called.
“I’m hoping to get the attention of a traffic cop!” Mike responded.
“I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” Davy said, flatly, as he was thrown against the car door when Mike made a sharp turn.
“Bite your tongue; at least I wasn’t the one who wrecked the ductwork!”
Davy’s reply was halted by Micky’s frantic cry.
“They’re catching up! They’re catching up!” he yelped. He blinked in surprise as the crooks’ car now pulled alongside them. “…They’re passing us?”
“No…” Mike said, going pale as he realized what they were planning. “They’re trying to run us off the road!”
He slammed the brakes of the GTO just as Knife Man’s car tried to sideswipe them; they had put a lot of force into their attempted swipe, which had missed the GTO by an inch; the momentum carried Knife Man’s car across the lane, where it skidded off the road and got stuck in a muddy ditch.
“HA!” Micky exclaimed, getting up to glare at the thugs, who were unhurt, but well and truly stuck. “Now that’s karma if I’ve ever seen it! Take that!”
“Micky, sit down!” Peter pleaded, as Mike sped the GTO up again; Micky obliged, and Mike didn’t slow the car down until they were a safe distance away.
**********************************
Mike eventually found a police station-it shone like a beacon after everything the boys had been through in the last several hours. Davy finally was able to get the jade monkey off of his hands, and after a few more formalities involving reports and statements as to what had happened, along with a description of the thugs and their car, they were finally allowed to leave.
It was nearly midnight by the time the four musicians headed out into the Los Angeles night air.
“Man, what a day…” Mike yawned.
“And night,” Davy added.
“Yeah, that’s right; it’s past your bedtime.”
“Oh, ha ha…” the English boy laughed, sardonically.
Peter and Micky both grinned, amused.
“You two are really lucky to have each other,” the blond observed. “I know I’ve felt that way about Micky and me, too.”
“Yeah, if you’ve gotta be broke and hungry, having someone to share it with makes it a whole less unbearable,” Micky agreed, as he moved to open the GTO’s trunk.
“What are you doing?” Davy asked.
“Getting my drums and Pete’s guitar. Now that this is all over, we can go on to wherever it was we were going.”
“…Where’s that, Mick?” Peter asked, baffled. “I didn’t think we had plans to go anywhere…”
“Wherever the road takes us, Pete. Wherever the road takes us.”
“Well, wait a minute!” Mike said, placing a hand on Micky’s shoulder. “It’s not over yet-not until we’re sure those three who took the monkey statue are behind bars. What happens if you run into them?”
Micky looked to Peter, who gave a helpless shrug. He had no idea.
“Keep running, I guess,” he offered.
“Well, that won’t do…” Mike said.
And Davy now looked to his companion.
“Mike, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“I think I am, Tiny,” he replied, and he turned back to Micky and Peter. “Hey, uh… You know, we’ve got room at our place. It was pre-furnished, and had two sets of beds in each of the bedrooms; we’ve been using those extra beds for storage space, but we could easily make room for you.”
“We couldn’t impose…!” Peter exclaimed.
“Look, you can’t stay out here with those blokes running around, and you can’t afford to stay anywhere else,” Davy pointed out.
“Yeah, but we have no way to pay you, either!” Micky said.
“Well, it’s not like the rent is going to go up because we have guests,” Mike pointed out. “You want a written invitation or something?”
Micky and Peter exchanged glances again.
“Well, okay,” Peter said, at last. “But just for tonight.”
**********************************
And so it came to pass that Micky and Peter arrived at 1334 North Beechwood drive, fully intending to leave the next morning. But they ended up never leaving; the next morning, as they were halfway through a breakfast of pizza that Davy had managed to salvage from the fridge, the phone rang. Mike answered with, drawling a “Hello” in between bites.
The caller had turned out to be the owner of the Vincent Van Gogh-Gogh; he, the judge, and the audience had almost all unanimously agreed that the combined performance of the Connecticut Yankee and the California Dreamer with Lone Star and Union Jack was worthy of first prize. The club owner went on further to say that he was willing to hire both acts for a summer-long gig, but on the stipulation that they performed together, as they had done the previous evening.
“So if you and your friend can find out where those other two musicians got to and can convince them to go along with it, you’re all hired,” the owner finished.
“I think we’re all in luck,” Mike intoned, glancing back at the other three, who were looking back at him. “Gentlemen, we’ve collectively won the $250 prize, and, furthermore, we are all hired for the summer at the Vincent Van Gogh-Gogh-providing that we agree to play as a quartet rather than two separate duos.”
He held the phone receiver out.
“We’ll do it!” they all chorused, in unison.
That was more than satisfactory for the club owner; they would start the coming weekend, so as to provide them time to adapt their different setlists to their new arrangements.
“How about that…” Davy mused, after they had said their thanks and goodbyes to the club owner. “We all won the money, and we all got the gig.” He looked to Micky and Peter. “Since we’ve got a lot of practicing to do, you may as well stay here for some more time.”
“Yeah, we may as well…” Micky said. “But do you think we can really make this work-I mean really make this work?”
“Well, we made it work last night,” Mike pointed out. “But we’re going to have to come up with a name to refer to our combined act-referring to ourselves as ‘The Connecticut Yankee, the California Dreamer, Lone Star, and Union Jack’ is going to get old really fast…”
They pondered over this for a moment, and then Peter reached into the pocket of Mike’s jacket from his costume that he had draped over one of the chairs the previous night, pulling out the newspaper article about the jade monkey.
“Well…” the blond said, after glancing at the picture of the monkey in the article. “Seeing as though it was this monkey that inadvertently brought us together onstage last night, I say we name our act after it! …But it shouldn’t be too obvious, I think; we should probably tweak it just a little bit so that only we know the real significance behind it, of course…”
The other three exchanged glances with each other and then with Peter, nodding in agreement.
The decision was unanimous.
And the rest, as they say, was history. The summer was a success for all of them (except for Knife Man and his flunkies, who had been found still trying to get their car out of the ditch and had been arrested overnight); adapting their songs to a quartet ended up working out so great, that even after the summer had ended and their seasonal gig at the club had come to an end, the Monkees couldn’t even consider the thought of splitting up into two duos again, leading to Micky and Peter becoming permanent residents of the little beachhouse.
It was a testament to the power of serendipity-a chance meeting had led to the discovery of an amazing shared talent. Micky eventually got his wish of being able to customize a car; Mike eventually let him go at it with his GTO, which, by the end of Micky’s project, had been named the Monkeemobile. And though Davy and Mike (who no longer had any qualms about singing lead) remained the best of friends due to having known each other the longest, as did Micky and Peter, there was no denying that all four of them shared a strong kinship with each other-and that, perhaps, had been the most valuable thing they had ended up finding that fateful day at the Great Oak Theatre.
Author: Crystal Rose of Pollux (rose_of_pollux)
Claim: The Monkees: Mike Nesmith and Davy Jones (platonic/friendship; fictional personas from the show only!)
Table: DIY
Prompt: Captured/Trapped
Rating: PG
Summary: Impending rent hikes send Mike and Davy auditioning for a talent show offering a cash prize, where they meet a pair of friendly rivals... and more trouble than they bargained for
Cross-posted to FFN and monkeesfic (in 2 parts; it's all one part here).
Notes: The part of my "origins" story that explains how, as I see it, the TV-verse Monkees got together. Again, this is meant to apply to the TV/fictional personas of the Monkees only!
*********************************
Malibu, CA; one year prior:
Mike and Davy’s act had done well in the months since its creation-a year and a half later, and it was still going strong. Mike was the creative force of the duo; he wrote the songs and would back Davy up on guitar as the English boy sang. And although Davy was fine with this arrangement, he did wonder why Mike opted out of singing himself; he had offered to let him sing many times, but Mike always had insisted that Davy should be the one to do the singing.
The only downside to their venture was that the income they gained from it was neither steady nor predictable. Davy soon found himself spending almost all of his lodging reimbursement to cover Mike’s share of the rent during the slower times when he wasn’t able to make his half, which meant little to no money left to take out the girls on dates-for him, truly the ultimate sacrifice.
With Davy’s summer break on the horizon, things were going to get even more difficult; the previous summer had told them one thing-there was no lodging reimbursement during the summer. And while Davy’s grandfather had expected that, he had also expected Davy to get a steady summer job to pay for wherever he was being put up for the summer’s duration-something he had spelled out in the letter Davy had received from him at the start of his previous summer break.
“Davy…” Mike had said, happening to have read the letter over his shoulder. “Your gramps does know you live in a beachhouse with a roommate, right?”
Davy’s hesitance in replying had given Mike the answer-as had the fact that the envelope had been addressed to the school, who had to forward it themselves to Davy.
“You don’t understand!” Davy had replied. “I can’t let him know that I’m rooming with a musician while trying to be a musician myself! That… isn’t what he expects of me.”
“Why should he have to expect anything from you?” Mike had wondered. “You’re just a kid!”
“That’s just the way he is; he wants me to make something of myself.”
“Okay. And what do you want to do?”
“I want to keep on doing this act with you. I want to be a musician.”
“Well, Tiny, you’re in luck-that’s what you are, and that’s making something of yourself. And if that’s what you want to be, that what you’re going to be. You’ve got that spark and fire alive in you, so don’t you ever let anyone tell you that you can’t be a musician-or else you’ll have to answer to me.”
And that had inspired Davy to keep on going, and, somehow, the two of them had made it through that summer literally singing for their supper-and breakfast, lunch, and rent. Once classes started again and the rent pressure was off for a bit, things got easier. But with summer here once again, the two of them were ready to do it all over again.
As per normal on these summer mornings, Mike had taken a walk to the nearest newsstand and returned with the morning paper, searching for any sort of audition or opening for a musical act. On one such morning, Davy was busy preparing their morning toast as Mike looked through the paper; Davy wasn’t really paying attention-at least, not until Mike suddenly let out a quiet gasp.
“Oh, no…” he murmured.
“What’s wrong?” Davy inquired.
“Oh, no,” the Texan repeated, seemingly not hearing him.
“What’s the matter?”
“Oh, no.”
“For pity’s sake, Man-what is it?!” Davy asked, loudly enough to snap Mike out of it.
“This,” Mike said, handing him one of the pages of the paper.
Davy blinked, not quite sure what it was he was supposed to be looking at.
“‘Priceless ancient jade monkey sculpture stolen from museum-’” Davy began to read, but Mike cut him off.
“Not that! The column next to it!”
“‘State Legislature voted “Yes” yesterday to property tax increase.’ Is that all?”
“Are you kidding, Man? Do you realize what this means?”
“I’m trying to work that out now. This Legislature thing-that’s like Parliament, right?”
“Look, the only thing that matters is the second half of that sentence: property tax increase.”
“Well, I can figure that out,” Davy said. “I can also figure out that we’ve got nothing to worry about; we don’t own any property!”
“We don’t,” Mike agreed. “But Mr. Babbitt does-and when he has to deal with that property tax increase, he’s going to pass the buck on to us!”
Davy now let out a nervous little “Ooh!” as it finally sunk in.
“You said it,” the Texan agreed. “And if you may recall, we only just managed to make our rent payments last summer. We’re going to have to do better than last year if we want to meet the new rent rate and keep our stomachs filled.”
“But our line of business is never a sure thing!” Davy said. “You don’t know where the next gig is coming from-or when!”
Mike gave a nod.
“That leaves us with only two other options,” he said. “One: we try to find another place-one that’s cheaper than here. And seeing as though this was the cheapest place around when I found it, that isn’t going to work.”
“So… what’s option two?”
“We take in another roommate-simple as that.”
“I don’t think that’s such a great idea, either,” Davy said, frowning. “I mean, it took us nearly two months until we started talking to each other, and then another three months until we realized that we even cared about each other. Having another roommate is going to complicate things a lot. We’ve only got two bedrooms, anyway. And besides that, how do we know that we’d get along with this other roommate? I just don’t think this will work.”
“In defense of my idea, the ‘I just don’t think this will work’ argument was going through my head the day I decided to take you in. I say we give it a try-at least a trial period. We’ve got the strength in numbers to kick the guy out if we decide we can’t live with him.”
“This is true…” Davy said. “But how do we go about it?”
“Well, I was going to recommend fliers,” Mike said. “That’s what I had in mind two years ago-of course, you ended up sparing me the humiliation of sticking fliers all over town. Anyway, it’s not as though we have to do this overnight; that new property tax doesn’t kick in until the next fiscal quarter. But that is still a limited window of time that we have to work with, so we can’t put it off forever, either.”
Davy nodded, but then blinked as something on the other side of the newspaper page caught his eye.
“Hey!” he exclaimed. “I think we might have a temporary solution, at any rate! Look at this!”
“Look at what? I never got past that other page…”
“‘Amateur Talent Competition tonight at the Great Oak Theatre, 8:00; auditions to be held at 4:00; those selected in the auditions will be competing for cash prize of $250!’” Davy read. “…How much is that in English money?”
“Who cares? It’s a month’s worth of rent, and that’s all that matters!” Mike replied. “We need to win that thing! We’ve got to come up with a good set…”
“Each act is allowed up to ten minutes; going over that counts against you,” Davy said, as he read on. “The way I figure it, we can do two songs, plus give them a little embellishing if we have to; that ought to do it.”
“Hmm…” Mike mused aloud. “I say we give them a taste of a feel-good number, and then one to get ‘em bawling. Shows our vast repertoire, don’t you think?”
“What about that song you were working on the other day?” Davy asked. “That was really nice and upbeat-what did you say that one was called?”
“Papa Gene’s Blues.”
“…There’s nothing blue about that; I was going to choose it for our feel-good number! Why did you call it that?”
“Because I can, Tiny. Because I can…” Mike said, with a smirk. “Anyway, after that, I say we give ‘em a taste of ‘Nine Times Blue’ and see if we can get everyone to turn to their handkerchiefs.”
“See, now that song actually is sad; I’ll buy that title,” Davy said, and then he hesitated. “Hey, why don’t you sing lead on one of them?”
Mike turned to Davy in surprise.
“…No, I’d better not.”
“Okay, that’s it,” Davy said, determined to get an answer this time. “Mike, why do you insist on not singing? It’s not that I mind doing all the singing, but… Well, they’re your songs! You should be singing at least some of them!”
“Look, I write the songs and play guitar, you sing and play tambourine and maracas, and the people love it. We’ve got a saying over here in the States: ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’”
“But we could try something different for once!” Davy said. “I’ve heard you sing-you’ve got a wonderful voice!”
“Well, that may be, but… it might not be enough.”
Davy blinked in surprise.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well… before you came along, I wasn’t doing too well with my music-that’s why I had that waiter job in the first place. But then you came along, and we started going places. The songs were the same, but the person singing them was different. And now I think I’ve figured out why. The fact of the matter is, Tiny, that you’re a kid from the other side of the world-that automatically intrigues people, including the audience. Think about it-an intriguing English kid who goes to a high-class private school? Davy, you’re what’s in right now. Add to that the fact that you’ve got the looks, too; it’s a cinch that the audience would prefer to look at your pretty face rather than this ugly thing I’ve got here,” Mike added, absently feeling his sideburns. “It’s a no-brainer, so give ‘em what they want.”
Davy’s shoulders slumped; he had no idea that Mike looked down on himself so harshly. In reality, Davy had wished he could be able to churn out a song so easily as Mike did; Mike had so much talent, and Davy had been looking up to him all this time. And now, that pedestal he had put Mike on was starting to break-because Mike was taking a sledgehammer to it himself.
The younger boy walked over to his companion, placing his hand on his shoulder.
“But what about all that stuff you were telling me last year-that no one could tell me I couldn’t be a musician if that’s what I wanted to be?”
“Oh, that still applies. I know I’m a musician; I’m up there on stage with you, aren’t I? And I know that if I was still in Texas, I probably could’ve flown solo just fine. The atmosphere’s just a little different here, so we’ve got make adjustments to that.”
“I just don’t see why we couldn’t give them some of what they want and some of what we want, too.”
“Well, with only ten minutes to work with, that’s going to have to wait anyway,” Mike said. “With a month’s rent at stake here, I don’t want to pick today for any experiments.”
“Fair enough,” Davy said, but he hoped that Mike was serious about actually giving singing a chance and that this wasn’t just some stalling tactic to avoid discussing the issue any more.
**********************************
The duo spent the morning practicing the two songs they had decided upon; once the afternoon rolled around, they headed to the Great Oak Theatre-in costume, which did earn them several double-takes from the parking lot to the door.
“See, now I’m glad I didn’t wear the hat,” Davy murmured, holding the door open for Mike, who had to lug his guitar in its case.
“I still think you would’ve looked great in it-taller, too,” Mike replied, and he led the way to the stage, where the various acts were registering and being told where to sit.
“Name of your act?” the man with the sign-in sheet asked.
“Lone Star and Union Jack,” Davy replied.
“And what do you do?”
“We’re musicians,” Mike said, wondering why the guitar case he was carrying didn’t give him a clue.
“Okay,” the man said, getting it all down. “You’re entry 18-right after Connecticut Yankee and the California Dreamer. They’re sitting over there in those seats; you should take your place next to them, and we’ll be calling you up one at a time for the auditions.”
“Thanks,” Mike said, suppressing an eyeroll as he and Davy headed to their seats next to the act before them.
The two members of the act-a taller blond boy around Mike’s age and a younger brunet around Davy’s age-observed them as they sat down, glancing at their outlandish costumes. Mike gave them a nod of assent as they looked his way.
“I think we’re in for quite a wait” Davy said, looking around at the long line of people still waiting to register. “Everyone and their dog seems to be here…”
“Well, $250 isn’t small change; I can’t blame them…” Mike said. “We’re really going to have to stand out.”
He set his guitar case down, accidentally knocking it against a set of gold-painted drums.
“Oh, sorry…”
“Eh, that’s okay…” the brunet boy said. “They didn’t exactly give us a lot of room to work with.”
“Yeah,” said the blond, adjusting the guitar strapped to his own shoulders. “I kept my case in the prop room so that no one would trip over it.”
“Uh-huh,” Mike said.
They lapsed into silence for a while until the brunet spoke again.
“So you guys are in this to win the money, huh?” he asked.
“Aren’t we all?” Davy asked.
“Well, we sure are,” the blond said. “We ran out of money for the bed and breakfast we’ve been staying in. We’ve got to win this; that’s our lodging money up there.”
“It’s a living, though,” the brunet said, shrugging it off. “We’ve just gotta believe we can win this.”
Davy and Mike exchanged uncomfortable glances.
“…Was it something I said?” the blond asked.
“That’s your lodging money?” Davy asked. “That… just happens to be our rent money, too.”
“We’ve got the crankiest landlord in the history of landlords…” Mike said, realizing that getting their rent money meant these two guys possibly spending a sleepless night on the town. And that brunet kid couldn’t be too much older than Davy was-he shouldn’t have to go through that…
The blond and the brunet now exchanged uncomfortable glances, as well.
“…Well, this is awkward,” the brunet said.
“You said it,” Mike said, wryly.
More silence followed. There didn’t seem to be an easy way out of this; someone was going to lose.
Nobody said anything, and it was soon time for the auditions. Mike and Davy and their seat-neighbors watched as the various performances took place; some of them were good, and some of them fell flat on their faces.
“Entry 17,” the judge called. “Connecticut Yankee and the California Dreamer?”
Mike and Davy’s seat-neighbors now got up and onto the stage, the brunet quickly setting up his drums. As he was doing this, he launched into an impression of James Cagney, proceeding to address the drums as “dirty rats,” as though trying to intimidate them into submission as the blond melodramatically begged him to “go easy on them.”
Davy couldn’t help but chuckle, and Mike had to give them credit for working in the time it took to set up the drums into the act itself.
“Well, they’re funny,” the Texan conceded. “But how are they musically? That’s the $250 question here.”
He soon got his answer; the duo launched into a rather haunting song about words. Davy and Mike both stared with wide eyes as they realized that they were, in fact, very good.
“Davy, my loyal compatriot… I think we’ve got our work cut out for us.”
The English boy continued to stare, nodding.
The duo finished up to an applause louder than anyone else had been given so far. Even the judge looked impressed.
“Let’s just get out of here and try to find something else,” Davy said, shaking his head. “Even if it does come down to the two of us, whoever loses ends up in trouble, and at least we’ve got a little bit of time to come up with the money…”
“No,” Mike said. “This is our big test; we need to show them how good we are, too. The money’s a matter for us, too, and we can’t wait to cross that bridge when we get to it. We can’t afford to back out any more than they can.”
“Entry 18,” the judge now called. “Lone Star and Union Jack?”
Mike and Davy stood up now heading to the stage; they passed the Connecticut Yankee and the California Dreamer coming down the stage steps; the blond gave them a nod and a smile, as though silently telling them to break a leg.
Mike sat down on the chair on the stage, flicking his hat brim out of his eyes as he gave a good-natured smirk at the audience; Dave gave them one of his winning smiles and gave Mike a nod to let him know he was ready.
They forgot about the pressures upon them as they began. Mike lost himself in his guitar playing, and Davy focused his entire consciousness on singing-keeping time with the tambourine was much more of an instinct for him. If they had been paying attention, they would’ve noticed the blond and the brunet boys watching with the same amount of awe and nervousness that Mike and Davy had when they had been watching them.
The audience loved “Papa Gene’s Blues;” more importantly, the judge did, too. He continued to watch with expectations as the duo launched into “Nine Times Blue.”
It was partway through that song that it happened-it was a quiet little twang, but to Mike and Davy, it was as loud as a clap of thunder as the G-string on Mike’s guitar snapped. Davy’s eyes widened as he heard it, and then as his accompaniment halted in its tracks, he glanced over his shoulder and caught a fleeting glimpse of Mike with a deer-in-the-headlights look.
At that point, instinct took over-for the both of them. Davy dashed across the stage and held the microphone out so that they could both sing into it, and Mike, who had gone on this long without singing, now started singing.
Davy suddenly got a mischievous look in his eyes as he started harmonizing, forcing Mike to sing the melody of his song, and sing it louder-Mike gave him a look, but his eyes betrayed the smile that he was trying to hide, and the two managed to finish the number a cappella-and finished it to an applause that indeed rivaled the applause that had been given to the blond and the brunet from the previous act.
They didn’t breathe a sigh of relief until after they had gotten off of the stage, after which they both exchanged glances-and relieved chuckles.
“What’re the odds that G-string had to go at that precise moment?” Mike asked.
“I don’t know, but I’ll tell you one thing,” Davy said. “You sang. And it wasn’t a disaster, now was it?”
“Well, no,” Mike conceded. “And I’ll admit… that was fun.”
“Then you should do it more often,” Davy said, giving him a good-natured punch on the arm. “And you can bet I’ll be seeing to it that you do.”
“Oh, come on, Tiny; that was a fluke…”
“That was no fluke! Not only was it not a disaster and not a fluke, the audience liked your singing.”
“Gosharooney, you bet we did!” the brunet boy said, as Mike and Davy returned to their seats (Mike rooting through his guitar case for another G-string). “I’ll bet you anything that tonight’s gonna come down to you versus us!”
“Yeah!” the blond agreed, and then he blinked. “You… you didn’t actually plan for that string to go, did you?”
“Are you kidding, Man?” Mike said, with a bemused look on his face.
“I didn’t think so…”
Mike just smiled again, but his smile soon faded as his search through his guitar case came up empty.
“Agh, I don’t believe it-I don’t have a spare G!”
Davy winced.
“You mean we have to go out and buy one?”
“Well, you don’t have to; you’re more than welcome to stay here and check out the rest of the competition. I can go and make a quick run to the nearest music store.”
“Hey,” the blond said. “I’m sure I’ve got a spare G in my guitar case; you can have it!”
Mike looked up, blinking in surprise.
“Really?”
“Sure! Just because we’re rivals doesn’t mean we shouldn’t help each other out.”
“Well, I’m much obliged, Shotgun,” Mike said, tipping his hat.
“You’re welcome… I think. First time I’ve ever been called that…”
“He means it as a term of endearment,” Davy assured him. “Same reason why he’s always calling me ‘Tiny…’ I’m Davy, by the way-and this is Mike; you can probably guess from the accents and the costumes that he’s Lone Star, and I’m Union Jack.”
“I’m Peter,” the blond said. “Connecticut Yankee.”
“And that would make me the California Dreamer,” the brunet said, with a grin. “Name’s Micky.” He turned back to Peter. “Hey, I thought you were gonna give them that G-string?”
“Oh, right!” Peter exclaimed. “I’ll go get it…”
“Actually, maybe I’ll follow your example and leave my guitar case in the prop room, too,” Mike said, picking it up. “Lead on.”
Peter indeed led the way, and the conversation continued as they walked.
“So how long have you guys been doing this act?” Micky asked.
“About a year and a half,” Davy said. “You?”
“Oh, we’ve been at this for a while-couldn’t even tell you how long,” Micky replied. “Peter and I have been traveling around Southern California, just playing for anyone willing to hire us.”
“It’s not going too well, though,” Peter confessed.
“Yeah, I figured that when you said that you were kipping at a bed and breakfast,” Davy said.
“…Kipping?” Micky repeated.
“Oh, you Colonists…” the English boy mused, rolling his eyes.
“One of these days, we’re writing a British-slang-to-Texan-drawl phrasebook,” Mike deadpanned.
Micky and Peter both got a chuckle out of that, and Peter now opened the door that they had arrived at. Inside the room were rows and rows of shelves with a vast array of items and props stored upon them; Peter’s guitar case had been proper up against one of them, and it only took him a moment to find the G-string.
“Here you go,” he said.
“Thanks; you saved me a lot of trouble,” Mike said, stringing it onto his guitar and testing it out. He then rooted through his pockets. “I’ll pay you for it if you just give me just a second to find my money.”
“Oh, no; please, don’t bother!”
“Come on, Man; it’s only right-”
“I insist-no strings attached!” Peter said. “…Well, no strings except the actual string, obviously…”
“But you only said just a few seconds ago that you don’t have enough money!” Davy pointed out. “For the second time, I might add!”
“It’s just a guitar string; it’s not like it’s… well, something like that,” Peter said, glancing at what looked like a jade sculpture of a monkey on one of the shelves.
Davy glanced at it, and he suddenly frowned.
“What’s wrong?” Micky asked.
“I’ve seen that thing somewhere before,” Davy said, taking it off of the shelf. “But where?”
“Well, it’s probably just a prop from some show you must’ve seen here,” Micky said, waving it off. “Come on; I want to go back to the stage and get a look at the rest of the competition!”
“Hold it,” Mike said, now looking at the monkey sculpture, too. “Hold everything for just one second.”
He searched his pockets again, this time coming up with the page of newspaper from the morning; he had been carrying it with him since it had the address of the theatre; the article about the stolen jade sculpture had been right opposite of the advertisement.
“Davy? I think I found where you saw that thing before…”
The others crowded around him, looking at the article that Davy had glanced over early that morning.
“That picture of the missing jade sculpture looks just like that prop!” Peter exclaimed. “Wow, what’re the odds of that?”
There was a bit of silence as the four looked from the paper to the figure in the English boy’s hands.
“…It is a prop, right?” Peter went on. “I mean, it has to be a prop! This is a prop room; everything in here is supposed to be fake!”
“Yeah-supposed to be,” Micky said, resting his chin in his hand as he pondered. “That’s also why it’d make sense to stash something here-no one would give it a second look since they’d pass it off as a prop.”
“There’s that,” Mike agreed. “And never mind the fact that all of the objects surrounding where that thing had been are covered in a layer of dust-while that thing didn’t even have a speck of dust on it…”
Davy gulped, staring at the thing in his hands.
“You know, it is quite heavy…” he said. “Is… is there an easy way to tell real jade from a replica?”
Micky suddenly paled.
“Well, offhand, I’d say the fact that there are three angry guys standing by the door, blocking any and all means of escape we might have, kinda suggests that we might have the real McCoy here.”
The other three turned to face the door in shock, staring down the three thugs in suits glaring back at them-one of them had his hand in his coat pocket, obviously going for some sort of weapon.
“What do you think, Guys?” Micky squeaked, his nervousness making itself known in his voice.
Mike exhaled, his mind racing as he positioned himself so as to shield Davy from view as much as possible.
“I reckon we just got ourselves headlong into a whole mess of trouble,” the Texan declared.
**********************************
Nobody said anything as one of the three thugs pulled out a switchblade knife from his pocket.
“Well, that’s a lovely little knife you got there,” Mike said, after a while.
“Shut up, Cowboy,” the man holding the knife said. “We want the jade.”
One of the other two thugs now stepped forward, pulling Davy out from where Mike was trying to shield him.
“No…!” the Texan exclaimed, but he was rewarded for his concern with a forceful shove that sent him crashing back into Micky and Peter.
“Mike!” Davy cried, trying to get back to him, but his captor hooked an arm around his shoulders, lifting him off of the ground.
The man with the knife now stood in front of them, holding the tip of the blade up, a few inches from English boy’s neck.
“N-Not the throat, please…” Davy said, his voice quivering. “I need that throat; I’m a singer…”
“Then tell us what you did with the jade; you must’ve palmed it or something. And we want it.”
“Let him go!” Mike ordered, as Micky and Peter helped him to his feet. “He’s just a kid!”
He moved forward to try to help him, but the third thug blocked his way.
“Davy!” Mike cried.
“The jade, Shorty. Where is it?” Knife Man asked again.
“I have it!” Peter blurted out, unable to take any more of this. “He gave it to me when you guys showed up. Please, let him go!”
The blond stepped forward, holding out the jade figure, but Mike held out an arm to stop him and took the figure from him.
“First you hand Davy over to us, and then you get your jade.”
“You ain’t in a position to bargain, Cowboy,” Knife Man said. “Unless you want your midget friend here receiving a tracheotomy, I suggest you comply with our demands rather than try making up your own.”
Davy cringed as he felt the tip of the blade make contact, and Mike’s resolve crumbled to dust.
“Okay, take it! Take it! Just don’t hurt him!”
He handed the jade figure over to the man blocking his way. Knife Man put the weapon away and gave a nod to Davy’s captor, who callously shoved the boy across the room, where he landed at Mike’s feet.
“Davy…!” the Texan gasped, kneeling beside him. “Davy, are you okay?”
“I think so,” the English boy said, bravely.
“I’m sorry,” Peter said. “I know you gave the jade to me to keep it safe, and I tried not to say anything…”
“You did the right thing, Pete,” Micky said, placing him on the shoulder. “You couldn’t let them hurt him-or any of us.”
“Before we start relaxing, I don’t think we’re out of the woods just yet,” Mike said, as he glanced back at the three thugs. They seemed to be discussing something.
“Just get rid of ‘em; they know too much.”
“We can’t make any decisions without the final word from the boss,” Knife Man reminded him. “We’ll lock ‘em up here until he tells us what to do.”
“Lock us up?!” Micky yelped. “In here?! But there’re no windows in here! We’ll suffocate!”
“Well, that’ll solve our problem, then, won’t it?” Knife Man mused. “Saves us the trouble of finishing you off. Anyone will think you got locked in here accidentally-and that’s what we’re going to bank on.”
The four boys charged for the door as the thugs departed, but Knife Man quickly locked the deadbolt lock behind him. They pounded on the door, hoping that someone would hear them, but no help came.
“What do we do?” Peter asked, worry etched into his face. “Micky’s right; with four of us in here, the amount of air is limited.”
“We’ve got to try to break that door,” Mike said. “If not all the way open, then at least get it off one of its hinges to let some air in here. Peter, I need you to help me try to kick it. Davy, you and Micky look for an ax.”
“An ax?” Davy repeated.
“Anything that can hack into this door!” Mike exclaimed. “There has to be something remotely sharp among those props! I’ll even take a screwdriver to undo the hinges-just look for something!”
“Right,” the English boy said.
He and Micky started searching through the shelves as Mike and Peter took turns kicking and tackling the door-and then trying to do so in tandem. Time ticked on and on; all four of them were sweating from their seemingly fruitless efforts and the stuffiness of the room they were in.
“It’s not even weakening,” the Texan grumbled, massaging his shoulder after having charged into it repeatedly. “Are you guys having any luck?”
“Nope,” Micky sighed. “It’s like they child-proofed this room and locked away anything remotely dangerous.”
“…That’s it, then,” Peter said, sinking to the floor in despair. “There’s no way out.” He cringed. “This is all my fault! Why’d I have to go store my guitar case in here?! Argh! I really am stupid…!”
“It’s a prop room, Shotgun; you did the logical thing,” Mike assured him.
“If anything, it’s my fault for ever giving that jade a second look,” Davy sighed. Frustrated, he kicked a small storage box; it scooted a couple inches across the floor, and that was when Davy noticed part of the grate in the wall that had been obscured by the box. “Hey, what’s this?”
“Eh, it’s just a ventilator shaft,” Mike said, casting a glance at it.
“Oh,” Davy said.
A moment passed, and the four looked from the grate, to each other, and back again.
“A ventilator shaft!?” they repeated, in unison.
“Air!” Micky added, staring at it with almost-shining eyes. “We’re saved!” He pushed the box out of the way and sighed as he felt the breeze from the grate. “Ahh… …Hey, look, Guys! There aren’t any nails or screws holding this grate in.”
“So?” Mike asked.
“Oh, come on!” Micky said, pulling out the grate with a few sharp tugs. “I’ve seen this in a ton of movies-you get someone to crawl through the air ducts and get out at the next grate-and then he’s free!”
Mike’s eyebrows arched, not so sure that would work.
“That’s an awfully tight fit,” Peter said, looking at the rather skinny duct. “We’d need someone really small and skinny…”
Davy’s eyes widened.
“I bet I could manage it!” he exclaimed, eager to try.
“Okay, hold it…” Mike said, deciding to stop this before it went any further. “Davy, don’t do this. You don’t know what’s in there-fan blades or venomous spiders or… all sorts of nasty things. We don’t need to try to recreate the Great Escape; we’ve got a source of air in here, and that’s the most important thing. Yeah, those creeps are going to get away with that jade statue, but at least we’re going to get out of this eventually.”
“Unless their boss says they should make sure we’re out of the picture,” Micky said. “And then they come back here and see we’ve got this vent. Then they’ll find some other way to finish us off…” He shuddered. “Okay, I’ll go.”
“Be careful!” Peter pleaded.
“Look, I don’t think this is such a good idea…” Mike said, but he may as well have been addressing the wall.
Micky tried to scrunch up his shoulders and fit through the grate, but it soon became clear that his shoulders were too broad; he only made it about a couple feet down the duct before he couldn’t move any further.
“…Uh, Guys? Guys? …I’m stuck…”
“Well, stop kicking, and we’ll get you out,” Mike said, dodging one of Micky’s flailing feet.
It took them a moment, but they managed to free the brunet from the ductwork.
“Guess it’s back to me,” Davy said, moving to try.
Mike seized him by the collar of his costume.
“Don’t even think about it, Tiny.”
“Why is it with him you just said it wasn’t a good idea, and for me, it’s ‘don’t even think about it?’” the English boy asked, frowning. “It’s because I’m short, isn’t it?”
“No; it’s because I’ve only known him for half an hour, and, because of that, I can’t tell him what to do.”
“Well, you can’t tell me what to do, either,” Davy informed him. “You’re not my mum!”
“Yeah, well, I’m the closest thing you’ve got to one over here!”
Davy gave him a perplexed look.
“…Somehow, I don’t think you quite meant to say that…”
Mike massaged the bridge of his nose; in his concern, his tongue had gotten ahead of his head.
“Okay, I’m the closest thing to family you’ve got,” Mike said. “I know we didn’t plan for that-in fact, we tried our best to avoid it, but there’s no going back now. And that means that I can’t let you go crawling around in the ductwork.”
“So, don’t let me,” Davy said. “I’ll still go, anyway. You can ground me after I free you all. And I will get you out of here.”
“Davy-!”
The English boy leapfrogged into open duct, prompting Mike to grab him by the boots and try to pull him out. Micky and Peter moved forward to help him, but Davy slipped out of his boots and kept crawling down the ductwork.
Mike looked at the two empty boots in his hands in frustration.
“Davy! Man, you’d better get back here, or you’re in big trouble!”
But Davy had gone selectively deaf, whistling as he worked his way further down the duct. Mike gritted his teeth and let out a frustrated growl.
“You must really care about him a lot,” Peter said, softly.
Mike looked back at the blond in surprise, but nodded; it must’ve been obvious from his reaction, he supposed.
“You know, if it wasn’t for the obviously different accents, you probably could pass as brothers,” Micky said. “Pete and I have been asked if we’re cousins before-I guess the hair was different enough that they didn’t have to guess that we were bro-”
He was cut off as, from within the ductwork, came a horrible creaking and groaning of metal, followed by a cry of alarm from Davy, which was then cut off and followed by a thundering crash.
All the color drained from Mike’s face as silence followed.
“Davy!?” Mike cried. “DAVY!?”
Micky and Peter watched on, horrified, as there was no reply. Mike made a fruitless attempt to try to fit through the duct, but couldn’t get more than his head into the space. Mike now got up, crossing to the door and pounding on it, trying with renewed drive to try to force it open.
“Why didn’t you listen to me?!” he hissed, but there was no mistaking the horror and unbridled worry in his voice.
Once again, the door refused to budge, and after Mike had expended all of his energy, he sunk to his knees, staring blankly at the floor, drowning in his helplessness.
“I’m so sorry…” Micky said, blinking back tears. “I shouldn’t have come up with that dumb idea; I didn’t think that… this would happen…”
“Maybe he’s okay,” Peter said, trying to hang onto some thread of hope. “Maybe he just ended up somewhere out of earshot…”
But Mike was inconsolable, his mind focused on “if onlys”-if only he had gone after Davy’s ankles after he had slipped out of his boots… if only he had allowed his concern to set off his righteous anger enough to have intimidated Davy into not going…
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed; it might have been days for all the worrying that he had been doing. But, suddenly, they heard the deadbolt on the door unlock. Mike got to his feet, ready to tackle their captors if they were about to enter, but he halted in his tracks as Davy stood on the other side of the door-covered in dust and cobwebs, but grinning from ear to ear.
“Davy!” Micky and Peter exclaimed, grinning with relief to see him safe and alright.
Mike was still too dumbstruck to say a word.
“I told you I’d get you out, didn’t I?” Davy said, as he nonchalantly picked up his boots and put them back on as though nothing had just happened. “Piece of cake, that was; there’s a whole level of rooms down there-some of them run right under the stage. That’s where I landed, actually-right on a pile of old stage curtains. I would be lucky enough to get a soft landing…”
He trailed off as Mike suddenly seized him by the shoulders.
“Davy,” he said, in a dangerously quiet voice. “You have no idea how much I want to absolutely throttle you right now. We are going to discuss this later, but for now, we’re getting out of here.”
Mike released him and stormed out of the room, leaving Davy standing there, stunned.
“Mike…?” he asked.
Peter clapped Davy on the shoulder.
“He was really worried,” he said. “And he had every right to be; from where we were standing, it sounded really bad.”
“Yeah, and seeing as though he warned you about going in there…” Micky said. “Well, you know…”
Davy blinked, stunned, and then picked up Mike’s guitar, case and all, running after the Texan.
“Mike!” Davy called. “Mike wait!”
The Texan looked back, but then paused, silently waiting for Davy to hand over the guitar. He took it without a word.
“I’m sorry, Mike.”
“You oughta be!” he retorted, but then sighed as Davy flinched. “Davy… just tell me one thing. Why?”
“…I had to get you out of there,” the English boy said, quietly. “Micky was right-I mean, there was a possibility that they could’ve come back to finish us off. I couldn’t let that happen-not when you’ve been such a good friend to me.”
Mike sighed, looking upward in exasperation. Why is it that every time that Davy did something that gave him the right to get righteously angry, Davy’s motivation was so unselfish that Mike just couldn’t stay angry?
He placed a hand on Davy’s shoulder, managing a wan smile.
“Don’t you ever scare me like that again.”
The smile found its way back onto Davy’s face.
“Deal.”
“Hey, you’re both smiling again!” Peter observed, as he and Micky caught up with them. “That’s great! Now we can all get out of here!”
“Oh…” Micky said, wincing. “My drums are still in the wings. I know I should be more concerned with getting out of here, but if I don’t have those drums, we’ve got no act! And if we’ve got no act, we won’t be able to get any money for food or lodging or anything once we do get out of here!”
“Well, maybe they’ll give us a reward once we return this,” Davy said, pulling the jade monkey figure from his pocket.
The other three stared at him.
“I thought I gave it to them after you gave it to me!” Peter said, scratching his head. “How did you get it back?”
“It was down in the storage room I fell into,” Davy said. “They must’ve left it there while they called their boss.”
Mike’s eyes widened.
“We need to get out of here-now!”
“I thought we already established that?” Davy asked.
“No; they’re going to head to that room after hearing you fall in there-and then they’ll see the missing jade and the broken ductwork and figure out that we must’ve gotten out-if they haven’t already! They’re probably on our way up here!”
“Then let’s grab my drums and split!” Micky suggested.
Mike gave a nod; yes, he knew that perhaps Micky’s priorities were somewhat skewed in this case, but Mike understood, being a musician, too; he wouldn’t leave his guitar behind-especially not in a case like theirs, when their instruments were the things that kept food on the table.
The four hightailed it to the stage, where Micky gathered his drums onto the wheeled cart he had brought to store them on.
“Ah, there you are!” a voice said.
The boys jumped, but calmed down as they realized that the one talking to them was the talent show judge.
“Are you going somewhere?” he asked, seeing them pack up.
“Uh, yeah, we’re leaving. Extenuating circumstances,” Mike said, tipping his hat. “Thank you for the lovely time.”
“You can’t leave!” the judge said. “You’re both scheduled to open the show in less than ten minutes!”
“What?” Peter asked. “You mean we made it past the preliminaries?”
“Never mind that; you mean it’s 8:00?” Mike asked. They had been locked in that room for that long?
“That’s right; where’ve you boys been? You-Connecticut Yankee and California Dreamer-you’re opening. And Lone Star and Union Jack, you’re right after them,” the judge said.
“Look, that’s great and all, but we’re really going to have to withdraw,” Mike said. “So thank you and good evening!”
“You can’t withdraw!” the judge exclaimed. “Boys, I have our show’s sponsor-the owner of the Vincent Van Gogh-Gogh Club-in the audience. I was absolutely raving to him about your two acts; he’s expecting to see you. And if he picks a favorite, that lucky duo might end up with a summer-long gig at his club.”
Four heads turned to the judge’s direction.
“You must be joking!” Davy exclaimed. “Solid source of money for the entire summer? As in, our rent payment?”
“As in, our food and lodging money?” Micky added.
“Fellas!” Mike said, sharply.
“Mike’s right,” Peter said. “Money won’t mean anything if we’re… well… not here to spend it.”
Mike nodded and moved to lead them off, giving his apologies.
“We’re really sorry for running off like this, but we’ve got circumstances beyond our control…” He stopped in his tracks, trailing off as he saw the three thugs furiously searching backstage-obviously for them. “…Sweet mother of mercy…”
Mike now pulled an about-face, dragging the others back.
“Actually, we can play,” he announced.
“What?!” Davy, Micky, and Peter asked, in unison.
“Excellent!” the judge said.
“On one condition,” Mike added. “We’re not playing as two separate acts; we want both of our acts on stage together.”
“What?!” Davy, Micky, and Peter repeated, with more intensity.
Mike gritted his teeth and jerked his head in the direction of backstage. The other three took a look and paled, now shrinking back to where Mike was standing.
“Both acts together?” the judge repeated.
“Yeah,” Mike went on, spontaneously. “It’s the best way to be able to compare us-side by side, rather than one after the other. It’s a whole lot fairer that way, too-no worrying about first impressions or lasting impressions…”
The judge’s eyebrows arched, unaware of what they seemed to be fretting about.
“Well, if that’s what you want, have at it-you’re on in five.”
“And after that, we’re splitting,” Mike added. “And when I say we’re going to run, I mean we’re going to run.”
“Fine. But I’ll need your addresses and phone numbers so that we-and the manager of the club-will have a way to contact you as to the results of the contest.”
“Mike and I are at 1334 North Beechwood Drive, Malibu,” Davy rattled off, also giving their phone number, as Micky and Peter exchanged glances-for they had neither an address or phone number.
“Got it,” the judge said. He looked to Micky and Peter. “And you two?”
“…Can we get back to you on that?” Micky asked.
The judge gave a shrug and left the stage, and Mike motioned for the others to follow him onstage.
Micky set up his drums, casting a nervous glance offstage; any second now, those three thugs could make it to the wings and see them onstage. And if that happened before the curtain rose and they were in view of people… well, there was no telling what their fate would be.
To the relief of all four of them, the curtain did open, and as the emcee announced that the two favorites to win would be playing together, Mike turned to the others.
“Y’all ready?”
Three fervent “No”s replied him.
“Well, neither am I. So play like our lives depend on it,” the Texan said, casting a nervous glance into the wings. “Because they do.”
Micky gulped, and as Mike started to lead with a riff on his guitar, the brunet randomly played on his drums with a beat that he hoped fit. Peter joined in with the bassline, and Davy kept time with his tambourine, every so often casting a nervous glance at the jade in his pocket.
Mike gave a sigh and then started to sing; random words came to his head, and he sang them-something about a circle sky and extraordinary scenes. About halfway through, the three thugs did make it to one of the wings and saw them there onstage, but knew very well that they could do nothing in front of all of those witnesses. And if it hadn’t been for the thugs’ looming presence offstage, Davy would’ve probably been thrilled to see Mike singing lead on his own volition.
Mike drew the song to a close after running out of lyrics; somehow, they managed to stop playing at the same time rather than as an unorganized mess. Mike threw a thanks to the audience as Micky hurriedly stacked his drums on their little carrying cart.
“What now?” Davy asked, seeing the thugs just waiting for them. Knife Man had one side of the stage covered, and the other two had switched their positions to the other wing in order to prevent their escape.
“Tactical retreat!” Mike announced.
He grabbed his guitar case and leaped from the front of stage to the choir bleachers below them. Davy and Peter followed suit, with Micky taking the front stage steps so as to get his drums down without damaging them.
Everyone stared at them as they dashed through the aisles-some of them clapped and cheered, thinking it was part of their act. But the boys didn’t stop until they were out into the evening air.
“We made it!” Micky exclaimed.
“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Mike informed him. “We need to deliver that jade to the police-and it’s a cinch that our friends over there will be following us.”
“But we’ll never be able to outrun them!” Peter exclaimed. “We don’t even have a set of wheels!”
“But we do!” Davy said, indicating Mike’s GTO.
“Oh, Man…” Micky breathed, staring at the car with wide eyes. “That is one groovy ride! Have you thought about getting it customized?”
“Hasn’t really crossed my mind,” Mike said, unlocking the trunk.
“It’s one of Micky’s life goals to customize a car,” Peter explained. “He loves mechanical and technological things…”
“Yeah, unfortunately, I’ve never had a car to customize,” the drummer said, with a resigned shrug.
“Well, if I ever decide that this thing needs anything added to it, you’ll be the first to know,” Mike promised, as he helped store all of the instruments in the trunk.
Davy suddenly let out a yelp.
“Don’t look now, but they’ve found us!”
The front door of the theatre opened, revealing Knife Man and his two flunkies. Mike and Davy made a break for the front seats while Peter and Micky scrambled over the back of the car and into the back seats.
Knife Man made a grab for Micky as he ran towards the car, but Mike pulled out of the parking space and sped off, leaving him grabbing empty air.
“Uh-oh…” Peter said, turning around to see the thugs getting into a second car. “They’ve got wheels, too.”
Mike responded by speeding up; his hat flew off his head, only to be caught by Peter just in time.
“Where exactly are we going?” Micky called.
“I’m hoping to get the attention of a traffic cop!” Mike responded.
“I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” Davy said, flatly, as he was thrown against the car door when Mike made a sharp turn.
“Bite your tongue; at least I wasn’t the one who wrecked the ductwork!”
Davy’s reply was halted by Micky’s frantic cry.
“They’re catching up! They’re catching up!” he yelped. He blinked in surprise as the crooks’ car now pulled alongside them. “…They’re passing us?”
“No…” Mike said, going pale as he realized what they were planning. “They’re trying to run us off the road!”
He slammed the brakes of the GTO just as Knife Man’s car tried to sideswipe them; they had put a lot of force into their attempted swipe, which had missed the GTO by an inch; the momentum carried Knife Man’s car across the lane, where it skidded off the road and got stuck in a muddy ditch.
“HA!” Micky exclaimed, getting up to glare at the thugs, who were unhurt, but well and truly stuck. “Now that’s karma if I’ve ever seen it! Take that!”
“Micky, sit down!” Peter pleaded, as Mike sped the GTO up again; Micky obliged, and Mike didn’t slow the car down until they were a safe distance away.
**********************************
Mike eventually found a police station-it shone like a beacon after everything the boys had been through in the last several hours. Davy finally was able to get the jade monkey off of his hands, and after a few more formalities involving reports and statements as to what had happened, along with a description of the thugs and their car, they were finally allowed to leave.
It was nearly midnight by the time the four musicians headed out into the Los Angeles night air.
“Man, what a day…” Mike yawned.
“And night,” Davy added.
“Yeah, that’s right; it’s past your bedtime.”
“Oh, ha ha…” the English boy laughed, sardonically.
Peter and Micky both grinned, amused.
“You two are really lucky to have each other,” the blond observed. “I know I’ve felt that way about Micky and me, too.”
“Yeah, if you’ve gotta be broke and hungry, having someone to share it with makes it a whole less unbearable,” Micky agreed, as he moved to open the GTO’s trunk.
“What are you doing?” Davy asked.
“Getting my drums and Pete’s guitar. Now that this is all over, we can go on to wherever it was we were going.”
“…Where’s that, Mick?” Peter asked, baffled. “I didn’t think we had plans to go anywhere…”
“Wherever the road takes us, Pete. Wherever the road takes us.”
“Well, wait a minute!” Mike said, placing a hand on Micky’s shoulder. “It’s not over yet-not until we’re sure those three who took the monkey statue are behind bars. What happens if you run into them?”
Micky looked to Peter, who gave a helpless shrug. He had no idea.
“Keep running, I guess,” he offered.
“Well, that won’t do…” Mike said.
And Davy now looked to his companion.
“Mike, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“I think I am, Tiny,” he replied, and he turned back to Micky and Peter. “Hey, uh… You know, we’ve got room at our place. It was pre-furnished, and had two sets of beds in each of the bedrooms; we’ve been using those extra beds for storage space, but we could easily make room for you.”
“We couldn’t impose…!” Peter exclaimed.
“Look, you can’t stay out here with those blokes running around, and you can’t afford to stay anywhere else,” Davy pointed out.
“Yeah, but we have no way to pay you, either!” Micky said.
“Well, it’s not like the rent is going to go up because we have guests,” Mike pointed out. “You want a written invitation or something?”
Micky and Peter exchanged glances again.
“Well, okay,” Peter said, at last. “But just for tonight.”
**********************************
And so it came to pass that Micky and Peter arrived at 1334 North Beechwood drive, fully intending to leave the next morning. But they ended up never leaving; the next morning, as they were halfway through a breakfast of pizza that Davy had managed to salvage from the fridge, the phone rang. Mike answered with, drawling a “Hello” in between bites.
The caller had turned out to be the owner of the Vincent Van Gogh-Gogh; he, the judge, and the audience had almost all unanimously agreed that the combined performance of the Connecticut Yankee and the California Dreamer with Lone Star and Union Jack was worthy of first prize. The club owner went on further to say that he was willing to hire both acts for a summer-long gig, but on the stipulation that they performed together, as they had done the previous evening.
“So if you and your friend can find out where those other two musicians got to and can convince them to go along with it, you’re all hired,” the owner finished.
“I think we’re all in luck,” Mike intoned, glancing back at the other three, who were looking back at him. “Gentlemen, we’ve collectively won the $250 prize, and, furthermore, we are all hired for the summer at the Vincent Van Gogh-Gogh-providing that we agree to play as a quartet rather than two separate duos.”
He held the phone receiver out.
“We’ll do it!” they all chorused, in unison.
That was more than satisfactory for the club owner; they would start the coming weekend, so as to provide them time to adapt their different setlists to their new arrangements.
“How about that…” Davy mused, after they had said their thanks and goodbyes to the club owner. “We all won the money, and we all got the gig.” He looked to Micky and Peter. “Since we’ve got a lot of practicing to do, you may as well stay here for some more time.”
“Yeah, we may as well…” Micky said. “But do you think we can really make this work-I mean really make this work?”
“Well, we made it work last night,” Mike pointed out. “But we’re going to have to come up with a name to refer to our combined act-referring to ourselves as ‘The Connecticut Yankee, the California Dreamer, Lone Star, and Union Jack’ is going to get old really fast…”
They pondered over this for a moment, and then Peter reached into the pocket of Mike’s jacket from his costume that he had draped over one of the chairs the previous night, pulling out the newspaper article about the jade monkey.
“Well…” the blond said, after glancing at the picture of the monkey in the article. “Seeing as though it was this monkey that inadvertently brought us together onstage last night, I say we name our act after it! …But it shouldn’t be too obvious, I think; we should probably tweak it just a little bit so that only we know the real significance behind it, of course…”
The other three exchanged glances with each other and then with Peter, nodding in agreement.
The decision was unanimous.
And the rest, as they say, was history. The summer was a success for all of them (except for Knife Man and his flunkies, who had been found still trying to get their car out of the ditch and had been arrested overnight); adapting their songs to a quartet ended up working out so great, that even after the summer had ended and their seasonal gig at the club had come to an end, the Monkees couldn’t even consider the thought of splitting up into two duos again, leading to Micky and Peter becoming permanent residents of the little beachhouse.
It was a testament to the power of serendipity-a chance meeting had led to the discovery of an amazing shared talent. Micky eventually got his wish of being able to customize a car; Mike eventually let him go at it with his GTO, which, by the end of Micky’s project, had been named the Monkeemobile. And though Davy and Mike (who no longer had any qualms about singing lead) remained the best of friends due to having known each other the longest, as did Micky and Peter, there was no denying that all four of them shared a strong kinship with each other-and that, perhaps, had been the most valuable thing they had ended up finding that fateful day at the Great Oak Theatre.