“Jeter, let me make it crystal clear for you. I can live with myself, backing out of a promise. What I can’t live with is going up onstage Friday night and making a complete spectacle of myself—like you and Vijay are gonna do!”

Gary shrugged. “But hey—enjoy. And good luck—you’re gonna need it! As for me, I’ll be out there in the audience, laughing my head off like everybody else.”

As Gary walked away, Derek heard him mutter, “Sheesh! Talent shows! What a waste of time and energy!”

Derek stared after him, a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead.

Now what were they going to do? How was he going to tell Vijay that their perfect monster had just vanished? And where were they going to get another kid to replace him, with just two days left before the show?

Chapter Fourteen SCRAMBLE!

“Omigosh! What are we going to do? We’re doomed!” Vijay held his hands to his ears as he paced back and forth, as if he didn’t want to hear the bad news. Well, who could blame him?

Derek wasn’t exactly dancing in the streets himself. Without Gary, their act seemed not only empty, but pointless! What was a horror scene without a monster? And Gary, though he couldn’t dance in any meaningful sense of the word, was hilarious trying to—and that alone would have lifted the whole routine!

Now there was nothing but a blank where the heart of their dance had been. The whole story made no sense without the monster at the end.

“Do you think we should rework the whole thing?” Derek asked. “I mean, like, from scratch?”

“No way! No how!” Vijay said, clasping both hands together. “We have to find another monster—and fast!”

“But who?”

Vijay gave him a long look.

“No. Not Dave,” Derek said. “I asked him first thing, remember? And he told me he would never, ever get up onstage and dance.”

“But you and he are—well, second-best friends,” said Vijay, who thought of himself as Derek’s very best friend.

Derek felt equally close to both of them, but he couldn’t help there being at least a little rivalry between Vijay and Dave over the amount of time they got to spend with Derek.

“I’m not asking him,” Derek said. “You can if you want to.”

“It won’t do any good, me asking. And you know it.” Vijay sat down on the couch, looking totally defeated.

Derek couldn’t stand to see his friend that way. It broke his heart. “Okay, okay, I’ll ask him,” he finally said, causing Vijay to instantly brighten.

“It’s our only hope!” Vijay said. “He will surely say yes. He cannot refuse you if you beg him.”

“I’m not begging.”

“You know what I mean,” Vijay said, realizing he’d used the wrong word.