“All right.” I pry my fingers off the neck of the guitar.

I need to get this song out. It’s been pounding through my body since last night, tripping up my heartbeat with its rhythm. I need to hear it outside of my own head, ringing against the walls of Patrick’s garage. I need to be part of it. I need to bring it to life.

I also need not to be an ass.

“Sorry,” I mumble.

“Just play the chorus again.” Jezz positions his hands on the bass.

I move through it again, more slowly, speaking the words in rhythm.

Come out come out wherever you are

Come out and play

Crawl out crawl out whatever you are

You win you win

I give in

Jezz finds the bass line. He thrums softly along. “It’s creepy, dude.”

“Of course it’s creepy,” says Patrick from behind the drum set. “Everything we play is creepy.”

“Hey! You know what we should do?” Jezz gives a little hop, and his floppy blond hair slides down over one eye. “We should write one giant, sappy, totally cliché love ballad. Like, slow-dance-at-prom, end-of-the-movie ballad. We should wait until the crowd is going crazy, like, after ‘Superhero,’ and then we should just slide into this love song and watch their heads explode.”

Patrick’s hard face snaps apart with a grin. “No. We should write a polka. We can become the world’s only polka-metal band.” He starts tapping out a three-four beat on the snare. Oom-pa-pa. Oom-pa-pa.

“You mean the world’s first polka-metal band.” Jezz adds a bass line. “We’ll start a trend.”

Patrick laughs. “Dude. We’ll be huge in Germany.”

I start to smile, strumming a G chord. “Ach, Hedwig, I love ya. . . .”

Jezz hoots. “Dere’s no one above ya. . . .”

“You’re better than Blutwurst und Bier.”

Patrick cracks up.

The laugh warms the air. There’s more laughter from the backyard, where Mac and Lee and Ellie are sprawled on the lawn furniture. Some other kids, people I don’t even know, are lounging around on the lawn. We always leave the garage door shut during band practice, but we open the door to the Murrays’ backyard, so whoever’s out there can listen.

People started showing up to our practices about three years ago, when we went from mediocre to almost good. Now they come every day. At first having them there felt flattering. It made us show off, made us work a little harder. Now it also makes me tired. I have to keep on the face, keep up the act.

Someone is always watching.

And I sound paranoid.

“Perfect,” says Jezz. “We’ve got our polka-metal prom ballad. Now we sit back and watch the money roll in.”

I pull my phone out of my pocket and check the time. “We should get back on track.”

“What do you want to do?” asks Patrick. He plays a quick, tapping roll on the drum’s metal edge.

“We need to do ‘Come Out and Play’ again. I want to do it at the Crow’s Nest tomorrow.”