The Candle Dancer / The Way That You Found Me Read Online Free Page B

do something. Dad forked out a fortune to convert this place so we could practice.’
    ‘Well, maybe we just play softly, then open up at the end, really let it rip,’ said Benjy.
    ‘Yeah, get the cops back,’ said Doll, ostentatiously wiping tears from her eyes. ‘Then, we’ll clear out and leave the two of you alone to enjoy some copper love. He’s probably got a copper crotch as well! Suzy Quatro and Copper Crotch!’
    The whole session was wasted. Doll wouldn’t stop with her lame joke and I lost it with her and stormed out. Eventually all the gear was packed up and I was rid of them. I sulked in my bedroom, listening to
The Dead Weather
on my iPod and plotting revenge on Bill Dudley. I’d really tried hard with him. I’d rung the local city council and gotten a copy of the Environment Protection Authority’s sound guidelines; I photocopied them and put them with a conciliatory letter in his letterbox.
    The next day I found them by our front fence. For a weird moment I thought I’d forgotten to give them to him—but the letter was torn open. I realised this was his response. He was returning my letter without a word. The bastard hadn’t even bothered to put them
in
the letterbox.
    I was so full of rage I couldn’t sleep. I found some relief in dancing furiously to “60 Feet Tall”, and reflecting that Benjy drums like Jack White, stopping and making grand entries with intuitive genius. I didn’t have the voice of that girl though, what’s her name, Alison Mosshart, husky and stylised and whooping unexpectedly, vibrating like a bell and scraping like sandpaper.
    At two, a roaring sound broke through the music. I pulled out the earbuds. Someone was hooning up and down the street in a hotted-up car. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it.
    ‘Why doesn’t Bill Dudley pick on
him
?’ I thought.
    I walked out of the house and waved my hands as the car went by on its fourth lap.
    ‘Shut UP!’ I screamed. ‘Shut UP!’
    I couldn’t make out the driver beyond seeing it was a bloke. He tooted. He had one of those stupid car horns that beeps out a tune.
----
    IV.
----
    Quite a few of our friends were at Milk two nights later. Selima was working, wearing her checked uniform and apron. She still had her rock chick wisp hanging down, defying Jackie. Doll was slipping vodka into her lemonade, busy pretending she didn’t care that Richard was there with a crowd we didn’t know.
    ‘We’ve been thinking,’ Selima.
    ‘Yeah? I’ll have the burger and fries,’ I said.
    She took her pencil stub from behind her ear and wrote on her notepad.
    ‘What about a Suzy Quatro cover band?’
    ‘What? Don’t start this Suzy stuff again.’
    Doll stifled a laugh. Selima shook her head.
    ‘No, we’re quite serious. We reckon if you got that haircut, that kind of shag mullet, you could look quite like her. We could call ourselves
The Roxy Rollers
, after one of her songs.’
    I screwed up my face.
    ‘You’ve got her kind of mousy hair,’ said Doll. Selima glared.
    ‘Don’t, Doll. It’s not cool. I’m trying to sell this, right?’ she said. ‘So what we were thinking was, we could cover a few of hers and sneak some of our own stuff in too. The rock tracks, that we could make sound like her.’
    ‘You’d be the lead singer then. You could wear
the pants
,’ smirked Doll.
    ‘And Jackie said she’d let us have a gig. Suzy Quatro’s a bit late but she’s still retro.’
    ‘Well, I’ve got to think it over. I want to make a real band, like
The Dead Weather
.’
    ‘Our skills just aren’t up there yet,’ said Selima, blowing at her black wisp. Her eyeliner was smudged. ‘The thing about doing covers is that we
learn
, not just to do the music but we get live experience, all that.’
    ‘Here’s an idea. Why don’t
you
dress up as Joan Jett? You look like her more than I look like Suzy Quatro.’
    ‘Well, I for one refuse to cover “I Love Rock'n'Roll”,’ said Doll, and began humming it, glancing