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I shook aside the weird feeling that lingered with Adam’s observation, and we joined everyone rather than hanging out on the fringes. I stole Alys from Aubrey’s lap to tug her into mine.
“We have more chairs,” Joystick said.
Alys squirmed in my lap. “I’m good, unless this one gets too hard.”
We all chatted for a few minutes, but when the radio countdown stopped, and Markus came on the air, all conversation stopped.
Markus read through the team names who had qualified, giving a little bit of information about each, and talking about their entries. Some names were familiar and others were brand new.
Most everyone hissed when he read last year’s winning team. Not that we had any issue with them, but they stood between us and victory.
And then he was done.
“Was that twenty?” Aubrey asked.
Aubrey grabbed a napkin and pulled a pen from her purse. “I think so?” She scribbled names. “Help me remember them all.”
“That was only nineteen.” I was certain. Because I hadn’t been counting, but our name hadn’t been in there.
And we had to have made it.
Didn’t we?
“Last but never least.” Markus started talking again as if he wasn’t obliterating our world, and several people in Joystick’s shushed each other. “A crowd favorite every year—The Wonderland Crew.”
There was a heartbeat of silence in the bar, and then a deafening roar of cheers erupted in the room. Everyone high-giving us. Hugging us.
It didn’t matter that us getting in was basically a given—we were that kind of creative—the celebration was still fun.
“Shush, everyone.” Alys’s voice didn’t carry above the bedlam. “Quiet please.” She couldn’t shout loud enough.
I urged her to her feet, “just for a second,” climbed on my chair, and shouted, “Hey.”
Every pair of eyes in the room turned toward me. “Shut the fuck up, so we can hear what the actual contest is.”
There was a wave of laughter, but most everyone faded off, and Markus’s voice was distinct again coming from the sound system.
He was explaining that the challenge was to recreate six album covers per team—our choice. The rules were similar to what we’d just done—nothing digital. There were some exceptions to which albums we could choose—for instance nothing Beatles, because those were too iconic, and also because they didn’t want dozens of White albums and Abbey Roads to have to ignore.
The goal was to make them as creative as possible, and that was where the scavenger hunt part of things came in. Finding locations. Finding props for the pictures. The albums had to be recognizable still, and points were awarded for creativity over artistic talent. The idea mattered most.
As always, we had two weeks, and the prize was a thousand bucks. Not a big deal, but it was the trophy that we wanted. The same trophy that got passed around every year, and always looked tackier than the previous year by the time it made it to each new winner.
Alys had big plans to decorate that gaudy thing and make it ours. She deserved that chance.
Best of all though, the winner got bragging rights and to pick the playlist for the radio station for an entire week.
This was going to be the most epic three weeks in history. I was so excited.
10
Onyx
We were at Joystick’s for a few hours after the announcement, but things slowly wound down and people headed home, until it would’ve been rude for us to make Joystick keep the place open any later tonight.
We thanked him for letting us take over for the evening, and Alys, Maddox, and I loaded camera equipment into Maddox’s SUV. As we were getting ready to climb in ourselves, a familiar voice stopped us.
“Maddox.” It was his father. “I didn’t realize you were in town.”
