Pay the Piper

by Jane Yolen

  The group itself was about twenty years old, ancient in rock terms. But two of the four members were much older than she’d thought. Callie hadn’t realized exactly how old until she’d done the research. After checking the printout included in the CDs, she’d gone on to read everything she could find about them on the Internet. Seems Gringras and Alabas had been in bands that had opened for everyone, including the Beatles, the Stones, Aerosmith, and Tina Turner. Quite a history!

  Given that Gringras and Alabas were apparently rock legends, Callie was stunned that they would come to the Valley and that she was actually at the concert. Along with about five thousand other people.

  Minus one, she thought. Her brother Mars. Boy, was he mad he was missing the show! But he was his fraternity’s party czar, which meant that he was running their Halloween costume ball and couldn’t get away.

  Then she thought: But I have a press pass. That meant she could get up close and personal with the band. Other kids from other schools might have such passes, but Callie knew she was the only reporter from her school who’d wangled one. Probably because she was the only one in journalism class who could actually write. The others were still at the what’s-a-gerund? stage of grammar.

  Nick grabbed her press pass again, being annoying as usual. “When are they gonna get here?” he asked, in his been-in-the-car-too-long whine.

  “Any minute, Bugbrain,” she told him, then glanced over at her mother and father who were studiously ignoring the insult. Or else they hadn’t heard it. She guessed the latter as they were absolutely wrapped up watching two men dressed all in black who were checking out the instruments onstage.

  Suddenly the lights went down.

  The crowd began screaming and it was deafening.

  Nick grabbed Callie’s hand. His palm was icy. “Is it time?”

  She was so excited, she didn’t let go and instead gave his hand a sisterly squeeze. “Time.”

  The sold-out hall was dark and loud and, after a minute, she was glad she hadn’t let go.

  “What’s happening?” Nick said. He couldn’t see over all the standing, screaming fans.

  On tiptoe, Callie tried to make out anything on the stage. The men in black had gone. “Nothing yet.” She could feel the tension rising all around her.

  A few minutes more, and still Brass Rat hadn’t taken the stage. Now there were some catcalls, some scattered murmurings as the crowd began to get restless.

  By her side, Nick was turning his head, like the girl in the Exorcist movie. Then he dropped her hand and spun around on one leg.

  “Nick…” she whispered angrily, wondering at the same time if the show was ever going to start.

  Then she realized—it already had. A low sound was building, and it probably had been for some time. Only now was the sound becoming audible—a note built from the bottom up, finally resolving into a deep, throbbing tone.

  Callie glanced behind them, searching for the source of the sound in the blackened hall, then looked again at the stage. Her eyes had already become accustomed to the darkness, and now she could see things—a bit of movement, a stool, a mike and … there!

  A small blue spotlight suddenly outlined a lone figure at center stage. He was dressed in what looked like peasant’s apparel: a simple cotton shirt, homespun breeches, sturdy leather riding boots. Unusually tall and thin, but not unattractively so, she thought. In fact, he looked awfully good for a guy who had to be at least her father’s age. Not all wrinkly like Mick Jagger or Paul McCartney.

  Yep, she thought, Peter Gringras is still a hottie, no matter how old he might be.

  Gringras stood in front of the microphone with sinuous fingers wrapped around a silver flute. He appeared to be squeezing that one amazing note out of the instrument. Callie wondered when he would ever take another breath. He began to rock slightly, back and forth, and his clothes—that had first seemed so plain—came alive as if something woven into them caught the light and danced.

  He had yet to play a second note and Callie could see that he already owned the crowd. Glancing around—the hall now lit with a warm glow—she made out people swaying to the same rhythm. There was no beat, no meter, just this one long note, yet everyone in the hall seemed to hear the hint of a song, a dance, a celebration.

  Gringras began to define it.

  What started as one note became two.

  Then four.

  Then, as the pace and pulses quickened, the notes came too quick to count. Gringras gyrated madly and his fingers flew across the pads.

  The crowd roared as he flipped the flute to the other side and played left-handed. Callie remembered Mrs. Ryder, her fifth grade music teacher, telling her that such a thing was impossible. Yet, there he was, playing left-handed—sinisterly, thought Callie, recalling the old word for left—with no discernible drop in skill.

  The pitch grew higher and the notes came faster, higher and faster, faster and higher, and Gringras was screaming the notes as he played them until Callie could no longer tell what was voice and what was flute or if it was something else entirely.

  Then she knew: At the end, it was his voice. She knew because, as he screamed the final impossibly high note, he threw his flute into the air. The spotlight left him and followed the flute arcing up toward the ceiling. When it reached its apex the last note stopped and the spotlight went out, plunging the hall back into darkness.

  The stage exploded.

  Three columns of flame shot straight up from the front of the stage and Brass Rat was there.

  The electric guitar raged and drums pounded and the band kicked into one of their newer songs, “Pay the Piper” with its opening line: “So you say you wanna dance all night…”

  5 · Ratter

  Callie stood absolutely still watching the band, almost as if under an enchantment. Gringras’ good looks—the high cheekbones, the thin nose, the brilliant green of his eyes—were mesmerizing. How could she have thought he was older than her father? He was simply beautiful, and he moved beautifully, too, like some great jungle cat, all oiled motion, flowing.

  The drummer, Johnny Alabas, had some of that same beauty, but slightly tarnished. Everything about him was too sharp, too long, too white, as if he were a funhouse mirror reflection of the piper.

  Bass player Tommy Nickels was small, compact, and dark.

  But it was the guitarist, Scott Morrison, who held Callie in thrall, with his long blonde hair tied back in a braid, his wide Viking face set with faded blue eyes. If Gringras was a cat, Scott was a horse. A stallion. Big and powerful and gorgeous. He was wearing black leather trousers with rats painted around the bottom of the legs, their tails twining up like strange vines. And a black tee with Celtic knotwork printed on front and back.

  As she watched him, Callie felt something like an ache under her breastbone. She’d never felt like that before. Is it love, she wondered? Then shook her head. Her parents would never allow it.

  “Aren’t they brill!” Nick cried, meaning brilliant, the latest word in elementary school. It meant “great,” “super,” “the best.” He tugged at Callie’s sleeve.

  She looked down at him and suddenly thought, I’m standing with my little brother at a rock concert! Her face flooded with embarrassed heat. Moving away quickly, she said, “Get lost, Peabrain. My friends are watching.”

  Then turning, she saw Alison and Josee and waved at them as the band segued into the next song, “Nobody Here But…”

  Josee came over breathlessly, twining a black curl around one finger. Alison was right behind. “Whadda you think?” she began. “That Peter, that Gringras, the piper, he’s … he’s…”

  Callie had never heard Josee stutter before. Usually she had a word or three for everything. But now she sounded dazed, almost as if she’d been hit over the head.

  “Brill!” Callie said, before she remembered that was an elementary school word, and the heat flooded back into her face. “I mean, they’re awesome.”

  “And your parents actuall
y let you…” Alison began, reaching out to finger Callie’s press pass.

  Josee found her tongue again. “Yeah—your parents got the key and unlocked the door to your cage, let you loose. Fly little bird, fly, Callifrage. Great going! But wasn’t that the pea-brained little brother, Mr. Tittletattle Tagalong?”

  About to answer back, Callie suddenly heard the music again, and found she couldn’t keep still any longer. She started to dance circles around Alison and Josee, as if binding them to her. “Tell you all. Later,” she said. Then off she went, skipping and hopping around the hall, her friends tagging after her, all three of them singing along with the music.

  When the band broke into “Ratter, ratter, mad as a hatter…” they started to do the Ratter, a dance they’d learned from MTV. But it had been covered by the Blank Joves, and Callie was surprised to learn “Ratter” was a Brass Rat song. It hadn’t been on any of the CDs her parents owned.

  Scott led it off with a long descending riff on his guitar.

  “SCOTT!” a number of the girls screamed out, and Callie whispered his name. As she did so, she felt a delicious shiver travel down her spine. So this, she thought, is a major crush. She’d never had one before. Then she surrendered to the feeling, throwing herself into the dance.

  The dance went like this: One person was the Ratter and went sniffing around the other kids—the Rats—who danced hands down, then hands up, as if trying to get away.

  “Hands down, or I’ll swallow you whole,

  Hands up, do as you’re told.…”

  When the band hit the line, “Give me money or I’ll take your soul,” the Ratter had to chose one of the dancers. Then the two proceeded to spin about together till the Ratter went down on to the floor. The Rat became the Ratter and it began all over again. If two Ratters met on the dance floor, though, they had to go Nose-to-Tail four times around, then spin off after other Rats.

  Callie called out, “I’m Ratter!” the moment the guitar was over, which left Alison and Josee to join other Rats nearby.

  * * *

  AFTER RATTER, CALLIE AND ALISON and Josee just shuffled and shagged and jived through the next eight songs. They sweated up a storm but refused to stop, not even to get a drink of water.

  Once Callie caught her dad’s eye, and he winked at her. Another time she saw Nick who—with a bunch of his weenie friends—was dancing, too. If you could call what they did dancing. Throwing themselves about was more like it, Callie thought.

  Then she saw her mother, right out there on the floor, where anyone could see her, doing a strange combination of bootie dancing and the Ratter, which was so embarrassing, Callie felt sick. She looked at the floor and thrust her hands down angrily, hoping that the floor could, as the lyrics said, swallow her whole.

  Suddenly Gringras announced to the mike, “We’re taking a short break. Don’t go anywhere, you rats!” and the hall broke into a waterfall of applause.

  Callie checked out her mother. She was nowhere in sight. Callie’s knotted stomach seemed to ease.

  “Want a soda, Callie?” Josee asked, her black curls now sorry-looking tangles. “They’re selling all kinds of stuff out front, bottles, cans, plastic and paper cups. Drill them, fill them up.”

  “Merch, too,” Alison added. She had two bright red spots on her cheeks, as if a child had colored them in with Magic Marker. “Tee shirts and headbands and hats and CDs and…” It was a long speech for her.

  “Do they have hats?” Josee interrupted. “With little yellow rats on top? I saw one on someone. I’m dying to get one. And Peter’s autograph. From his perfect fingers, down the pen, to me … to me … just for me.” She started sputtering again.

  Callie waved her press pass at them. “I’m going backstage for an interview. Hard work—but clearly somebody’s got to do it.”

  “An interview?” Alison asked, voice squeaking, as if she’d never heard of Callie’s plan. “With the band?”

  Callie shook her head. “No, with the janitor.” She made a face at them. “Of course with the band.”

  “And your parents are letting you all alone with those older men?” Josee said, her voice hovering between envy and astonishment. “What were they thinking, Califunny?”

  “That I’m working?” Callie said. “Not shirking.” She grinned, not needing to tell Josee how she managed it. Let them think it was hard to do.

  “Can we come, too?” Josee asked. “Quiet as mice, not rats, and we’ll be your backup, or your front down, whichever you want. Carry your pencils and pencil box, ma’am.” Her fingers crawled all over her hair as she spoke.

  Alison just looked eager.

  “Press pass only covers one,” Callie told them. “If you’d been in journalism class maybe you could have gotten one, too.” Though she knew she was the only Hamp kid who’d wangled the assignment. “Get me a soda, will you?” She fished in her jeans pocket for a dollar. She wanted them to go before they found out she had to take Nick into the interview as the price of coming to the concert. The soda was a distraction, to get them out of the way while she rounded him up. “And don’t worry about that interview. I’ll give you the whole scoop later.”

  Alison looked beaten, her already thin lips thinning down into a line like the dash at the end of one of Emily Dickinson’s poems. But Josee threatened another flood of words.

  “Friends, my friend, don’t…”

  Holding out her little fingers, Callie interrupted saying, “Friends do pinkie promises.”

  First Alison, then Josee gripped her pinkies with theirs. “Pinkie promise,” they both said, and Josee added, “You’d better, or the gods of journalism will dump their ink all over you, Callie, and it’ll make your pumpkin head look like mine, jet-black and oily!”

  Callie didn’t answer, but spun away from them to find her parents and reclaim her notebook. And, she thought grimly, her pea-brained brother.

  6 · Talk Is Cheap

  And now, the piper thought, the part of this gig I’ve been dreading the most.

  “Gringras!” Tommy shouted to him, already offstage and halfway down the hall. “Time to talk to the kids.” He sounded thrilled by the prospect.

  Gringras sighed, a deep theatrical affair. “If we must.”

  “We must if we want to get paid,” said Alabas as he ignored the short set of stairs and leaped to the ground. “And we do need to get paid.”

  Gringras nodded. Talking to the children was better than the alternative. But he wasn’t looking forward to it.

  “Come,” Alabas said, his voice softening. “We’ll talk to them and get paid. Then we’ll not have to see them again.”

  He almost sounds like the old Alabas there, Gringras thought. Like my friend.

  Scott was the last down, his broad face lightly coated with sweat.

  “What’s up?” he asked, before answering himself. “Oh yeah, the school newspapers.”

  Gringras motioned the entire band down the hall toward the room where the interview would take place. He said nothing more. He was thinking of all of the children he’d had to talk to over the years. And those he’d had to “see again.” Forever. Like the two princes.

  “Thou art here to kill us, I wot,” the older one had said matter-of-factly.

  He’d looked so brave and fragile, standing guard over his younger brother, Gringras hadn’t had the heart to tell him he was wrong.

  7 · Interview

  “Why are you guys called Brass Rat?” Nick blurted out when they’d gotten backstage and through a pus-colored door to the so-called “green room,” though it was really painted black. They were there by the simple magic of waving the press pass.

  Callie was horrified at Nick’s outburst. She’d been trying to remain properly cool, as if she hung out in band rooms every day. The other school reporters from other high schools all laughed and nudged one another. And one guy, dressed in an actual jacket and tie, whispered, “Babysitter!” to the girl next to him.

  Gringras ignored Mr. Tie and spoke d
irectly to Nick in a kind of slow drawl. “Well, actually, there’s an interesting and exciting story behind that.” He didn’t exactly lean forward from his position on the couch, but he seemed to slouch ever-so-slightly less. Even up close, he didn’t look old, Callie thought. Unlike her father, who had lines around his eyes whenever he smiled, Gringras had a face that seemed smooth and flawless. And bored.

  Maybe he’s told this story too many times. Callie suddenly wondered whether this was how her article could start. Maybe he’s been around so long, nothing surprises him. She liked that. It was what her journalism teacher called “a hook.” She stood very still and listened carefully.

  “It was years ago in an antique shop in Edinburgh,” Gringras said.

  “Edinburgh, Scotland?” Nick asked. “We studied that.”

  Callie rolled her eyes. She was the one supposed to do the interview. But how could she shut Nick up, short of putting a hand over his mouth?

  Gringras smiled slowly and dropped into a Scottish brogue. “Aye, bonny Scotland.” As quickly he dropped out, winking at Nick. “A shop near the North Sea. I saw, tucked way back on a high shelf, in the far back room of the shop, a rat as big as a small dog.”

  “A real rat?” Nick asked, leaning toward Gringras, leaning—Callie thought—into the story.

  “No,” Gringras replied, smiling at him, “it was made entirely of brass.”

  Callie suddenly realized that Gringras’s actual accent was strange. It could have been from Eastern Europe; it could have been from England. If pressed, she would just have to call it: foreign.

  “Well, I loved that brass rat at first sight. But what use could any sane man have for a big brass rat?” Gringras smiled again but—Callie thought—like a snake, without showing his teeth.

  He leaned back against the sofa cushion. “I thought to myself, Gringras, you are not a rich man. But maybe, just maybe—since the silly-looking thing is tucked way back, on a high shelf, in the very back of the shop—then maybe I can make a bargain.”