The following is an excerpt from my newest novel Nobody’s Hero, the continuing adventures of Skye Wright as she wrestles with burgeoning fame, flaky musicians, junkies, and all of the other chaos that comes with a rock and roll life.

Book four in The Rise and Fall of Skye wright series!

Tween Invasion

     “Oh my God…”
     Skye found Miranda putting a hand to her head.
     She was looking in the direction of a group of punk boys dressed up in matching black cheerleader outfits with white trim, all with black and red pom poms. A few of them had accentuated their outfits with some band and skull pins. The very large man had put a large red bow in his hair.
     “Damn!” yarped Roach. “Nice legs Preston!”
     Skye turned around to see Preston walking up, wearing the same cheerleading outfit as the others.
     Skye stifled a laugh. “It’s so embarrassing when you run into someone wearing the same thing, right?”
     “Hey, I wanted to get in on the fun.” Preston tugged at his skirt. “Plus these things have nice ventilation!”
     Miranda walked up, carrying her bass, trying to rein in her bemused smile.
     “Everyone’s gonna think you dressed him up like this!” said Skye as she pointed at Preston.
     “Who’s to say I didn’t? Cowboy outfit’s next!”
     “Yeehaw!” yawped Preston.
     Various members of the entourage were talking to the cheerleaders as Skye shooed along Roach, Molly, and Miranda to get ready as The Jolly Sturms finished up their set.
     Skye felt a hand on her shoulder. “So there are actual kids in the audience,” stated Tandasil matter-of-factly.
     “Whattaya mean kids?”
     “Colleen’s niece and a bunch of her middle school friends are in the audience. Her cheerleading friends, I assume.”
     “So, no Sex Towel then, right?”
     Tandasil narrowed her eyes. “Hell to pay. That’s what you get for bringing in an actual cheerleader to help with the act when you’re also playing at an all-ages venue.”
     Skye rolled her eyes as she was beginning to wonder how Tandasil-like she was becoming. She quickly skittered up to Molly to let her know there were tweens in the audience.
     “Sure,” said Molly. “It’s all ages.”
     “No Sex Towel though.”
     Molly looked surprised for a moment, as if she had not thought about it. “Right.”
     Skye gripped her guitar as The Jolly Sturms finished their encore.
     Walking out onto the stage, the crowd started cheering. They quickly took up their positions as wolf whistles and catcalls came from the audience when Preston walked out in his cheerleading outfit.
     “Calm down you animals!” shouted a smiling Molly. “We decided we need the band to be all-girl so we gussied up our temp axe grinder!”
     They started off with Rockhead, one of their new songs. Skye started the riff intro. As the rest of the band kicked in, the crowd started cheering wildly.
     Skye turned around as the stage shook. The gang of cheerleaders, five punk boys in all, including Larry and Billy the very large man, were running out onto the stage. They all started jumping up and down as Molly started singing.
     Skye could not help but turn around and look at the hopping, kicking, and twirling punk cheerleaders as they played. She quickly turned to face the audience again since they were playing one of their newer songs and she did not want to slip up.
     They launched into Barbecue the Rich as the jumping cheerleaders were making the stage shake, especially when the very large man jumped up and down. She noticed the crowd was a little more raucous than usual, cheering loudly, whooping, and catcalling as the cheerleaders danced.
     The punk boy cheerleaders all gathered behind Preston and shook their pom-poms around him as he played the solo for Bitch Witch. During Goth Butt Revenge they formed a chorus line and were kicking their legs up in the air.
     By the time they were playing their next-to-last song, Flat Ears Hiss, Skye was used to the semi-competent stage-shaking cheerleaders, all of whom seemed to be slowing down.
     As Molly started the hissing intro to the song, a short figure ran in front of Skye, startling her for a moment as she concentrated on raking out the intro to the song. She turned and saw short and skinny girls running around the stage, jumping up and down with pom-poms in their hands. Skye tried to keep in time as a few of Nicole’s friends cartwheeled across the stage in front of Molly, tumbling around like acrobats as the crowd went completely wild.
     After the song, Nicole walked up to Molly and held out her hand. Molly handed her the mic.
     “Remember, you’re not supposed to swear in front of little kids!” shouted Nicole with a wide smile as her high-pitched voice boomed all over the theater.
     The crowd started laughing and cheering and jeering. Some rough-looking men by the stage’s edge started making faces at Nicole.
     “Hey, mind your fucking manners!” shouted Nicole with a wide smile as the rest of her cheerleading gang ran up to the edge of the stage and shook their pom-poms at all of the yarking punks.
     The quite large cheerleader ran up to the left side of the stage. Everyone in the audience let out a collective gasp when he performed a slow and somewhat awkward yet complete cartwheel, an acrobatic feat that left everyone stunned for a split second until he landed feet first on the stage with a loud crash.
     A huge cheer went up from the audience as the large punk held up his pom-poms in triumph and Nicole’s friends cartwheeled around him.
     They launched into their encore song, Atomic Bomb Betty, and all of the cheerleaders, large and small, started dancing at the front of the stage.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

     “That was a killer show!” smiled Roach as she walked up to Skye.
     “I’ve never heard a crowd get that loud before!”
     Skye spotted Larry and Nicole having a facetious pom-pom fight as everyone milled around backstage.
     Everyone was smiling and laughing.
     “Too bad we can’t take this act on the road,” said Tandasil who had walked up behind Skye.
     “No shit. That was something else!”
     “Maybe we can recruit punk boys in the local scenes as we go along,” suggested Roach.
     “But where would we find pom-poms and outfits for them?” asked Tandasil.
     “Maybe next tour,” said Skye. “When we’re rolling in tons a’ dough!”
     Skye made her way to the back table for a soda. A woman with short brown hair walked up to her. “Hey, how’s it going?”
     Skye looked at her curiously. “Oh. Hey.”
     “Remember me?”
     Skye stood stunned for a moment. She could not for the life of her remember who she was, even though it was obvious that she knew her.
     “My daughter taught your punk boys to cheer.”
     “Holy crap, Bray?”
     She nodded with a wry smile.
     “Jesus, I didn’t recognize you!” said Skye.
     “Colleen told me you’re a twelve stepper now.”
     “Tryin’ to be. It’s not easy when you’re hanging out with crazy punks all th’ time.”
     “Yeah.”
     “What did she say? You’ve been clean for four years now?”
     “Almost five. But it’s about the day-to-day, really.”
     Skye and Bray talked about some of the finer points of the twelve step program as Skye marveled at how different Bray looked.
     “I gotta say,” remarked Skye, “I just didn’t recognize you when you first walked up.”
     “That’s ’cause I actually weigh something now.”
     “It’s not just that. It’s your hair, your face… the fact you’re not holding onto a drink!”
     Bray looked embarrassed. “I’m trying mostly to deal with the backlash, tryin’ to process everything.”
     “I hear ya, not bein’ able to drown out all of those feelings and realities. I got the shakes the other day, and I had to hang onto a friend to get through it.”
     “Shakes don’t bother me as much. It’s the guilt that gets to me.”
     “What? Like fights?”
     Bray shook her head. “There’s that, trying to reconcile the shitty things I’ve done, but it’s also just…” Bray got a solemn look on her face. “It’s just all that time spent getting wasted, all that time getting loaded instead of doing something worthwhile. I could’ve been going to school, working out, writing, reading, or making music instead of getting trashed with worthless burnouts all the time.” She looked right at Skye. “That gets to me more than anything else.”
     Skye felt her skin turn cold. “Hey, you’re still pretty young. You got time to do alla those things now.”
     Bray’s eyes wandered to the floor. “I suppose. I’m still working on that.”