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Dunc’s hand without taking it.
    â€œDo you want us to call the cops?” Amos asked.
    Roy sighed. “No. I guess it’s time to come clean. Mange isn’t the one behind all the problems—I am.”
    â€œYou?!” Dunc dropped the papers, and Amos did a double-take. “I don’t understand,” Dunc said.
    Roy sat down on the stage floor. “It’s a long story. I never meant to hurt anybody. Even that stunt with the spotlight was rigged. I knew it was going to fall all the time. I made sure I was the only one standing in that spot when it did, and I stepped aside.”
    â€œI still don’t get it.”
    â€œI just wanted out. All of this”—Roy waved his arm—“it’s not for me. I don’t likehaving a green face and weird hair. And I especially don’t like doing songs that talk about hurting people and tearing things up.”
    â€œWouldn’t it have been easier just to quit?” Amos asked.
    â€œI
couldn’t
quit. My contract is good for three more years. I thought if I caused enough things to go wrong, the other guys would call it off. Then there wouldn’t be a band. Without a band, I’d be free to start over again.”
    Dunc tapped his chin. “Hmmm. This gives me an idea.”
    â€œNot again,” Amos moaned.
    â€œThere just might be an easy way around all of this.”

• 13
    Dunc put the letter in his pocket and rang the doorbell. Mrs. Binder let him in. He raced past her and took the stairs two at a time. The door to Amos’s room was open. Dunc started to go in. He stopped. For a minute he thought he was in the wrong room.
    It was clean.
    For the first time Dunc could remember, Amos’s room was entirely clean. There was nothing on the floor, and you could actually see the bed.
    â€œWow!”
    â€œDon’t rub it in.” Amos was sitting on the floor in a corner eating a banana. “This is all your fault, you know. The Salvation Army cleaned me out. I’m lucky they left the bed.”
    â€œThis is great, Amos. I never knew you had carpet in here.”
    â€œVery funny.”
    Dunc pulled the letter out of his pocket. “It’s from Roy.”
    â€œHow does he like his new singing career as just plain old Roy Freeman?”
    Dunc skimmed the letter. “He says he’s doing great, and Road Kill is also doing fine with its new leader. Mange is really packing them in.”
    Amos threw the banana peel at the trash can and missed. “That was a great idea you had about replacing Raunchy Roy with Menacing Mange. I guess Mange never really wanted to be a manager. He was always a musician at heart. But even I was surprised when he let Roy out of his contract.”
    â€œLooks like everything’s working out.Roy sent you a ticket to his first concert. He says he knows you probably can’t make it to Cincinnati, but he feels bad about your date with Melissa and everything.”
    â€œActually that worked out okay too. It turned out that Melissa never wanted to go to the concert. She likes classical music. I heard she threw the ticket in the trash.”
    â€œThat’s too bad, considering all the trouble you went through.”
    Amos shrugged. “It’s okay. Hey, I wonder if she’d be interested in going to a Roy Freeman concert.”
    â€œIn Cincinnati?”
    â€œYeah, I could rent another tux, get some plastic flowers so they won’t wilt on me. This time maybe I’ll hire a limo. What do you think?”
    Dunc sighed. “It’s going to be an interesting year.”

Be sure to join Dunc and Amos in these other Culpepper Adventures:
The Case of the Dirty Bird
    When Dunc Culpepper and his best friend, Amos, first see the parrot in a pet store, they’re not impressed—it’s smelly, scruffy, and missing half its feathers. They’re only slightly impressed when they learn that the parrot speaks four languages, has