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dad, doing the dishes and trying to be a ray of sunshine. He had been asking me how school was too, but no way was I going to tell him, or he’d be saying he should have taken me himself.
    â€œIck,” I said. Gus had bad taste in wallpaper. Like, one of the patterns was nothing but black and white piano keys, and another was paisley. But I picked one that wasn’t too bad, sort of tie-dye, and Gus went ahead and covered my books for me. There weren’t really sixteen. Then she left to go outside again, and I went up to my room and did my homework. There wasn’t really all that much. I was done just about the time it started to get dark out.
    Just about the time the weird music started up again.
    â€œOh, for crying out loud.” Instead of feeling scared I felt frustrated. I wasn’t going to sit there and let that strange noise freak me out, and I didn’t feel like chasing after it either. I’d had enough hassle for one day. Without even having to think, I got up, headed out, and went across the street to Rawnie’s place.
    Somebody I didn’t know answered the door, a girl maybe old enough to drive a car. Slim and pretty. She had to be Rawnie’s big sister. “Uh, hi,” I said. “Is Rawnie around?”
    â€œSure. Why don’t you go on up and see if she’s in her room.”
    I felt funny going up the stairs in somebody else’s house, but that’s what I did. The doors were open, and I spotted Rawnie flopped on her bed. Her room was at the front of the house, facing mine, which might work out nice for some kind of fun or trouble sometime. I called, “Hi,” and Rawnie looked up and said, “Hey! C’mon in.”
    I got to her door and I was going to tell her the spook music was floating in the air again or maybe just skip that and make fun of Mr. Kuchwald instead, but as soon as I saw inside her room I forgot everything I was going to say. Because there on her wall was a giant poster of the two hottest guys in the world, and they were Nico Torres and Ty Shaney, with the words NEON SHADOW shining over them.

CHAPTER FOUR
    What I thought was the worst day in my life turned into one of the best ones ever.
    For starters, Rawnie had the Neon Shadow cassette tape. So the first thing we did after I was done jumping up and down and screaming was we listened to Ty and Nico singing “The Friendship Song.”
    Hey, I remember when
    We were desperadoes
    You had a guitar on your back
    And I had a gun in my hand
    And when it came down to the end
    You took the bullet they meant for me
    And smiled ’cause you could see
    I was gonna be okay
    Friend .
    Hey, friend, my friend ,
    You’re my father, you’re my mother
    And my sister and my brother
    Neither one of us owns the other
    Both of us just stay together
    Hey, we’re sun and wind
    We’re yang and yin
    We’re friends .
    Hey, back when we were cops
    On them mean streets in Chicago
    And somebody sold you out to the Mob
    But you knew it wasn’t me
    I wanted you to run and hide
    But you knew you had to stay and fight
    And I stood by your side
    That’s the way we died
    Friends .…
    â€œThat is so intense,” Rawnie whispered when it was over. She pressed the rewind button to play it again.
    I felt the same way. When I listened to that song it was like I wanted something clear down to my bones. But it was hard for me to talk about the way the song started me dreaming. I just said, “Do you think they’re really like that?”
    â€œTy and Nico?”
    â€œYeah. Do you think that’s the way it is for them?”
    We were both on Rawnie’s bed, which was a big one, and we lay there and looked at the poster, which was almost as big as the bed. Nico and Ty looked back at us as if they could really see us. I looked mostly at Nico. He was the dark one, and when he sang, it was like a black fire burning. People said he was part Cuban, part Navaho Indian,