Ace's Basement (2 page)

That's when my mom gets home. She has pizza with her. She gets me to help make salad, and then, as we all eat, Chuck tells her about Denny's video idea. Naturally, she has a million suggestions. All of them are bad.

“You know what you could do,” she says, “is have you and Lisa both singing, with your heads in profile next to one another, like, you know—oh, whose video was it?”

“ABBA,” I say. It's one of my favorite bad videos to laugh at.

“Right.” Mom is all excited. “And you could—”

Oh, please. I nod and pretend I'm listening. Really, I'm talking to myself again.
Text Lisa.
I chew slower and answer:
Grade-ten girls don't hang with
grade-nine guys, even if they do play
music together.
I know this is a law of the universe—or of high school, at least. High school and the universe are the same thing if you are fourteen.

It doesn't have to be a law,
I say to myself.
Didn't you hear how worried
she sounded when she asked if you were
all right? Do it. Don't be a chicken.

I'm going to do it. I put down my pizza and pull out my phone. Mom says, “Hey, mister, no phones at the table, remember?” At that exact instant, her BlackBerry rings and she jumps up. “Except for this one call,” Mom says.

Chuck takes salad. I power my phone to text Lisa. The pizza has gone dry in my mouth. I'm going to do it. I'm going to text her this time. But first I see a message from Denny:
want 2c
doomaster 2nite can pick u up @ 8.

Oh, wow.
Doom Master
. It's a new 3-D blockbuster movie. It's based on our favorite action-hero toy from when Denny and I were little. This is opening night, so everybody will be going. Lisa will probably even be there. That would solve everything. I text Denny back:
cool c u @ 8.

I can always ask Lisa next time.

Chapter Three

Lisa isn't at the movie. When I accidentally-on-purpose go by Bargain Village on Saturday, she's on a break. I don't see her till lunch on Monday, when we meet in the music room at school. The music teacher lets us use the school's equipment to mix our recording of “Coming Apart at the Dreams.” It's a good thing Lisa takes music. Next year I will, for sure.

“
I could trip, I could—”
Lisa clicks the computer mouse at two minutes and thirty-seven seconds. We're at the repeat of the first verse. The whole song is only three minutes and twelve seconds.

“Right there,” she says. “My voice sounds so lame there.”

“No, it doesn't,” I say. “We've talked about this before, Lee.”

Lisa's family calls her Lee. After she phoned me one time and said, “Hi, it's Lee,” I figured it was cool if I used it too. I still get a little nervous when I do though.

“But I'm flat,” Lisa complains.

“No, you're not. We checked, remember? It just needs to sound stronger.”

“Maybe we should double the vocal,” Lisa says.

“You're going to sing it again?”

“No, no. With this program I can copy the vocal to another track and play them both. Wait.”

She starts pointing and clicking the mouse again. Screens blink past us.
How cool is this?
I think. I'm sitting here mixing a song that I cowrote with Lisa, who I get to call Lee. And she is older than me and gorgeous and in a duo called Two with me, and I'm talking and not nervous or sarcastic. I didn't even think of a smart comment when Lisa said she was flat. I bet you thought I would, too. So, if I'm comfortable with her when we work on music, how come I can't ask her to a movie?

“Okay, let's try this.” Lisa clicks the mouse one more time.

I could trip, I could fall
Would you hear if I called…

Lisa's voice sounds way fuller. “Awesome,” I say. “That is so cool, Lee. How'd you do that?”

Before she can show me, guess who barges in?

“Ace! Lee! Hey, wait'll you hear this.” Yes. It's Denny.

I glare at him. I'm the one who gets to call Lisa Lee. And anyway, what does he want now? I say, “No, Den, wait'll you hear
this.
” I reach for the mouse to click on a playback. I knock over my carton of chocolate milk instead. It splashes onto my backpack. I jump up “Aw—”

“No, listen,” Denny insists. “We want to do a YouTube video, right?”

“
You
want to do a YouTube video. We didn't say we did.” While I talk, I use my gym shorts to mop up the milk. I know this is probably a mistake even while I'm doing it.

“Whatever,” Denny says. “So anyway, I told Nadia and Alison
Ace needs a
YouTube music video
and they were, like,
We're on it
!”

“Yeah right,” I say. I'm still mopping up. Now I see the milk has gone
into
my backpack. “And it's not
my
video, it's Two's—”

“Nadia and Alison who?” Lisa interrupts. At least she's talking to Denny today.

“You know,” Denny says. “From video club.”

Lisa doesn't say anything. I'm too busy mopping the inside of my backpack to look at her. I've known Alison and Nadia since they were in a grade one/two class with me and Denny. We were grade ones. They were grade twos. They've gotten a lot hotter since then, but I know they don't think we have.

Before I can say, “Yeah right” again, Nadia and Alison come in.

“Sweet,” Denny says. “So, let's make a cool music video and conquer YouTube!”

I lift up my chocolate-milk-covered shorts. The room goes quiet. I look at the shorts. Oh-oh. Using them
was
a mistake. I stuff them in my pack.

But now I see no one is looking at me. Lisa is looking at Nadia and Alison, and they are looking at her. If looks could kill, they'd all be six feet under.

Nadia says, “Actually, Denny, maybe not. So much to do, you know. Sorry, Ace. Too bad, so sad. Gotta go.”

“So
not
sad, Lisa,” says Alison. “We're outta here.”

They spin on their heels. Alison tugs up a shoulder strap. Nadia pulls the hem of her shirt down to the top of her jeans. Is that a tattoo peeking out there? They walk out. A second later, from down the hall, a girl's voice calls, “Oh, Robb
yyyyyyyyy,
” then there's laughter.

“What was that about?” Denny scrunches up his nose.

“We're not exactly friends,” Lisa says. Her face is as red as her hair.

“How come?” Denny asks. He's not Mister Sensitive. I glare at him. But I want to know too.

“It's a long boring story,” Lisa says. “About boys.”

Boys? I don't think I want to hear anything about Lisa and boys.

“Okay, whatever,” Denny says. “Anyway, we don't need them to do our video. They were just gonna help with tech stuff anyway. Really, it's my vision—well,
our
vision, right, Lee?”

“Right,” I join in, “because
I
don't have any vision.”

“Well, like, you too, Ace. But it will feature Lee, right? I mean, she's the lead singer.” Denny isn't even looking at me while he talks. He's looking at Lisa. And calling her Lee.

“I don't know,” Lisa says.

“Come on,” Denny urges. “It'll be way cooler than busking. It's creative! People will hear your songs. And I've already tweeted that we're doing it.”

It's time for Denny to go. I pull out my chocolate-milk gym shorts and wave them in his face. “We'll think about it, Den. It's time for gym. Go get your stuff.”

“Whoa.” He waves his hands. “If it's wrestling again today, we are so not partners.”

Denny leaves. Lisa and I play “Coming Apart at the Dreams” again. People
should
hear this song. Denny is probably useless at videos, but you never know. And it would mean I'd get to spend more time with Lisa, even if it was with Denny around. At least I could keep an eye on him.

Lisa shuts down the computer. The bell is ringing. We look at each other.

“Let's do it,” I say. “We don't want to busk forever, right? What have we got to lose? If it sucks, we don't post it and nobody sees.” Lisa doesn't say anything.

I have a brain wave. “And if it works,” I say, “Nadia and Alison are going to be really jealous.”

Lisa starts to smile, then bites her lip. Outside, the hall is getting noisy.

Finally she nods. “Okay,” she says. “But
we
say if it's good or bad. Oh no, I'm gonna be late.” She grabs her stuff and heads out, texting like mad. “Later,” she calls.

I grab my stuff too. The chocolate milk has made everything sticky. Wow, I think, that was easy. So why can't I ask her to a movie?

Chapter Four

Amazingly, my chocolate-milk shorts have gotten me excused from gym class. This is great, because I hate wrestling. Guys my size get turned into pretzels. Instead, I get to untangle and refold all the volleyball nets in the equipment room.

After school I tell Denny, “We're gonna go for it.”

“Sick,” Denny says. He tweets the news to the world as we walk to my house. “We should talk over shots for the video. I've got a notebook. You write them down.” He unzips his backpack. Then he says, “Hey, look. I almost forgot.” He pulls out a shiny action figure.

“Doom Master!” I laugh. “Where'd you find it?” When we were little kids, we both had Doom Master toys. Everybody did. We'd have action-figure wars with them.

“In my basement,” Denny says, “after we saw the movie. I thought my mom had thrown it out.”

I take the toy from Denny. I hook its mechanical claws to the lip of a litter bin. “Doom Master escapes!” I say. Denny whips out his cell phone and takes a picture. “What else can we pose him with?” he says.

“I know,” I say. “C'mon. I'll show you at my place.” The video can wait. This is too good.

When we had our old band, Denny and I practiced in my basement a lot. Denny hasn't been over as much since he started with video club. This is Denny's first look at the man cave Chuck is working on. “Cool,” he says when we get downstairs. “I think. Is he going to fill in the wall around the washroom?”

“Well, yeah, Den. He'll probably even hook up the toilet too. But look at this.”

Chuck's power tools are lying around. I pose Doom Master by the electric drill. With the drill bit pointing out, it looks like he's battling a giant death ray or something.

“Awesome.” Denny takes the picture. We put Doom Master on the circular saw and in the jaws of a monkey wrench. We pose him holding a screwdriver as big as he is. “I wish there was more zoom on this camera,” Denny says. “I should come back with my mom's.”

Archie the cat comes down to join us. Arch is not interested in taking Doom Master for a ride on his back. I think I've had enough of Doom Master too.

“So let's think about the video, Den,” I say. I dig out my notebook and pen. They smell like chocolate milk, and the book is a little soggy. Maybe I should wash out my backpack.

Denny is busy. He's got Doom Master clutching a guitar string that was lying around. He's hung the string from a nail on one of the two-by-fours framing the bathroom wall. He swings Doom Master back and forth. Now Arch is interested. He bats at Doom Master with a paw. Denny takes more pictures.

“Den,” I say. “The video?”

“Yeah. Okay. In a sec.” He takes a few more pictures. Then we flop into the two beanbag chairs, the only furniture down here right now.

“So,” I say, “it starts ‘
What's up? I'm
down / When you're not around…
'”

Denny says, “For that, let's have you two singing on a roof. No, wait! You playing guitar on a roof, Lee singing down below on the street, like.”

“It better be a flat roof,” I say. “I'm scared of heights.”

“We could tie you to a chimney or something.”

I like that it would look as if Lisa was singing to me, but I don't say that. I write
roof
on the last page of my notebook. It's got a faint brown stain across the bottom. Oh well, if we get famous, we can probably auction this page off for a million dollars. Stains and wrinkles will make it cooler.

“Okay, next words,” I say. “
I could
trip, I could fall / Would you hear if I
called?"

“Easy,” Denny laughs. “That's my shot of you messing up while you're busking.”

“Dream on, Den. No way.”

“Just kidding,” Denny says. “What if we had a cell phone falling into a toilet?”

We can't agree on whose phone to waste, so that idea is a no-go.

“I know,” says Den. “A shot of Lisa singing, and then she dissolves!”

“Yeah, like she shatters into a million pieces—”

“In slow motion!”

“Yeah, in slow motion,” I say, writing it down.

“Hey,” Denny says, “know how we could do it? If we filmed Lisa looking in that big mirror in your front hall. We'd have to break it though. Do you think your mom would let us?”

“Hmm. Maybe. She's always saying it makes her look fat. We'll ask when she gets home.” I write
mirror
in my notebook too. I'm getting kind of excited. This video could be even more original and creative than songwriting. I mean, I know other people have used these ideas once or twice—okay, a few times more than that—but probably not all together, the way we're going to. That will make it special.

I look up from my notebook. Denny has left his beanbag chair and is posing Doom Master again. There's this silvery hose coming out of the bathroom wall behind the new sink. It's drooping, not hooked up to the sink yet. Denny is trying to hook Doom Master's feet under the handle near the end of the hose. He gives the handle a twist. Water blasts across the man cave. Denny yells and jumps away.

“At least it's not chocolate milk,” he says when we finally get it turned off. By the time we finish mopping up, I've gotten a text from Lisa:
got sat off 2
shoot cu @ lunch w/ideas.