DANNY Chapter 35 by Roberta J. Cabot This is a story about Daniel, a guy with a unique talent and an even more unique problem: A great singing voice and the looks of his gorgeous sister. And how he and his family deal with his having breasts. And how he ends up as the female lead singer for a high-school cover band as well as a radio DJ. The KRPQ concert started well, with Danny singing a reeeally old 80's song, but the audience ate it up. But as they prepared to start their second song, disaster struck! Someone sabotaged the lights! Still, Danny was able to improvise and keep the concert going. Whew! Never a dull moment with Batch Fourteen, and Dan & his gang.

 
Chapter Thirty-Five:  Sabotage

***** (Janet) *****

From my vantage point up in the rafters, I watched the guys as they played. Using my dad's Steiner military binoculars, I could see everyone clearly. I zoomed in on Danny, and I couldn't help but sigh. She looked so close in the binoculars, it was like I could reach out and touch her cheek. The band played flawlessly as usual, which I took pride in, and then I saw the new girl, my so-called temporary replacement. She acted so cocky. Go ahead, bitch. But you'll be out soon, if I have anything to say about it. With each flubbed chord or wrongly-plucked string, I couldn't help but snicker at the new girl. Sooner or later I'm sure everyone else will notice how badly she plays.

Everyone was enjoying themselves so much, I couldn't stand it. I zoomed the focus back to Danny again, and saw her angelic smile. Danny was the one who was enjoying herself the most. I just had to giggle. But I remembered our fight from a couple of weeks ago. She took my band away from me! How dare she! But then, I could have talked it out... I could have...

As the band played their hearts out, I sighed and looked at their happy, glowing faces, wishing I was down there with them, soaking up the energy and the applause. I saw June bump hips with the new girl as they played. I remembered we used to that a lot. And there was Mongo. Ohmigod, Mongo was actually smiling! I giggled again.

As they finished the first song, I heard several little boxes around me go "bang!" and then glitter, confetti and things that looked like streamers from party favors rained down. I looked down and saw the bulk of the stuff fall to the front of the stage, but enough got wafted back to the stage that I saw Danny get hit by a small cloud of glitter. She said a few lines, but I didn't hear her words - so caught up was I with her image, her essence. And then the radio station's announcers bounded onto the stage.

After a short spiel, I heard Robin, the Nighthawk, come on "live" from the station's studio in town. Ha!

But that was my cue. It was time.

I made sure the diagram I hand-copied a few days before was in my pants pocket, and then carefully made my way down to the backstage, making sure no one saw me. All the scaffolding and dangling ropes made it confusing for me, but I eventually got to where I was supposed to go. I took out and unfolded the little diagram and started tracing wires. I found the fusebox I was looking for, took a deep breath, and threw the switch. "Take that, Danny!" I muttered.

The entire stage was plunged in darkness. Immediately after that, I threw the switch of the next fusebox. "Bitch!" I said. "You and the guys deserve this!"

I then took out my little flashlight and brought out my dad's large fishing knife that I borrowed from the garage. Using the light from my flash, I traced the cables coming out of the two switched-off fuseboxes. I knew it would have been useless to take out the fuses from the old-fashioned fuseboxes since they undoubtedly had spares so I hacked the knife across the cables. I then folded back the wires to make sure there was no spark-gap. If Dad ever had a boy, he probably wouldn't have taught me anything about things like fuseboxes and spark gaps. Sure I wanted to sabotage Danny's little party, but I didn't want to hurt anyone, or burn down the coliseum.

As I was doing so, I heard someone.

"Hey!" a security guard with a flashlight yelled. "Who's there? What're you doing? Hey! Stop!"

The guy probably saw my flash. I put away my stuff and high-tailed it outa there.

"Hey! Stop, goddammit! Stop!"

I ran on and on, down gangways and little suspended crosswalks, and eventually I hit the backstage floor and ran out onto the street, coming out pretty near the box office. Thank God no one saw me. I went to the alley behind the place, stopped and caught my breath.

I knew I couldn't make it back to my perch now so I brought out one of the complimentary passes Danny left with my folks. I made my way out of the lot. Knowing I might be searched, I took off the coveralls I was wearing and wrapped it into a ball, with Dad's knife and my flashlight inside, and stashed it in an out-of-the-way corner instead of inside my little pack. That left me in a t-shirt, jeans and sneakers. Very dressed down, sure, but I looked totally different, which was the whole point. I noticed the latex gloves at the last minute, ripped them off and pocketed them.

I had to stop a little bit, to blow away the adrenalin and attention. "What am I doing," I said to myself. "I must be going crazy." I heard a loud cheer coming from inside and I wondered what was happening.

I went to the front box office and was about to give my ticket so I could get in, but I seemed to have lost it. Good thing I had another. The two tickets were supposed to be for Mom and Dad. At least they're not going to go to waste.

"I'm sorry, Miss," the guy in the booth said. "There aren't any more seats except in the upper bleachers."

"Whatever," I said, and he stamped my ticket with a seat number. I forgot that it was a first-come-first-serve, by-reservation event. As I went through the turnstile, an alarm went off. Good thing I left Dad's knife outside. I surrendered my backpack without being asked, and all they found were my binoculars.

I went in and looked at my seat number. I followed the signs to the upper seats, and when I got there, I found myself virtually alone in my row Which was fine with me. I literally WAS the farthest seated. If I were to stand and reach up, I could have touched the ceiling. I settled down and got comfortable, and snorted at the lemmings who were leaning down at the very edge of the rail. What a bunch of stupid groupies.

From the speakers around me, I could hear Danny and the band singing "Here Comes the Sun." Where'd they get that?

I was about to bring out my binoculars but I saw a big LED screen maybe thirty feet from me, and there was Danny, clear as day.

As she moved around, small flecks of glitter on Danny's hair, cheeks and the tip of her nose twinkled in the just-switched-on lights. I looked at her face, and felt tears on my cheeks. It was like stars in her hair. In my mind, I could imagine her silky tresses brushing my face, their wonderful musky scent surrounding me. "Oh, Danny," I wept quietly.

I didn't think I could stand it anymore and decided to leave and make my way home.

***** (Danny) *****

It was amazing how everything sort of fell together. Now that the lights were back on and everyone was back on track, we continued our show as planned.

After my improvised set, and then followed by our first "real" songs, Talia, Harry and Sally got up on stage and, the consummate professional spin doctors that they were, they spun my improvised number like it was all part of the program.

"Whooo!" Harry said, "how about that! Here comes the sun is right!"

"Yeah, Harry," Talia continued. "It really IS the dawn of a new day for KRPQ. Thank you guys! Everyone, let's give it up for Dannie, Unlimited Bandwidth and friends!"

I couldn't stop myself from snorting. Talk about trite. Good thing no one saw and no camera was on me. But I couldn't blame Talia with the cornball script. We've all had more than two weeks of getting used to their spiel, and the concert was all about promoting the new station, after all.

I held hands with June, Fallon, Mongo, Dale and Morgan, with our six "do-wop" glee club singers immediately behind us, and all twelve of us bowed to the crowd, which was greeted with thunderous applause.

We ran off the stage and the three DJs, plus Lou and Dennis, our other two announcers, started talking about what people could expect, as in what was the new lineup of shows, et cetera. Truth be told, though, the three could manage, but Lou and Dennis were there to provide additional "camouflage" - the other three were kept in the dark about the next thing because they didn't know about who Robin really was.

We all disappeared into the four available dressing rooms - one for the glee club guys, another to the glee club girls, another for Dale and Mongo, and another for June, Fallon and me. The difference in our dressing room was that someone was already in ours.

to be continued...

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