Totally fool drummer, though.

“Talk to her,” Pearl said. She shot a mean look at the egg-carton-covered door to her room. “Listen, I think my mom’s home, so maybe we should quit. But next time, we’ll write a B section for the Big Riff. Maybe some words. Either of you guys sing?”

We looked at each other. Moz can sing, but he wouldn’t admit to it out loud. And he’s too genius a guitarist to waste in front of a mike.

“Well,” Pearl said. “I know this really lateral singer who’s free right now, sort of. And in the meantime, you can talk to your drummer.”

I smiled, nodding. I liked how in a hurry this girl was, how she was motivating us. And she looked pretty hot doing it, all focused and in charge. Six years of jamming, and all of a sudden it felt like a real band was falling into place. I was looking at the posters on Pearl’s wall, already thinking of album covers.

“Drums? In here?” Moz said.

My gaze swept across all the amps, cables, and synths. There was about enough room for us, all this crap, and maybe someone playing bongos. No way could a whole drum kit fit in here, even if they weren’t exactly drums. And with egg cartons jammed into the windows, the place was already reeking of rehearsal sweat. I could imagine what a hardworking drummer would do to that equation.

That was another reason I’d never bothered to mention her to Moz before. Drummers are way too big and loud for bedrooms.

“I know a place where we can practice,” Pearl said. “It’s pretty cheap.”

Moz and I looked at each other. We’d never paid to rehearse before. But Pearl didn’t notice. I guessed she’d shelled out money to rehearse in lots of places. I just hoped she was paying for this one too. I had some money from my dog-walking gig, but Moz was the tightest guy I’d ever met.

“The other thing is, before we start adding a bunch more people, we need to figure out a name for the band,” Pearl said. “And it has to be the right name. Otherwise, it’ll keep changing every time someone new jams with us.” She shook her head. “And we’ll never figure out who we are.”

“Maybe we should call ourselves the B-Sections,” I said. “That would be fawesome.”

Pearl looked at me, kind of squinting. “Fawesome? Do you keep saying fawesome?”

“Yeah.” I grinned at Moz. He rolled his eyes.

She thought about it for a minute, then smiled and said, “Fexcellent.”

I laughed out loud. This chick was totally fool.

“One of those boys was rather fetching.”

“Yeah, I noticed that, Mom. Thanks for pointing it out, though, in case I missed it.”

“A bit scruffy, though. And that dirge you were playing was making the china rattle all afternoon.”

“It wasn’t all afternoon.” I sighed, staring out the window of the limo. “Maybe two hours.”

Getting a ride with Mom was nine kinds of annoying. But deepest Brooklyn was such a pain by subway, and I had to see Minerva right away. Her esoterica kept saying that hearing good news helped the healing process. And my news was better than good.

“Besides, Mom, ‘that dirge’ is totally fexcellent.”

“It’s feculent?” She made a quiet scoffing sound. “Don’t you know that feculent means foul?”

I giggled, reminding myself to tell Zahler that one. Maybe we could call ourselves the Feculents. But that sounded sort of British, and we didn’t.

We sounded like the kind of band that rattled the china. The Rattlers? Too country and western. China Rattlers? Too lateral, even for me. The Good China? Nah. People would think we were from Taiwan.

“Will they be coming over again?” my mother asked in a small voice.

“Yes. They will.” I played with my window buttons, filling the limo’s backseat with little bursts of summer heat.

She sighed. “I’d hoped that we were past all this band practice.”

I let out a groan. “Band practice is what marching bands do, Mom. But don’t worry. We’ll be moving our gear to Sixteenth Street in a week or so. Your china will soon be safe.”

“Oh. That place.”

I peered at her, pushing my glasses up my nose. “Yes, full of musicians. How awful.”

“They look more like drug addicts.” She shivered a little, which made her icicles tinkle. Mom was all blinged out for some fund-raiser at the Brooklyn Museum, wearing cocktail black and too much makeup. Her being dressed up like that always creeps me out, like we’re headed to a funeral.

Of course, I was creeped out anyway—we were in Minerva’s neighborhood now. Big brooding brownstones slid past outside, all tricked out like haunted houses, turrets and iron railings and tiny windows way up high. My stomach started to flutter, and I suddenly wished it was both of us going to some dress-up party, everyone drinking champagne and being clueless, and next year’s budget for the Egyptian Wing the big topic of consternation. Or, at worst, talking about the sanitation crisis, instead of staring out the window at it.

Mom detected my flutters—which she’s pretty good at—and took my hand. “How’s Minerva doing, poor thing?”

I shrugged, glad now that I’d scrounged a ride. Mom’s minor annoyances had distracted me almost the whole way. Waiting for the subway, staring down at the rats on the tracks, would’ve totally reminded me of where I was going.

“Better. She says.”

“What do the doctors say?”

I didn’t even shrug. I wasn’t allowed to tell Mom that there were no doctors anymore, just an esoterica. We stayed silent until the limo pulled up outside Minerva’s house. Night was falling by then, lights going on. The brownstone’s darkened windows made the block look like it was missing a tooth.

The street looked different, as if the last two months had sapped something from it. Garbage was piled high on the streets, the sanitation crisis much more obvious out here in Brooklyn, but I didn’t see any rats scuttling around. There seemed to be a lot of stray cats, though.

“This used to be such a nice neighborhood,” Mom said. “Do you need Elvis to collect you?”

“No. That’s okay.”

“Well, call him if you change your mind,” Mom said as the door opened. “And don’t take the train too late.”

I slipped out past Elvis, annoyance rising in me again. Mom knew I hated the subway late at night, and that Minerva’s company didn’t exactly make me want to dally.

Elvis and I traded our funny little salute, which we’ve been doing since I was nine, and we both smiled. But then he glanced up at the house, lines creasing his forehead. Something skittered in the garbage bags by our feet—stray cats or not, rats were in residence.

“Are you sure you won’t be wanting a ride home, Pearl?” he rumbled softly.

“Positive. Thanks, though.”

Mom likes all conversations to include her, so she scooted closer across the limo’s backseat. “What time did you get in last night anyway?”

“Right after eleven.”

She pursed her lips the slightest discernible amount, showing she knew I was lying, and I gave her the tiniest possible eye-roll to show I didn’t care.

“Well, see you at eleven tonight, then.”

I snorted a little for Elvis. The only way Mom was coming home before midnight was if they ran out of champagne at the museum, or if the mummies all got loose.

I imagined old-movie mummies in tattered bandages. Nice and nonscary.

Then her voice softened. “Give my love to Minerva.”

“Okay,” I said, waving and turning away, flinching as the door boomed shut behind me. “I’ll try.”

Luz de la Sueño opened the door and waved me in quick, like she was worried about flies zipping in behind. Or maybe she didn’t want the neighbors to see her new decorations, seeing as how Halloween was more than two months away.

My nostrils wrinkled at the smell of garlic tea brewing, not to mention the other scents coming from the kitchen, overpowering and unidentifiable. These days, New York seemed to disappear behind me when I came through Minerva’s door, as if the brownstone had one foot in some other city, somewhere ancient and crumbling, overgrown.