Free Alyzon Whitestarr by Isobelle Carmody

it, the crowd was proof that Urban Dingo had made it. The thought of all of these people seeing Losing the Rope made me feel breathless with excitement and nerves.
    Da’s band had come up with their name soon after they started jamming. There was this Swiss guy, who had looked like a ski instructor, staying with Mel. Whenever he became confused listening to people, which was pretty much all the time since he knew about ten words of English, he would shout: “Stop! I am losing the rope!” It was so funny that Da and the others started saying it whenever things got muddled. Then one day the drummer, Neil Stone, said it would make a good name for their band.
    Neil is this really huge guy like Meatloaf, only he dresses a lot better. He says he has to be big, because Stone is a heavy name to carry. People always say drummers are dumb, but he’s really smart and nice, and I love him, although sometimes I worry he might have a heart attack carrying all that extra weight around.
    It was Neil who had told me that while I was still unconscious, Urban Dingo’s manager wanted to break the contract with Losing the Rope because his band was suddenly getting so much attention that they could probably have asked a bigger name to open for them. But Urban Dingo had refused.
    I had never been inside the Dome before, but I knew it hosted everything from old-time dance marathons to Jell-Owrestling. Having Urban Dingo play there was a definite coup for the venue. Outside, it looked like a smooth silver dome, but inside, it was a great circular cave of a place, with tiered seating around the edges and a vast central floor. The stage was set up at one end where seats had been removed, and it was swarming with roadies. Quite a few people were down on the floor dancing in demented clots to the house music coming over the PA system, while others were talking and drinking and smoking near the bar.
    The music from the PA sounded to me like something alive that had gone crazy from being trapped in a box and was now trying to eat its way out. I recognized the band: the Rak, with its awful earwig music. I put my hands in my pockets to stop myself from putting them over my ears, and intensified my number screen.
    Then someone took out a cigarette and lit up. I wrinkled my nose, because using the screen only dulled the extended part of my senses, not the normal bit. I wished there could be a music scene without cigarette smoke. If you wanted to hear a band live, you had to put up with it; and I don’t mean the odd whiff, I mean a regular fog of smoke in Cancer City. Of course, it looked great because of the orange and purple laser lights playing over everything and the flashes of light being thrown from huge suspended pieces of smashed mirror on the stage. I tried not to think about what was happening to my lungs.
    Before long the place was bursting at the seams with crazed Urban Dingo fans, who showed their solidarity byhowling like dingoes every other minute. I was OK because we had wedged ourselves into a corner formed by the side of a booth and the back of some toilets. It offered a good view of the stage, and I didn’t plan on venturing out.
    “This is so great,” Mirandah screamed in my ear. The hot strawberry of her essence was spiced up with cinnamon and coconut oil, and I held myself rigid, afraid she would suddenly grab me or even hug me. But she just hugged herself instead. Which made me wonder whether I was sending out touch-me-not vibes, because I couldn’t remember the last time any one of my usually very tactile family had deliberately touched me.
    Mirandah grinned at me. “I guess I was wrong,” she said. “It really looks like Da’s going to rock the world after all.” I smiled back at her, because she was as bluntly sincere with her apologies as with her unfavorable opinions.
    Jesse went off to get drinks and came back with a sheepish-looking Ricki just as an announcer stepped onstage. I didn’t hear the first bit of what he