Read Online The Prom Goer's Interstellar Excursion by Chris McCoy - Free Book Online

you would go with a smile on your face and you’d be in very good company. Look for yourself.”
    Skark gestured with a gold-tipped cane to a row of close-up photographs of alien smiles—some fanged, some drooling blue spittle, some double-tongued—which were hanging on the wall of the bus.
    â€œAre those all pictures of creatures who died smiling in here?” I said.
    â€œSome individuals can’t keep up with the lifestyle, I’m afraid,” said Skark.
    â€œAre you going to keep talking down there, or are you going to introduce me?” said a voice above me.
    I looked up. Dangling inches from my head was a guy in his late twenties or early thirties who was doing pull-ups on a bar bolted to an apparatus that looked a bit like an air conditioner. He was obviously human, and he was wearing a brown knit hat and a white tank top printed with the Statue of Liberty, which showed off his defined biceps. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days, and his cheeks were smeared with brown and black whiskers.
    â€œBennett, I give you the second member of my band and our only thoroughbred human…bassist Cad Charleston.”
    Cad dropped to the floor and shook my hand.
    â€œGood to meet you,” said Cad. “Sorry about how much of a pain it was to get a burger. We don’t come here often, and you know how singers and drummers have appetites.”
    â€œWho’s the drummer?” I said.
    â€œ I am the drummer,” said Driver. “And the driver, and the band’s manager, ever since we ran into financial—”
    â€œI will not talk about money with new friends,” said Skark. “It is the pinnacle of impoliteness. I’m sure such a young fan has questions he is burning to ask the band, so let us hear them.”
    Skark, Driver, and Cad looked at me.
    â€œWell?” said Skark.
    â€œWhat…band is this?” I said.
    Skark’s eyes went wide, and he lifted himself to his feet. He was easily eight feet tall, and he towered over me, which had become increasingly uncommon for anyone to be able to do in the wake of my growth spurt.
    â€œ What band is it? You snuck onto this bus, and now you’re pretending you don’t know the name of the band?”
    â€œHe came on the bus for a cheeseburger, not to ask the band questions,” said Driver.
    â€œI don’t care why he got on, I’m insulted,” said Skark. “Bennett—you are standing on the tour bus of one of the musical treasures of the universe. The band whose music forged peace between the Bluebranch Lantern Galaxy and the Mosaic Mauna Cluster. The band whose tight clothing caused a sexual revolution in Poochicana Nebula B-67. The band who with one slow jam created the building blocks of life on the barren Spindlefan Asteroid. We are the Perfectly Reasonable.”
    I chuckled.
    â€œI’m so tired of people laughing whenever they hear the name of our band…,” said Driver.
    â€œThe Perfectly Reasonable is a wonderful name,” said Skark. “It captures our good looks and our judicious minds in three small words.”
    â€œ Reasonable isn’t that small a word,” said Driver.
    â€œWe’re not one of the musical treasures of the universe,” said Cad. “ Universal Beat magazine just ranked us out of the top billion. ”
    â€œWe’re one billion sixteenth,” said Skark. “Let’s not blow it out of proportion. Nobody reads past the first fifty or so anyway.”
    â€œWe used to have our own space station, with swimming pools ,” said Cad.
    â€œI miss our private chef,” said Driver.
    â€œI miss our menagerie of exotic animals,” said Cad.
    â€œWould you please stop bitching,” said Skark. “We are playing the Dondoozle Festival in less than a week, and when we do, our comeback will be complete.”
    Skark turned to me.
    â€œForgive me if it sounds like we’re speaking