Chapter nine, full of music, even though it isn't easy to get to the music. Above all, it is crucial to gain energy from food, which of course means a need to find better source of food than school canteen.

The concert

Poker is a git

Garry angrily went through a castle corridor. Only Professor Humbledoor lightened up his mood a bit, when he met Garry in front of the WC and he called Garry "Your Poker Majesty". However, Son then muttered that Hormone is probably right and Humbledoor is a lunatic. But the main source of Garry's bad mood were two lessons of Dealing and Shuffling which awaited him.
The floor of the corridor suddenly started to quickly approach Garry's face. What does it mean?, he thought, but in the next moment, an unavoidable collision happened. Thousands of stars appeared in front of Garry's eyes.
"Hello, Your Poker Majesty!" he's heard a slimy voice. This time, the title didn't fill Garry with happiness. He turned and noticed grinning Crack who leaned to a column. In the alcove behind him, like his obeying shadows, stood silhouettes of Crap and Oil.
"You've made me trip up!" growled Garry and started to get up.
"I've just wanted to help you collect this chip," pointed Crack, "it's your signature chip, isn't it? Anyway, it's called like you – a git!"
"No one calls me git!"
"I call you git, you git!" Malefoil started to walk and Crap with Oil came after him. "And you'd better hurry up now, the lesson starts in a minute."
"You're just envious that you don't have a fan club!" shouted Garry, when they were in safe distance.

"Oh, a great git Mr Poker graciously decided to finally visit this lesson," said Grape's voice just behind Harry as he was trying to secretly sneak to his chair. "You may even stay here and present us your essay about shuffling with one hand, Mr Poker."
Garry's heart fell: "An essay?"
"Yes, an essay, namely the one which should have been handed to me the last lesson."
Garry stood sheepishly in front of the class. "I did write the essay, but," he looked nervously to the ceiling, "I thought that the essay is not worthy of being heard by your ears, so I thought I would make it even better..."
"No student essay is good enough to deserve being heard by my ears," uttered Grape, "therefore your try does not work. Do you have the essay or not?"
"Umm, next time?" tried Garry to smile.
"Fifteen points from Sniffindoor. And try to bring the essay in next time without lame excuses." Grape stood up from the teacher's table and looked around the classroom. "Was someone from Litterout at least a bit more successful today and prepared an essay for today's class without it being eaten by a dog, splashed by a flood, eaten by mice or taken by Karlsson from the roof?"
Crack O. Malefoil stood up and started to go in front of the class. As he was passing the Garry's desk, the floor of the corridor suddenly started to quickly approach his face. What does it mean?, he thought, but in the next moment, an unavoidable collision happened. Thousands of stars appeared in front of Crack's eyes.
"Welcome on the ground," teethed Garry.
"Do you have fun, Mr Poker?" hissed Grape into his ears.
"Pretty good fun," shrugged Garry, "though I'd like to have fun somewhere else."
"Believe me, I also can imagine many more enjoyable ways how to spend a Friday afternoon than to teach a herd of uneducated simpletons," snarled Grape. Then he noticed Hormone with a raised hand: "Would you like to add something, Miss Danger?"
"Excuse me, but I am not an uneducated simpleton!" retorted outraged Hormone.
"Believe me, I also can imagine many more enjoyable ways how to spend a Friday afternoon than to teach a herd of uneducated simpletons in presence of an averagely bearable nerd," snarled Grape, this time to Hormone, who sat down to her desk.

"Do you see?" asked Hormone at lunch. "Grape, unlike McDonald, saw that I am not an unbearable nerd, but an averagely bearable nerd."
"I can't understand why it is so important for you," shook Garry with his head.
Hormone pointed into her plate of dill sauce: "This, Garry, is an unbearable lunch. It is thoroughly disgusting, no one likes it and the vast majority of people, except maybe Evil, would sell their own grandmother if it meant they wouldn't have to eat it." Hormone pulled out a paper box from her bag. "And this is pizza with pepperoni from pizzeria from Polná. It is averagely bearable, if you like spicy food."
"No, I like chocolate," added Son to the talk.
"That doesn't matter," dismissed him Hormone quickly. "But do you get the difference?"
"No, I like chocolate," repeated Son.
Hormone waved her hand and opened a pizza box.
Garry was thinking about Hormone's speech. From what she's said, he started to be interested in one thing. "Where did you get the pizza from?"
"They offer delivering the pizza here as well. Haven't you read their leaflet in the library?" Then, she broke her speech off. "Of course you haven't, you would have to go to the library first, wouldn't you?" she casted a meaningful look on him. "They had a bunch of them on the table," she added and handed him the leaflet.

CARD PIZZERIA IN POLNÁ
underground under Sezimovo square

Pizza delivery telephone number: 566 355 356
Delivery to Polná, Záborná and Dobroutov is free!

Margherita 1VC 5WC
Funghi 2VC
Salami 2VC 5WC
Prosciutto 2VC 5WC
Peperoni 2VC 6WC
Tunna 2VC 4WC
Pollo 3VC
El Trumpalo 4VC
Hawaii 1RC

"I would never think of what can be found at library!" honestly admitted Garry.
Son took the leaflet. "Terribly expensive," he grumbled.
"You could have some money," retorted Garry, "I paid you a blue chip yesterday for being the leader of my fan club."
"Payments, you see," complained Son. "Why on earth does Hawaii cost a whole red chip?"
"There is no excuse for putting pineapple on pizza," explained Hormone.
"What?" turned Garry and Son to her, dumbfounded.
"The Last Continent by Terry Pratchett."
"What?" turned Garry and Son to her, dumbfounded.
"I'm sorry, I've forgotten that the last book you've read is Drawing with Bob the Builder," said Hormone poisonously. "The sentence with pizza and pineapple was a quotation from book named The Last Continent. If you want to read it, it is in school bookstore."
"What?" turned Garry and Son to her, dumbfounded.
"B-o-o-k-s-t-o-r-e!" Hormone's voice was raised into unexpected heights. "That's a building where you can go if you want to buy a b-o-o-k!"
"Alright," Garry finally left his favourite question, "we know you're the smartest here, you don't have to remind us all of the time. We know what a bookstore is."
"You do... in your better days," admitted Hormone.
"Does the pizzeria deliver in Saturdays?" returned Garry to the previous subject.
"Yeah," nodded Hormone with full mouth.
"That means I already know how to get to the concert."
"Drawing with Bob the Builder?" woke Son from lethargy. "What is it about?"


Twice funghi and once tuna

They spent the Saturday afternoon by playing darts in Sniffindoor common room. While the other students were getting on the waiting buses, with which they were supposed to travel to the concert, they were even prohibited to leave the Sniffindoor building before the departure.
"I've just called the pizzeria and ordered a pizza. They should be here in twenty minutes," explained Garry, playing with a dart in his hand. "When the messenger seeks us in a castle, we'll climb to the back of his truck and get to the town. Ingenious, isn't it?"
"Ingenious," nodded Hormone seriously. "And it has only an insignificant downside - they deliver pizza in a passenger car."
"Couldn't you tell it sooner?"
"I didn't know what your plan was!"
"Hmm, what'll we do?" sighed Garry and threw the dart to a target on the back side of the playroom. Double thirteen! Prime number multiplicated by prime number!

(...)

"It costs six violet chips and four white chips," stated the messenger dryly, while Hormone was taking the pizza boxes.
Garry winked on Son: "Pay him, please."
"Me?" Son pulled out his pockets. "I'm as poor as a church mouse caught short..."
"I don't have money here," hissed Garry.
"Oh great, you two are really perfect," Hormone angrily handed the pizza boxes over to Garry and counted the appropriate number of coins from her purse.
"Sorry," Garry apologized to Hormone, when they were heading back to their hostel. "I've forgot I've already put my wallet to my travel bag."
In front of the entrance to the staircase leading to students' rooms, they nearly tripped over someone who lied on a threshold.
"Evil, what are you doing here?" said frightened Garry, almost dropping the boxes on Evil.
"I've... forgotten the password," mumbled Evil. Entrances to the bedrooms of houses were protected by password, mainly in order to prevent the students from going freely to another building. At day, doors were normally opened, but now, when almost all of the students had left, they were locked.
"I've lost my ticket," snivelled Evil, "so Professor Grape kicked me from the bus." He jerked with his fist into the air.
"You can go with us," tried Hormone to cheer him up. "We'll go there in a minute, right, boys?"
Garry hummed something indistinctive. Son's head was stuffed in a pizza box and its owner didn't pay attention to the world around at all.
Evil calmed down a bit: "And the password?"
"1-2-3-4-5, of course," dialled Hormone the appropriate code into the alarm on door. The door buzzed and unblocked itself.
"Pretty stupid code, I'd not choose it even for my trunk," snarled Garry.
"I do have the password 1-2-3-4-5 on my trunk!" appeared Son's ketchup-stained face from a pizza box. "So I don't have to remember two passwords!"
They entered the room 213. Garry moved all things from the table onto the Son's bed with one wave of his hand and put the pizza boxes on it.
Meanwhile, Evil's heart sunk again: "But you can't go to the concert, you have detention!"
"Bugger off, you sissy!" retorted Garry.
"If they find it out, they'll take points from us again!" raged Evil.
"Surely not as much as when you are lame in Dealing and shuffling," laughed Son. Already purple Evil launched himself on him, but Son dodged in the last moment and Evil hit a leg of the table with his head, which calmed him down a bit.
However, Hormone, who was examining the pizza boxes, went angry at the moment. "You ginger eat-it-all, the tuna one was mine!"


Opening acts

You can do what you want
just seize the day

What you're doing tomorrow's
gonna come your way

(...)

"Go, nobody's around!" shouted Hormone, who watched the castle from Hybrid's field of experimental cabbage.
Son erected a ladder next to the wall of Hybrid's house. "Do you really think it's a good idea?" he asked Garry for a dozenth time.
"Of course," reassured him Garry for a dozenth time as well. "There's no other way from the grounds, Flitch is in the gate and around the school grounds is barbed wire. Hybrid has a brigade at the concert as a bodyguard, so no one is guarding here." Son reluctantly climbed on the roof of the cottage and Garry followed him. "Come on, Hormone, hurry up!"
Hormone ran to them and ascended the ladder: "I still think those five tablets were too much. What if Evil won't wake up?"
"Don't frighten us," helped her Garry, "at least he'll have a good nap." He supported the ladder for their way down and they all descended to the forest.
"Do you have a lighter?"
"Yes."
"Backup lighter?"
"Yes."
"Light for the lighters?"
"Yes."
"Map?"
"Uh, yes. Sort of."
"What does it mean, sort of?!"
"I haven't found a tourist map, so I've taken a map of the town and the forest isn't really there..."
"What!?"
"Don't worry, I remember it. We have to go like three hundred meters on the hill and there will be a road. We'll turn right and arrive right to the town. I mean, left."
"A tourist sign's here," pointed Hormone.
"I don't really remember it," scratched Garry his chin. "Let's follow my way."

(...)

"You said three hundred metres?" wheezed Son. "We're going for half an hour!"
"The road has to be here somewhere," waved Garry with his hands. "There were plenty of them on the map."
"And weren't they incidentally contour lines, Garry?!" leaned Hormone to the nearest pine growing from the sandstone subsoil of the hill.
"On tour lines? It's us who is on tour, not some lines..." objected Garry.

(...)

Young and proud
Young and proud
We're marching on the same side of destiny
On the same side of destiny

(...)

"What time is it?" asked Son and sat on a mossy stump, tired.
"Half past seven," said Garry, looking on his watch, "an hour before the start of the official programme."
From thick blackberry bushes on the hillside under them emerged bruised Hormone and started shouting unforgivable curses to Garry.
"Where are you leading us, you..." heard Garry a question among the avalanche of swearwords.
"Because there's no road here, I've decided that we have to climb the hill and reach the town from the top," tried Garry to interrupt her, but his words got lost among the curses.
When Hormone finally ran out of insults, she threw Son off the stump and sat on it. She took cigarette papers and a small metal box from her bag.
"Smoking stop," she cleared her throat.
"Smoking is banned in a forest," remarked Son while brushing his clothes, earning his own load of unforgivable curses.
After first puff, Hormone calmed down at last. "Do you want a puff?" she offered to Garry. "Sonny probably doesn't, as he's saying bullshit."
"Let's go, we're going somewhere else," gestured Garry to Hormone, when they finished the joint. "There are foul black spiders crawling all around here."
"And you're saying it NOW?"

(...)

On the top of the hill, they finally encountered a road. "There's a road!" shouted Garry to Hormone, who was twenty meters below them and tried to persuade an old withered beech to move out of her way.
"I'm not sure," turned Garry to Son, "shouldn't we rather take her pot away?" Son, however, wasn't listening and took his snack out of his bag.
"And if you won't move, can I at least hug you?"
The ancient trunk nodded and its branches croaked giving up. It's not easy to be a tree in Bohemian Highland, it thought.
"Oh, look, there is a crossroad sign here as well," showed Garry his newest discovery to Hormone.
"I know that," chuckled Hormone from behind the beech. "Like that legend! You, who come from the west, if you go right, you'll return, if you go left, you'll return, if you go straight, you won't return..."
"What are you blabbering?" yelled Garry. "Come on, go here!"
"You wouldn't understand," growled Hormone quietly. "What do you think, tree, would he understand it?"
The tree just silently shrugged its knots.
"Bye, then," said Hormone to the tree and left towards her friends.
"Bye."

(...)

"When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me..."
"Hormone, stop it, you can't sing!"
"...speaking words of wisdom, let it be!"
"What have you said about taping your mouth?"
"And in my hour of darkness, she is standing right in front of me..."
"Son, would you please take the tape off my bag?"
"...speaking words of wisdom..."
"Do you really want ANOTHER murder to take place here?" (1)

(...)

"Oops, river in the way," stopped Hormone.
Son looked around: "We should've entered the asphalt road we've crossed before and gone the rest of the way on the road."
"That would be too long," shook Garry with his head. "It's way shorter this way." He started to take off his boots. "Plus it's the road from the castle to the town, we could meet someone there."
"So we have to go through the river?" wrinkled Son his nose.
"Do you see a different way?"
"Someone could carry me to the other side," mentioned Hormone.
"And what about throwing you there?"
"I do not want to put off my socks!"
"Nor do I," sighed Son.

(...)

After approximately half an hour, they arrived to the edge of inhabitated area. Garry looked to the map. "So, we finally know where we are!"
"What time is it?" asked Son and sat on mossy boundary stone, tired.
"Quarter past eight," said Garry, looking on his watch, "fifteen minutes before the start of the official programme."
From thick bushes on the edge of the forest emerged bruised Hormone and started shouting unforgivable curses to Garry.
"Where are you leading us, you..." heard Garry a question among the avalanche of swearwords.
That seems to be 'de zhawie', thought Garry and they headed to the summer theatre.


Official programme

So if you are in sight and the day is right
She's the hunter you're the fox
The gentle voice that talks to you
Won't talk forever
It's a night for passion
But the morning means goodbye
Beware of that is flashing in her eyes
She's going to get you

(...)

Garry and Hormone sat under a tree in front of the Polná museum. Son was sent as a spy to find out details.
"Shit," exclaimed Son, who just appeared behind the corner, "the door is guarded by Grape and Hybrid!"
"Grape," Garry clenched his teeth angrily. "He's clearly here because of me!"
"Skip the drama," Hormone dismissed him. "Can we get there somehow else?"
Son called Mum and Dad. Although he heard just the concert most of the time, they told him that fence can be climbed in the back, behind a row of Toi-Toi WC's. Which they managed, in spite of mild problems.
They sat to Mum, Dad, their friend Lee Nile, Dan Lowmass and Peter Sheppard. After a while, Palm and Pasta Pettile arrived with fried sausages. Garry took one at once and bit it.
"Ouuuch!" he jumped unexpectedly, so the sausage fell from paper plate to the ground.
"What are you doing?" asked Hormone, who just brought chicken gyros and Coca-Cola from nearby stand.
"My... scar!" gasped Garry. "It itched suddenly a lot!"
"Stop sitting on it, then," retorted Hormone.
"Ha, ha, ha, very funny," snapped Garry and scratched his scar.
Son leaned to him: "You don't want the sausage anymore?"

(...)

And you are such a wild young man
Can't keep away from him
Things are always so out of control
Just dress me, I'm your teacher

(...)

Garry put on his trousers and left the dark movable closet. Outside he faced a creature in pink robe. Grapefruit robe, he corrected himself quickly.
"Good evening, Professor." Garry started to circle Grape with small steps.
"Good evening, Poker," answered Professor Grape and ordered him not to try to subtly leave with a careless hand gesture. "May I ask what is your Poker face doing here on the concert? I've thought you have detention and are to stay in the castle."
"Uh," explained Garry the situation.
"Moreover, I do not remember you arriving through the entrance," Grape threw a suspecting look on Garry.
"Uh," continued Garry in explaining.

(...)

Mercy, mercy
You've got to have pity on me
Have mercy on me

(...)

"It seems you are not to stay here, Poker, go to Professor McDonald," incited him Grape.
"K.F.C., here is your house's celebrity," explained Grape, when they've found Professor McDonald in the tent with slot machines.
"Three cherries!" shouted McDonald and started to pay attention to them. "Poker, what are you doing here?"
"Professor Grape brought me here."
"Unitus, why have you brought this boy to the concert?" Professor threw another blue chip to the slot machine.
Grape sighed. These times, he was not only driven to mad by stupidity of students, but he had a feeling that his colleagues were no match for him intellectually, either. "He went to the concert himself, I just brought him here to you."
"And why?"
You should retire already, it's high time, thought Grape. "Because he should not be here, but in the castle. And he is your student," he answered out loud. My kingdom for an intelligent company!, he said to himself again.
"Here you are, we're seeking you everywhere!" looked Son Measly into the tent. "Hello, Professors."
"And this one also shouldn't be here," murmured Grape. He turned his eyes to the silky tent ceiling. What I wanted was INTELLIGENT company!

(...)

I sit around
Trying to smile, but the air is so heavy and dry
Strange voices are saying (ah, what did they say?)
Things I can't understand


Afterparty

"This Grape is really getting on my nerves," howled Garry, "we have another detention because of him!" He put a five of clubs between four and six and put the package of cards, now sorted perfectly according to numbers and symbols, on the table. Then he took another unsorted package.
"But McDonald at least gave us fifty points for the nerve," calmed him Son, whose almost sorted package just collapsed on the table, "that fucking bitch!"
"Why do you call her so, then?"
"I meant that motherfucking package!" swore Son while picking up the cards from the table.
"Grape took fifty points from us for the cheek anyway, and nothing from nothing leaves nothing," thought Garry, "and now we have to sort these two hundred school packages of bridge cards. We'll be doing it till morning!"

(...)

What a beautiful morning
The best in life is free
What a beautiful morning
Believe me

(...)

"It's morning already."
"Well, at least they let us stay at the concert till the end."
"How many do you have? I have forty," asked Son. The package fell from his hands again. "Thirty-nine."
"I have forty-seven," Garry put his package down so he could help Son pick up all the cards, "but with this speed..."
A quiet knocking could be heard. The door of Dealing and Shuffling class opened. Because of fright, Son's cards flew out of his hand. "A ghost!" he yelped.
"Oh well, so I haven't got time to brush my hair, you do not have to make comments," spoke the ghost with Hormone's voice, "and the nightgown surely isn't that bad."
"Not enough revealing for my liking, but otherwise..." voiced Garry his opinion.
"I've brought you hot chocolate," ignored him Hormone and sat opposite to them.
"You've made us hot chocolate?" Because of his surprise, Son dropped the cards he managed to already pick up.
"No," reassured him Hormone, "I haven't sunk that low yet. Brownie made it, that you are surely freezing, starving, dehydrated and God knows what else. Waste of words. She was budgering me for so long that finally I've brought it to you."
"Why didn't she bring it herself?"
"She was afraid of walking through the castle alone at night and she is shy around you. Waste of words."
Garry drank from the hot chocolate. "Well, at least we know now that not all of girls are like you, but there are also some nice and kind," he licked his lips, "that hot chocolate is delicious."
"I'll tell her," Garry was pierced by pistachio laser, "let's hope she won't pass out because of your compliments. I'll rather dilute it with a bit of irony and sarcasm, so she would be able to digest it."
"I can imagine that," grinned Garry.
"I just fear that it won't work on her anyway," shrugged Hormone, "Blessed in spirit are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens."
"I can also imagine that," grinned Garry and looked on Son.
"Anyway, until then, I can sweeten my life by sarcasm on their behalf."
Hormone headed to the door. After few steps, she returned and put a pack of cookies on the table. "I've brought you cookies as well," she explained. "Mine," she uttered.
Oh no, it somehow gets out of our hands, thought Garry Poker, this should be wild parody and not a psychological probe into interpersonal relations. At least Son is trying a little on this count.
"Garry," said quietly Son, when Hormone left, "what is sargasm?"

(...)

And I wonder what more is to come
And this beautiful morning changed my mind
Believe me when I say
The shadows fading out (2)


(1) Yes, another. But don't worry, there were no murders in this story… yet. Garry is speaking about the murder of Anežka Hrůzová, which took place near the hill and is pretty famous in Czech Republic.

(2) This chapter contains parts of songs Beautiful life, Young and proud, All that she wants, Giving it up, Mercy Mercy, Cruel summer and Beautiful morning by Ace of Base and Let it be by The Beatles.