Rock Tour

Billie aimed carefully. She flicked a juicy spitball right onto the back of the Pigbone's neck. Her marksmanship was perfect. She could see the spit oozing down into her tutor's collar as he droned on. And on. And on.

"Tallahassee is the capital of Mississippi," he said in that low breathy voice of his. "Sacramento is the capital of Massachusetts. New Jersey, of course, is the capital of California. Kansas City, you'll be interested to know, is not the capital of Kansas."

"You fascinate me," Billie assured the Pigbone.

"Instead, Billie, my dear, it's the capital of Minneapolis."

"I'm not your dear Billie."

The tutor smiled weakly and pointed in the general direction of Kansas City on the large map he had attached to the wall of their hotel room. They were in the Princess Suite. Billie flicked another spitball. Bull's-eye!

"The great state of Minneapolis," continued the Pigbone, "is noted for its endless highways without bathrooms and for its large cities without playgrounds. We go there next week, I believe."

He's ignoring those spitballs, Billie thought, just to drive me crazy. Her two-year-old brother, Bix, was rolling around and around on the king-size hotel bed, about to pop from giggling so hard. He was just learning to make spitballs himself.

Billie and Bix were united in the torture of their tutor, Llewellyn Pigbone. His real name was something else, of course. Billie had forgotten it by now. Pigbone was better for him, anyway. He was short and round and had a weak English way of talking. He was probably the most boring man alive. Billie knew very well where Kansas City actually was. She'd been there four times already with her parents.

She had also been to Rome, Paris, London, and Las Vegas, because her parents were almost always on tour. They had been jetting around the world for over a year this time, touching down occasionally at their penthouse in New York City. Billie's mother, Mimi, was incredibly famous. She did ads for Diet Coke and her face had made the covers of Interview, Spin, and Rolling Stone. She had even hosted Saturday Night Live. Billie had stayed up to watch it.

Together, Mimi and Billie's father, Brian, were the rock group Euphoria. Their latest single, "Neon Sky," was number one on the charts. Brian and Mimi played every night to sold-out crowds across the country. Then they had to sign autographs and celebrate and meet executives and old friends from whatever city they were in and celebrate some more and then wind down and fall into bed at the break of dawn. That's why they were still asleep in the master bedroom of the Princess Suite, even though it was three in the afternoon.

"So much for geography," said the Pigbone. The USA disappeared with a flip of his pudgy wrist, and he pulled another chart down from the roll-up on the wall. This one was covered with French verbs. "Bienvenue à la France," he announced.

Billie got up from the table and went over to the window. They were on the top floor. She looked out over skyscrapers, freeways, huge advertising billboards. What city was she in?

She had no idea.

Behind her, the Pigbone was telling a story in French about two dumb kids who lived in Paris. "Bonjour, Yvette. Aimez-vous la Tour Eiffel?" he minced. Billie had been there five times. The Pigbone paused in his recitation. Before he could say, "Are you listening, Billie dear?" Billie reassured him.

"I'm memorizing every word. Continue, s'il vous plaît." Once she and Bix had locked themselves in the bathroom for two hours to escape a French lesson. "Non! Non! Non!" they had chanted from behind the closed door. Luckily, they had been staying at the Ritz in Dallas that week, where there were perfume samples in the bathroom. Billie had tried all of them and decorated Bix's face with her mother's lipstick before they fell asleep on the bath mat.

Finally the Pigbone stopped blabbing and gave her a break while he sorted through his stacks of papers. Billie ran to the telephone. "Room service, please." The lecture had made her hungry, and she had befriended the headwaiter the night before.

"Omaha Splendide Café."

"Hello, Mr. Eggwater? It's Billie. I need an order of barbecue ribs. Desperately. And Bix is flopping off the bed. He needs nourishment. He's wasting away! The suffering in the Princess Suite is worse than you can imagine! Save the Children!"

"Three vanilla puddings, as usual?" asked Mr. Eggwater. He remembered Bix's regular order. The sign of a true professional.

"Yes," answered Billie. "Pudding's all he'll eat. Also, two breakfast specials, double bacon. Thanks." Just in case Brian and Mimi woke up, she wanted to have breakfast waiting for them.

One evening last week, in some other city, she and Bix had eaten dinner while their parents ate breakfast. They'd all gone downstairs to the hotel restaurant at six P.M. The whole meal had been totally embarrassing. Brian had worn leather pants and his pajama top. Even in the dark dining room, Mimi wore sunglasses so people wouldn't recognize her. She brought three jars of vitamin powder down with her and mixed spoonfuls into her orange juice. Her personal trainer, a bodybuilder named Roberta, had her on some special diet for more energy and muscle definition. Brian ate breakfast and dessert, putting peppermint ice cream on his scrambled eggs. Billie stirred her spaghetti around on the plate and looked enviously at the family at the next table. They were tourists, two girls and their parents. They wore bright-colored shirts and had sunburns across their noses. They had just come back from the aquarium. She could tell because the older girl was wearing a hat with a killer whale on it and the younger one had a balloon. They were all eating dinner like normal people. The dad wore a sport jacket and ordered a steak, like dads are supposed to.

After that night, Billie decided to stick with room service. Eating out with Brian and Mimi just reminded her how different her life was from other kids'.

Billie lay back on the bed and looked up at the ceiling. If only the Pigbone would teach me something interesting — something worth knowing, she thought. If only there was somebody on tour to talk to besides maids and headwaiters. She did have Bix, but he wasn't much company. Most of the time he was just annoying, always playing with his horrible Cosmodemon action figures. He was scared to play with other kids in the hotel swimming pools, but he had a stupid friendship with each ugly plastic creature. In fact, they were his only friends. He even spoke to them in his own secret language. "Gorpus mogore bluto," he would say to something hiding in his pocket as they waited for room service to bring the pudding. "Floopus blixin filco," he'd say as he chased his father around the room, holding a figure that...