Chapter 3
Harley Glad had been walking around the store for about twenty minutes and still hadn’t found what he was looking for. At this rate, he thought, he probably would have to give up hope of ever finding it.
This was the third store at the mall he’d visited, and so far he wasn’t having any luck.
“What do you think, Pippy?” he asked.
The fluffy little Coton de Tuléar in his arms gave him a strange look but declined to comment. Which was probably for the best, as not all stores appreciate receiving comments from their canine clientele. Some of them even forbade dogs from entering their stores.
“Okay, here we go,” said Harley as he approached the music section. “If it isn’t here, I’m going to cry. No, I really am,” he said as Pippy nestled her head deeper into his armpit. “I’ve been wanting this for so long that I just couldn’t take it if I didn’t succeed.”
He rounded the corner of the large table displaying all the latest music releases and quickly searched for the purple-and-gold box.
As his gaze swept across the display with practiced ease, a teenage kid appeared beside him.
He was a rather chunky youngster and was studying the table with the same intense concentration as Harley himself.
Was it possible… No, it couldn’t be. It was just that in the previous two stores there had also been a chunky kid who looked just like this boy did. Surely the kid wasn’t looking for the same thing he was looking for?
He cut the kid a surreptitious sideways glance and saw to his astonishment that he was wearing the same T-shirt he himself was wearing: a T-shirt proclaiming Turbo Heartthrob as his favorite band, same as Harley.
The kid was a Turbo Heartthrob fan!
As he continued scanning the table, he wondered if he should establish some form of communication with the kid.
He was, after all, clearly a fellow fan.
And since Harley was pretty much obsessed with the German electronicore band, and had been since he had first heard the band some three years before, any friend of the band was a friend of his.
But then he spotted it. At the very back of the table, partially hidden behind a sizable stack of exclusive-edition Taylor Swift box sets, sat one of the highly sought-after NEONFIEBER Ultra-Limited Overdrive Fanbox editions of Turbo Heartthrob’s latest release, the chart-topping album HERZRASEN.
But it was there—the very thing he had been looking for!
And as he reached for it, the kid next to him did exactly the same.
Their hands grasped the object of their desire simultaneously, and as they slowly turned to face one another, Harley recognized in the kid’s eyes the gleam of the furious collector.
The fevered glint of the berserk amasser of everything they can possibly lay their hands on when it has been published by their favorite and most beloved band in all the world.
This kid was nuts about Turbo Heartthrob. He was quite possibly even nuttier about Turbo Heartthrob than Harley himself was.
Each tightened his grip on the package, which contained the latest album, a LEGO stage, and a host of other exclusive goodies, and they stood facing each other in a tense standoff.
“I saw it first,” said the kid, in a surprisingly high falsetto voice that betrayed his young age. “This is mine, buster.”
“I think you will find that I saw it first,” Harley countered, launching a shot across the bow.
“You’re way too old to be a fan of Turbo Heartthrob,” said the kid, going for a cheap shot below the belt.
“I’m about the same age as the band’s members,” he pointed out fiercely. “Which means this band is my band, and I’m their biggest fan.”
“Just leave it be, old man,” said the kid as he gave the gold-purple box a vicious tug, almost dragging it from Harley’s grip.
“I won’t, because I saw it first, and this box is mine,” said Harley.
At that moment, Pippy gave a tentative bark. She had followed the back-and-forth quite closely and seemed eager to participate in the tug-of-war that had broken out between her human and this kid.
The kid started violently. Since Pippy had been tucked away inside Harley’s jacket, he must not have noticed her. “What is that dog doing here?” he asked. “Dogs are not allowed inside the shop, or didn’t you know?”
“Dogs are allowed,” he said. “Especially dogs as sweet and lovable as my Pippy.”
“If you don’t let go of this package, I will tell on you,” said the kid, going for the vicious approach. “I will tell the manager that you illegally brought your dog into the store, and he will take away your dog and lock it up in the pound, and you will never see it again.”
“Her,” said Harley. “Pippy is a she. And you wouldn’t do a horrible thing like that, would you? I mean, you being a fellow fan of Turbo Heartthrob and all?”
“Watch me,” said the kid, a nasty smile forming on the lower portion of his moon-shaped face.
Harley saw that he had his hair cut like Franco Dungeon, the singer of Turbo Heartthrob, and he even seemed to detect the hint of a dragon tattoo on his neck, just like Turbo Heartthrob’s guitar player and genius composer, the inimitable Daniel Bozek.
Harley had wanted to get a tattoo like that at one time, but since he hated pain, he hadn’t gone through with it.
In spite of his young age, looked like the kid had no such qualms. No doubt he loved pain, especially the part about inflicting it on others.
And on innocent little doggies that hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Okay, if I let you have it,” he said, “will you at least unpack it here in the store, so I can see what’s inside?”
The kid wavered but finally nodded. “Sure,” he said. “If that’s what floats your boat.”
He should have ordered the exclusive NEONFIEBER Ultra-Limited Overdrive Fanbox online, but unfortunately by the time he had put in his order, it was already sold out, and so the long search for the item had begun, taking him all the way to Hampton Cove, which an online search had told him was one of the last places the Fanbox was still being sold.
“Just let go, mister!” said the kid when Harley was still holding on to the thing. Even though in his mind he had decided to give up, it looked like his hands hadn’t received the message. Or possibly they were not in agreement with central command.
Finally, he let go, and the kid immediately grabbed the sizable box and pressed it to his chest in a protective gesture. “Mine,” he murmured as he gave Harley a dirty look. “Mine forever.”
And then he was legging it in the direction of the checkout counter, with Harley hot on his tail.
The kid looked over his shoulder, and when he saw that his rival was right on his heels, he picked up the pace. So did Harley, and before long, the two were speed-walking to the front of the store, where the cashier was located.
The kid flashed the item in the cashier’s face, took out his phone, and before long had become the rightful owner of the final copy of Turbo Heartthrob’s latest release.
“I haven’t bought anything,” he told the cashier when the man gave him a questioning look. Then the cashier fastened his attention on Pippy and frowned.
“Yeah, that’s right,” said the kid as he pointed an accusing finger at Harley. “That man has a dog!” he yelled, making sure that everyone could overhear him. “He brought a vicious dog into the store! Even though everyone knows that you can’t bring dogs inside!”
“But…” said Harley, confused by this sudden initiative on the part of the kid. “I thought you said…”
“Fooled you, old man!” said the kid, and legged it away from him as fast as his short and stubby legs could carry him. And when Harley made to follow him, the cashier placed a restraining hand on his shoulder and cleared his throat in a meaningful manner.
“You do realize that dogs are not allowed inside the store, sir?” he asked.
Harley deflated as he watched the kid practically race out of the store, holding the final remaining copy of Turbo Heartthrob’s latest nugget of creative gold above his head and laughing uproariously all the while.
Looked like it wasn’t his lucky day. Not only that, as the cashier placed a call to the store manager and the store detective, it looked like he had some explaining to do.