The next day, Mike awoke to find a small bump on his head. He was still hearing cymbals crashing in his head from the night before, despite the night's rest.
Dragging himself out of bed, he ambled into the bathroom and downed a few aspirin in hopes of relieving his pain. Then he headed back into the bedroom again.
"Good thing we ain't got a gig tonight," he mumbled to himself as he gathered some clothes together and headed for the shower. The clock near his bed read twelve-thirty.
It wasn't until Mike was out of the shower, dressed, and heading down to breakfast, that he noticed something. His roommate's bed was made and empty. Micky apparently had never returned home.
Mike forced himself to hurry downstairs, wondering if Davy knew anything about it. When he arrived, however, he saw the Englishman sitting at the table, engrossed in a cheese sandwich he'd recently whipped up.
"No sign of 'im," Davy said before Mike could even ask the question.
"Where did he go last night?" Mike asked, as he opened the refrigerator and poured himself a glass of juice. "And what happened to him?"
"'E went with a girl," Davy replied, swallowing a bite of sandwich. "I'm sure e's fine."
Mike shook his head impatiently and swallowed the glass in one gulp. "I don't think so, Davy. I got a bad feeling about this," he confessed as he placed the empty glass in the sink. Then he headed out of the kitchen.
"'Ey, aren't you gonna eat anythin'?" Davy asked, swallowing the remainder of his sandwich.
"Nah, I ain't hungry," Mike replied, and left the room.
When Micky finally did return home that night, it was a little after six, and Mike and Davy pounced on him the minute he entered.
"Where have you been all day?" Mike demanded before Micky had even taken off his jacket.
"And all night?" Davy added.
Micky took his jacket off and tossed it on the couch. "Relax guys, I'm fine. I just went out for a while."
"A while? Like a whole night and most of the day?" Mike demanded.
"She's an important girl," Micky said. His eyes roamed to the bandstand, where he saw his drum set lying in pieces.
"What did you do to my drums?" he asked. In seconds, he was across the room and examining the mess.
"Since you split last night, I had to take 'em apart m'self," Mike replied.
"Like this?" Micky said, half yelling. "It'll take me all day and night to put these back together." He glared at Mike and began immediately to shove a few nuts and bolts in their proper spaces. "Some of these things are probably missing," he mumbled. "And the cymbals aren't even on the stands!"
"It would have been done the right way if you had done it yourself," Davy pointed out calmly.
"Shut up shorty," Micky snapped back. He was beginning to get annoyed. He'd only been home ten minutes, and already they were fighting like crazy. "It doesn't take a genius to take a drum set apart," he mumbled to himself.
Mike heard him. "No, but it does take a drummer. Which I am not," he pointed out.
From that point on, the living room of the Pad was filled with yells and shouts. After about ten minutes of constant shouting, three loud pounds sounded on the door.
Before any of them could answer it, it opened, and Peter entered.
"What's going on here?" he asked.
"We can hear you down the street," another voice added, and the others turned to see their landlord, Mr. Babbit, standing at the doorway behind Peter.
"Micky where have you been?" Peter asked, seeing Micky on the bandstand next to his dismantled drums. "I was worried."
"'E was out with a girl," Davy informed Peter with a glint in his eyes showing his anger.
Peter glanced at Davy and was taken aback a moment by the visible show of anger. He looked at Mike and Micky, and saw they both were equally angry.
"I don't care where he was," Mr. Babbit snapped, reminding them all that he was still there. "Just make sure he's quiet if he's here."
With that, he turned sharply and marched out the door, slamming it shut behind him. A few pictures and things that were on the walls rattled, and a cymbal fell of the stand from the force of the slam.
"Aw, geez," Micky moaned, diving to catch the fallen cymbal. He caught it, and then carefully placed it where it was supposed to be.
Peter looked around the room. "What's going on here, guys?" he asked. "What's the big deal if Micky goes out with a girl?"
"There isn't any, really," Mike confessed. "But if he spends the whole night out and most of the day, and leaves us to take care of his junk after a gig, then there's a big deal."
"Oh," Peter replied, unsure of what else to say.
After dinner that night, Micky disappeared. This time neither Davy nor Mike bothered to pester him about where he was going.
When he left the house, the air was cooling off, and he grabbed a thin jacket to warm himself as he entered the car.
He turned on the radio and started to drive, pulling the car out of the driveway and heading down the street. As he drove, he thought about the others.
What difference did it make to them if he went out with a girl? Mike hardly ever did, but Davy did all the time. It wasn't as if he was a kid. He could take care of himself.
Anyway, he thought to himself as he paused at a red light, it was sometimes a good idea to get away from the house.
