Chapter One
Micky shoved another forkful of food into his mouth and asked Davy to pass the platter. “Mike, we need more over here!” he managed to mumble around his food. Mike shot him an irritated look as he sliced up more of the pot roast.
Peter got up and looked in the crock pot. “More potatoes in there?”
“Yeah, and carrots, too, I think. We really gotta thank Mrs. Filchok for bringing this stuff over—our cupboards were empty, man.”
“Yeah, someone forgot to go shopping!” Peter laughed as he pitched a paper plate toward Micky, hitting him dead center on the back of the head. As Peter went back to the table a short woman wearing a flowered dress swept through the door and headed over to the table, grabbing up the chair just as Peter moved to sit down. It so surprised the North Wind that he blew right to the floor. “Hey!”
“I’m sorry, boys, I need my chairs back,” she said, giving Micky a mildly pointed look.
Micky frowned as he stood, lifting his plate. “How come?”
An elderly man came in, gathering up the unusued plates. “I need to take back my plates, boys . . . and my silverware.”
“Would someone please tell me what’s goin’ on here?” Mike said. He was ignored.
Peter shot a wild look at the man. “Mister Bennett, why’re you taking your plates?”
Before the man could answer a third woman walked in the open door, crossing the living room and crawling on her hands and knees under the table. Ignoring the protests of Micky, Davy, and Peter, she rose onto her feet, the table on her back.
“Would someone please tell me what’s goin’ on here?” Mike repeated, a little louder.
Again he was ignored. A fourth woman walked in and lifted the crock pot. “Sorry, boys—”
“Wait!” Mike thundered, stopping everyone in their tracks. “Would someone please tell me what’s goin’ on here!?”
“Haven’t you heard? We’ve all been evicted!” The first woman—Mrs. Filchok—said.
“What?” erupted from all Monkees at once.
“They’ve started blasting on my block,” Mrs. Jenkins said from under the table.
“Who? Why?”
Mr.. Bennett pulled a folded packet from his back pocket and handed it to Mike while Micky and Davy lifted the table from Mrs. Jenkins’s shoulders. “On my door where it says ‘welcome’ will be a sign—‘75 cents an Hour.’”
Peter looked over Mike’s shoulder. “A parking lot?”
Mike was scanning the papers, his dark eyes narrowed in concentration. He breathed a small, inward sigh of relief when he saw that their beach house was not one of the houses due to be razed, but the relief vanished when he saw that the neighbors’ houses were. “They can’t do this,” he murmured.
“This isn’t right,” Peter hissed in his ear. “There’s no way they can get away with this!”
Mike finished reading, then folded the papers back up. “Just what I thought, they can’t throw you out. It violates every zoning regulation.”
“Are you sure, Mike?” Davy said, peering around Mike’s other side.
“Well, of course I’m sure!” Mike said, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. “You don’t have to worry about them tearing down anything—they can’t throw you out.”
As soon as the words left his lips the ground shook with a tremendous rumble. Loose plaster from the ceiling rained down on them and the windows rattled.
“Tell that to them!” Mrs. Jenkins wailed.
Mike scrambled to the door and looked out onto a war zone. Two houses—both of them right next to Mrs. Jenkins’s—were crumpling under the force of a wrecking ball. Micky lunged forward, his face contorted with rage; Mike and Davy grabbed him and hauled him back.
Peter lunged, catching an off-balance Mrs. Filchok and covering her body with his own, shielding her from the plaster raining down. His hair turned white from it, but he was otherwise unhurt.
“E-Everyone okay?” Mike said, coughing as the dust settled.
Choruses of “Yeah/yes” reached his ears. Peter let out a sneeze that rivaled a car backfiring.
“Mike, we gotta do something!” Micky said, a fine white mist rising from his head as he shook it.
“But what?” Mr. Bennett sighed. “You can’t go against city hall.”
Mike’s eyes—even darker against the white dust that covered his face and hair—narrowed to slits. “Oh no? We’ll just see about that . . . ”
~~~~~
The next morning it was a carefully groomed, gray-suited Mike Nesmith who marched up the steps of City Hall. He ignored the odd looks that his wool hat brought, allowing his fury and outrage to keep him focused.
A lovely young woman looked up from behind the desk. “May I help you, sir?”
“Could you please tell Mayor Motley that Michael Nesmith, Private Citizen is here to see him?”
“Just a moment, sir.” She picked up the phone and used a pencil to punch a button. “Michael Nesmith, private citizen to see you, sir.” Brownie points—she got his name right the first try.
She nodded, hung up, and pointed. “Mayor Motley will see you, sir. Go through that door, there.” She pointed at one that said ‘Mayor.’
“Oh, thank you,” Mike said. He headed through the door and promptly found himself back out on the street. He spent a few confused moments turning back and forth before realizing he’d been duped. Turning on his heel, he marched back inside. “Now look! I want to see Mayor Motley please!”
Unruffled, she asked, “Could you please state the purpose of your visit?”
That caught Mike off guard and he stammered. “Well, it’s about this parking lot that the city’s building, and you’re just throwing people out of their homes—”
Her eyes lit up. “Ah, so you’re here to lodge a complaint?”
“Well, yes, sort of.”
She nodded. “Complaints are lodged through that door.” She pointed at a different door.
“Oh, thank you,” Mike said. Finally they were getting somewhere! He opened the door and walked through—as soon as he crossed the threshold the lights went out, and pain flared through his face and chest as he slammed into something hard and unyielding—grainy, like a brick wall. He turned, intending to go back and really give the secretary a piece of his mind when something as hard as the brick wall slammed into his head, sending white stars of pain exploding across his field of vision. He staggered, using the wall to keep his balance. Somehow he found his way out—back to the street—and took a few moments to clear his head, which had already settled into a state of steady, throbbing achiness.
The secretary literally jumped as he stormed back in. Mike’s nostrils were flared and his eyebrows were drawn tightly together into a fearsome glare. “Now look here!” he snarled. “I’ve had it up to here with this stuff and I want some satisfaction or I’m going to take this whole thing and dump it in the opposing party’s lap—” A hand touched his shoulder and he whirled, his fists snapping up into a ready position.
The mayor himself was standing there. “Satisfaction, you say?”
Mike forced his anger away. “Y-Yes sir. My name is Michael Nesmith, and I want to talk to you about this new parking lot that the city’s building.”
“Yes, it’s gonna be one of the finest we’ve ever built!”
Mike blinked a few times, trying to gather his thoughts. “But you’re throwing people out of their homes! You . . . you can’t do that!”
“We’re merely relocating them. They’ll be placed.”
“Where?” Mike demanded.
“Well, we’ll find someplace.” The mayor began to steer Mike back toward the door. “Thank you for making your concerns known. City Hall can’t function without private citizens concerned like you.”
“Yes, but—” Mike began, but before he could form the words in his brain-much less his lips-he found himself back out on the street. With a frustrated, pained sigh he headed back to the Monkeemobile.
The mayor watched him go, and leaned against the wall. “Melanie, hold my calls.”
“Yes sir,” she replied.
“And get Mr.. Zeckenbush for me . . . ”
On to Chapter Two
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