A few hours later they gathered in Mike's apartment. Larry had picked up a young lady from the kitchen named Susie, who had commandeered some sandwiches, fruit punch, and strange-looking little green cookies.
"I hope they're supposed to be this color!" said Jeanie, taking one out of the package and sniffing it.
"Well, everybody in the cafeteria's been eating them!" Susie told her. "Nobody's got sick yet! And you're damned lucky to get anything. We have to use maple sugar to sweeten our beverages now. We haven't seen any white sugar in six months!"
Mike dragged his guitar out of the closet, took it out of its bag, and dusted it off.
"I sure hope I don't break my strings," he told them, "because I haven't got any to spare. There's some broken ones in the bottom of the closet there, somewhere, but I haven't been able to find any new ones for years!"
He tuned the instrument and said "Here goes nothing! I hope I don't disappoint you
people too much." He remembered one of the songs on Dr. Cooper's records and played a few bars to see if he remembered the tune, then started to sing "You Ain't Nothin' but A Hound Dog" When he was finished he found the others cheering and clapping.
"You're FANTASTIC, Mike!" screamed Susie. "Play something else!"
The rest of the afternoon just seemed to be a happy blur as they ate, sang and danced. But Mike was getting very confused. And why did his voice seem to change so many times when he sang different songs? It was scaring him, really scaring him.