Jimmy was worried that the band wasn't ready. He didn't say anything to the others, they had worked so hard, but they had so little time, so he arranged a warm-up concert through some old friends. That way he figured they would be less nervous playing in front of people.

Their first gig was in a place called "Hades". His mother had explained to him that Hades was an old word for hell or the underworld.

"That's so cool," said Jerry.

They met at Jerry's house as his dad was going to drive them and all their equipment there.

An old trainer which served as the garage opened at the front as if it were a gaping mouth.

A bang and cloud of smoke erupted from the shoe, becoming for one moment a brand-name dragon. After the screech of meshing gears, a hodgepodge of scrap and oddities reversed out. The frame was made of a doll's bed, Lego bricks, bottle tops, and a million other thrown-away objects that had been melded together to somewhat appear like a van.

Jimmy looked through the smoke

"What a great heap of Junk," he said, which to rats and mice is a compliment.

"Thanks," answered Jerry's dad as he got down from the cab, which looked like it was broken off an actual toy van.

"It's thrice recycled. The engine is from the bus that the "Rockers in the Sky" used on their last tour," he continued.

"Did they split up?" asked Hammy.

"Eh... in a way, they kind of lived up to their name" answered Jerry's dad, a little uncomfortably.

"So... the name's available again?"

"No!" chorused the rest of the band.

His dad drove them there in his scrap van with all their instruments and most of the band loaded into the back.

Confusingly Hades was above ground. It was hidden in Dublin Zoo in the bat enclosure. As the van passed from under the sewers (the rats and mice of Sewerville built a labyrinth of secret tunnels and entrances under the city.)

They passed sleeping flamingoes, which Hammy suggested was a great name for the band, before a growl from the tiger pen shut him up.

"Lucky for us, Tigers are nocturnal, they're normally asleep during the day," said Jerry's dad, who loved the zoo and almost crashed into a bin he was so riveted to the tiger's eyes glinting at them hungrily as they reflected their headlights.

"Keep your eyes on the road Francis," said Jimmy. Jimmy's secret worries were making him uneasy. "The kids have worked hard," he thought "I hope this isn't a big mistake."

Jerry on the other hand looked as though he would fire through the roof like a rocket with sheer excitement acting

As fuel. Tina and Hammy resorted to grabbing him and trying to keep him in his seat. Suzie Squirrel put on her make-up, which made her look like a miniature panda.

The bat enclosure was a large windowless cube building in the middle of the zoo. A hidden entrance dropped like a castle drawbridge over the drain which the band's van passed over.

They parked and began unloading their instruments. The place was incredibly dark. The softest of lighting came from the edges of the floor and pointed downward. Shadows ballooned out of their footsteps. Tina thought she saw flickering silhouettes moving inside the walls. She shivered despite the heat and humidity causing rivulets of moisture to run down her shell.

Suddenly, a spotlight lit up in a tight beam down from the ceiling to the center of the floor, and what seemed to be a bat entered the column of light.

However, it wasn't a bat. As their eyes adjusted to the sudden change in brightness, the band could see that the figure in the center was actually a mouse in a bat costume.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the 9th annual Bat jazz fest," said the mouse. Jerry thought he could recognize the voice. It sounded so familiar.

What seemed like a thousand fingers clicking, echoed across the room, Jerry took this as approval, as a round of applause. He could also pick out the murmuring of "Cool daddio" from the crowd of bats still shimmering in shadow around the center stage.

"The bats make that clicking noise to act as a sonar so they can fly in the dark" Jerry's dad explained as he looked up to him on hearing the word daddio.

"Jazz! We don't play jazz, we're a rock band," said Suzie.

"Yeah well, gigs are hard to get and you need to get used to the idea that not everybody will be into your music," replied Jimmy.

With that, he handed a bag to Jerry's dad.

"What's this for?"

"In case they throw food, waste not, want not, that's the rodent's way," Jimmy replied coolly

As he spoke the mouse bat left the stage and a group of actual bats came on.

These bats were like nothing they had ever seen. They wore elegant and tight zoot suits with matching hats.

The eight of them took up their instruments trumpet, drums, double bass, guitar, piano, tenor, and alto saxophones in unison, since they were all dressed the same, and they looked like an incredibly stylish military squad.

In a voice so crisp and husky it felt like the words might shatter into a thousand pieces the trumpet player said

"Dig this you crazy cats!" Causing the rocket rodents to nervously look around for cats before the tenor sax player kicked off with a dirty deep riff.

Two bars of music later, the rest of the musicians launched in with him. To Jerry, everyone was playing a different tune but somehow everything wove together into an intricate sizzling, toe-tapping piece of music. The shaded ghosts that were the bats twirled and jived in the murkiness. The room spun in shadow and light.

Each musician had a solo, with each one being wilder and more varied than the one before as if they were pushing each other, encouraging the next musician to reach further, play more frantically. After every solo, there was a round of clicking and cool daddios from the bats.

"Jimmy, we can't go on after this, they're really good!"

Pleaded Tina who had finished watching the drum solo with her jaw finally, slowly gaping open.

"There's always a bigger fish," said Jimmy.

The bat band finished with thunderous clicking and "Cool daddios" which made Jerry wonder how many sons and daughters were in the audience.

The Rocking rodents took the stage as the septet of bats left the stage.

The band looked out into the darkness. In the spotlight, they couldn't see the crowd, but they could feel their presence, the nervous tension of anticipation, which reflected in their own jitteriness and there was something else as those seconds felt as though they extended into hours, the slight friction of mounting boredom as the Rockin Rodents frozen with stage fright.

Jimmy waved his bandmates closer. "Remember the bluesy jam we did around three blind mice the other day?" the others nodded their answer; "well play the same beat Tina and the rest of you follow my chord changes."

Suzie grabbed the microphone and screamed

"Hello Seattle, we are the rocking rodents!"

This confused the bats, but at least it got their attention.

Tina beat out the rhythm and the band launched a bluesy rendition of one of their songs.

Jimmy as usual guided the group as he played through minor sevenths and suspended ninths. The notes in the scale made things sound sad. Suzie Squirrel sang with a passion the band had yet to hear from her, as she squeezed out tones from her voice that seemed soaked in melancholy. The saxophonist from the first band motioned to Jimmy if he could get up and play with them. Jimmy nodded and he joined in, dueting with Jimmy's guitar.

When they finished there was a silence. They still couldn't see the crowd well, but just as they could feel the agitation and unrest at the beginning, they could feel the energy from the silence. It reminded Jerry of their first jam session like saying goodbye to a good friend.

The quiet didn't last; there was applause, actual applause.

Jerry looked over to his dad and saw the pride in his face and perhaps a tear in his eye.

Jerry thought he saw two cat eyes one green and one blue shining in the dark at the back for a faint moment. He squinted but they had gone.

They left the stage and meet The Ghost from jimmy's guitar duel coming on with an acoustic guitar. Even though the room was mostly dark he still wore his sunglasses.

"Looks like the boy learned his lesson" commented Jimmy.

"What do you mean Jimmy?" asked Rodney.

"He used to use more machines and gizmos to play and now look at him, with an acoustic, just him and his instrument."

As the Ghost took center stage, he strummed a chord on his guitar and said, "This is an audiovisual exploration of light" in a tone that suggested he was the only person who knew what he was talking about.

The Ghost took out a remote control and in the shadows of the ceiling mechanical objects could be heard whirling into place.

"Or maybe not!" shouted Tina as a blinding display of every imaginable color flashed through the room. The Ghost had set up a spectacular light show to accompany his playing and the room became filled with the lights of a thousand Discos reflected off the light of a thousand disco balls.

Although the light display was truly amazing the bats who are extremely sensitive to lights couldn't really appreciate it. The light blinded them and if wasn't for their sonar they would have begun to collide with each other, instead, they landed and instinctively clung to the walls.

"Turn of the lights!" The band began shouting shielding their eyes with their tails and paws.

The Ghost who was wearing sunglasses at the appropriate moment for a change pressed the off button on the remote. When it didn't work he pressed it frantically again and again. The bat's electricity system couldn't handle the extra charge of the lights and short-fused, causing sparks to fly and fire to begin.

"Everybody! Out of here! Now!" shouted jerry's father.

He and jimmy started organizing the bats and others to leave in a safe and orderly fashion. Jerry waited; following their example and to help the animals to keep calm and leave safely, he wanted to make sure his father and Jimmy made it out safe.

The fire spread with unnerving speed and now the place was filling up with smoke and the heat from above was becoming unbearable.

The mouse dressed as a bat had also stayed back to help and began ushering out Jimmy, jerry, and his dad. He looked down at Jerry and said

"I see cheese making's loss has been music's gain young man"

Jerry thought the smoke was making him delirious; the bat mouse was the cheesemaker?

Finally, the mice made it for the door as the fire filled the roof and was spreading down the walls, misshapen molten lights and disco balls crashed making flaming ripples on the ground as it began to rain fire.

Far away fire brigade sirens hinted faintly that they would arrive in the nick of time to stop the fire spreading through the zoo.

A pair of flamingoes woke up.

"Fred? Can you see what I can see?" asked one to other

"Smoke on the water and fire in the sky? Just like the Deep Purple song." (All flamingoes are big Deep Purple fans).

"Yes, we must be dreaming," said Fred.

Suddenly the Rocking Rodents and a mouse dressed as a bat roared past in their van and the sky filled with bats of all shapes and forms.

"Pete can you...

"Yes like bats out of hell, by meatloaf"

"That must have been quite a concert."

"Well we're dreaming, concerts are always good in dreams." 

Back on the van when the Rockin Rodents had calmed down a bit, Jerry looked over at his dad, he was expecting to read him the riot act and say "This is exactly the kind of Thing I warned you about" but instead he was very quiet and very still.

"Dad?" Jerry began, only to be cut off by his father shouting

"Whoa! What an amazing show I didn't know you could play like that! You've learned so much, so fast! "

"He's a good worker," said Jimmy.

"Just like the old days, huh Francis?" said Jimmy.

Jerry's dad nodded. They put on the radio and sang along to the rock songs as the sun rose slowly, the dawn poking over the horizon. The smoke from the Zoo dissipating as the firefighters brought the flames under control. Jerry looked up into his father's eyes and saw a wildness that he had never seen.