McCoy, Chris

At age fourteen, Ted Merritt is eager to replace his imaginary friend, a bacon-loving pirate, with real friends but soon he is led from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, into a world of discarded "abstract companions" who are intent on wreaking vengeance on the human race.

Minutes after eighteen-year-old Bennett Bardo of Gordo, New Mexico, asks Sophie Gilkey, his dream girl, to prom and she says yes, she is abducted by aliens and Bennett catches a ride across the galaxy with a band of misfit musicians to find her.

Ted Merritt still has his childhood imaginary pirate friend named Scurvy Goonda who often gets him into trouble. When they take a trip to an imaginary land ruled by a human-hating cockatoo skeleton, Scurvy is in for a terrible fate.