Auburn: Outcasts and Underdogs

by Valerie Thomas

  Chapter 5

  My days as Juliet in English passed slowly, but they were bearable. I stopped cringing when Juliet was in a scene, and I got used to speaking in front of the whole class. Charlie’s talk helped me change my perspective; it was only fear of becoming what I already was that had held me back. With that in mind, I survived the play, and when we moved onto a different one I signed myself up for one of the main roles.

  In practice, we tried a million different versions of the song I’d written, which we decided to call Jaded. We tried it with more bass, less bass, a jazzy feel, a more traditional rock sound… After everything, we settled on my original melody, which strained my range to its breaking point but sounded perfectly punk. I’d written a couple other songs other too, and we started working on those along with some covers so that we’d be able to play a whole show—if we ever got the chance.

  After practicing for several weeks on end, we made a group decision to take the Friday before Halloween off. We ended up at my apartment; Charlie was lying on the far side of the couch, with Joey in between us as we watched some boring show on the History Channel. Through the slats in the blinds, I could see that the sky was already getting dark, even though it was at least an hour away from dinnertime.

  From the corner of my eye, I noticed Charlie trying to get my attention. “I think it’s time for us to figure out our band name,” he said, his tone full of reverence that I didn’t quite understand.

  I wasn’t sure about that; wasn’t sure if I was ready to come up with a permanent name, and I wasn’t sure that having a band name wouldn’t make me even more of a target at school. So I kept quiet and watched for Joey’s response.

  “Okay, cool,” he said, without any discernable enthusiasm. “We could do something like Band Number Forty-two.”

  “Um…” Charlie grimaced. “I don’t want something generic. We should have a special name. Something to set us apart from every other band out there. What do you think, Ashley?”