Generation Misfits

by Akemi Dawn Bowman

  “Not all of them, but some of them are happy to help if they know you’re trying,” Luna explained.

  “I wish I’d known that last quarter,” Millie admitted sadly. Why didn’t teachers ever announce things like that? Were the students just expected to know? Was it some kind of secret?

  Millie needed to do better in school. And she was going to try her best.

  But wouldn’t it be more helpful if someone at least gave her all the right tools, and pointed her in the right direction? Preferably before she failed any classes?

  Luna looked thoughtful. “Hey, don’t be too hard on yourself. If you do better this quarter, your semester grades will average out. And finals make up a huge percentage. You can still turn it around.”

  “There you are!” Ruby groaned. Annabelle was beside her looking extremely bored. “We’ve been waiting outside for like a million years.”

  Luna spun so quickly her hair nearly hit Millie in the face. “Sorry! I—I just had to check on something,” she mumbled, flustered. She moved toward Ruby and Annabelle and hesitated, looking back over her shoulder. She held up a shaky hand, waving slightly, before the three of them hurried down the hall.

  Millie tried not to let it bother her. She knew Luna was trying to balance two very different worlds. And deep down, Millie knew they were friends, even if it was a secret.

  But Millie didn’t want to be someone’s secret friend. She wanted to be someone Luna was proud to call a friend.

  Even though in that moment, as she stared into her locker and thought of her grades, and failing, and having to let everyone down, she didn’t feel like someone who had all that much to be proud of.

  With a heavy sigh, she collected her thoughts, shut her locker door, and headed to the courtyard for lunch.

  Halfway through her plate of fries, Millie found the courage to tell everyone the truth.

  “But what about Pop Showcase?” Zuki asked immediately. “Will they at least let you audition? The show is still months away. You’ll be able to get your grades up before the performance.”

  “I don’t think so,” Millie said sadly. “They still don’t know about J-Club. Maybe you all could audition without me?”

  Zuki considered it.

  “What happened to ‘either we all do it or none of us do?’” Ashley pointed out grimly. “Besides, even if we make it through the audition, there are still rehearsals. If Millie can’t stay after school, how are we supposed to be ready for the final performance?”

  Rainbow gave Millie a weak smile. “I’m sorry you’re in so much trouble, but don’t worry about J-Club. We’ll still be here when you aren’t grounded. And if you need help getting your grades up, maybe I could help.” She turned bright pink. “My grades are okay.”

  Ashley snorted. “Aren’t you at the top of our class?”

  The pink darkened to purple. “Oh,” Rainbow said. “Yeah, I think so.”

  Millie was too sad to smile, but she tried anyway. “Thanks for the offer. I’d appreciate the help, but I don’t know when we’d be able to study together. If I’m grounded from staying after school, I’m sure inviting you over to my house is out of the question.” She looked around. “I’m really sorry, everyone.”

  Zuki blinked and sat up straight, like an actual light bulb had gone off above her head. “What if we rehearse during lunch?” She waved her hands excitedly. “It’s perfect! It’s not like any of us are stuck in class. And this way Millie won’t be breaking her parents’ rule.”

  Millie frowned. “Doesn’t Ms. Jimenez have an orchestra class during our lunch hour?”

  “We have somewhere even better.” Zuki looked at Rainbow. “We could rehearse in the auditorium. Rainbow was eating lunch there for weeks, and nobody found her. We’d have total privacy!”

  “You all technically found me,” Rainbow pointed out.

  Zuki rolled her eyes and laughed. “But the hall monitors didn’t. It’s genius!” She turned to Millie. “You won’t be grounded forever. And even if we don’t make the audition, at least this way we can keep J-Club going.”

  “That … could work,” Ashley said with a slow nod.

  Rainbow flashed a tiny smile. “I did always like hanging out in the auditorium.”

  Millie’s heart flooded with relief. “Okay. Let’s do it. Let’s rehearse during lunch.”

  The leaves whistled overhead in response. Maybe everything was going to be okay after all.

  Everyone exchanged a glance.

  “Luna,” they said quietly.

  She’d never choose rehearsals over lunch with Ruby and Annabelle. Not when it would risk blowing her cover.

  “I’ll text her,” Zuki said, typing quickly on her phone. “I’ll tell her it’s an emergency—that J-Club is depending on her.”

  Even though the read receipt showed that Luna had seen the message, there were no dots to show she was typing. No icon to indicate what she was thinking.

  She seemed a world away from them, and Millie felt her heart sink. If Luna refused to come to rehearsals, everyone else would blame her for the death of J-Club. And that wouldn’t be fair.

  Because it was Millie’s fault. She’d ruined J-Club, just like she’d ruined the Pop Showcase audition.

  She’d let everyone down.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The weather shifted once again. Frost appeared on the glass in the mornings. Millie started to wear her thick coat to school—the one with the furry hood. And it was too cold to sit in the courtyard for very long.

  But with J-Club meeting in the theater during lunch every day, Millie didn’t have to worry about the cold. She did, however, have other things to worry about. Her grades were improving, but not fast enough for her parents’ liking. Luna was only making it to one or two rehearsals a week, which made it difficult to practice as a group. And the Pop Showcase audition was days away.

  It was looking less and less likely they’d make it.

  But the worst part was seeing how much it was affecting Zuki. She’d been so hopeful at the start that everything would sort itself out. But she’d underestimated Millie’s parents and Luna’s loyalty to her dance-major friends.

  Millie had never thought of Zuki as someone who wore armor, the way Ashley did. But she was starting to think she’d been wrong—and that maybe Zuki’s armor had started to crack, just as it had all those weeks ago when Ashley had implied J-Club didn’t have a purpose.

  She’d lost her friend for an entire weekend back then. Would it be the same this time around? And was there anything Millie could do to stop it?

  “Is your arm okay?” Rainbow asked softly. Almost too softly for anyone else to hear.

  Zuki was adjusting one of her layers of bracelets. When she realized Rainbow was looking at her, she yanked her sleeve down.

  “Yeah, it’s fine,” Zuki mumbled, moving across the stage to where she’d left her phone. “Let’s run through the routine one more time.”

  Millie frowned. “Did something happen to your arm?”

  “I just bruise easily, that’s all,” Zuki said quickly, before forcing her face into a smile. “Okay, from the top?”

  Ashley stared up at the clock. “The bell is going to ring soon.”

  “We have enough time to run through it again,” Zuki repeated. “I need to make sure the intro vocals are perfect. It has to be right.”

  “What does it matter?” Ashley shrugged. “We all agreed we’re not doing the audition without Millie. And we keep messing up the choreography without Luna here. The only point of doing this was to have fun. It’s not supposed to be this serious.”

  “It is to me,” Zuki snapped.

  Ashley’s eyes widened in surprise.

  Zuki looked flustered. “You’re acting like none of this matters anymore, but it does. You don’t know what’s going to happen on Friday. Or any day! Maybe we will make the audition. Which means we have to keep practicing. We can’t just give up. So stop acting like a—a—” She paused. “Like a shriveled-up bu
rnt marshmallow!”

  Ashley blinked.

  The bell rang, and Zuki threw her arms in the air. “Forget it!” She snatched up her phone and her orange backpack and marched out of the theater without even waiting for Millie.

  Ashley held up their hands innocently. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “I don’t think it’s you,” Rainbow said slowly. “Zuki’s been on edge all week.” She seemed to be wrestling with her thoughts. “Which parent did she stay with last weekend?”

  Millie frowned. “Her dad, I think. Why?”

  Rainbow looked embarrassed. “Oh. Um, no reason, I guess. She just … always seems a little more stressed when she’s at her dad’s.”

  Millie opened her mouth to argue but realized she had nothing to say. Maybe it was true.

  Was she a bad friend for not noticing it sooner?

  Millie pulled her backpack onto her shoulders. “I’ll go and talk to her.”

  She hurried out onto the sidewalk, casting her eyes toward the crowd of students moving across the street. She squinted, searching the cold landscape for her friend, but she couldn’t find her.

  * * *

  Millie could tell something was wrong during band, because Kelly and Dia didn’t pass each other a single note. When everyone started putting their instruments away and Mr. Thomas appeared in front of Millie’s music stand, she finally found out why.

  “Dia has filled in a form to challenge you for second chair,” he explained. “The audition will include two scales and a selection from our band repertoire. Make sure you’re both practicing all your music, because you won’t know what I’ve picked until the audition. Can you make it after school on Friday? It shouldn’t take long.”

  Millie’s stomach somersaulted. Dia was beside her, packing her backpack and not making eye contact. She wasn’t technically doing anything wrong—everyone had the right to chair challenges. But that didn’t make them any less awkward. Because they involved taking something from someone else; and regardless of who succeeded, both people still had to sit next to each other for the rest of the year.

  At least with sports, kids were taught to be gracious at winning and losing. Band felt positively ruthless in comparison.

  Millie hated auditions, and playing in front of people, and the possibility of failure. She hated it so much that she wished she could just hand over the chair and forfeit.

  But what would her parents say?

  Millie remembered Mr. Thomas was still staring at her. “Friday is fine,” she said.

  The band director nodded. “Great. Thanks, Millie.”

  Dia and Kelly stood up and walked toward the lockers, their mouths moving in rapid-fire like they’d been waiting the entire class to finally speak.

  Millie didn’t share their excitement. The worst had yet to come.

  Because Millie still had to tell her parents the news.

  * * *

  Millie managed to make it all the way through dinner without mentioning band. It wasn’t easy—especially when Jane and Scott kept talking about flute lessons, and band concerts, and a new solo book they’d ordered in the mail.

  After dinner they put on a movie—something with subtitles—and her parents made an enormous bowl of buttered popcorn and sprinkled it with M&M’s. It was another one of their family traditions.

  Millie should’ve found the salty-sweet combination comforting, but instead she couldn’t get the thought of Friday out of her head. When the credits appeared on the screen, she found the courage to speak.

  “The third-chair flutist challenged me in band,” Millie said as her parents were shuffling off the couch.

  Jane looked up, immediately engrossed. Why was her interest only ever reserved for music? “How are you feeling? Are you nervous?”

  “I know you’ll do great, Millie. These things happen, but you’ll be able to keep your chair,” Scott said reassuringly.

  Millie bit the inside of her cheek. “I have to stay late on Friday for the chair challenge. Mr. Thomas says he’s going to pick a random section and have us both play it.”

  Scott slapped a hand against his knee. “Well, that’s perfect! You know all those pieces by heart. You’ll be fine.”

  Jane smiled. “We could go out to celebrate afterward. Get ice cream sundaes at the outlet mall?”

  They were so confident she’d do well. So sure she wouldn’t fail.

  There was no room to make any mistake at all.

  “I guess so,” Millie said.

  “Maybe you can challenge the first chair flute after this. It’s good to take this kind of thing seriously—one chair could make the difference between getting a solo or not,” Scott pointed out.

  Jane looked elated. “It would be great to go to your first band concert and hear you featured. Wouldn’t that be so fun?”

  “Sure,” Millie said, tugging at her pajama bottoms. “I’m going to bed. I’m pretty tired.”

  Jane stood up and gave Millie a hug. “I love you. See you in the morning.”

  Scott did the same and kissed Millie on the forehead. It made it so much harder to be angry with them, but Millie had to be. Because if she wasn’t angry, why did she feel so unhappy?

  She spent hours staring at the ceiling, thinking about Friday and how much her heart was already racing. Two more days. Two more days until she’d give her parents another reason to be proud or disappointed.

  There was no in-between. There was no room to breathe.

  But somewhere, in all the darkness, a little light appeared in her mind. Because Friday was also the Pop Showcase audition. And Dia may have inadvertently just given her the perfect excuse to make it.

  Maybe losing her chair could be the thing to solve all her problems.

  Millie desperately wanted to text Zuki, but she still didn’t have her phone back or access to her parents’ computer. So instead she watched the shadows flicker across the room and daydreamed about how happy her friends would be when she told them the next day that their band had been saved.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “Whenever you’re ready,” Mr. Thomas said.

  Millie’s heart was going to burst out of her. It felt like a roar of thunder building in her rib cage, ready to explode at any moment. Her palms had gone clammy, and her fingers were trembling like the room was freezing, even though she felt like she was burning up at least a million degrees.

  Somehow, she managed to take a breath. She played the first note. It came out clear, which was a good start. Halfway through the song, Millie wondered if maybe she wasn’t doing too bad.

  But then her nerves caught up with her. A high note cracked, her breath faltered, and then her fingers fumbled to fix what couldn’t be undone. She tried to keep going—that was a rule in auditions, to make a mistake part of the song—but the tempo was off, and she’d missed a sharp, and her heart was racing so fast that her playing had become panicked.

  When the song ended, she knew. She could see it in Mr. Thomas’s face.

  She’d messed up.

  “Thanks, Millie. I’ll post results on Monday,” he said with a patient smile.

  Millie left the office and spotted Dia in the band room, concentrating on her sheet music in silence.

  “Dia, come on in,” Mr. Thomas said from the doorway.

  Millie took her flute apart and managed to squeeze the case into her backpack, and on her way out the door, she heard Dia begin to play.

  She sounded flawless.

  But Millie didn’t have time to be disheartened. She raced across the campus as fast as she could, toward the choir room where everyone was waiting to audition for Pop Showcase.

  Zuki’s face flooded with relief. “Oh, thank goodness! We thought you weren’t going to make it.”

  “There are three auditions in front of us,” Luna said. She spun her curly hair into a bun and tied it into place. “Maybe we could run through the routine one more time?”

  “Please, no,” Ashley moaned. “This is how people psych thems
elves out. We know the dance. We’ve practiced a million times.”

  “We haven’t gone over it together all week,” Luna pointed out.

  “That’s because you won’t come to lunch rehearsals,” Ashley quipped.

  Luna clamped her mouth shut. She’d been pretty good at not acknowledging how infrequently she attended rehearsals. Maybe she was hoping if nobody brought it up, her problem would suddenly vanish.

  Millie knew the feeling.

  “How did your audition go?” Rainbow asked quietly.

  Millie sighed. “Terrible. I definitely flubbed it. I just hate performing in front of people.”

  Ashley lifted their shoulders. “Really? You say that right before our audition?”

  Everyone laughed.

  “This is different,” Millie promised. “I’ll be with all of you.”

  Zuki was beaming. “We’ve got this, everyone. I know we do. I feel it in my bones!” She held out her hand in front of her, palm down. “On three?”

  Ashley groaned. “Hard pass on the secret handshake.”

  Millie put her hand over Zuki’s, and Rainbow and Luna followed suit.

  They looked at Ashley expectantly.

  “Fine,” they muttered, and clapped their hand over the others’.

  “One, two, three…,” Zuki started.

  “J-Club!” they all shouted at once.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The Pop Showcase announcement sheet was hanging from the choir room doors on Monday morning. There was a crowd around it, like honeybees swarming to a single flower.

  It made Millie nervous to see so many people, all desperate for the same good news. Because there were only so many spots on the list.

  So many people in the crowd would walk away feeling disappointed. And Millie didn’t want that for her friends. Or for herself.

  When the path cleared, they inched closer to the posted results. Zuki grabbed Millie’s hand and squeezed hard. She heard Luna take a breath. Rainbow and Ashley were so still she wasn’t sure they were breathing at all.