The Right Chord

by James Ponti

  “That is why I challenged all of you to learn about music outside of what you already know. You’ll be amazed when someone you’ve never heard of lights you up inside.”

  Mitchie loved the way Brown talked about music. Most of the music teachers she’d had talked about the way to play an instrument or the importance of practicing. But with Brown it was always deeper. For him music made the world go ’round.

  “So let’s get started,” he said. “Who wants to tell us about their era?”

  Mitchie looked around and saw that no one else was jumping up to go first. “Okay, I’ll go,” she said. “I’m, like, totally into the new-wave sound.”

  “Great,” Brown said. “You’ve got the lingo down. You’re dressed perfectly. But tell me something deeper. Tell me about the music.”

  Mitchie was stumped. “What do you mean?”

  “Tell us anything,” Brown said. “There’s no wrong answer. You’ve listened to the music. You’ve read about it. Tell us anything you’ve learned.”

  “Well, I’ve learned that my mom was really into the Go-Go’s.”

  “I love the Go-Go’s, too. They’ve got great music, but did you know they were the first all-female rock band who wrote their own music to have a number one album? They helped make it possible for you to make your mark in music.”

  “Wow. I had no idea,” Mitchie said. “I just like their sound.”

  For the next hour Brown led an amazing discussion in which the campers talked about their various eras. Along the way he told them a lot about musical history. He talked about how U2 formed as a band when they were only teenagers. He told them how Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles changed the way the world looked at people who were blind or had other disabilities.

  Brown also explained that while dressing in clothes from a certain era or using slang from that time was helpful, it only scratched the surface. The thing that really mattered was the music, the words, the emotions.

  “What were the artists saying with their songs? How did they change the way people thought or looked at the world? What did they do musically to create a new sound or to inspire a new way to dance?”

  By the time he was done, the campers were brimming with excitement.

  “Now for what I lured you here with—the musical mysteries,” he said with a smile.

  They leaned forward in eager anticipation.

  “As you all know,” Brown went on, “I’ve spent a fair amount of time on the road and have had the good fortune to play alongside some of the greatest acts of all time.”

  They nodded. Brown had incredible stories about the famous rock stars and bands he’d played with—and a tendency to share them all in great detail.

  “And, during that time I’ve managed to accumulate some interesting pieces of musical history and memorabilia.”

  Now the group was getting even more excited.

  “Tonight, you are going to have a chance to use some of these items when you perform. I’m talking actual items used by some of the biggest stars in music history.”

  “This is so cool!” Colby exclaimed.

  “But first,” Brown said with a wave of his hand, “you’re going to have to find them. I have hidden them all over the camp.”

  Their eyes opened wide.

  “Here’s a map of the entire camp,” he said, laying it out on the table. “And there is a shovel on the porch.”

  “Shovel?” Caitlyn said. “Did you bury this stuff?”

  “Maybe,” Brown said with a sly smile. “That’s for you to figure out.”

  “How?” asked Mitchie.

  “I have a clue and a poem for each of you,” he said. “If you’ve studied—if you can get past the clothes and the slang and try to understand the music—you’ll be able to find the artifacts.”

  “And if we don’t?” Caitlyn asked with a gulp.

  “Then we’ll have a fine show tonight,” he said. “Not an amazing ‘think about it for the rest of your life’ kind of show. But a fine one.”

  They all let this sink in for a moment.

  “I vote for the one we’ll never forget,” Colby said.

  “Absolutely,” replied Shane. “What are we waiting for? Let’s start looking!”

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  Brown laid six manila envelopes on the table, one for each of them. He wished everyone luck and left with Dee and Connie.

  The campers didn’t hesitate. They grabbed their envelopes and set out, determined to solve their mysteries and unearth a piece of rock-and-roll history.

  Caitlyn, who loved puzzles, was so excited that she started to giggle. She found a spot at a picnic table and set her envelope down in front of her. CAITLYN—HIP-HOP was written in marker across the front.

  Brown had given her hip-hop because she wanted to be a producer and so much of a rap song’s success depended on its producer. He told her hip-hop was one of the first musical styles completely created in America since jazz, and he challenged her to be inventive in her research.

  He got her listening to some early rappers, and she liked the way they took parts of existing songs, such as a drumbeat or a guitar riff, and turned them into something new. It was the kind of thing she liked to do when she was playing around with her instruments.

  She opened the envelope and pulled out two pieces of paper. The first was a poem entitled “Recipe for Rap.”

  A rap producer is a special fixer,

  An artist who controls the mixer

  To blend the parts and make them cook

  And bake a sound that’s off the hook.

  Caitlyn smiled as she read the poem. Brown was nothing if not creative. She read it again and giggled.

  Then she pulled out the other piece of paper. It was sheet music filled in with musical notes. Across the top of it, Brown had written the word produce. Caitlyn nodded. She obviously needed to produce a recording of the music. But when she looked at the sheet again, she crinkled up her nose in confusion. The music wasn’t really music at all. It was just practice scales.

  “You want me to produce scales?” she said aloud as if Brown were there with her.

  She turned over the paper to make sure there were no other clues written on the back. There weren’t. She quickly realized this was not going to be as easy as she had first thought. She reread the poem once more and thought about it. As far as she could figure, she was supposed to produce a recording of scales. Maybe add a hip-hop beat to it or something. Hopefully, if she did that she might figure out what the clue actually meant.

  It wasn’t much of a plan, but at least it was something. And she was glad she had an excuse to go to the recording studio. It was her favorite place at camp. It’s where she liked to experiment with different techniques and where she and Mitchie had come up with some great songs.

  When she got to the studio, she found Colby digging around in one of the closets.

  “Find your treasure yet?” Caitlyn asked.

  “Just getting a guitar,” he said as he pulled out a case and set it on the table. “We stored a couple of acoustics in here last night.”

  “Let me guess,” Caitlyn said with a smile. “Brown gave you a piece of music?”

  Colby held the sheet music up in the air. “How’d you know?”

  “I got some, too,” she said, holding hers up. “Only mine’s not really music. They’re just scales.”

  “Hmmm,” Colby said with a nod. “I don’t know what mine is. Brown very helpfully crossed out the name of the song. Hopefully, I’ll recognize it when I play it.”

  Colby placed the sheet music on a stand and started to play it on his guitar.

  “That’s so familiar,” he said, missing a few notes as he warmed up, but quickly getting the hang of it.

  “Keep playing,” Caitlyn said. “I know that song. It’s on the tip of my tongue.”

  Colby nodded and kept playing.

  Finally, it came to Caitlyn. She laughed. A lot. “That is so like Brown.”

 
“What?” Colby asked, still not able to identify it. “What song is it?”

  “Keep going,” she replied.“I’ll sing it for you.”

  Colby kept playing, and when he reached the chorus, Caitlyn sang along. It was the classic U2 song, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.”

  Colby stopped playing and shook his head. “Very funny, Brown.” Then he started laughing. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to keep looking until I find what I’m looking for. I just don’t know where to begin.”

  “Did he give you a poem?” Caitlyn asked.

  Colby nodded. “Oh, yeah. It was really helpful, too,” he said sarcastically. Pulling a sheet of paper out of his envelope, he read “The Edge of Music” to Caitlyn.

  “Alt rockers and grunge musicians

  Are just like old-time magicians

  With tricks so hard to believe

  Like the one hidden up Paul David

  Hewson’s sleeve.”

  Caitlyn thought about it for a moment and then shook her head. “I got nothing.”

  Colby laughed. “Welcome to the club. Because that’s what I’ve got, too.”

  “Who’s Paul David Hewson?” she asked.

  “I wish I knew,” he replied. “And more importantly, I wish I knew where his sleeve was.”

  Caitlyn mulled this over for a moment and then had an idea. She snapped her fingers and pointed. “I bet it’s in wardrobe!”

  Colby slapped the table. “Why didn’t I think of that? It makes so much sense.”

  In a flash, Colby bolted out of the recording studio and headed for the wardrobe cabin. “Good luck,” he called cheerfully over his shoulder.

  “Thanks,” Caitlyn said. “You, too.”

  In his mad dash across the camp, Colby slipped twice, plopped into the middle of a mud puddle, and almost ran into a tree. He didn’t recognize Paul David Hewson’s name, but he figured there was a good chance it might be written on one of the outfits in the Wardrobe Studio.

  He burst into the cabin and was about to start looking through the shirts when a stern voice stopped him in his tracks.

  “Stop right there!”

  He turned and saw Lorraine sitting at a table.

  “You do not come into this cabin without wiping off your shoes.”

  He looked down and realized that his right shoe was still caked with mud from his puddle encounter.

  “Sorry,” he said sheepishly as he went outside and wiped his shoes on the welcome mat.

  He stepped back in and one at a time showed her the soles of both shoes.

  “Better,” she said. “Now what do you want?”

  “Paul David Hewson’s sleeve,” he said. “It’s my clue.”

  Lorraine cocked her head to one side as she mentally went through the wardrobe inventory. “We don’t have it,” she finally said, shaking her head.

  His shoulders drooped a little bit. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I’ve been organizing this wardrobe all summer. Nothing in here belongs to anyone with the name Paul David Hewson.”

  “Can I check?” he asked, “just to be sure.”

  “Let me see your hands,” she joked.

  He held them up, and they were spotless.

  “Okay,” she said with a smile. “Have fun.”

  “So what are you doing here?” he asked as he began searching the first rack of clothes. “Is this where your clue led you?”

  “My clue isn’t really much of a clue,” she said as she held up a pillowcase that made a loud, clinking noise. “It’s more of a chore.”

  “What’s in there?” Colby asked.

  “Keys,” she told him. “Lots and lots of keys.”

  She held the pillowcase open and poured the keys out on the table.

  “Did Brown give you a poem?” Colby asked.

  “Yes, he did,” she answered, pushing a stray strand of red hair out of her eyes. She held up a piece of paper. The poem was called “A Glam-Rock Costume for Lorraine.”

  “Nice title,” he said.

  She started reading it:

  “Queen and ELTON knew how to dress

  When they wanted to impress.

  And you can, too, if you please—

  Just solve the riddle of these KEYS.”

  Colby laughed. “Brown really got into the whole mysterious-poetry thing, didn’t he?”

  “Apparently,” she said. “So I’ve been lugging this pillowcase around and trying each and every key in any lock I can find. Right now I’m trying this file cabinet.”

  “Have you had any luck so far?”

  “Of course not,” she said with a laugh. “It’s frustrating, but it is kind of fun.”

  “Especially when you consider that we might actually get to perform with a piece of rock-and-roll history,” he added. “That would be too cool.”

  For a moment they stopped and looked at each other. Camp Rock had exceeded their wildest expectations, and this was the icing on the cake.

  “Can you believe any of this?” Lorraine asked.

  “No,” Colby said. “It’s beyond incredible.”

  “Incredible,” she repeated.

  As much as she wanted to stop and just enjoy the moment, she had a mystery to solve. One by one, Lorraine started trying the keys in the locked file cabinet. Most didn’t fit at all, although a couple slid in. None, however, unlocked the cabinet.

  Meanwhile, Colby went through the racks and racks of clothing. And, like Lorraine, he looked for a sign that he was on the right track. Every costume had a tag on it, and he checked the front and back of each one looking for anything about Paul David Hewson.

  Without even realizing it, he had started singing the song from the recording studio. It was the old U2 song, and pretty soon Lorraine started singing along with him. They both liked the song, but more importantly they both could relate to what it was saying—they were still no closer to finding what they were looking for.

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  Tess Tyler had a secret.

  She had spent much of the past two days grumbling about having to clean bathrooms and cabins. After all, that’s what everyone expected. But the truth was, she could have easily avoided it all. Her mother had arranged for a limo to come to camp and pick her up after the Parents Concert, but Tess canceled it.

  Even though she tried to act as if she was above it all, Tess loved being at Camp Rock. She would much rather hang out with the other five and clean up the camp than go home and sit around her big, empty house while her mother was on the road touring.

  Even though she wasn’t always good at showing it, these were the best friends she had. She only wished her other cabinmates, Ella Pador and Peggy Dupree, had been able to stay on, too.

  She was also thrilled with the musical mysteries, although she wasn’t having any luck solving hers, either. She was sitting in the camp library staring at the contents of her envelope—a poem and an iPod.

  She slipped on the headphones and pressed PLAY. There were nine songs on the playlist and each was by a harmonica player named Eivets Rednow. She actually liked the music, but had never heard of anyone named Eivets.

  To make things more confusing, on the back of the player there was a note that said, Stressed Reward.

  “I’m stressed all right,” she said. “So where’s my reward?”

  She read the poem, but that wasn’t much help either.

  If you want to find that Motown sound

  You’ve got to turn the beat around.

  Add only notes that are choice

  And sing them with Aretha’s voice.

  She figured that “Aretha” had to have something to do with Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul. But there was nothing in the poem that helped her. She listened to the Eivets Rednow songs, hoping that something would click and put her on the right track.

  Sitting across from Tess was Mitchie. She wasn’t doing any better. Mitchie had read and reread her clue at least twenty times. Each time she hoped
she’d notice something that she had missed before. But the clue just continued to baffle her. Like the others, her envelope contained a poem.

  The secret of the new-wave sound

  Is out there waiting to be found.

  Follow the groups, ’cause it’s a fact

  This clue has no solo act.

  When she got frustrated trying to figure that out, she moved to the other sheet of paper that was in her envelope. It was even harder to understand than the poem.

  To Mitchie, it looked like a page from a baby-name book. Except for a few scattered words in bold, all it had was a long list of names:

  Phil, Tony, Mike BY Jack, Eric, Ginger AND Anthony, John, Michael, Chad. Belinda, Jane, Charlotte, Kathy, Gina, OUT Jim, John, Ray, Robby. Neal, Ross, Jonathan, Steve, TO Renaldo, Abdul, Lawrence, Levi NEAR Don, Glenn, Don, Bernie, Randy, Timothy, Joe, NEST. WHERE Phillip, Larry, Johnny, Ralph, Al, Maurice, Verdine, Andrew MEET. LOOK UNDER James, Tommy, Todd, Lawrence, Ricky, Dennis.

  At first, she wondered if maybe the names corresponded to campers and what cabins they were in. There had been two boys named Anthony and Michael who were in the same cabin. And there had also been a Jane, a Kathy, and a Charlotte. But they had all been in different cabins.

  When she couldn’t make that work, she tried to make a sentence out of the words that weren’t names. That didn’t work either. So she just sat there thinking and thinking, trying to crack the code.

  She looked at Tess, and the two of them shook their heads.

  Like Tess and Mitchie, Shane was frustrated and confused. But, unlike them, he was also getting hot and tired. That’s because he was digging holes in the ground.

  He had taken Brown’s map and the shovel from his porch and followed his clue out to the edge of the camp. He read it again to make sure he had it right.

  You need to Let It Be

  If you want to stay on track.

  Take the Long and Winding Road,

  Then Dig It and Get Back.

  He thought he had done everything the clue said. There was only one long and winding road at the camp. It was a trail that ran right from Brown’s cabin and headed out around the lake.