The Right Note

by D. A. Graham

  Copyright © 2019 by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

  Darby Creek

  A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  241 First Avenue North

  Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

  For reading levels and more information, look up this title at www.lernerbooks.com.

  Cover: Moomusician/Shutterstock.com; wawritto/Shutterstock.com; Redshinestudio/Shutterstock.com.

  Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std 12/17.5. Typeface provided by Adobe Systems.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Graham, D. A., 1995– author.

  Title: The right note / by D.A. Graham.

  Description: Minneapolis : Darby Creek, [2019] | Series: Reality show | Summary: Music duo Eve and Ryan are ecstatic to be contestants on their favorite show, The Right Note, but when the producers decide they should perform as solo acts, the duo’s ambition and friendship are put to the test.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018014397 (print) | LCCN 2018020309 (ebook) | ISBN 9781541541887 (eb pdf) | ISBN 9781541540255 (lb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781541545441 (pb : alk. paper)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Reality television programs—Fiction. | Singing—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.G716 (ebook) | LCC PZ7.1.G716 Ri 2019 (print) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018014397

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1-45230-36612-8/13/2018

  Chapter

  1

  On the way to the audition, I turn to Ryan and whisper, “Are you ready to rock?” He gives me a nervous smile at my joke—we aren’t a rock band—but he doesn’t say anything. I wipe my sweaty hands on my jeans. Apparently neither of us is ready to rock.

  We’re on the bus headed downtown to audition for our favorite TV show: The Right Note. It’s a music competition, where musicians from all over the country sing and dance their way to the top. Each season has a different theme, and this time around the theme is “teamwork.” For this season, only music duos are allowed to audition. Eight duos from all over the country will compete over the course of a month for an awesome grand prize: a record deal with Wild Hill Studio, the company that created the show. Only one person can win, but they can choose their duo partner or another competitor to join the record deal. If either Ryan or I win the competition, the two of us will get to record an album.

  When the announcement came out that The Right Note would be holding auditions in our hometown, Ryan convinced me to sign up with him, claiming it would be the perfect opportunity for us.

  It’s true that being on the show would be huge for me and Ryan. We’ve been a music duo ever since we were in the same after-school guitar class as kids. Even though we’re both talented, it’s hard to get noticed. All of our performances have been at my mom’s café, with audiences of maybe a dozen people.

  Until now, that is. Millions of people watch The Right Note each season. The winner of the first season, Cassandra Holmes, sold half a million albums in a week. The thought of performing on reality TV terrifies me, but I want to share our music with the world, and winning will give us the opportunity to do just that.

  We aren’t the only ones thinking about the prize and success. On the bus with us is a pair of girls our age covered in glitter. Behind them, a guy with a leather jacket and a violin sits next to his guitarist partner.

  I’m wearing my lucky sweatshirt. Ryan, however, has decided to dye his hair blue for the occasion. How we should look was one of the things we argued about during our practices. Ryan wanted us to stand out and be colorful. I wanted us to impress the judges with our sound, not our looks. In the end, we decided to each dress how we wanted—which is good because I’d look bad with blue hair.

  As the bus comes to a stop, I pick up my guitar case and tug on Ryan’s sleeve. He follows me off the bus to the football stadium. The auditions are inside one of the event rooms here. The stadium has never seemed so big before.

  I grin to hide my nervousness. “Let’s knock their socks off.”

  ***

  The stadium is packed full of musicians and their families and friends. Some of them are tuning their instruments, while others are practicing singing or talking in groups. All the noise blends into one harsh note. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Ryan turn on his sampler and record it for a few seconds.

  The sampler is like a computer and a piano keyboard put together. During our practices, Ryan records different sounds and then twists a bunch of knobs on the sampler to transform the sounds into music. I don’t know how he does it, but after his tinkering, it always sounds really cool.

  My music is a bit more traditional. I play the guitar and sing almost all the vocals for our songs. My voice is very soft, and I like to contrast it with harsh guitar riffs inspired by rock and roll and heavy metal. When Ryan and I perform together and combine our different types of music, we sound like no one else. We aren’t rock or electronica or pop but instead a combination of the three. That’s why we’re going to win The Right Note: we’re totally unique.

  Ryan and I settle down in the stadium seats near a pair of rowdy singers who are practicing their a cappella song. Both of them harmonize in a different key. It sounds horrible. They seem to think so, too, because one of them starts shouting at the other, and then the other shouts back. Ryan laughs to himself.

  The a cappella duo finally pulls out a harmonica to get them in the same key. It still isn’t very good, but at least they aren’t arguing anymore. I spend the waiting period tuning and testing out my guitar, and Ryan messes around with the sample he took of the stadium.

  After about half the stadium has been cleared out, Ryan and I get called into the audition room. There are four judges sitting at a table with a video camera planted in front of them. These aren’t the famous judges who will appear on the show but instead local music lovers in charge of deciding who’s good enough to go to the California studio. One of them, a grumpy-looking old man with a mustache, says, “Eve Hardt and Ryan Okri. Welcome to the auditions for The Right Note. What will you be doing for us today?”

  I pluck my guitar out of its case as Ryan sets up the stand for the sampler. “We’re going to perform a song we wrote,” Ryan says. “It’s called ‘The Quiet Night.’ ”

  This song is one of my favorites of ours. It’s unlike all our others because we play it slightly differently every time. I always start with the same chords and sing the same lyrics, but then it’s up to Ryan what to do with the sample. I play the guitar based on what the sample sounds like. We go back and forth, responding to each other with our music.

  “Great. Ready when you are,” says one of the judges.

  “Good luck,” adds another.

  I meet Ryan’s eyes. We nod at each other.

  I start the song by strumming a sequence of chords on my guitar, which Ryan records into the sampler. He plays it back and then twists a couple of knobs to warp the sound. It turns into something eerie, like an alien’s version of guitar. Meanwhile, I keep strumming those same chords. Then I pause, and Ryan turns the recording into a swirl of notes. When he stops playing the recording and silence falls over the room, I start singing.

  After Ryan adds more layers of sound, he lets the volume drop, and this time he sings. He hits the notes along with the sampler, so his voice sounds digitized. I come in on the last word, a
nd we sing the chorus together.

  Ryan and I go all out, dancing to the electronic beat that fills the room. I let out a riff on the guitar. One of the judge’s eyebrows shoot up, and the one on the other end of the table breaks out into a grin. Even the grumpy guy taps his foot under the table.

  I finish off the song with its final verse. Our instruments sync together. After I sing the final word, I let out three loud chords from my guitar and the song ends.

  Then the judges applaud.

  “Not a very quiet night after all,” the grumpy judge says. The others laugh. “What a great performance. You two have such wonderful energy.”

  “Thank you,” Ryan and I say together, breathless.

  “We’ll be in touch about the results of the auditions in the next week. Expect a letter in the mail. Take care.” The judge winks. “Next!”

  Chapter

  2

  The letter comes the next Saturday. I rush to the truck and snatch the mail when the mailman arrives in the morning. Bill, bill, Mom’s fashion magazine, ad, bill, and then there it is—a bright yellow envelope from Wild Hill Studio. I drop the rest of the mail to the sidewalk.

  I flip the envelope over and stare at the flap. Between me and this envelope is my destiny.

  Then I peel it back and pull the letter out.

  The first word I see tells me everything I need to know. I nearly drop this letter too. A vibration like a music note fills my body from my toes to my head. I want to let out a scream, but my voice gets caught in my throat. I need to let this energy out somehow. So I decide to sprint to Ryan’s house.

  But as I’m about to round the corner, a blue smear slams into me and knocks me onto my back. The letter goes flying through the air.

  “Ow!” a familiar voice cries.

  I sit up. Ryan is flat on the sidewalk right in front of me, rubbing his forehead. Next to him is his own yellow envelope. Our letters flutter to the ground around us.

  When Ryan sees that it’s me who nearly ran him over, he breaks into a huge grin. “Eve—we did it!” he squeaks.

  Finally I can speak again. I laugh as I help Ryan to his feet. We hold onto each other as we jump up and down, spinning and celebrating.

  I scoop up my letter from the sidewalk, staring at that one word: “Congratulations!” And, folded into the letter, is a plane ticket to California scheduled for next week.

  Over the next few days, I barely sleep. I spend as much time as possible practicing my guitar. I sing in the shower, pretending my shampoo bottle is a microphone. In my head, all I can hear are the excited crowds. All I can see are the spotlights. Our parents are also excited, but they can’t afford to take a sudden vacation and come with us to California. It’ll just be me and Ryan, which only excites me more. It feels like going on tour.

  Then, finally, the day arrives. Ryan and I fly out to California. As soon as we land and grab our bags from the conveyer belt, a young woman comes bounding up to us. Her hair is so blond it is almost white, and she wears a wireless ear piece on her right ear.

  “Eve Hardt! Ryan Okri!” she exclaims. She takes my hand and shakes it vigorously. Then Ryan’s. “Hello, hello, hello! I’m Blair Casanova. I’m one of the production assistants of The Right Note. I’m here to pick you up and take you on a tour of the studio. Do you have all your things? Are you ready to go? I am so excited to finally meet you. I loved your audition. The way the two of you play off each other is exactly the kind of thing we’re looking for. You are such characters!”

  She speaks rapid-fire fast. Before Ryan and I can respond, she marches us out the doors of the airport.

  “You two are going to love the studio. It has everything you could ever need: lights, camera, and action. And, of course, any instrument you can name. If we don’t have it, we’ll get it.”

  Ryan looks at me. “Whoa.”

  “Whoa is right. Trust me—after this, you two are never going to look at music the same way again.” Blair bounces in her high heels as she walks. Her excitement is contagious. Ryan starts bouncing too. I can’t help but laugh at the two of them as they bounce in sync.

  We ride with Blair down the palm-tree-lined streets in a shiny black SUV that still smells brand new. The whole way, she chatters on and on, dumping a load of information on us. Overwhelmed, I tune her out. Beside me, Ryan leans in to Blair’s every word, his face alight with curiosity and enthusiasm. They’re practically friends already.

  We arrive at the studio after an hour in the car. As soon as we get out of the SUV, a young man takes our bags and instruments off to the residence hall where all the contestants will stay. After he disappears, Blair takes us to the building where they film the performances. I’ve seen this building on TV a million times. It looks like a huge glass brick, the outside completely covered in windows. At night, it sparkles like a rainbow disco ball, with big lights shining out of all the windows.

  Blair marches us down the halls of the studio. She shows us the dressing rooms, which are packed with designer clothes, makeup, and mirrors. Then the rehearsal rooms, where the vocal trainers will help us practice for each competition. Then the room where the film editors work, which is filled with TV screens and a table covered in buttons a lot like Ryan’s sampler.

  Finally, Blair leads me and Ryan through a pair of double doors, and suddenly we’re inside the performance hall. It looks so much bigger and brighter in person. It’s more like a cave than a theater, with a curved ceiling and lights hanging down. The floor slopes down from us to the stage. Huge curtains with gold tassels drape over the walls. Lights of every color flicker on and off randomly. The show’s logo, a huge rainbow encircling the words “The Right Note” glows on the back wall. In the middle of the stage stands a man with his hands on his hips.

  My jaw drops.

  It’s Tix. Ten years ago, Tix was one of the most popular musicians in America. Now he hosts The Right Note. On TV, he smiles wide, wears glittering suits, and puts an arm around each of the contestants as he introduces them. In a few days, his arm will be around me, and he’ll be yelling my name to the cheering crowds. I begin to sweat a little even though the air conditioning is on full blast. My heart thuds. This is really happening.

  Suddenly, a huge spotlight shines on Tix, lighting up his bald head. He throws his hands up to shield his eyes. “Hey! I said to turn on stage left, not center stage,” he shouts angrily. “I always enter from stage left. Stage left, pause, I say my lines, you follow me to the center—”

  The light shuts off. “Sorry, Mr. Tix,” says the stagehand in charge of the spotlights, a pimply boy not much older than me and Ryan.

  “For the millionth time, it’s just Tix!” Tix rubs his temples. To himself, he grumbles, “No one ever listens to me.”

  “Tix!” Blair cries. She pulls me and Ryan down the sloped floor to the stage. “I’m so glad you’re here. I want to introduce you to two more contestants: Eve Hardt and—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ll get their names when you give me the updated script, Blair.” Tix waves a hand at her. His eyes pass over me and Ryan like we aren’t even here. “Why aren’t you working on that, by the way?”

  Blair looks startled. For the first time, her huge smile disappears. “Well, I had to pick up these two from the airport, and I wanted to show them around—”

  “Hold on a second,” he cuts her off, then glares at the nearest stagehand. “Can someone please hurry up with my coconut water?” The girl yelps and disappears behind the curtains. Tix turns back to us. His gray eyes finally meet mine, and I realize how old he looks. He scowls at us. No amount of coconut water can fix the meanness in his face. “And you, Blair. No more excuses. Get back to work.”

  Blair deflates. She nudges me to let me know it’s time to go. But then Ryan blurts out, “Dude, what is your problem?”

  Typical Ryan, not knowing when to stay quiet. A vein appears on Tix’s forehead. I wince, waiting for him to yell in our direction next. But instead he asks, “What’s your name, kid?”

/>   “Ryan Okri.”

  “Let me give you some advice, Ryan Okri. The music industry isn’t about being nice. It’s about fighting for what you want.” Tix gestures dramatically around him. “This whole thing, this whole show, is a fight. Don’t be afraid to push everyone else to the sidelines, and don’t stop to feel bad about it. In show business, you’re the only person who matters.” He jabbed a finger at Ryan. “Got it?”

  Ryan furrows his brow. “Okay . . .”

  Someone calls to Tix from offstage, and he hurries away from us as if he’s already forgotten we’re here. Blair escorts us from the performance hall. As soon as we leave, she goes back to normal, like the conversation with Tix never happened. But I feel a new weight hanging on my heart. Ryan trudges along beside me. One of our favorite musicians has turned out to be a washed-up jerk. I guess not everything is as seen on TV.

  Chapter

  3

  Suddenly it’s the first day of filming. I barely get out of bed before Ryan barges in and yells that we have to hurry down to the studio. He reaches into my closet and throws a shirt at me.

  The studio is even more of a whirlwind of activity than yesterday. Camera crews and stagehands rush around carrying equipment, paperwork, and coconut waters. Out of the fray comes Blair in her high heels and perfectly sleek hair. “You two are late!” she scolds. “Come on.”

  She drags us into the dressing room and starts throwing clothes at us, just like Ryan did to me only minutes ago. “Eve—put this on. We need to make sure the logo is showing while you’re on camera. Ryan—try this.” She fluffs and tugs and pats us down until she’s decided we look presentable enough. Instead of my usual comfy sweatshirt, I’m wearing a stiff faux leather jacket. Ryan’s new outfit consists of a bright red blazer and matching tie. With his blue hair, he looks like a parrot.

  “What was wrong with our own clothes?” I whisper to Ryan.