“I’m Mo Banerjee,” I say, trying to stop my teeth from chattering. “Do you have the sign-in sheet? I’m scheduled to volunteer this morning.”
But she doesn’t reach for the binder. Instead, she looks me over, one eyebrow raised.
“I don’t think so,” she drawls after a moment. “I think you better take a seat in the waiting area. Don’t take this the wrong way, honey, but you look like death warmed over.”
STELLA:
Last of the Fallen Heroes
There sat your Sista Stella, alone at the kitchen table only vaguely aware of the sounds of the step-monkeys watching their Saturday morning cartoons at the other end of the house. Staring listlessly at her dreary breakfast of a bran muffin and kiwi juice, she fought off a sudden desire to yank open the fridge, fry up the entire package of Canadian bacon she knew was in there, and then shove every juicy, meaty morsel of it into her mouth.
But fortunately, I got hold of myself.
It was just a brief moment of weakness. Still, who could blame me for feeling defeated? What was it with me? Why did everything I ever do go somehow awry?
But then I remembered the letter from the guidance counselor. It lay open on the nearby counter. After a long string of dismal grades, the school wanted to evaluate me to find out if I had a learning disability. But I didn’t care to take any more stupidity tests. There was no point. I already knew what the problem was.
Eighty-four.
And that brought me back to the grim memory of the previous evening. It’s over, I thought. The final day of the revolution.
“Don’t take it so hard, Stella. It’s only a band, not the end of the universe.”
I looked up. I hadn’t even noticed my mother coming into the kitchen but now suddenly there she was setting her newspaper and coffee cup on the table and pulling up a chair. Like me, she liked to sleep in on the weekends. Had I spoken my thoughts aloud? From the way she was wrinkling her forehead at me, I decided I must have.
“Really, I’m worried about you,” she continued, her eyebrows pulling together. “Don’t you think you’ve been taking this Lemonade Mouth thing a little too seriously? I’m concerned. You’re obsessing about it. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing if you and your friends set it aside for a while.”
I glared at her. Of all people, how did my mother get off accusing me of obsessing?
The bathrobed scientist sat back and eyed me for a few moments. “Listen, I have an idea. Leonard wants to take everybody ice fishing this morning on Otis Cove. Doesn’t that sound like fun? You should come with us.”
“Ice fishing? You’re kidding, right?” I had a hard time picturing my mother, the former sun queen of the southwest, spending hours in the freezing cold over a hole in the ice. My mom: Nanook of the North.
“Sure, why not?” she said, ignoring my look. “Clea’s coming too. Why don’t you join us? Try something new?”
“I can’t, Mom. I have other plans today. In case you forgot.” Not that I had any delusions about Catch A RI-Zing Star. I knew we’d be competing with the best of the best and that we’d probably get dropped in the early rounds. Still, my mother didn’t have to act like it didn’t matter.
I made sure to give her a hurt look but the woman hardly seemed to notice. “But didn’t you tell me you don’t have to be at the Civic Center until two o’clock? We can head out this morning and still be back in plenty of time.”
And that was when she moved her arm to pick up her coffee, which is how the newspaper finally caught my eye. It was the Opequonsett Gazette, the weekly town rag that came out every Saturday. From where I sat it was upside down, but even so I noticed a small headline toward the bottom of the page. It said: NEW VENDING MACHINES SET FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL.
I pounced across the table. “No! I can’t believe it!”
“What’s the matter?” my mom asked, pulling her coffee back in surprise.
I spun the paper around and scanned the story. It was short, only a couple of paragraphs. “Those creeps! How can they do this again? How can they just ignore us?”
“Ignore who? What is it?”
I kept reading until I’d finished the last sentence. “The twentieth?” I looked up. “That’s today!”
“What is? Tell me what’s going on.”
I flipped the paper around again and slid it back across the table, jabbing my finger at the bottom of the page. “Take a look! They’re pulling the same scam at the middle school now. Without any involvement from the students, somebody made a deal with the soda company just so they can put a stupid fountain in the school courtyard. Now they’re going ahead and swapping out the lemonade machine. And they’re doing it this very morning!”
For a few quiet moments she read it to herself. Then she looked up. “Stella, you’re going overboard again. This is not a big deal.”
“Not a big deal?” Wasn’t she even a little offended about what was happening? But I was mad enough at the school board already and didn’t want another fight with my mother just then, so I tried to stay as calm as I could. “Don’t you see? They’re exploiting kids. They even know that we know it. That’s why they’re sneaking the big corporate soda dispensers in on the weekend when they think nobody’s paying attention. They must’ve kept it quiet, hoping to avoid a protest. But it won’t work,” I said, standing up. “I’m going to stop them.”
“What? Where do you think you’re going? And what exactly do you plan to do? March over to the middle school and chain yourself to the doors?”
“I don’t know yet,” I admitted. “Do you think that would work . . . ?”
She gaped at me like I was about to sprout a new nose. “No! And I advise you to clear any foolish ideas like that out of your head right now. Knowing you, you’ll probably get yourself arrested or something. I think you’ve already made quite enough trouble for yourself lately, don’t you? I just don’t understand it. Why must you insist on pushing this lemonade issue?”
“It’s oppression, Mom. It’s about having choices and getting respect. How can I stand back and do nothing?”
For a moment she just stared. “Stella,” she said finally, “it’s okay to want to do the right thing, but you need to think things through first, make sure your goals are achievable.” I couldn’t stop the prickly annoyed feeling growing inside me. She was using her patented Voice of Wisdom again. “And even that doesn’t guarantee anything. Wanting to change the world doesn’t make it happen. Believe me, I should know.”
I was about to argue back, but something in my mother’s voice stopped me. “Why, Mom? What do you mean?”
She sighed. “I’m thinking about handing in my resignation from the lab.”
I could hardly believe my ears. “You’re kidding. Why would you do that?”
“The project is still having problems. Remember how I told you about the investor that was thinking about backing out? Well, he did. And now some of the others are threatening to do the same. I’m in charge, so they see our failures as my fault. They’re right, too.”
“So . . . you’re just going to give up?”
“If I don’t resign, they’re probably going to fire me pretty soon anyway.” She shrugged. “Maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe we can move back to Arizona. I know you’ve wanted that for a long time.”
I felt like all the air had been let out of my lungs. My mom was right, of course—this was what I’d wanted since we moved here. But now that it might actually happen, I wasn’t happy at all. “But . . . how could you?” I said, amazed to hear myself arguing about this. “You really wanted this job. You were going to save the planet. And you always used to tell me never to quit, no matter what.”
My mother was quiet for a few seconds. “Look,” she said eventually, “I guess I’m finally realizing that one person can only do so much. Eventually I have to stand back and admit that I’m killing myself over a battle I can’t win.” She leaned forward significantly. “And you should too.”
For a few seconds I couldn’t
even speak. This was the lady who once spent two nights in the branches of an ancient sycamore to prevent a construction crew from chopping it down.
My mother. My hero.
Only now she was breaking my heart.
“So . . . even though you know I believe this lemonade machine issue is about right and wrong, you’re saying I should just drop it and go ice fishing?”
Her expression hardened. “There’s no need to get sarcastic, Stella! I’m only saying that it doesn’t make sense to keep fighting a lost cause!”
I could have swelled up and popped. I’d put up with a lot from my mother over the last few months, and believe it or not I’d kept my mouth shut plenty. But this took the proverbial cake. It was simply way too much to bear.
“I can’t believe you, Mom! Who was it that always told me to stand up for what I think is right? That the people who make a difference are the ones with the courage to keep fighting even against the odds? Who used to keep me out of school just so I could go with her to protest rallies at wetland development sites? Well, you’re not the only one who wants to change the world. In case you didn’t notice, that’s exactly what I’m trying to do too!”
“But you’re being unrealistic! Don’t you get it? Stop acting so stubborn! For once in your life, Stella, use your head!”
“Yeah? Well, maybe I’m not using my head. But even though I’m not brilliant like you, at least I’m trying to do something and not giving up! Unlike some people I know who throw in the towel just because of a setback! I’d rather be a dummy with a heart than a genius without a backbone!”
As soon as I’d said that, I felt terrible. What had come over me? But I couldn’t bring myself to take it back.
My mother’s face went pale.
And that’s when I finally noticed my sister standing in the doorway. She was wearing her bathrobe, a towel wrapped around her head. I didn’t even know Clea was home. “Nice going, Stella,” she said, glaring at me. “What’s your problem?”
I just stood there, unable to look my mother in the face. For a moment neither of us spoke. Finally I ducked my head, pushed past Clea and shot up the stairs. I slammed my bedroom door and started fishing through a pile of clothes like a madwoman. I threw on long underwear, jeans and a sweater. It was snowing pretty hard outside the window and I knew I’d need warm clothes if I was going to wait outside the middle school. I yanked on my comfortable boots and stormed back out of my room. My mom’s cell phone was on the antique desk in the upstairs landing. I grabbed it.
I shot down the stairs and slipped out the side door. I didn’t want to run into my mother again. And I knew better than to ask for a ride.
CHAPTER 8
I put my heart and my soul into my work and have lost my mind in the process. lost my mind in the process.
–Vincent van Gogh
CHARLIE:
The Curse of Ray Beech #1.
Thrashing into Oblivion
A drop of sweat trickled down my forehead to the bridge of my nose my hands slapped the congas again and again. I heard myself let out a grunt. My palms were already raw but I didn’t stop I kept moving smacking the drums faster and faster every first and third downbeat hammering the timpani or one of the larger tom-toms.
BOOM shaka BOOM shaka BOOM BOOM BOOM!
After that horrendous conversation with Mo I’d trudged back home only to find the house empty. Shivering from the cold I grabbed the box of chai I’d bought at Mo’s store all those months before. Last bag. I slammed the kettle onto the stove and charged down to the basement I needed to pound this feeling out to work the humiliation and frustration through my arms. The drums would absorb it all and transform it into a logical pattern. Order out of Chaos. That’s the beauty of percussion. It’s therapy.
Brother you are beyond hope. You are absolutely the biggest loser the world has ever known.
I closed my eyes and tried to block him out I felt the blood rush into my head my arms knew where to land and I let them wander wherever they chose and this time they chose the timbales and I shook the hair out of my face and another bead of sweat flew through the air.
WHAM a-bam-ba WHAM a-bam-ba WHAM WHAM WHAM!
What had come over me? What moronic impulse led me to the clinic this morning? Why did I have to go and ruin everything?
But I knew what it was.
Don’t blame ME for this, Stammer Boy. If you’d done it my way and played it cool and casual everything would have turned out just fine I wasn’t the one who stood there tongue-tied making a complete ass out of himself.
I gritted my teeth and concentrated on the rhythm that swelled and swirled around me like a hurricane that blocked out everything else and filled my ears and heated the cold basement with a power that didn’t come from me but from someplace far away it centered my thoughts and tuned out everything but the sound.
BAM diddy-bop BAM BAM diddy-bop BAM BOOM chugga-chugga BAM BOOM!
Somewhere in the distance I thought I could hear a long steady note like a high-pitched whistle but it was only a secondary vibration from the cymbals and chimes a new thread in the fabric of sound it sent a fresh rush of Adrenaline and I kept pounding.
Balance. Every drummer knows how important it is. Like when you adjust a drumhead you need to crank the key just enough to keep it in tune or every time your stick lands only exactly the right amount of tension and relaxation in your wrist will produce the perfect tone and that’s what I was counting on right now because if I came up with a rhythm complicated enough and if I could keep it growing and evolving without letting it get out of control it would block out everything else.
WHACK rata rata WHACK CRASH rata rata WHACK BOOM WHACK CRASH WHACK BOOM!
It was a relief not to think. I let myself disappear into the noise until I almost forgot who I was. Sweat whipped off my face but I kept going and going and burning and burning my hands stinging even worse than before. I was concentrating on the crash bang thud slam smash smash smash! It wasn’t only in my ears it was all around I could feel it in my chest my blood my bones. It was everywhere.
My own personal cosmic connection to oblivion.
After a few minutes I pulled back a little and my hands hammered with a little less fury. That’s when I noticed that whistle again. Only now it was different. Less urgent. Like a toy train running out of steam. Even as my palms continued to pummel the drums I guess a part of my brain was starting to come out of its trance and it gradually dawned on me that the sound wasn’t just in my imagination after all. I wondered vaguely what it was.
And then all at once I remembered.
My hands stopped in midair.
In a panic I flew up the stairs. Idiot! I’d left the kettle on the stove so long that it probably boiled dry! I imagined it so hot that it melted to the coils or exploded all over the kitchen. What if I was burning the house down?
I charged through the doorway and toward the oven. Over the spout only a ghostly thin column of steam evaporated into the air. Without thinking it through I grabbed the kettle by the handle and pulled it off the stove but unfortunately ours was one of those kettles made entirely of metal and I didn’t think to use the oven mitt. Pain shot up my arm. It felt like it took forever for my hand to let go but then the kettle crashed to the floor and the lid fell off and the tiny amount of water still left inside spilled onto my shoes.
I stared at the scalded fingers on my right hand. They still burned. I couldn’t help screaming.
OLIVIA:
The Curse of Ray Beech #2.
Wailing at the Wind
Dear Ted,
I don’t know what to do.
I’m so furious I can’t even speak.
Brenda said it might help me calm down if I sat and wrote it all out, everything that happened. So here it is:
This morning I woke up already feeling like crap. Bruno’s last night was an absolute catastrophe, and I had a feeling that today, Catch A RI-Zing Star day, keeping calm until the afternoon would be a struggle. And
then around quarter to ten Wen phoned. Mo had called and told him she had a fever of a hundred and two. Charlie phoned him too, from the medical clinic. He’d hurt his hand somehow. Second degree burns. Neither of them could play the show.
“So that’s it. A complete disaster,” Wen said. “I guess we have to call the WRIZ people and let them know we’re backing out. There goes any chance of a record deal.”
I couldn’t believe it. I felt terrible for Charlie and Mo, but at the same time a part of me felt a weight lifting at the thought of not having to play to such a giant crowd after all.
But I’d never heard Wen sound so miserable.
“Wait,” I said. “Don’t call just yet. Maybe we can think of a way through this.”
But that’s when I heard Norman, Wen’s dad, in the background. Wen must have covered the receiver because for a few seconds all I heard were muffled voices. When he came back, Wen spoke in a whisper. “Listen, I can’t talk right now. I gotta get out of here. Meet me at Paperback Joe’s in about twenty minutes?”
Remember Paperback Joe’s, that bookstore café place? Well, Wen and I met there a couple of times when we were planning out new songs. It’s walking distance and more or less halfway between both our houses. I got there first but I ended up waiting for about twenty minutes before Wen showed up. When he finally did, he looked as pale as the snow that was already falling hard outside.
“Don’t worry, we’ll figure something out,” I said. To tell the truth, I wasn’t convinced about it myself but I hated to see him so upset.
But it turned out that Catch A RI-Zing Star wasn’t the only problem on his mind anymore.
“No, it’s not that,” he said gloomily.
“It’s not? What is it then?”
He sank into the seat opposite mine. “My dad.”
And so he told me the whole story. Over the past few weeks, Wen’s father and Sydney have been trying to include him in the wedding preparations, but he doesn’t want any part of it. He’s been finding excuses to stay out of the house. He told me his dad has been pushing especially hard in the last couple of days, though, making obvious attempts to have another man-to-man talk, something Wen’s been trying to avoid at all costs. This morning as Wen headed out to meet me at the café, his dad trapped him. He asked for help moving some of Sydney’s furniture up to the attic. It would only take a minute, he said. And while they worked they could talk. Wen tried to duck out of it. He told him sorry but he had to run because I was waiting at Paperback Joe’s. But his dad insisted.
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