“Frreakerr!”
The other two laughed. Another chuckle from somewhere in front of them.
“Shut up!” Graham shouted over his shoulder.
The boy half turned, still walking, and grinned.
Then a response call, one hyena to another across the savanna:
“Frreak boyy!”
Girls side-eyeing.
Trio of dudes looming.
Graham hunched over, a balloon deflating inside his chest. “Just ignore them,” he muttered, head down, quickening his pace. At the same time, he made a coughing motion and shouted into his elbow: “Mateo’s a bitch!”
“What did you say?” the floppy-haired boy called from behind. Eli saw him surge against the crowd in their direction. “Say it to my face!”
Graham kept walking.
“Say it to my face, Freaker!”
Murmurs and snickers all around them.
Eli gripped his backpack straps. He wanted to disappear, unmake this moment. He pictured exploding. Making the entire hallway silent and still.
They are all sheep.
But what was he? Stupid, scared, confused…
And then they were through it. A quieter stretch of hallway.
“Fucking assholes,” Graham spat at the floor.
Eli blinked. Told himself to relax. “Who were they?”
“Now you know Mateo and his new dickbag swim team friends. Mateo used to be on Tech Squad too, but he caught the jock disease.”
Graham tapped his shirt. “God forbid you don’t listen to their corporate mall rock.”
“They don’t like Sideshow Fantasy?”
“Mateo used to. Now it’s like his brain had devolved.” Graham was quiet until they were in the lunch line. “Freaks are all about being unique, not conforming,” he said. “That’s one thing you have to get used to in this place: all the assholes who try to act cool but are really just insecure.”
Yeah. Eli half listened. He was trying to choose between the chicken sandwich and the mac and cheese.
“That’s why they band together in cliques. They really fear the brilliant ones like us, who are brave enough to be alone.”
A lone wolf.
Eli pointed to the chicken sandwich. “And some fruit, please,” he said to the lunch lady. It was getting a little easier.
They sat together at what was maybe now their table. Graham started digging into his mac and cheese. Eli looked at his food: the sandwich, the fruit, the container of vanilla yogurt. He’d left his backpack on the floor, because nobody brought their backpack to lunch. Nobody else eats out of a bowl either.
Graham motioned to his hair. “This streak is one of the ways that Freaks identify each other. Sideshow gets a bad rap for fans having violent mosh pits at shows, and lighting off fireworks and stuff, but that’s all bullshit. People blame them for inspiring assaults and robberies too, but it’s only a few fans. Besides, it’s our society that’s corrupt. Their music encourages us to see things clearly, not to just lie down and take it.”
Eli mixed up his yogurt and took a bite.
“Those of us who are smart enough to see it can’t be expected to just go along like sheep.”
Eli winced. Behind his eyelids, the red dark.
“You all right?” Graham was looking at him with concern.
Focus! I am not in that room. I am sitting here having lunch with my friend, just like everyone else.
“It’s gotta be weird,” said Graham. “All of this.”
Eli nodded.
“I’m really glad you came to the auditorium. It must have sucked having no one to talk to.”
Yeah. Eli looked around. “I have to be careful….”
“Oh, totally. Top secret.” Graham glanced at the other tables. “Hidden in plain sight.” He smiled. “You know, I bet if we ask Mr. McNaulty, he can get you on Tech Squad. I mean, if you want.”
“That would be cool,” said Eli, and felt like he meant it.
September 19
There he was again.
She’d given it almost a week since her last attempt. Just to be sure that nobody saw a pattern. But she had observed from a distance that he got picked up from that same spot every afternoon, and so this time, she’d left nothing to chance. Bolted from bio, straight through the side doors, right to Eli’s bench. Sat down, out of breath, legs tingling, got out her math homework. It would look like pure coincidence.
And now here he came, out the main doors—
With some other kid. A gaunt, straggly-haired boy in an oversized black T-shirt even though it was fifty and raw outside. The boy’s hands moving up and down as he described something, Eli nodding. They reached the bottom of the steps and turned in the other direction. Crossed the drop-off area and disappeared through the doors by the gym.
Maya’s head jerked as hair tore free.
She sat there for another moment, then dragged herself up and headed for the band room.
* * *
***
A snare drum was still a snare drum.
Out of tune, yes. Maya held the drum in her lap and flicked off the snares. Bent her head sideways, like a mechanic or a Jedi, and started tapping near each of the twelve lugs whose tug-of-war kept the drumhead taut. Twelve more on the bottom, but since you didn’t hit that side they rarely needed to be checked. When lugs got out of tune with one another, the clean gunshot crack of the snare would be warped by strange rings and overtones. Sometimes it was tough to tell which one was the culprit, but she had this. Finally, a master of something nondestructive.
Also proving herself. First rehearsal with the jazz band. Ms. Reid had greeted her with a smile and pointed her toward the stack of black drum cases in the corner. Get it set up. Like she was just another kid. Hadn’t even taken Serenitab today because it dulled her edges and she wanted them all sharp for this.
Now Maya sat behind the kit: brown hoodie, black hat, jeans, and her lavender lace-up boots. She hadn’t had her own drums set up since they’d moved, no room in either apartment….Could she still even play? She’d been going to her regular concert band class since the start of school, but that was just basic parts on a snare drum, single cymbal crashes, keeping time on a wood block. The drum set was the real deal.
Any mistake would be a comment on what she’d been through, a doubt about whether she could handle this—
Come on! She placed the snare in its stand and gave it a thwack. Better, but still with a sprong like a sci-fi laser sound effect.
“I always have a hard time with tuning,” Trevor said, standing beside her. He was the other drummer: a sophomore.
“It’s not too bad,” Maya lied. Rookies.
She tweaked a few more lugs. That should do it. Held the silver drum key between her teeth and fired off a quick double-stroke roll with the sticks that had been in the snare case.
Fffthththththththththap!
Better. “Got any Moongel?” she asked around the drum key. Also, how delicious was this chrome between her teeth? Stop it!
“I don’t think so.” Trevor rummaged through the large black equipment box behind them.
Maya tapped around the perimeter again. “What about gaffer’s tape?”
“On it.” Trevor darted off.
Maya yanked the bass drum pedal from the box. Attached it.
Thud thump. Bu-bum-bamp.
A bass drum was still a bass drum.
The band room had three raised levels, curving in a semicircle like wide steps. You entered in the floor area, where the piano and xylophones were located. The light blue carpet had more stains, pulls, and burns than actual clean patches at this point. The back wall was sectioned into instrument cubbies of various shapes, cases and marching gear spilling from them, and the ceiling and side walls were covered in perforated noise-redu
ction panels. Maya had set up the kit on the second-highest level, beside the line of trombone players. Jory, the bass guitar player, stood on the top level, next to the trumpets. Clarinets and saxophones sat on the first level. Everyone tuning and oiling and warming up, a junkyard of notes.
Maya unzipped her stick bag and selected her best pair, the least chipped and gouged; she wished she’d thought to get new ones before today, but whatever. She held them over the kit. The absolute silence before a beat. Months since she last felt this—
Her phone buzzed in her bag. Probably Janice. She’d messaged last night about meeting after school, how she had something special planned. When Maya had reminded her that it was the start of jazz band, she’d gotten grumpy. More like pissed.
She should probably check the text.
But her sticks were hovering, the air thick with potential energy.
The sound of no sound.
The mall blows up—
No, dammit! She slammed the crash cymbal and laid down a furious beat; every snare hit a rim shot, every eighth note on the hi-hat hit with the side of the stick. Galloping bass drum. “Immigrant Song” by Led Zeppelin. A beat that organized the universe, constructed marble columns, aqueducts, coliseums, skyscrapers, all on the latticework of quarter, eighth, sixteenth, bar by repeating bar. A beat so undeniable, like you literally controlled all of space and time.
Jory started playing along. He bent over into Maya’s field of view, his blond hair falling in his face, and wailed like Robert Plant did at the top of the tune.
Maya smiled but only for a second. The surface world was a nuisance. Just wanted the movement, the now, the certainty, the safety of the beat, all muscles in concert, all manias in line, all systems shutting the fuck up and doing what they were told.
A couple kids were giving her the side-eye, she noticed, trumpet players mostly. They probably couldn’t tune while the new girl was over here building the mighty towers of Dubai, but whatever. She’d started to sweat and she felt like pure energy and how had she lost this? What else could she possibly need?
“—only had duct tape!” Trevor waved the roll of gray tape in front of her.
She ran a syncopated fill down the toms, and crashed to a stop. Breathing hard; the silence immediately after. Satisfied, but also sad: the beat already a memory, a flock of birds taking flight from a wide field, spreading out into the sky, becoming specks, pointillist dots, losing one another.
Trevor was grinning at her. “That’s a sick beat,” he said. Maybe sort of in love.
Maya managed to smile. “Thanks.” She was surprised to feel her cheeks flush.
“Glad to have you on board,” said Jory.
“All right, if everyone’s ready.” Ms. Reid had stepped to the music stand at the center of the floor area. She wore a navy-blue suit jacket and pants with a striking yellow shirt that matched the yellow in the rims of her thick-frame glasses. She had short white curly hair and a simmering smile.
Everybody had an energy they invited, Maya thought. Like how her mom invited sympathy. Or how her dad invited you to pity him, but then love him, or, if you were a twenty-five-year-old serving him coffee or ringing up his groceries, hopefully want to fuck him. Maya thought of herself as more of a repelling surface, deflecting energy. She was emotional Gore-Tex? But not while drumming. She had to admit that.
Ms. Reid, on the other hand, invited optimism, excellence. You knew it immediately. When they’d met, she told Maya that she’d been a backup singer in the seventies and sang with someone famous. Tina Turner? Years on tour. Said the band had gotten so tight that they just knew what should happen next. And yet the execution still felt surprising.
She surveyed the group now, checking in with each section. Nodded at Maya, and Maya nodded back with a nervous smile. The first yes she’d revealed to the universe since…she couldn’t remember.
“I hope everyone gets a chance to meet our new turncoat from Garfield, Maya Abrams.” Heads turned her way. Maya gripped the sticks and felt a surge inside, but this was the good version. People seeing her for what she could be.
Ms. Reid arranged the music charts on her stand and started snapping her fingers, her arm swinging. She hummed to herself and said, “Bessie’s Bounce.”
Papers rustled. Trevor flipped to the right chart and folded it open. Maya peered at it while pushing in her earplugs. Basic timekeeping and color, some important hits here and there. The kind of chart that required you to count with fierce concentration while simultaneously letting go enough to feel the music and react spontaneously. A high-wire act. Bring it.
“One, a-two…” Ms. Reid counted them in.
All at once there was sound. Around and through and from her. This wasn’t as primal as stomping “Immigrant Song,” but still. Her right hand pinged along on the ride cymbal, striding bar by bar through the form. Her left hand responding to the horns on the snare, little ghost notes, big cracks, like thinking out loud, like urging a horse to keep it at a gallop, sometimes with a kick of the heels, a slap with the reins. Her foot sensing Jory’s rhythm and accenting it on the bass drum. All the while her lips moving as she whisper-counted, a slight murmur she could hear behind her earplugs.
They built to the first chorus. Crescendo, big hits—Maya tagged them, and Ms. Reid grinned—then back down to a simmer.
Halfway through the next verse, nailing it, when something caught Maya’s eye—
Janice, peeking through the double doors on the far side of the band room. She was dressed in a costume, smiling big and waving something shiny.
One of the brassholes noticed her and scowled at Maya, like it was his job to disapprove of everything.
Maya gave Janice a quick nod and focused on the chart. Janice motioned more emphatically. Was she waving a key? She made a glancing-over-her-shoulder motion. Bigger smile. Wink.
Maya smiled but also shook her head, hoping it seemed kind and yet thinking: Get out of here! Back to the music. Which measure were they on—
The horns stabbed a sequence of eighth notes.
Damn!
The briefest glance from Ms. Reid, arms still conducting: You missed that. Did it also say, Are you not the girl we can trust with our melodies?
It probably didn’t. But still.
I am that girl! I can be! I—
Another series of hits. Maya barely caught them.
Fuck!
Trevor leaned toward the music stand and pointed to what measure they were on.
Maya nodded thanks, then checked the door. Janice had ducked back out, but the spell was broken. Everything suddenly felt stormy and hot. For thirty-two bars she’d been feeling so herself.
What did Janice want? At least she didn’t look mad anymore. But couldn’t Maya have a break to do this really important thing?
“Okay, let’s stop there and just loop the eight bars starting at measure forty,” said Ms. Reid. Another glance at Maya, like this stop was for her.
Maya glued her eyes to the chart and gritted her teeth. They looped it. She nailed it. Okay. She was still here.
They worked through three more charts over the rest of practice. Trevor played on two of the songs and did adorable things like look at her after he did what he probably hoped was a cool fill. Maya’s eyes kept wandering to the door, but Janice didn’t reappear. Her phone buzzed at least twice that she could hear, but she didn’t check it.
“What did you think of using the kick drum for the accents on ‘In a Mello Tone’?” Trevor asked later as they were packing up the drums.
“That was pretty good,” Maya answered.
“Pretty good, but…”
“Oh no, it’s just, to me, those should be brighter and ballsier since it’s the biggest moment in the song.”
“Yeah, good point,” said Trevor. “You, um, you sounded awesome today.”
“Thanks.” Awesome. That was nice to hear. And being asked for advice and opinions? Also pretty great.
“Good work, Maya,” said Ms. Reid as Maya stepped down to the floor. “If that was how you sound rusty, then I can’t wait to hear you in your best shape.”
“Thanks.” Maya felt a little quiver and smiled. Her best shape…“Thanks again for letting me join.”
“It’s a pleasure to have you.”
Maya thought she might just burst into tears right there.
“What are you up to now?” Trevor asked. He’d started, along with nearly everyone else, toward the door on the right side of the room that led to the main hallway.
“Oh, I have to go,” said Maya, motioning to the left-side doors. As she said it, that quiver inside curdled.
“Okay. A bunch of us are going over to El Camión. It’s kind of a regular thing, but, um…”
“Can I come next time?” Maya managed to smile. “Unless the offer’s only for today.”
“Oh no, I mean, yeah.” Trevor grinned. “Anytime.”
Maya fought an urge to chase after him. It sounded fun! But she sighed to herself and headed through the opposite door, into the hallway that ran behind the auditorium. Here were the double doors leading backstage, as well as doors into dressing rooms, storage closets, and practice spaces. As she stuffed her stick bag into her backpack, she hummed “Bessie’s Bounce,” trying to sustain that feeling and yet faking it. Her heart speeding up, her mouth getting dry.
“Hey!” Janice hissed from down a short dead-end hall. She was leaning through a doorway beyond the bathrooms.
Maya froze. “What’s up?”
Janice rolled her eyes but smiled wickedly. “Where do you think you’re going?” Her costume was really low-cut, the gold lacing in front mostly undone.
Maya stood there. Felt a tug inside. Janice definitely looked hot….“I was just gonna go catch the bus.”
“There are lots of buses. Right now it’s time for a treat.”
Pulse pounding. Tingling in her fingers. “I have a ton of homework—”
Janice huffed. “Come on, already!” She ran a finger over the front of her dress and spoke in a Southern belle voice. “You don’t want me to catch my death in this.”
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