Rules to Rock By

by Josh Farrar

  Who knows if I’ll ever write songs as great as Lennon and McCartney’s, or be able to compose bass lines as sweet as Satomi Matsuzaki’s. I know how to form a band. I know how to lead a band. And my band is my work of art.

  Will this band ever take over the world, change people’s lives, and land me and my friends on magazine covers and TV shows, giving interviews that are translated into dozens of different languages? I’ve got no idea. But I do know that I’ve found the one thing in my life that I will never stop doing, no matter what. My family could disintegrate, I could find myself halfway around the world in a new city, I could lose all my friends. But wherever I land, I’ll find my band.

  Despite the fact that The Bungles didn’t win the battle—apparently, the fact that we had all the kids join us onstage disqualified us—it was an absolutely perfect night, maybe even better than when I played to twenty times as many people in Central Park. I didn’t stop smiling for three days afterward, and it took me a while to count all the reasons why. What I finally realized was that the battle was the new greatest night of my life because I had had to work so hard to make it happen. I will always treasure my Egg Mountain days, of course—EM is great, Ronaldo is one of my best friends, and the Mountain gave me my first experience of being in a band. But it was pure luck stepping into those shoes. With The Bungles, on the other hand, I had to fight and sweat the whole way for absolutely everything we achieved (and we haven’t really achieved anything yet!). As Shaky Jake would say, I had to “make my own luck,” and I think that’s why it felt so good.

  Here’s something else that felt good: the demise of Jackson Royer. It turns out the daughter of Federal Hill’s vice principal is in Mad Unicorn, so she was at the battle and saw the whole thing go down. It wasn’t hard for her to put two and two together and identify Jackson as the head of the lunch money crime ring. When we got back to school the Monday after the battle, Jackson was nowhere to be found. The rumor mill said he’d been kicked out of school for good, but a week later he was back, having served a one-week suspension.

  I could see right away that Jackson wasn’t the same guy. Now he walks all hunched over and won’t look anybody in the eye. Even his hair has changed; instead of the gooped-up slickie that was his trademark, his hair is flat and unwashed, his bangs hanging in front of his eyes. The proud rooster from just days earlier has been replaced by a sad, whipped dog. He would never bother any of the littlest kids at Federal Hill again, or hassle Jonny or Darren, either. He just sticks to himself now, looking like he can’t wait for eighth-grade graduation—that is, if he’s lucky enough to see it.

  Jonny and Darren, on the other hand, have started walking through the halls with a confidence they’re slowly earning, not from bullying but from the respect and trust of the other kids. They’ve decided to pay back every cent to every kid, even if it takes them a year of raking leaves, shoveling snow, mowing lawns, and whatever other small jobs they can get around Providence. After watching them work their butts off three weekends in a row, I took pity on them and suggested an idea: why not record a quick-and-dirty EP, sell it, and give the profits back to the kids. Whatever money is left over, we agreed, we’d put in a recording fund for our first real album, which I’m already starting to write songs for. We’re going into the “studio,” i.e., my living room, next week.

  I’m not sure what’s going on with my parents. My dad still wants to tour next summer, after the new Benny and Joon record comes out. My mom wants to spend the summer with us and maybe, for once, take us on an actual vacation. They are being nicer to each other, but something’s up. Once a week, they walk up to College Hill “to talk to someone.” I think this means that they sit in a room on opposite sides of a couch while a therapist tells them how to fix things. So far, it’s not exactly working, but it’s not not working, either. The thing is, I’m not really sure what I want to happen. X and I get to spend more time with Mom now, which is excellent. But whenever Dad enters the room, I can feel the tension between them. It’s like it takes so much energy for them to be nice to each other that they forget, again, that X and I are right there next to them. Jake says to just wait it out, so that’s what I’m going to do.

  Abuela calls me twice a week now, once on Sunday after she gets back from church and once on Thursday so she can tell me what happened on the Real Housewives show that her cousin Juanita has gotten her addicted to. She tells me all the crazy things that Juanita says and does, and all the church gossip. Then she asks if there are any boys I like at school, even though in her world you don’t ever date. You just get married young and have tons of babies (which is definitely not going to happen to me!). I tell her that there is this one boy with curly hair and brown eyes, but he doesn’t know I exist. The truth is, of course, Darren does know I exist, but he doesn’t know I have a crush on him (I don’t think). It’s way too early to mess things up with The Bungles by introducing a John and Yoko/Dean and Britta/Kim and Thurston angle to the group, and to be honest, it’s way too early for me to be dealing with that at all. I’ve got homework to do, songs to write, and a band to manage, after all. It’s more than enough for a twelve-year-old girl to handle.

  X has been really happy and surprisingly mellow for the past few days. Why? Because Abuela has agreed to come to Providence for Christmas, only two weeks away! And even better, Ronaldo’s going to come up for New Year’s! R says he’s coming up here just because Abuela is. They’re a package deal, he says. He claims he just wants to have some of her home-cooked food over the holidays, although I think he might also be interested in catching up with a friend and possibly stealing some secrets from the hottest new band in New England.

  I’m trying to picture us having our holidays in what is, after all, just a recording studio with a kitchen and a couple of Japanese screens. X will be overjoyed, I’m sure; he’s still at the age where he wakes up at five a.m. on Christmas morning, totally unable to sleep. Abuela will give him a Hallmark card with some incredibly gushy grandma stuff written in unreadable script, plus the same crinkly ten-dollar bill she includes in it every year. And again, like every year, it’ll be his favorite present by a mile.

  When Ronaldo arrives, he’ll probably play me about a million new songs on his iPod, but we’ll wind up talking about The Beatles, The Kinks, and Deerhoof, just like we always do.

  And we’ll talk about the Rules to Rock By, and how much more of a master I am than he is. Ha! (Not really.) I wonder whether Shaky Jake will stay with us this year. If he does, he’ll know to stay well clear of the kitchen, because that was, is, and always will be Abuela’s domain, even if she’s never visited the Rhode Island apartment before.

  How will my parents be getting along two weeks from now? It’s hard to say. Maybe they’ll pull through the way they always have before and be happier than ever. Or maybe they’ll split up and my dad will go on tour for the next eight years. That would be horrible, but how can you know what adults are going to do? They’re even crazier and harder to figure out than kids. But as I imagine this Christmas, surrounded by Ronaldo, Jake, Abuela, and hopefully Darren, Crackers, and Jonny, too, I’m not worried about the future. I’ve got my friends, I’ve got my family, and I’ve got my band. And for now, that’s good enough. Better than good enough.

  Plus, yesterday, Darren called me on the phone. I asked him if I’d forgotten about a scheduled practice, and he laughed and said, no, he just wanted to talk.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Um, because we’re friends, I guess,” he said. “Because I think you’re awesome.”

  Okay, so maybe rock stars do blush. Sometimes.

  Acknowledgments

  I want to thank the many friends who supported and encouraged me as I wrote this book: Linden and Carl Berry, Mac Hanger, Dennis and Vicki Farrar, Tayef Ben Messalem, Aimee Molloy, Chris Daddio, Shelby Gaines, Sue Mason, Michel Galante, Kevin March, Seth Unger, Karla Schickele and the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls, Marlene Clary and everyone at Creative Arts Program, Laura Rozos,
Lisa Dwyer, Dan Efram, Serena Kuo, Jacob Bricca, Naomi Hamby, Tim Walker, Fred Wasch, Justine Skyers, Nova Perry, Kiran Kapur, Kirsten Gustafson-Kapur, Sofie Kapur and the awesome Blame The Patient, Jen London, Marc and Audrey Engelsgjerd, Mark Ryan, Jennifer Schwartz, Megan McGuinness, Irene Borland, Sarah O’Holla, Sarv Taghavin, Andie Levinger, Irwin Walkenfeld, Kathleen Admirand-Dimmler, Laura Quinlan Hug, Karencia Ible, Rebecca Zelo, Gabby Danchick, Susanna Einstein, Michael Milone, James Luria, Amy Ellenbogen, Patrick McNulty, Julie Mazur Tribe, Lise Clavel, my amazing agent, Marissa Walsh, and my fantastic editor, Stacy Cantor.

  Copyright © 2010 by Josh Farrar

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any

  form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,

  or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing

  from the publisher.

  First published in the United States of America in July 2010 by

  Walker Publishing Company, Inc., a division of Bloomsbury Publishing, Inc.

  E-book edition published in July 2010

  www.bloomsburyteens.com

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to

  Permissions, Walker BFYR, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Farrar, Josh.

  Rules to rock by / By Josh Farrar.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Annabella Cabrera tries to start a rock band at her new middle school in

  Providence, Rhode Island, but has trouble when the members of a rival band bully

  her and she develops a case of writer’s block.

  ISBN 978-0-8027-2079-5

  [1. Rock groups—Fiction. 2. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 3. Middle schools—

  Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction. 5. Rhode Island—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.F2432Ru 2010 [Fic]—dc22 2009040207

  ISBN 978-0-8027-2197-6 (e-book)