by Ahmet Zappa
“Wait! Hold your stars! What did you say?” Leona gasped. How in the universe had she gone so long without considering what losing Scarlet really and truly might mean?
“What are you talking about?” asked Libby.
“Drums!” Leona gulped. “Maybe our mission can succeed without Scarlet. But what about my band?”
Leona had hoped against hope that Scarlet would show up for their usual band practice, but she didn’t, to no one’s surprise. The rest of them—Sage on guitar, Vega on bass, Libby on keytar, and Leona on vocals—waited for a few starmins in their Lightning Lounge rehearsal room, tuning up and trading riffs.
Suddenly, a scowling face framed by blue bangs appeared in the doorway, which Leona had left open—for Scarlet, she had hoped. She regretted the mistake immediately and reached out the hand that wasn’t holding her microphone to wave the rehearsal room door closed.
Unfortunately, because Vivica, the nosy Starling, was standing in its way, the door politely refused to close on her, which was how doors on Starland worked.
“We’re busy,” Leona growled.
Her bandmates nodded.
Vivica was just about the only Starling at Starling Academy who no one liked having around.
“Busy doing what? Not making music, that’s for sure,” Vivica said, laughing. She closed her eyes, enjoying her joke.
“What we need is a little privacy,” snapped Leona.
“We’re rehearsing,” Libby explained. She even flashed Vivica a generous star-salutations-for-understanding-now-please-get-out-of-here grin.
Instead of backing out of the doorway, though, Vivica glided in.
“Oh…is this your little band?” She fired a look at each of them: Libby, Vega, Sage, and Leona. “I thought you had a drummer, too.”
“She’s late.” “She quit.” “She’s missing.” “We do.”
The whole band answered Vivica at the same time with four different replies.
“Huh?”
“We don’t need a drummer, if that’s what you’re wondering,” said Leona.
Quickly, her bandmates agreed.
“We’re good.”
“All good.”
“Thanks, though,” said Libby, who could never stop trying to please.
“I know how badly you wanted to be in the band,” Leona said, trying to sound sympathetic as she tossed her mic from hand to hand. “Sorry you didn’t make it.” She shrugged. “But there’s always starchoir, I guess.”
Vivica had tried out for the band, along with the hydrongs of other Starlings who had turned up.
Leona could still remember the knots that had formed in her stomach when Vivica stepped onto the band shell to audition—for lead vocals, Leona’s own part, no less! Fortunately, the Ranker knew what it was doing and Leona made the band. She’d had to wait stardays for the results, though—the longest stardays of her life.
She could only imagine how disappointed Vivica had been. She seems to be taking it pretty well now, though, Leona thought, studying her.
“So, um, this practicing you’re doing…when will it be over?” Vivica asked. “I’m wondering because my band needs the practice room today, too.”
“Your what?” Leona gasped.
“My band. What?” Vivica’s sky-blue lashes fluttered innocently. The ice-blue eyes behind them were less naive. “You think you’re the only Starling who can start one? I asked Professor Langtree if the Ranker could rank a second band from the auditions, and she said, ‘Sure, why not?’” Vivica’s thin blue-lipped smile spread like a stain across her face until it almost reached her ears. “I decided to call it Vivica and the Visionaries. I’m the lead singer, of course, so it makes sense.”
Leona didn’t turn to see the rest of the band’s reaction to this. Her own shock and rage were too strong. “Vivica? And the Visionaries?”
“It’s a little more catchy than Star Darlings, don’t you think?”
No. What Leona thought was that it was startlingly similar to the name she’d planned to give her own band before the Ranker had named them: Leona and the Luminaries. She’d even started a fan page for them on StarBook before she knew it wouldn’t be used. She’d still had hope the band could change names at some point, but how could they now, when Vivica’s band’s name was almost the same?
She probably saw the page! Leona thought suddenly. She probably picked that name out of blue-hearted spite!
“Anyway,” said Vivica, still smiling. “You know, right, that you can only have the rehearsal room for a starhour, max?”
Leona didn’t.
“I knew that,” Vega said.
“And since it sounds like you can use all the practice time you can get, I guess we’ll just come back in a starhour, then.”
And with that Vivica turned, her long pale blue hair swinging behind her back. Leona closed the door with a swipe of her arm, leaving sparks where her hand sliced the air.
“Starf!” said Vega. “Two bands. After all these years with none.”
“Grrr! Can we just play some music,” Leona roared, grabbing the mic, “and not talk about other bands!”
Vega gave her bass a halfhearted twirl and started to pluck it, then looked around. “Who’s going to count us in?” she asked.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Leona huffed, “I will. We’ll do ‘Heart of a Glion’—on three. A-one, a-two…” She clapped, once, then twice….
On “three,” they began.
“Stop!” Leona yelled, half a verse in. “I can’t sing to this. You’re all over the place!”
“We need a backbeat,” Sage said, sighing.
“Maybe we should call Clover,” Vega said.
“Why?” Leona snapped. “So she can write us a new song that doesn’t need a beat?”
Clover had been writing songs for staryears and had immediately offered to share them with Leona’s brand-new band. She’d even volunteered to be their manager. Anything, really, she was happy to do, except join them on the stage. Even though she had grown up in a huge family of famous circus performers and was very comfortable onstage, she now wished to stay as far from the starlight as possible.
“We need a drummer! Now!” Leona roared. “Or wait…where’s my Star-Zap? Maybe it can play a beat for us? It doesn’t quite have the same ‘stage presence,’ but at least it won’t sit there sulking like Scarlet,” she muttered. “Or get all galactical at the littlest critique…”
“Clover plays the drums,” said Vega.
Sage knit her lilac eyebrows, confused. “I thought she played the guitar.”
“Correct,” said Vega, “and the drums, and the keyboard, and the gammahorn…You name it.” She paused to pluck her instrument. “Including, I’m sure, the bass.”
“Are you serious?” Leona said. “Why didn’t you say so?”
Had Clover really been letting them play her songs and never once showed off all the musical talent she herself had? Huh… There were so many things about so many Starlings that Leona would never understand.
“Gotcha!” At last, Leona’s hand found her Star-Zap in the bottom of her bag. “Clover!” she yelled before the device was even out. “I—make that we—need you in the Lightning Lounge. Now!”
“I’ll sit in today,” said Clover stiffly when she arrived. “But that’s it. I’m not performing in public. Ever. Do you understand? When you guys have an actual gig, you’ll have to get someone else to play with you. Just so we’re perfectly clear.” She perched on the stool behind Scarlet’s hot-pink drum kit, drumsticks in her hands. She played a tight lick to punctuate her point, then reached up to catch her hat before it tumbled off her head.
“Hey! That was good!” Leona said.
Clover lowered her chin warningly. “Just today,” she said, pointing a stick.
“Got it. And star salutations,” said Leona, who couldn’t have meant it more.
With Clover there, the band’s practice went much better. She didn’t hit as hard as Scarlet, by any means, but her
timing was spot-on. Of course, they were playing songs she’d written, so that helped quite a bit.
“Zow! That was stellar!” Sage gushed as their song “White Dwarf” ended. She strummed a joyful extra chord.
“That did sound pretty good,” agreed Clover, giving each drumstick a fancy twirl.
Even Libby had to nod appreciatively, though Scarlet’s absence still stung her the most.
“I wish we had an audience to hear us!” said Leona.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Clover said. “Because then I wouldn’t be here. I’m serious. Practice only. Period.” Bam! She slapped her snare to emphasize her point.
Just then, Sage’s pocket began to glow. She let go of her guitar, and while it hovered, twinkling, in front of her body, she pulled out her Star-Zap. Leona stared enviously. Sage was seriously good at wish energy manipulation. And she was only a first year.
“It’s a holo-text,” she said, “from Cassie.”
“What’s up?” Leona asked.
Sage’s violet eyes grew wider as she read it.
“What?” said Leona, straight into the microphone this time.
Cringing, but smiling, too, Sage raised her head. “So, apparently, Cassie was walking by Lady Stella’s office, on the way to get her request for a transfer to Advanced Wishworld Lighterature signed by the headmistress. Long story, but apparently, her transcript from her old school somehow, somewhere, got misplaced. Anyway—”
“Yes, anyway,” said Leona, “get on with this story!”
“Okay, so Cassie says she saw Lady Cordial going into Lady Stella’s office…”
“Yes?”
“With a Starling! A new Star Darling, she thinks!”
“Really? Just now?”
“Mm-hmm.”
The bandmates looked at each other.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Leona said.
Outside the headmistress’s office the five musicians found Cassie, propped like a silver statue against the rainbow-grained starmarble wall.
“That was fast!” said Cassie, springing toward them.
“We didn’t want to miss anything,” Leona said. “So? Are they still in there?”
Cassie nodded. Then, all of a sudden, she craned her neck to peer around Leona’s back. “What was that?”
“What?” Leona spun around.
“Did the others come with you?”
“No.” The bandmates shook their heads.
“Did you text them also?” asked Sage.
Cassie adjusted her star-shaped glasses. “No…I only texted you. But I thought I saw someone…” She shrugged. “I’m just nervous, I guess.”
“Well, I’m excited!” said Leona. “I wonder who it is. And if she’ll be my new roommate, too. Do you have any idea of who it might be?”
“No.” Cassie shook her head. “Lady Cordial was in the way, so I couldn’t see anything.”
Leona thought about who she wouldn’t want it to be. “You don’t think it’s Vivica!” she said as the image of the lead singer of Star Academy’s other Starling band came to her mind.
There weren’t many Starlings at the school who Leona actively tried to avoid. Truth be told, Vivica and now Scarlet were the only ones. Was it because Leona was so competitive? She was, without a doubt. Was it because she and Vivica were rivals, no matter how much the school discouraged that? No. Leona had thought about it. A lot, in fact. She, like so many Starlings, avoided Vivica for one good reason: because Vivica was no fun to be around.
“Oh, starf, I hope not,” said Libby.
Just then, a soft swoosh made them all turn their heads toward the headmistress’s door. As if blown by the wind, it slid open, and Lady Stella’s tall, regal form appeared. She wore a silver pantsuit that coordinated beautifully with her perfectly coifed platinum hair. She smiled at them, and Leona was relieved to see that she didn’t seem upset anymore. “Why, Sage, Libby, Vega, Leona, Cassie, Clover…” Her mouth curved up ever so slightly at the corners. “How surprising to find you here.”
“Oh…we’re just passing through!” said Leona casually. At least, she hoped it came off that way.
Next to her, Sage nodded. “Just hanging around!” she agreed. “We had no idea you’d be in your office on a starweekend. Is there any…special reason…if it’s okay to ask?”
Lady Stella’s smile warmly spread. Her eyes crinkled at the edges. “As a matter of fact, there is a special reason. A very special one.”
Leona and the others waited for her to go on, but instead Lady Stella turned away. They followed her gaze down the hall, where, to their surprise, they saw all five other Star Darlings riding the Cosmic Transporter toward them anxiously.
“You called us, Lady Stella?” panted Tessa. She held up her Star-Zap and pointed to the summons on the screen.
“I did indeed.” The headmistress nodded. “I have important news to share.”
“Wait…did our Star-Zaps go off, too?” Leona pulled hers out to check. The screen was blank except for the waning moon in the corner reminding her how much startime until her Advanced Wish Theory project was due.
Sage and the others checked theirs, too. They all looked up, confused.
“I didn’t see a need to call you,” explained Lady Stella, “since you were already…‘passing through.’”
With that and a wink, she ushered the Star Darlings into her grand office. Sitting at the table was a small wide-eyed Starling with a galaxy of star-shaped freckles and springy yellow pigtails. Behind her was Lady Cordial, who stood behind the new Starling, her hands grasping the top of the chair the girl sat in.
Leona did not recognize the girl, so she assumed, correctly, that she was a first year. The girl looked like a Starling who was easy to forget—quiet and timid.
“Star Darlings, please, do take your seats,” Lady Stella said. She strode to the head of the table and motioned for all to sit. Once they had, and the chairs had adjusted to each Starling’s height and weight, the headmistress held her hand out gracefully toward the small Starling, sprinkling sparkles from her fingers as she did. “It is my great pleasure to introduce Ophelia, your true twelfth Star Darling, to the group.”
A flurry of gasps and glances swept around the table. Leona’s mouth fell ajar.
“Her?” blurted Gemma.
“Shhh!” Tessa hissed, and rolled her eyes.
“Lady Cordial,” said the headmistress, “perhaps you could explain to them.”
“Why, yes…of course. Ahem.” The Star Darlings felt for the administrator, whose glow dimmed a humble watt. “It, er, seems, er, that there was a glitch, er, s-s-s-somewhere in our identification program.” Lady Cordial paused to swallow her stutter, then dutifully went on. “And as you all know, there was a, er, mix-up, in the student list. The good news”—she forced a smile; or at least it looked like a smile that was forced—“is that I corrected all the data and was able to get the right name.”
Lady Cordial moved her hands from the back of Ophelia’s chair to Ophelia’s shoulders, causing the Starling to jump in her seat. “Ahem. Allow me to introduce your new and true Star Darling, Ophelia. Ophelia…your Star Darlings team.”
Tessa led a round of welcomes while their brand-new member looked from one girl to the next.
“Star greetings,” she mumbled back so softly that Leona had to guess that was what she had said.
Lady Stella turned her gaze on her. “Lady Cordial has been making arrangements for Ophelia to be your new roommate, in Scarlet’s place.”
“Really.” Leona’s eyes shifted to Ophelia, who raised her hand in a timid wave. “Great.” She wasn’t exactly the roommate Leona had hoped for, but at least she looked sweet and quiet, which was more than she could say for Scarlet. Actually, she looked like she would be the anti-Scarlet.
“Still no sign of Scarlet?” Lady Stella asked. The Star Darlings shook their heads.
“Well, in any event, our Wish-Watcher is watching a Star Darling Wish Orb at this very moment, which she
feels quite sure will be ready to grant soon…and,” she added, “speaking of Wish Orbs, that brings me to the second reason I called you all here to my office.” She let her eyes orbit the table until they met Libby’s rosy ones.
Leona watched Libby’s cheeks flush excitedly.
“Well, it’s about time!” Libby’s roommate, Gemma, declared.
“Gemma! Honestly!” Gemma’s sister, Tessa, groaned. “Can you just keep that big orange mouth of yours closed and say nothing for once?”
“No, she’s right,” Lady Stella said with a gentle nod toward both Gemma and Tessa. “This moment is long overdue.” She turned to the others. “In all the…confusion of the other day, I’m afraid, something very important—for Libby especially—was left undone.”
“My Wish Blossom,” said Libby softly, almost as if it was a secret.
“Indeed.” Lady Stella bowed deeply, then gracefully straightened, turned to her desk, and, with a tilt of her head, slid open a drawer. Leona could see the light of the Wish Orb pour out of the drawer the moment it opened, before the orb even came into view.
Carefully, Lady Stella lifted the sparkling orb with both hands and let it rest in her cupped palms like an egg inside a nest. A shadow appeared on the wall behind her, so much light did the orb emit. Its glow lit the headmistress’s face like a spotlight, especially her regal cheekbones and her long, slightly upturned nose.
“Rise, Libby, and approach,” Lady Stella said slowly, her voice as smooth as polished starjade stone.
Leona watched with a pang of awe and envy as Libby eagerly obeyed. She couldn’t help noticing the newest Star Darling, Ophelia, also sitting there gaping at the scene. Her mouth had fallen open and was growing wider steadily.
As soon as Libby reached Lady Stella, the headmistress held out her hands and solemnly waited for Libby to do the same.
“You earned this,” said Lady Stella as she placed the glowing orb in Libby’s trembling hands. “My deepest star apologies that we had to make you wait.”
“Oh! It’s heavy!” gasped Libby, clearly surprised, cradling the orb against her chest. “Star salutations,” she went on, smiling proudly at the orb. “My aunt always says that anything worth having is worth waiting for….Oh! I think it’s starting to change!”
