My Year of Epic Rock (6 page)

“Nina! Nina! Over here!” I heard my name being called the second I stepped in to the cafeteria the next day. I looked over to see Tiernan, Shane, Heidi, and Madison yelling and waving at me like it was some relay race and I was the person with the baton.

Not only could I hear them loud and clear, but so could everyone else in the building. As I walked past what felt like an endless row of tables, my head hanging low, I noticed Josh Ricci giving me one of his stupid smirks. I hate that guy. Mom always lectures, “Don't say ‘hate,'” but you know, some people are just loathsome.

“Uh, hey,” I said quietly, when I got over to where Tiernan and everyone were sitting, blushing from all the attention. I'm more of a blend-in kind of girl.

“We're talking about the talent show,” Madison said. She held up a piece of paper with a sketch on it of a big silver needle and an arm with a drop of bright red blood flying out of it. Over the picture were the words “The EpiPens” written in messy-ish lettering.

“This is if we want to make up a poster to promote us,” she continued. I forgot Madison was super artsy. Her mom, Leslie, teaches a lot of kids' classes at our local craft store on stuff like knitting and origami. I used to beg my mom to let me take them when I was younger. I don't really have the crafty gene though. When Leslie's classes were over, I'd have a tiny, sloppy, off-kilter bookmark to show for my efforts and in the same time Madison would have made a cool scarf and matching gloves that had the correct number of fingers.

“That's really impressive, Madison,” I said. It was. The needle and the arm it was jabbing were really realistic and lifelike. It was hard to believe something that gross was drawn by the girl who wears rainbow-striped toe socks and the occasional pair of overalls to school.

I guess it's like my grandma says, “You never know about people.”

Madison smiled at me. “Thanks!”

“It's not very, um, attractive, is it?” said Heidi.

“Rock isn't supposed to be pretty,” said Shane, all seriously, like he was giving a lecture.

“Guys, it's all about the music,” Tiernan said, wildly waving his hands around, “AND THE MUSIC WILL BLOW THIS SCHOOL AWAY!!” The table next to us turned around in unison to stare. Heidi giggled.

It was unbelievable how gorgeous Heidi looked when she smiled. Maybe she wasn't pouty, just shy, because I hadn't caught her pouting once since I'd been sitting at her table. Also, she was, honestly, about a hundred times prettier than Shelley or any other girl I knew could ever be, but she didn't seem to care, or even realize it. Maybe all the years sitting in the wilderness of the peanut-free table warped Heidi's sense of reality.

“Can you guys come over after school tomorrow to practice?” Shane asked. “My dad said it's fine, we can hang out in the basement. He isn't having any bands over. I mean, other than us superstars, that is.”

We all looked at each other.

“Sure,” Tiernan said.

“Me too,” Heidi smiled. A world record!

“I think so,” Madison said. “I have to ask my mom because I'm supposed to help her teach her after-school beading class, but I bet she won't mind if I skip it.”

Everyone turned to look at me.

I'd gotten amped about the band idea last night when I was with Dad. He'd gotten more gung-ho the longer we talked, and I couldn't stop him from going in to the garage and digging through piles of old bicycles and dingy lawn junk he's saving for a yard sale to get my equipment. He even helped me set it up in my bedroom and listened as I played—rustily—a few songs.

But now in the fluorescent cafeteria light of day, I was having a major internal debate: duck out before it could turn out to be a disaster, or go along with it because it was preferable to sitting home alone obsessing over my lack of a best friend?

“Uh,” I said, hesitating. “I'm not sure. Sometimes I have to go home to babysit my brother.” That was a lie. Jackson is allowed to be home alone in the afternoon by himself even after that time he turned on the oven to make Shrinky Dinks when no one else was around. My parents almost strangled him for that stunt. Too bad they didn't.

Shane looked at me blankly, blinking once.

“Actually,” I added, in a big rush before I could stop myself, “I'm sure I can come too. Count me in.”

“Awesome,” Shane said. “Here, give me your cell phone.” He reached his hand out. It was all freckly. I had been wondering why Shane looked familiar. It was because he looked like a kid who should star in a movie about a kid who is always getting into trouble. I handed him my phone.

He typed quickly without even looking at the screen, talking to us the whole time. “Here—that's my info. See you tomorrow.”

• • •

The next morning, I was already seated in homeroom when Shelley, Brianna, and Josh walked in together. Ethan was a few feet behind them. When Shelley noticed he was there, she started giggling like crazy and leaned back to purposely bump right into Ethan's nicely tanned arm.

“Hey!” he yelled, rubbing his arm like it hurt, but he was smiling, not annoyed.

It reminded me of one of the questions from my love quiz: “If you casually touch him, how does he react?” It seemed like Ethan was more than just “intrigued” by Shelley. I didn't realize he was even friendly with her!
Gah!

“A-HEM,” said Mrs. Cook, staring at them. They took one look at her face and all raced for their seats, though I caught Shelley giving Ethan one last flirty look. Could she be any more obvious?

I felt really mad all of a sudden. Actually, not mad. Jealous. Of course the boy I thought was cute, the one I'd been thinking so much about, was the one Shelley liked too. Why couldn't I get a crush on any other boy in the entire seventh grade? Why couldn't
she
stop stealing all
my
people?

“Please look up to the bulletin board,” Mrs. Cook said, pointing toward the sheet of light green paper hanging up. We all turned dutifully in that direction. “It's for the Halloween Talent Show. If you're interested in being a part of it, you have until October fifteenth to sign up.” A few kids giggled, like it was some big joke.

Tiernan looked over at me and caught my eye. He lifted up his eyebrows, like he was asking a question. I put my face in my hands. Maybe this was a sign from the universe telling me something important about my life. I just wasn't sure exactly what.

Thanks
for
the
help, universe. You're doing quite a job over here.

Dad cheerfully—suspiciously cheerfully, if you ask me—drove me over to Shane's house that afternoon. I think he was secretly trying to sneak a peek at Mr. McCormick's studio. Jackson tagged along.

Shane's house was huge and looked like a fancy barn. It was far back off the main road, on a bumpy dirt road with pebbles that kept dinging and popping up on our car. When we got to the front door, a man with a really giant beard answered. He looked like a lumberjack—he even had a flannel shirt on.

“Hi,” I said. “Is Shane home?”

“We're inside!” I heard Shane yell.

“Um, bye,” I tried to duck inside but Dad tapped me on my shoulder.

“Hang on, honey,” he said. He stuck out his hand. “I'm Dave Simmons. This is Nina, and my son Jackson.”

“Thomas McCormick,” said the lumberjack. “I'm Shane's father.”

“Nina, why don't you go through here,” Shane's dad pointed to his left. “Then down to our basement. Shane and your other friends are all downstairs already.”

“Call me when you want me to pick you up!” Dad yelled as I walked off, then I heard him say, “So Nina says you just moved to the area.”

Sigh. I hoped he wasn't going to try to talk to Shane's dad about his job, or please, please, no, invite him to one of Thin Vitae's shows.

I sped up, waving good-bye behind me without turning around, and followed the directions Shane's dad gave me. The room I walked through had wood floors and huge windows that went from the very top of the high ceiling almost to the very bottom of the wall. It was bright even with no lights turned on.

“Shane?” I yelled when I got to an open door.

“Here!” he called back.

I walked down super-thick carpeted stairs. On the walls were framed photos of record albums I'd never heard of with little black and white signs on them. Thomas McCormick's name was on all of them too. He seemed like a big deal, just like Dad had said.

Everyone else was already there. Tiernan, guitar strapped over his white turtleneck sweater; Madison, holding her flute and frowning; Heidi, sitting on the floor, her legs crossed, biting her fingernails; Shane, fiddling around with the knobs on a speaker. I sat down next to Heidi.

“How's it going?” I whispered to her.

“Fine. Except Madison's mad because Shane made fun of her idea of a flute solo.”

“Bands don't do flute
solos
!” Shane said to Heidi while giving Madison a grumpy look.

“Why not? You can make any instrument sound rocky,” Madison said back to him.

“
Rock-y?
Whatever.” Shane turned to me. “Hey, Nina. Come check out the drum kit. It's my Dad's spare one.”

I went over and sat down at the drums, picking up a pair of drumsticks on the floor. The drum heads were brand-new, and when I tried them out, the sound was crisp and sharp. I got excited in spite of myself.

“Hey, this is a great set, Shane!” I said. He gave me the Shane head nod in reply.

“Maybe we should practice something we all know, to get warmed up,” Madison suggested.

“Like what?” Tiernan said. “We sang ‘This Land Is Your Land' last year in music until it was coming out of our noses. Maybe that?”

“Uh, no,” said Shane, shaking his head. “Pass. And never speak of that song in my presence again.”

“‘Smells Like Teen Spirit'?” said Madison. “I definitely know my way around that one.”

“‘When Doves Cry'?” I suggested. “‘Rock Lobster'?” Madison looked at me like she had no idea what I was talking about.

“‘Twist and Shout'?” said Heidi.

“Good one,” said Tiernan. “A classic.” We all nodded. And stood there. None of us did anything.

“Nina—count it off,” Shane said.

“Oh, yeah, right,” I said, half laughing, lifting up my sticks over my head. “I forgot about that. Okay, everybody.”

Click-click-click-click.

I'd had the fantasy in my head of us being incredible, of playing together as one from the get-go. Dad talks about bands that together were greater than any one of the individual members, who sounded destined to play only with each other.

The reality was nowhere close. We were…horrible. Ear-bruising. The only one of us who didn't sound flat-out crazy bad was Heidi, who managed, against impossible odds, to actually keep a tune. Sort of.

“Hold it!” yelled Madison after about a minute. “Hold on!”

We all stopped. I could hardly have been the only person there grateful that she put an end to our misery.

“Guys, that sucked!”

“We just started, Madison, calm down,” said Shane, looking annoyed. “You can't expect to be tight in one afternoon.”

“It's probably because we don't have a bassist,” Tiernan said, wrestling to take his guitar off over his bulky sweater. His hair was wilder than usual, and his face was sweaty.

“Maybe you need to turn it up a notch, dude,” Shane said to him.

“Why didn't I think of that? Yeah, that will solve all our problems.” Tiernan sounded huffy.

“Calm down!” shouted Madison.

“YOU CALM DOWN!” Shane shouted back.

Uh-oh.

This wasn't good. I slunk lower behind the drums. Drummers are lucky that way. I hoped speakers or instruments weren't about to start flying around like how they do on those crazy Top 100 Band Meltdowns shows Dad makes me watch with him.

“Everyone be quiet,” Heidi said. “Let's all relax.” She twisted her lip and blew out a large gust of air. “Why don't we listen to some music first, before we play? To help inspire us.”

“I don't think anything is going to help,” Tiernan said unhappily.

Heidi patted him on the shoulder and gave him a smile. He didn't even cheer up then. Talk about clueless! Heidi looked a little embarrassed and yanked her hand away, and then pulled the sleeves of her red hoodie over her hands like mittens.

I felt bad for her. It's not like she was always walking around hugging and grabbing everyone all day long like it was no big deal.

“I'll listen to something,” I said, trying to seem enthusiastic. “I could use a break from that, ahem, MAJOR, SUPER INTENSE drumming workout.” I flexed my shoulders and pretended to rub my bicep, hoping to break the tension. Drummers are supposed to be the funny members of the band anyway. Like that Muppet drummer, Animal.

“Okay,” Shane said. “Here.” He hopped away from the keyboard and pulled open a giant shiny gold curtain that covered the whole back wall. I hadn't even realized there was anything behind it, but there were rows and rows
and
rows
of records. “This is my dad's collection. Whatever you want, he's got.”

“Whoa,” I said. “My dad would so be freaking out right now.”

We clustered around the shelves of records, alphabetized by band, each one covered with a plastic sleeve. Shane ran up the basement stairs two at a time, yelling, “Dad, do any rock bands have flute players?” as he got to the top.

Mr. McCormick appeared at the foot of the stairs—I could only see him from the knees down. “You mean do any bands have a flutist?”

“Dad, yes, flutist.”

“Jethro Tull. I have some of their stuff down there. Go check out ‘Thick as a Brick.'”

“Jethro who?” Madison whispered to me. She didn't seem mad anymore.

“Is that under J or T?” I said to no one in particular. “Wait. Is Jethro a person?”

Shane raced back down, jumping down the last four steps all at once. He started flipping through the records, looking for one. “Here we go,” he said, lifting up a turntable and putting the record on. I actually know what a turntable is, because my father still has one, but I don't know how to use it.

By now, Tiernan was sitting back down on the floor, and Heidi went over to sit next to him.

“I'm starving,” Tiernan said. “Shane, do you have anything to eat?”

“You came to the wrong house, dude,” Shane said. “I can eat, like, three things. One of which is lettuce. We've got nothing. Wait, that can't be right. Let me go check, there must be something here.”

“I'll go with you,” Tiernan said.

“Me too,” Heidi got up.

“Let's all go,” I said.

Shane led us into a huge kitchen with white tiled floors, and a giant refrigerator, and a big metallic oven that I know is super expensive because anytime we go to the mall, Mom parks by the entrance to the appliance section of the department store so she has an excuse to walk through it and drool over the stove.

“Shane, this is a cool house,” I said.

“Thanks. The kitchen is kind of a joke, though, considering how little cooking we do. My dad gets takeout a lot, and I pretty much live on those gross protein drinks, so it's not like we use it all that much.”

Shane opened up the refrigerator door. “Grapes?” he said, pulling out a bowl with a bunch of green and red grapes.

“Sure,” Madison said, grabbing one.

“Shouldn't we rinse those first?” I said, then realized that I sounded like my mom. Sheesh, talk about pathetic. It didn't seem like anyone heard me, so I took an unwashed grape and tossed it into my mouth like I was all cool and laid-back.

Look
at
me, world! I laugh at your stupid food sanitation rules! Mwah ha ha!

Tiernan grabbed a bag of blue tortilla chips out of a cabinet. “Okay if we eat these, Shane?” he asked, sitting down on a stool at the big black and white marble island right in the middle of the kitchen—which had a second sink in it, because um, one sink isn't enough? Mom also dreams of having an island someday. A kitchen island, not a tropical beach island, that is.

“Can I look at that label, Tiernan?” I asked, reaching for the bag.

“Oh, yeah, Shane, you may not have heard, but a few of us are allergic to nuts,” Tiernan said, cracking up.

“And eggs,” I reminded him.

“I can eat these chips,” said Shane, reaching into the bag too. “Trust me. There's nothing in these but corn and MSG. Bottoms up, Nina.”

I almost never eat at anyone else's house, except when I used to go to Brianna's, since her mom kept snacks on hand that were okay for me to eat. I pretend I'm not hungry, but I'm actually too embarrassed to ask anyone what's in the food they offer me. When I was younger and had playdates, my mom told all the other parents they could always serve me fresh fruit, so I have probably eaten my weight in watermelon, strawberries, and clementines over the years.
Boring.
The whole time I was secretly and silently drooling over their boxes of cookies and granola bars and that magic-looking chocolate concoction, Nutella.

But I didn't feel shy asking to see the label at Shane's house. It was, like, a huge relief. I took a handful of chips and took a big bite out of one. Maybe it was being able to eat without worrying, or actually not be ashamed to read a label, but they seemed like the best-tasting, crunchiest chips ever.

And just like that, without my even making a decision one way or the other, The EpiPens became a band, with me as a member.

• • •

We started hanging out after school a lot, except Fridays, when Heidi had ice skating lessons, and Wednesdays, when Madison was at advanced sewing class and also when Tiernan's mom made him go to a therapist—Tiernan called her “Dr. Obvious”—to talk about his parents' divorce.

Dad was right: being in a band was fun. It was like a built-in activity so you don't even have time to get bored with each other. The only bad part was coming up with a song all five of us could agree on performing at the talent show. That was an epic, many-days-long feud.

I told everyone I didn't care, which was true, and Heidi said she'd be up for anything too, but Shane, Tiernan, and Madison couldn't agree and wouldn't let it go. It was insanity.

I'd get all these texts from each of them with links and videos and everyone insisting their suggestions were the best. There was tons of arguing (“If we don't do this song, we're fools and deserve to be mocked and have rotten tomatoes thrown at us on stage!”) and trash talking (“Anyone who can stand to listen to that song for more than ten seconds has craptastic taste.”).

Finally, during one heated afternoon, Shane called in his dad.

“We need your help,” he explained, following Mr. McCormick down the stairs to where we were all waiting.

“Yeah,” Madison said. “We need a cool song that won't be too hard for us to learn.”

“One that at least seven other people have heard of, Dad,” Shane added.

“But not so overdone that everyone's already sick of it!” I jumped in.

“Fine, but if I choose a song for you, you have to swear on a stack of Ramones records that you'll trust me on this, even if you haven't heard of it before.”

“Fine,” Tiernan said.

Mr. McCormick walked toward his stacks of albums, rubbing absentmindedly at his beard.

He pulled one out and put it on the turntable, moving the needle and then pressing play. I caught a glimpse of a corny-looking guy on the cover.

Uh-oh.
We'd promised to play this one, no matter what.

“It's called ‘Cruel to be Kind,'” Mr. McCormick said.

Then he walked back up the stairs, shouting, “You'll thank me for this someday,” over his shoulder.

But Shane's dad was right; it was such the perfect song. We listened to “Cruel to be Kind” three times in a row, all nodding along.

“We're all in agreement on this?” Shane asked.

Everyone nodded again.

“Cool, cool. I'll send everyone the sheet music later.”

For the next week, I couldn't get the song, especially the awesome “Baby, you gotta be cruel to be kind” chorus out of my head. I sang it nonstop around the house and whenever I was stuck taking Pepper for her morning walk—where I had to pick up her poop with a plastic bag and pray that the high school kids wouldn't drive by me mid-scoop.