Rules to Rock By (19 page)

I GROUND MYSELF

On Sunday, I found R on IM.

EggMtnRckr:
Wait, so youre saying that you stole not one but TWO band members from this Razing Kane guy?

Bassinyrface:
I didnt steal anybody. They defected.

EggMtnRckr:
Ok, ok, but the big bad bully dude is going to kill you. You are messing up Rule Number One for him!

Bassinyrface:
Meh. we shall see. i think the tide is turning toward The Bungles.

EggMtnRckr:
all right, well if you want me to come
up there and kick some butt i will book me a Greyhound ticket.

Bassinyrface:
thanks, r. i will let you know!

EggMtnRckr:
The Bungles … I’m more and more jealous of yr band name.

Bassinyrface:
Awww, thanks!!! But it’s no Egg Mountain, now, is it?

EggMtnRckr:
I dunno. Most people hear Egg Mtn and theyre like, wha?!?

Bassinyrface:
heh. maybe.

EggMtnRckr:
so how’s x? does he have a cast?

Bassinyrface:
no, just a sling on his arm.

EggMtnRckr:
painful?

Bassinyrface:
Not anymore. He was whacked-out on painkillers for a few days, said some hilarious stuff.

EggMtnRckr:
Like what?

Bassinyrface:
like, Give me my monkey! Or Pujols is slumping! Other stuff like that.

EggMtnRckr:
Ha, nice. Now HE is a Bungle. A kid with a broken wrist saying crazy things like that is definitely a Bungle.

Bassinyrface:
Totally.

“
We
should be the ones getting grounded!” my mom said late that night, not knowing I had been on my way to the kitchen for a post-homework snack. “If there’s anybody getting punished around here, it should be us.”

“What are you talking about?” my dad said, throwing his hands up in frustration. “She agreed to take care of her little brother. She didn’t do it. Simple as that.”

“Hello, Annabelle,” said my mom, seeing me out of the corner of her eye.

“Hi,” I said.

“Why don’t you come join us, honey?” she said. I sat in a chair at the kitchen table, a few feet from the couch where they were sitting.

X was asleep when I’d decided to get something to munch on. I had known my parents would probably want to have a big talk if they saw me, but I figured, better to get it over with.

They’d been having these annoying arguments about “what to do with Annabelle” for the last twenty-four hours. So I figured they must have finally come to an agreement about what kind of punishment I would get. I figured wrong, though. They were disagreeing more than ever.

“It’s
not
as simple as you’re making it seem,” Mom said to my dad. “We’ve been putting too much pressure on her—on X, too—for months now. We can’t keep making her—”

“Can I say something, please?” I actually raised my hand.

“Yes,” they both said eagerly, glad for the chance to push pause on their deadlocked argument.

“I ground myself,” I said.

“What do you mean exactly?” my dad said.

“I mean, I’m really sorry for what I did, for leaving X like that. I told you I’d take care of him, and I didn’t do it. I ground myself … for a week.”

My dad raised an eyebrow and looked at my mom. She just shrugged and glanced at the wall.

“Fair?” I asked. Did I deserve it? Maybe, but I didn’t really care about whether I deserved it or not.

“Fine,” they both said.

“No TV, no DVDs, no talking on the phone,” I said. I barely did any of that stuff anyway—I texted, used the laptop to IM people, and listened to my iPod while playing Satomi—but my dad didn’t know that, so I deliberately suggested outlawing stuff I really didn’t care about losing. “I’ll come home after school and do my homework. Then if X needs my help with his, I’ll give it to him.”

“You’ll come home
straight
after school, you’ll do your homework, do your chores, and go to bed,” my dad said. He seemed to love piling it on, even though he was just saying what I had said in different words. My mom stayed mostly quiet, throwing a sigh in here and there.

“Works for me,” I said. “But just one thing … can I still have band practices, as long as they’re here?” That was the one thing I really cared about, so my whole strategy was to sneak it in at the last minute.

“Yes, Annabelle,” my mom said. “You can practice here.”

Mission accomplished. One mission, at least.

“Belle,” my dad said. “Have you given any more thought to whether or not you want to move back to Brooklyn to live with Abuela?”

“I’m still thinking about it,” I said. “But what would happen to X? Would he come with me?”

“X would stay with us,” Mom said. “We feel that Abuela might not be able to handle X and you both, especially with the way he’s been acting lately.”

“But the reason he’s acting so crazy is because you guys moved us here in the first place.”

“Your abuela is getting older, Belle,” Dad said. “You’re mature enough that you can take care of yourself and don’t need her help as much. X needs his parents.”

I tried not to laugh. X would be better off all night on a park bench than he would being ignored every day by my dad. At least, that’s how it seemed to me.

“It would be during the Christmas break,” Mom said, looking like she might explode into tears again. She also looked angry, almost, or frustrated. I couldn’t tell. “We wouldn’t want you to miss any school, so we’d drive you down over the holidays, and you’d stay there.”

“I don’t know,” I said, getting out of there as quickly as I could. “I have to think about it.”

Monday morning, Mr. V returned my latest attempt at a “work of art.”

Where Do I Go (From Here)?

by Annabelle Cabrera

It wasn’t my choice

To come to this town

It started off ugly

And it got me so down

Where do I go from here?

I came here with shorts on

But now I’m wearing sweaters

Some days are bad

But other days are better

Where do I go from here?

Ms. Cabrera,

Now we are getting somewhere! This is what I’ve been hoping to see from you. You are clearly writing from your own experience, but in a way that is communicating something to others, in a way that lets us in …

Still, this is a song, yes? Don’t most songs have more than two verses? And where is the chorus?

Mr. V

P.S. And it’s a little depressing, this sentiment. Perhaps you should look to Jon Bon Jovi for an example of a more uplifting and inspiring message.

Wow, suddenly Mr. V fancied himself a big-shot record producer! Uplifting? Inspiring? Come on, Mr. V! Real rock songs might make you feel great when you’re listening to them, but they’re usually not
about
feeling great; a lot of times they’re about feeling mad, or sad, or just … wound up and crazy! Still, he had a point—these lyrics were just lyrics, not a song. Not yet.

The following Wednesday, exactly one month before the battle, was D-Day. As in, Darren Day, the first day that a full-fledged, recent member of Raising Cain and Jackson’s mini-mafia would enter my apartment, step on my floors, and play music with
my
band. It had been only seven weeks earlier that Curly Burly had knocked into me in the hall and told me not to make eye contact with him. Now, as the rhythm section of The Bungles, we were going to
have
to make eye contact, and plenty of it, for the band to sound halfway decent.

Darren was the first one to ring the doorbell that day. I had asked Jonny to try to make it to my place a few minutes early, just so I could avoid having to hang out with Darren alone, but Jonny was always at least ten minutes late to practice, and today wasn’t any different.

“Hey, Annabelle,” he said after I buzzed him up. “What’s up?”

“You left your Darius the Hilarious disguise at home this time, huh?” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

“That I did.” We wandered into the studio part of the apartment. He pointed to the drums and said, “So … is that Shaky Jake’s kit?”

“Uh, yeah.” It was just part of the furniture to me.

“I can’t believe I get to play Shaky Jake’s drums. He’s amazing.”

I threw a suspicious look his way. “I thought you were a metalhead,” I said.

“My Benny and Joon T-shirt wouldn’t have fit my tough-guy image. I like all kinds of music, though,” he said. “You want to play a little before the others get here?”

“Okay.” I still wasn’t entirely sure about him. He seemed cool, nice, normal. But was this the
real
Darren? Or would the real Darren rather have been strutting around the halls, displaying the latest in heavy metal T-shirt fashion and beating kids up?

I plugged in my bass and started playing my White Stripes–ish riff, and Darren came in right away on drums. About eight bars into it, while I repeated the riff, he turned the beat around very cleverly, single-handedly creating a second section of the song where only one had existed before. A truly great drummer can do that kind of thing, actually take part in writing a song by doing smart things with the beat. I stopped thinking about the real Darren, distracted by the fact that we were making some real
music.
 I didn’t have to give him any suggestions; he knew exactly where I was going, predicting when I would get louder, when I would go from the verse to the chorus, when the song was about to hit its climax. It was all second nature to him. With this guy on drums, The Bungles were going to be amazing.