A toast to the many kids of School of Rock. Pairings will be difficult, unpredictable, and heartbreaking - like real life. Chapters will be short, two-scene catastrophes - like bad television.
Enjoy.
October First - part 1
(Friday)
"No way, man. There's absolutely no way that's gonna fly."
"Why? Why do you say that?"
"Because no matter how good they could be—and I'm not sayin' they're good—when it comes down to it, Lala—"
"Lawrence."
"When it comes down to it, Larry—"
"Lawrence."
"Alright! When it comes down to it, Lala, no Britband could possibly be anythin' other than sucktastic if they're named Yes."
Lawrence stares dumbfounded, as if he's watching a dissected frog coming back to life and trying to croak in English. He has trouble understanding what's being said. He obviously recognizes the words: "sucktastic" is a mildly clever portmanteau of "suck" and "fantastic" that means "incredibly lame;" "Lala" is a less-than-clever nickname made out of his first name; "Britband" is an abbreviation (with mild condescension) of "British band," which Yes most certainly is. What Lawrence Tsai can't figure out is: why is Freddy Jones such a douchebag?
"Why are you such a douchebag?"
His question hides a hurried Asian accent that he still hasn't lost, despite possessing an impressive vocabulary for a ninth grader and an acknowledged gift for interpreting English literature.
Freddy gets up from his lean on the lockers and makes exaggerated apologetic gestures. Messy blond hair bows in mocking kowtow. "Dude, Larry. No need to get all offended. I just think it sounds like a lame band name."
"You're lame."
His favorite puny comeback. Top of the class, respected public speaker, talented musician... and Lawrence can still never keep his composure when arguing with Freddy. He's even taller than Freddy by a good couple of inches, but it never helps at all.
"Alright, dude. Bring it if you want and we'll see if anybody digs the style. Just cool off before practice tonight, right?" Freddy replies, patting him patronizingly on the shoulder and ambling off down the school hall, apparently unfazed by the entire ordeal.
Lawrence watches him walk away, down toward whichever class he will inevitably be late, to the girls he will inevitable spend all period flirting with, and the new teacher that will inevitably come to hate him. Lawrence shakes his head and starts toward his own Algebra 2 classroom and compulsively rifles through his bag. It's a sign of his stress that he has to physically check to make sure his math homework is present and completed.
Only October First and the school year is already not looking to be a good one.
~ when ~ the ~ levees ~ break ~
"God, she is hot."
"Dude, if she was any hotter, my eyes would be melting right now."
They sit huddled around the lunch table, eyeing a table in the distant bottom level of the cafeteria where a girl sits alone. Frankie, the husky Italian football player, looks over, laughs, and smacks a meaty hand onto the ceramic tabletop.
"Seriously, how does she do that?"
"She just does it for attention," Freddy says, sitting down at the table with a soda and grinning.
The guys all smile and start commenting all at once, mostly using the word "hot." There's about ten of them, an assorted bunch of guys that includes, from the band, Frankie, Lenny, Marco, and Gordon (who only half-listens while working from his laptop).
"She's not that hot," Freddy continues with a growing smirk. Most of the group smiles back.
"You only say that cause you never scored with her."
"Shut up," Freddy says. "What about Michelle? She is hot. She's like the hottest girl in our class."
They nod along, most of them picturing Michelle Green, former groupie of the School of Rock, in any of her trademark revealing outfits. To say she is the most popular girl in school is understatement.
"Yeah, Michelle's hot, really hot. But not like... that." Frankie points across the room at the girl. She wears two red streaks in her black hair, a few cartilage piercings in both ears, and a tight Ninja Turtles t-shirt; gaudy plastic jewelry, skintight gray jeans, and busted black flats. She is an alt-girl fantasy. "That's like a stack of Hot Body pancakes smothered in Hot Attitude syrup."
Freddy sneers. "Get a hold of yourself, Frankie. Can't even talk about girls without talking about food."
The others agree and laugh loudly while Frankie looks down; he doesn't say anything, which says more than enough.
"If she's so hot, why don't you just go talk to her?" Gordon asks impatiently. The short Hispanic techie rapidly switches back and forth between design views; he's putting together two possible configurations for the practice that night and it's more complicated than he expected. Not surprisingly, he's in no mood for caveman talk.
"Why don't you just go talk to her?" Freddy mimics in a slow voice. "God, Gordie, you're such a buzzkill."
"Dude, Gordon, you know why," Marco answers. The redhead is used to smoothing over Gordon's stressed-out rough patches; their existence as the two-man musical group RoadTop is pretty much been founded on that ability. "She's mute. Won't say anything, won't talk to anybody."
"Does anyone actually even remember what her voice sounds like?"
"I don't think anybody's heard her say anything in school since the fifth grade."
"She barely talks at practices, either," Freddy says. "She just nods at Zacky Poo and picks at notes when they form basslines. Sometimes she scowls." He pauses and looks the faces of each of the guys. "And damn, that scowl is sexy."
They all laugh, even the ones that aren't in the band, and have never been to a practice, and hang around the other five in a strange mixture of sycophantic hope and bitter envy. They laugh the hardest.
"Well, I'm gonna fix that scowl," Freddy adds. "And I'll have 'er eating outta my hand. Just you watch: it's going down at the Gordon and Marco Thing tomorrow night."
With a sigh, Gordon looks up from the laptop. He gives up working on the light shows and his gaze settles on the far sight of Katie Brown, slowly and intensely chewing her sandwich, looking like a cross between a cheesy supermarket ad and an angry concert poster. She looks up suddenly and locks eyes with him across the entire cafeteria.
Gordon snatches his laptop up and spins away from the table.
"Gotta go," he calls back to the others.
He silently wonders when everybody in the band went and got so damn weird.