Alrightly, my loves, if any of you find this story to be...well, familiar? That's because it is. Almost two years ago, when I was still writing under the name: xobadrhymer03, this is a story that I had started up. And, frankly, it had sucked, really hard. Last night though, I started talking to one of my very old and very close friends and...I just seemed to draw inspiration from her. Anyway, I had always liked this story, even if it bit. Now, don't be too harsh, please? I know, I suck, I'm really trying again though.
Disclaimer: I do not own the School Of Rock or anything having to do with it whatsoever. All right are reserved to Paramount Pictures and the amazing Mike White, of course.
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It was a generally typical afternoon, an afternoon that the inhabitants of Staten Island had gradually become use to over the years. A day that you could barely refer to as anything less or more than usual. On this sort of day, through the sound of heavy traffic and droning of a plethora of voices wandering around the buzzing streets, there was another little "something" that everyone in this area had become so use to: the sound of rock music. An audio sample that could barely be referred to as anything lower than significant; at least coming from the individuals playing it. There had been something off about that day though, the simple May afternoon, even through the gracious amount of sunlight and creeping summer heat, it was obvious that this not the case today. There was no music, no laughter, nothing more than the sound of bickering and pain-laced voices.
If you were to witness the scene, it would have almost been as heart-breaking as the sounds of the young teenager's voices. Well, if you had become familiar with their story. It had been somewhat of a dream, a scenario that many musicians had been wishing for their entire careers. And it had been dropped into the hands of these children on such short notice, without any warning whatsoever, at the mere age of ten. Dewey Finn had wandered into their prestigious prep school, wanting nothing more than some extra cash, he has no idea at all that he was become wrapped up in something so unexpected, in a bunch of fifth graders. Who would have thoughts? So much talent bunched up into those little twerps, as he had liked to refer to them as at the time. It was the truth though, they had been amazing for their age, and only seemed to become better with time.
Even though it had begun as a simple hobby, a way for them to get out of school work, it had turned into something much more in the long-run, a little something that they would take into their lives. They had no idea how important this "side-project" was going to become, how much of their young lives would have been devoted to it. Well, at least three years of it. It had been so mind-boggling for everyone at first, how could these little kids do that? Just...how could they? It was something that many would never really get, that small group of budding musicians knew exactly what they were doing though: making a life, building up towards something that would hopefully lead them to higher places. And this had seemed to work, hell, they had even been recording a demo, their band manager, Summer, gradually beginning to scope out to right clubs for them to plain, hoping that they were to be spotted by the right scout. It was a great life, even if some just loved the fact that they had a way to get out of school work at times, though most of the others were very serious about the whole thing, especially the man who had founded the band. If he was so serious though, how could he let everything crumble apart so easily and for such a pathetic reason?
"I don't get it," Summer said, her fair colored skin seeming to lighten a few shades, turning an extremely pasty color, her already fragile looking exterior only seeming to make her appear weaker. "Why do you have to leave?"
"I already explained this to you: No Vacancy needs me again!" Dewey Finn exclaimed, his mop of chestnut colored hair flying in every possible direction. "I knew that they were going to come whining back to moi sooner-or-later, I mean, come on! Who can really resist the Dewey Finn? Come on! Work with me here!"
The air seemed to become particularly thick at this moment, the heaving breathes of fifteen very confused, very angered children seeming to be cause of this. What the hell was this man talking about? How could they resist him? He hadn't really changed very much since they'd thrown him out of the sell-out of a band! Alright, he had sobered up and become way more insightful about many things, it really didn't seem as if the men in that band would have cared about this sort of thing. They were already ten times as dark and crusty as Dewey had been before-hand. It just made no sense to any of them, whatsoever.
"Fuck that," sputtered out a very angry sounding voice, this voice belonging to none other than Alicia Allen. "You're just in it for the goddamn money, what other reason could there possibly be? You would have pushed us to the curb right after the Battle of the Bands if it hadn't been for all that buzz," she paused, drawing in a breath of air. "You just don't want us anymore." It was just like her to be straight-forward like that, she had always been the "voice" of the band, the one person who was never really afraid to speak-up about anything and, basically, everything. Well, there was always Freddy; he was just a bit more spontaneous.
"No, that is...not that isn't true, not at all. How could you guys even think that?" Dewey asked, a bewildered expression replacing the seemingly calm one that had been there only moments earlier. "If you would just let me explain...,"
"Yes, it is. Alicia is right," Katie Brown commented, her chocolate brown colored eyes sparkling with anger, an emotion that was not usually present within this girl at all. "You're just in it for the fame, fortune and groupie: the whole sex, drugs and rock and roll complex."
Mr. Dewey Finn already seemed to become desperate, trying to search for a way to make these kids understand the complexity of this entire situation. Whatever that certain "complexity" turned out to be? Well, he wasn't even sure of it himself at that moment. He just needed to think of something convincing, something that would keep them off his backs until he was actually sure of everything. "No, no, no! You all don't understand!" He exclaimed, the pleading tone in his voice barely seeming to get to these kids, to say the least. "We need this, we really do."
"It's not "we" anymore," Leonard Infante retorted, the sound of his voice just as bitter as the rest who had spoken. "Has it ever actually been?"
In the midst of the brewing argument, the tear stricken Marta Hale was barely to be noticed, curled up at the end of a certain shag textured couch, trying to take everything she was hearing in. The girl just wouldn't have it though, this wasn't occurring. Dewey wasn't going to let them go that easily, he had to actually be doing this for their own good. "Shut up, you guys! Just...shut up! Dewey is not in this for the money," she managed out, sniffling lightly. "He's going to help us make it big."
A plethora of eyes quickly turned toward the petite blonde, the mixed emotion seeming to cast an even thicker tone to the room. With some that were agreeing with the girl, and others that were stictly against what she was stating, it was bound to cause some confusion, if not really meant to in the first place. The one person with enough nerve to speak though just had to be the most outspoken of them all; her dark eyes glaring in the direction of the back-up vocalist. "Get a clue, Blondie," Alicia said. "This is a ditch, a permanent ditch. Will you ever be able to push past your giddy little exterior and see that? Or has all that hydrogen peroxide really eaten away at your brain cells?"
Marta forced her cerulean colored eyes upon her the girl, a flash of rage blitzing throughout them. "Shut the hell up, your stupid little whore," she said, her teeth metal laced teeth grinding against each other, from top to bottom. She had never been the greatest when it came to defending herself, to be honest, the girl had always ran to either Freddy or Alicia when in need of some verbal (or occasionally: physical) back-up. Well, she knew that she could knock Alicia off that list, as of that very moment.
Alicia pounced up from her seated position, even her stance flaring with fury. "Oh no, you did not just go there," she exclaimed. "No, you didn't." The girl made her way towards the much smaller Marta, grabbing a hold of her wrist.
"Maybe I did," Marta replied, her eyes squinting up into a weak glare. She had never done very well at this sort of thing either; it hadn't taken her very much to whip Alicia's hand away from her own though, jumping to her feet. Oh my, the last thing that they all needed at that moment was a cat-fight. Hell no, for as long as this band had been together, there had been nothing worse than a few insults thrown around. And those had only come from Summer, when she was trying to Freddy why his intelligence was so inferior to the rest of theirs.
The raven haired girl had known just when to jump right into the...conversation though, seeing as she hadn't really wanted to say much more than she had earlier, at least until the needed time. "Calm down! We need to work this out, to be rational. Come on, we're thirteen, not eleven." And, it was the truth, even if they were considerably young; they all needed to learn how to deal with this sort of situation. Alright, this wasn't an exactly normal thing for people their age to go through; it certainly didn't mean that it was alright to act like much...younger children.
"No, we can't calm down, Summer," blurted none other than Zach Mooneyham. "This is bad, really horrible. And all you've been doing is watching us? Not speaking up at all?" He was an amazing guitarist, yes, but the kid had never been the greatest at speaking. It was only around these certain individuals that he had been able to actually be, well, himself. Still though, he had always run to Summer when he really had something important to say, or, hell, even when he had come up with an idea for a song. It looked as if this wasn't going to be occurring anytime soon though.
"Zach! I can't control everything!" Summer exclaimed, beginning to chew rather violently upon her bottom lip. And, this was the truth. For as long as the band had been together and happy, she had been the stability, with minor help for Dewey. She was the one who was supposed to deal with everything, business wise. She was the one who needed to have everything perfect, who had to have every little detail stringed together correctly. They had no idea how horribly difficult this had always been for her, and seemed as if they had never really bothered to notice, or care for that matter.
Zach shot a rather confused expression in the direction of the girl everyone had begun to refer to as a pixie, the girl that he had begun to become so envious of. How couldn't she know what to do? She knew everything, didn't she? Ah, the ignorance. "You have to though!" Zach yelled, throwing his arms up into the air. "Quit being idiotic and figure this out! Fix it!"
"Fix it? How can I fix it?" Summer exclaimed, slamming her clipboard on to the coffee table conveniently placed in front of her. "I am not your slave; I can't do everything for you!" And, yet again, it was another true comment, a completely true one. "Oh my God, you guys are just so...exasperating!" The girl jumped to her feet, ripping the plastic clipboard off the table, turning towards the guitarist once again. "I quit!" And, with that, she stomped towards the doorway, pushing herself through the entrance and out of the life that she had grown to know and love so greatly.
"I can't take this, I quit too." Alicia gave a final glance to her former band mates, grasping a hold of her backpack and making her way out of the apartment, just as the girl in front of her had done. The sounds of some wooden objects ricocheted throughout the small room, which had only recently become blank, the thick air finally disappearing, only to be refilled with something much worse: something cold.
"Oh my God, this is bad, isn't it? This is...really, really bad," Freddy Jones commented, his eyes becoming wide and filled with emotion. An emotion that not a single one of his band mates had ever come in contact with before, one they barely seemed to care about noticing, the sound of plastic soles clicking off the wooden flooring catching their attention.
"I quit too," Marta whispered, giving a small shake of her head, a shake filled with disbelief. How could this be happening? Why had they just fallen apart like that so easily? Had they ever been very strong in the first place? Apparently not. "Bye," she muttered, fading into the mildewing hallway.
There was awkward sort of silence and, suddenly, not a single soul seemed to know what to do. At that moment, there really couldn't have been a right-or-wrong action to take. Even if the good amount of members left in that room were still dependent on the existence of that band, it was obvious that getting the other members back wouldn't have been very easy, if even possible at all. Everyone gradually begun to flutter away though. Each and every one of them seeming to go with a bitter exit, whether this be through words or something as simple as a glare. Dewey Finn was heart-broken; he had wanted nothing more than to keep those kids together, to help them grow stronger. And now he wasn't even sure if returning to No Vacancy had been that great of an idea. Come on, they had referred to him as being washed-up. It was already too late though, far too late.
To some, this might have seemed like something that could have been fixed easily. A little wound, nothing more than a scrape or bruise. If someone were to think this, they obviously hadn't felt the bond that these kids had developed, something that had seemed to be unbreakable. Now, they were completely aware that not everything was what it seemed. If they could break away from each other so easily, had that bond every actually been filled completely in the first place? This was something that seemed as if it could never be answered, not after everything that had occurred. And, it only seemed to become much worse from that point on. The friendships that had become so strong had been broken so quickly, without any warning. And not a single one of those kids seemed to speak with each other anytime soon, if at all. It all just seemed to crack, everything was lost, eschewed. School Of Rock was no more.
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Aha! There you go, I was actually able to spit that all out! And, in record time too. I'm thinking about...two hours, if even that. It has to be horrible though, if I got it out that easily. I would love some reviews on this though or, more so, as many as your lovely bystanders can muster up. I already love you all, and your writings are still extremely amazing after all this time, I just love receiving...your love. And, the more reviews that I receive? The shorter amount of time it will take for my next chapter to be up. Ily. 3
xo kissmehelectric teh Brittany