Six weeks had passed.
At lunch, the eight founders of the sneaky group sat together. "Seven days till the concert and we are rarin' and blarin'!" Eric cheered.
This confused Kevin. "I thought you didn't want to play Aurora."
"I didn't want to replace Persevere. But I think now we have such a strong majority-"
"Majority? We have the whole band!" Dana interrupted.
"-we can just go to Ms. Larson and ask that we just add one more piece."
"Written by our own, talented, up-and-coming Mohamed Boston," Mo bragged. His opinion of his piece had changed drastically over time.
"I'm for it," Dana shruggingly agreed.
"Us, too," Gabrielle and Hannah chorused. The latter had learned her part well, and was even considering writing a piece of her own.
Simon was a little less enthusiastic. "I still would rather scrap Persevere, but I'm proud to support our own…well, whatever he said."
"All right!" Eric cheered.
"Wait," Kevin cautioned. "I think this is great. But-what about Kimberly?"
"Of course Kimberly wants us to play it! She inspired me to keep going!" Mo answered.
At the same time, Kimberly responded. "Of course I want to play it! I inspired Mo to keep going-er-not to brag or anything."
Simon had heard both of them. "Trust me. You're not."
"That's not-" Kevin shot a semi-murderous glare at them-"what I meant. What I meant was, Kimberly was all about how Persevere was full of doom and gloom. If it hadn't been for her, she and Simon wouldn't have tried to replace it with Aurora, he wouldn't have invited the rest of the band down here, and we wouldn't have had enough people to ask Ms. Larson to play."
Dana was confused. "Your point is?"
"What's she getting out of this? We're still playing Persevere, right?"
This got Kimberly mad. "What am I getting out of this? I'm getting to see Mo write his piece and maybe even play it! Doesn't that count?"
"But you know," Hannah admitted, "Kevin's right."