Yay! Next chapter! Sorry, I'm kinda hyper... I just got back from a crazy holiday in Scotland that was beautiful and windy, and I just read a fanfic that has made me smile A LOT. Oh yeah, go check out 'A Birdhouse Begining' (sp?) because it's awesome and will cheer you up if you have the short-day-and-long-night winter blues. Go plugging! And go to Edinburgh at Hogmanay, see Paolo Nutini and tell me how much he rocked!
Mickey's song here is 'Can't Cry' by The Script, and no other songs are mine... Etc, etc. Enjoy!
Another thing: I mentioned a washing machine in the first or second chapter. For those of you that care, I meant dishwasher.
It's a Cullen Camp?
"Sometimes I wish someone up there will find me, 'Til then I walk alone… Jools, I think we've got it!" Eliza exclaimed as she finished singing, and I broke into a grin, all tiredness forgotten for a second. We'd been rehearsing from when Brown had told us we'd be performing, until we knew what we were doing with 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams'. This had taken roughly all night. We had agreed that Eliza do vocals, as she had more experience, and I'd play guitar, as that was all I could do without sounding like an amateur. Well, I was an amateur, but hopefully no one would notice.
"Okay then, let's go through it one more time, then I'm going to find breakfast." I said, yawning.
Ten minutes later, we stumbled in the door of the mess hall, Eliza immediately collapsing at the piano.
"Hey, Jools," Mickey greeted me as I pulled Eliza to her feet and dragged her over to the two empty seats where Mickey was sitting next to Matt. "How's the song coming?"
"Great, but I'm so freaking tired I can't move," I replied, putting my head on the table and shutting my eyes. Mickey laughed and wafted toast under my nose. I found I could move enough to snatch the toast from him and shove it in my mouth before he could protest.
"Hey, I wanted that!"
"Tough. I'll see you later, I'm going to bed." I said, standing up and poking Eliza. "You coming?" Eliza grunted something and didn't move from her crumpled but sort of upright position and didn't open her eyes. "I'll take that as a no. See you around lunchtime?" And another grunt. Mickey laughed again and I somehow managed to get from our table to my cabin without falling asleep in the middle of the path.
"Jools? Why are you crashed out on the floor? And why didn't you come home last night?" Caitlyn's voice came from . . . above me? I opened my eyes to see Mitchie and Caitlyn leaning over me. Right over me.
"Jeez, don't get so close to me!" I shrieked, jumping backwards and hitting my head on something hard. "Ow! Wait… I'm on the floor?"
"Yep."
"I was practicing all night and only got in this morning; I must have fallen asleep before I hit the bed."
"You were up all night? But I thought you're only doing the one song?" Mitchie inquired, pulling me to my feet.
"We are, but it was so difficult getting the timing right. I kept going too fast and Eliza tended to miss the chord she came in on."
"Nice." Caitlyn grinned, walking over to her dresser and grabbing a brush. "We'd better start getting ready, actually," she added, glancing at her wristwatch.
"Why, what time is it?" I asked, rubbing my eyes.
"Five o'clock, the parents should start arriving soon." Wait. What?
"Five?" I demanded, incredulous. "How did I sleep nine hours without realising?"
"You looked pretty tired," Mitchie replied, on her way to the bathroom. "We saw you come in to the mess hall. You looked like a zombie."
"I felt like a zombie. Hey, do I have to look posh or anything?" I wondered. "Is Parent's Weekend a big deal?"
"Yeah, but Final Jam is bigger." Caitlyn answered, "Blue or green?" she held up two different earrings.
"Green. So should I dress up?" Caitlyn suddenly lost interest in her clothes and her eyes lit up.
"Yes. Totally. I'll help." I laughed at her enthusiasm at wanting to make me look nice.
"Okay, you can help. Can I borrow one of your t-shirts?" But Caitlyn was rummaging through my wardrobe and draws, flinging clothes everywhere.
"Um, Caitlyn? I asked to borrow a top, not have my clothes thrown out the window."
"You don't need my clothes, you need – Aha!" she straightened up finally, holding my old deep blue blouse. "Just wear this with those - what do you call them?"
"Trousers. These ones?" I held up the purple chords she had chucked on my bed.
"Yes! Those! With the flip-flops you said you got in Somerset." I shuddered at the memory of going down south to stay with my cousins the previous summer. I liked my extended family well enough, but the continuous questions about my lack of social life had driven me up the wall. The flip-flops were cute, though.
"Okay, I guess that could work. Do you want me to cut all my hair off or dye it blue or something?"
"No. But when you go in the shower, wash it but leave it quite wet."
"What are you going to do to me and how do I know it will work?"
"You'll see, and I know it will work. Now get in that shower!" Caitlyn shoved me into the bathroom just as Mitchie came out of it.
"You'll have to change your name to . . . Alice Cullen!" I told her, but all I got was a bunch my clothes thrown at me. Some people these days – they're so convinced that they're always right.
Caitlyn was right, though. If I'd thought she had made my hair look nice when I'd first arrived, it was nothing compared to now. It was so, well, pretty.
I mean, I keep my hair clean and I brush it every day, but I never saw the point in doing fancy hairstyles just for school - it'll only unravel when you have a shower. But now I looked completely different. I had found a clip in the bottom of my bag with a flower on it that very nearly matched the flower on my flip-flops, and with Mitchie's help Caitlyn had twisted my hair so I looked like a girl out of one of those films with fairies in them… There were little and slightly annoying tendrils of hair falling down my face, and I'd put on a pair of silver hoop earrings which made the effect –
"Perfect." Mitchie announced as she and Caitlyn stood back to admire their handiwork. "Do you want to borrow my guitar?"
"Huh?" I thought she meant jewellery.
"You know, my guitar. It's in tune, and I'm not playing it tonight. Do you want to borrow it?"
"Oh! Yes, please. I'm asking for one for Christmas, I can't keep borrowing someone else's."
"There's this guitar shop in the town not far from here, and I think we can get out of here on weekends." Caitlyn suggested as she at last put on her earrings – the blue ones. "You could write to your parents and ask if they could send you some money."
"Yeah, maybe," I replied, grabbing Mitchie's acoustic. It didn't seem very likely, though, as Dave and mum had spent a fortune on Camp Rock and mum still needed to find a job to pay for the house in Salt Lake City. Weren't good guitars really expensive?
"I'll see you two later; I've got to find Eliza." I said, opening the door. "Oh, hey Nate, Caitlyn's in there." I stood back to let him through, then legged it down the steps find Eliza, hoping she hadn't done what I had and crashed on her bed for nine hours…
"Hey, Jools,"
"Hey, Mickey," I grinned, falling into the cabin I had spotted Eliza, Mickey and Matt in.
"Where have you been all day?" Mickey asked me, moving his guitar off a chair so I could sit on it.
"On my cabin floor, asleep."
"Haha, vampire."
"Shut up, Michael."
"Since when has my name been Michael?"
"Since now."
"Jools!" Eliza had seen me. "What took you so long? I was about to come and find you!"
"Caitlyn decided she wanted to do my hair." Mickey snorted.
"Caitlyn's mad. You look nice though."
"Thanks. Eliza, are we performing in here?"
"Uh-huh. Is your guitar tuned?"
"Yes, I borrowed Mitchie's."
"Excellent. You really need to see if you can get hold of your own." Eliza told me, absentmindedly playing a few notes on the piano sitting n the corner.
"I know." I bit my lip, thinking back to what Caitlyn had said earlier. Would I really be able to find one I could afford?
"Thinking of cost?" Mickey asked me knowingly. Could he read minds? Great, there was an Alice and now an Edward. Who would be Rosalie? Tess?
"Yeah, a bit." I replied.
"The shop in town does some good deals; you might be able to get a bargain. That's where my brother got this from." he nodded at his own beaten up guitar. I remembered he was in the Beginners' Class as well, something that had slipped my mind for a minute. Mickey was hardly away from his guitar, but it was quite old, so it made sense for someone else in his family to have owned it before him.
"Maybe." I wasn't convinced, though.
"You know that song I've been working on?" Mickey asked, changing the subject.
"Yeah? How's it coming?"
"Great, I've managed to put a few lyrics to it."
"Let's hear then." I sounded like Hermione Granger. Mickey strummed a few chords, then -
"Jenny was a poor girl
Living in a rich world
Named her baby Hope when she was just fourteen
She was hoping for a better world
For this little girl
But the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree
Well she gets that call
Hope's too far gone
Her baby's on the way
But nothing left inside
Together we cry."
As he finished, it suddenly occurred to me that I had never heard Mickey sing, but he had quite a good voice – kind of like a smoker's voice, but better. Think Ian Watkins from Lostprophets – I'm sure he's on YouTube somewhere. Anyway, Mickey sounded like that but without a Welsh accent. The song, though, was something else. It was so… deep. And there had probably only been about a dozen lines in the whole thing! (A/N: I'll laugh so hard if you just went back and counted those lines. I'll laugh harder if you do now I've written that.)
"Mickey, that was-" I didn't get to finish, though, because at that moment the cabin door opened to reveal a short, brown haired lady and a man with grey hair and a business suit.
"Excuse us, but we heard music coming from in here." The lady said, smiling at us. "Could we please hear some more?"
"Sure." Eliza beamed at the lady. "Jools, you ready?" I picked up my guitar and went to sit next to her. "Like we practiced." Eliza muttered as I met her eyes and took a deep breath.
"Okay. One, two, three, four."
"I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But its home to me and I walk alone."
I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
When the city sleeps
And I'm the only one and I walk alone
I walk alone
I walk alone
I walk alone
My shadow's only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone
Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Aaah-ah,
Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah
I'm walking down the line
That divides me somewhere in my mind
On the border line
Of the edge and where I walk alone
Read between the lines
What's messed up and everything's alright
Check my vital signs
And know I'm still alive and I walk alone
I walk alone
I walk alone
I walk alone
My shadow's only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
Til then I walk alone
Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Aaah-ah
Ah-ah, Ah-ah
I walk alone
I walk a...
I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
When the city sleeps
And I'm the only one and I walk a...
My shadow's only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone."
We finally finished our slightly abbreviated version of the song (Brown made us change the 'what's messed up' bit) with a whole lot of relief – we had done it! It had worked! I felt so light headed I could have flown… Well, jumped off a cliff and realised to late I didn't have wings, which is almost the same as flying, if you're a Maximum Ride fan.
Our audience – Matt, Mickey, and the two strangers – clapped hard.
"That was amazing, girls." The man said to us, "You must have worked extremely hard to get that so amazing."
"You have no idea," I said, just as Eliza assured him,
"It was nothing, really." We looked at each other and laughed.
I hadn't had time to be nervous, what with practicing all night and then falling asleep and getting my hair done, but then the full force of what we had pulled off hit me. (Can I have another crazy moment? Thanks again. YES!!!!!!!RESULT!!!! – Punches air and does happy dance – That's all I needed, I'm done now!)
When the couple had left, Eliza and I celebrated by going a bit hyper and hugging everyone, shrieking a little bit. Okay, a lot. Well, it was a big deal for us both, neither one of us had ever performed a live song before, on our own.
"Shall we take the stuff outside? It's a warm evening, you two can play on the grass," Matt suggested, so we packed up our stuff and plonked ourselves down on the ground, sitting on our jackets and guitar cases.
The rest of the evening passed like a dream; crazy and happy at the time, but none of us could remember it properly afterwards. All Connect 3 passed by us at least once, and Tess sat with us for a while, joining in Boulevard of Broken Dreams. We didn't do much, really, just jammed and messed about and chatted to some people who stopped to listen.
"Hey, Mickey," I said as the sun started to go down over the lake, turning the sky blood red.
"Yeah?"
"The song you played earlier, it was incredible. I never knew you could sing."
"Thanks, I think… I grew up in the wrong side of town, and I've seen some good stuff and a lot of bad stuff, so I thought about that and just went form there."
"It's good; I could tell it came from the heart." I replied.
"Jools, shall we play Boulevard of Broken Dreams one more time?" Eliza asked. "For luck?"
"Alright then," I said grinning. "I'm going to be sick of this song if we're not careful, though."
"We'll do something completely different tomorrow," Eliza promised. "One, two, three, four..." And we went from there, playing what I would say was our best performance so far.
"Jools, that was a brilliant," a voice I recognized said behind me, and I whipped around, unable to believe my ears.
"Mum! Dave! What are you doing here?" I yelled, leaping off the ground and hugging them both.
"We're listening to you play guitar, we've never heard you before." Dave smirked.
"Haha," I was all too used to Dave's 'sarcasm'. "I mean what are you doing at Camp Rock?"
"We came to see you, and the sights, and give you this." Mum replied, and I noticed she was holding an envelope. "Go on, open it."
"Is it your will?" I joked, slightly worried about what it actually was. Why else would they travel from California to Camp Rock? On their honeymoon?
"Just open it." Mum rolled her eyes. Slowly, aware that most of my friends were watching, I opened the envelope with trembling fingers. There was a rectangular slip of paper inside, with the words 'United States Music Corporation' on it (A/N: I made the name up, drop me a PM or review if it actually exists). It was one of those voucher thingies, where you paid a few quid and got a slip of paper or a card saying you had the same amount of money for that specific shop only. I had only seen these advertised – we never seemed to have enough money back home to buy money for other people. This was more than a few quid, though.
"Two hundred dollars?!" I gasped, unable to believe what I was seeing. "Eliza, does that say two hundred dollars?" I had to check.
"That says two hundred." She confirmed. I ran the maths through in my head. Two hundred dollars was about the same as two hundred pounds, right?
"Are you kidding me?" I demanded, staring at my mother and step-dad, convinced I was hallucinating. "Pinch me." I said to Mickey.
"Okay." He poked me hard in the shoulder.
"Ow." So I wasn't dreaming. "But, but…." I stuttered.
"We decided to come and see you when you wrote to us." Mum explained to me. "Brown told us how much you've learnt in just a few weeks, so we went to the shop in town to see if we could get anything for you. We found a shop filled with musical instruments, but decided to let you choose for yourself what to get."
"Looks like you're going to get that guitar you were after." Mickey said, chuckling at my shocked expression.
I had to sit down to get my head around it all.