Sunlight trickled into a crammed office. It illuminated a half-graded test, as Mrs. Spicer put down her pen. Heaving a sigh, she leaned back into her chair, and gazed out the window wistfully.

In the courtyard below, students lay on the lawn, chatted on benches, and crammed in the shade. Giggling packs of females roamed aimlessly, posing a near-impenetrable barrier to any would-be suitor.

All around the gym, decoration was in full swing. Streamers hung from the walls, balloons bounced against the ceiling, and a single disco ball was carefully installed. A grizzled administrative matron directed progress with a critical eye.

At the front, Jess supervised the set-up of sound equipment on their makeshift stage. As Mike and Harry walked up, Julie tripped over yet another wire, eliciting a storm of well-chosen words.

Mike carefully hoisted himself up; Julie eagerly fled from the wires, taking Harry down with a flying tackle.

Irie strode up to Mike with a welcoming grin. "Hey! How can we help you?"

He put his hands in his pockets. "Oh, uh, you know. Just came to see if I could help."

"Like sh**," Jess grumbled. "That's exactly what you'll give us. If we get any more clumsy "helpers," then this damn sound system'll never get off the ground." Crouching, she put the ruined wire through her fingers. There was a brief flood of warmth, and when she straightened up, the wire was whole… and purple.

"All of my old band's sound equipment was purple," she explained. "Don't ask why. In any case, it's all I remember. Good thing I remember something. We'd never get any volume with the sh**y system this school has."

Mike chuckled nervously. "Your old band? I've always been curious about that. What was that like?"

Jess chuckled. "My days with Death Iron Valkyries? You want to hear about that?"

Kate muttered something under her breath, and flashed him a look. He trooped on. "Yeah, I do. Maybe I've heard of them."

Stooping, Jess fiddled with an amplifier, her face hidden. "Funny. Most of the people who knew about us were the people in our neighborhood who'd yell at us to quiet down. But… it was good. While it lasted.

₪"Death Iron Valkyries never really broke out onto the main stage. It's pretty difficult to, when you're a grunge, symphonic metal-jazz band. Not a big following audience. But, and I don't exaggerate, we were pretty damn good. No, I'm not biased."

Jess smiled wryly. "Hell, all we ever really wanted to do was jam, anyway. We'd just hang out in the lead singer's garage, rocking for hours. It was something else. When you play music, thing seem different. You can start to see an order in things, beautiful patterns that run through you. Metal's no different, except every inch of you howls with energy. You simply shake, the music pouring off you. We lived for beauty. Music was the only way we could see it.

"Our lead singer, well, he was card. 'Hamnet,' stupid name, right? But he was incredible. When I met Hayley, I thought she was his spitting image, simply because of the passion they brought to their music. But, well, there's a big difference between them."

"When Hamnet sang, you wanted to scream with him. There was so much anger. I know the guy had a bad life. His f***ing dad bowed out on him, and his mom was usually sick. Life in our city didn't give him any breaks. Hamnet was hurt. Like the rest of us in the band, he was furious at everything around him. And so our band found its soul.

"It all fell apart, eventually. Like everything else does. Hamnet started becoming withdrawn; the only time he'd really speak was during our songs. Eventually, he gave up. His mom called us, told us she'd found him with an empty thing of pills. None of us felt like continuing after that.

Jess spat, wiping clean a gummed-up plug. She didn't look up from her work.

"The brute ugliness of the world killed my friend. Our world was hideous; we couldn't escape from it, no matter how hard our music tried. In the pitiful remainder of my existence on that mud ball, I never forgot his lesson. Experience in the world only shows you more horror. I saw that life was ugly."

Forcing his hands to his side, Mike stepped forward. He crouched next to the guitarist. "Anything I can do to help with that? I'm not very good with circuitry, but-"

"Hold this," Jess muttered, passing him a role of duck tape. Mike gripped it firmly, and then paused. His brow furrowed.

"Jess… do you still think that… about life? Do you still like it's ugly, now that your here, with us?"

The rocker was silent for a moment. "Like it matters what I think. Won't do anything to change what is."

"But, well. Ah, hell. Living with you guys is different, you know. My city was nothing like this. I still get to play music, but the words are different now. Every time I play one of Hayley's corny love songs, it gets better."

Jess glanced at him. "And… I do see it, sometimes. Beauty, I mean. I see it in the flowers. I see it in those stupid apple trees by the path. You know, the ones too high to get without someone giving you a boost. I see it in the Battlefront… Hell, sometimes I even see it in Julie."

Standing next to Harry, Julie smiled.

Abruptly, Jess grumbled, and yanked a length of tape from Mike's roll, leaving his fingers red from the spin. "Enough yakking. The dance is in a few hours."

Off the stage, Harry turned to Julie. "Are you ready?"

She nodded eagerly. "You bet! I've never been to a dance before. I'm so excited I could just fall over!"

Harry rolled his eyes. "That wouldn't be very good. The Battlefront needs you."

"And I wouldn't get to dance!"

"You'll be playing, remember? You can't dance."

Julie's small hops of enthusiasm gradually slowed. "Huh?"

Aw, nuts. "No, don't worry," Harry backed pedaled rapidly. Figures, I let my mouth run for a few moments, and I go and get someone upset."I'm sure the band gets a break. You'll be fine, I'll even dance with you, I- uhh…"

Julie blinked. "You will? Well, I'm not very good at it yet." She tried to push her hair back behind her ear. "But I'll try!"

How is she doing this, Harry wondered. Some people are hurt by tragedy. But after all she's gone through, she can still smile like that? Smile in that enormously annoying way, with those crooked teeth, and her lips curving, and her eyes, uh, um.

"You two can quite standing there like a double of dumb dodo's," Jess called. "Make yourself useful. Go and stop those freshmen from putting balloons on the stage. Tonight, we rock."