The Lost Boys (20 page)

Tristan continued playing chords while he answered us both. “You never asked and I heard it yesterday at Seth’s band rehearsal. They played it like a hundred times to get it right. I kinda memorized a few parts …”

I was a little jealous. Seth had never asked me to go to a rehearsal, and Tristan already got invited. I think Seth saw the jealousy on my face, because he hastily added, “We looked for you, but you were at Martial Arts class! And it wasn’t even a proper rehearsal, since Josh and Sam weren’t there,” he mumbled apologetically.

Tristan continued playing softly, humming along, lost in his own world. He looked up and smiled at us. His eyes shone a soft violet color, because of the violet T-shirt he was wearing. I suppressed a strong urge to sigh loudly at the sight of his smile.

“Sorry, don’t remember the lyrics much, only the chorus,” he said, getting back to humming and looking down at the guitar. Dark locks of hair fell over his face when he looked down, making me want to brush them back and tuck them behind his ears. Maybe I just wanted any excuse to touch his handsome face.

I looked down, feeling ashamed for having these kinds of thoughts. This was probably just the binding spell working its devious grasp on me again. I should learn to control it, to tame these weird urges I was feeling all the time around him. It was very disturbing!

Seth joined in then, singing the lyrics that Tristan didn’t know. I looked up, startled. I had never heard Seth singing before. He was good! He had this electric, energizing quality in his voice; it made you want to sing along. He rocked!

Then Tristan started to sing along with Seth in the chorus part. I was even more astonished. Tristan had such a rich, deep, low voice. It was husky and sad, a hint of darkness behind it; it was like a soft stroke on your face, a rough whisper in your ear. It was breathtaking. Seth stopped and just stood there quietly, listening to Tristan sing his song. I decided to join in with the piano, with the little I had heard and the parts I remembered from the afternoon when I’d rearranged Seth’s song. My piano lessons were a bit rusty, but I could play well enough to tag along.

I kept playing without looking up, focusing all my attention on Tristan’s voice and the lead of his guitar’s soft notes. It sounded like an acoustic version of the song, simpler and more melodic than it was originally intended to be. I didn’t know if Seth was going to like it much that way.

When the song ended, Tristan and I both looked up at last, our eyes locking. Seth was looking at Tristan and then back at me with wide eyes. I guess we’d managed to impress him, then! I smiled softly at Tristan, and something strong flashed back at me inside his eyes. A mix of … longing? With something else, something I had seen before.

Before I could follow that thought, Seth’s voice cut in. “Wow. That was …” he began, but was interrupted by Professor Rubick’s voice from the other side of the room.

“That was quite good!” Professor Rubick bellowed, walking over to join us. The music teacher had small round glasses resting on a stubby nose, and he was wearing casual jeans with a long-sleeved cream shirt. He was tall, and had a trimmed dark beard that matched his brown hair. A few signs of baldness were starting to show on the top of his head.

The room was suddenly filling with students while he approached the centre of the stage. “What was it that you two were playing?” he asked me.

I stepped out from behind the piano and Tristan stood up, leaning the guitar on the bench. “It’s Seth’s song, sir,” I said. “I was trying it out on the piano, just for fun. I think it’s quite good too! I can’t wait to hear the whole band playing it!”

“Really? Seth’s song?” Professor Rubick asked. “You have always struggled with your lyrics, Seth, but that was really good. You need to trim a little around the edges, but the guitar part was rather good. The piano needs a little more practice, though. You sounded a little rusty, missy,” he said, looking at me.

“I could not agree with you more, sir,” I said, nodding my head.

“I’m sorry, Professor. It’s not actually my song,” Seth chipped in. I glared at him, trying to make him stop talking, but he ignored my warning look. “It’s Joey’s song, sir. She wrote almost the whole thing, she deserves the credit.”

A few students were picking random instruments from the walls and starting to play a few screeching tunes. At first I thought they were tuning their instruments, warming up to play, but the chaotic notes and sharp screeches were only getting worse and louder by the minute.

I saw Tristan flinching at the horrible noises around us, and I tried my best to put on a straight face, but wasn’t succeeding much. Now I understood why there were so few names on the Music class list! Staying here for a couple of hours was going to be pure torture! Seth could’ve warned us about this, the numbnuts!

Professor Rubick seemed to understand our worried glances. “Yes. Sorry about that.” He looked apologetically at his students. “So, Joey, is it? Since you two seem to be advanced students, perhaps we could work out some kind of arrangement. The same one I have with Seth and his band. We have a special deal so they don’t have to attend my classes here. But they still need to work on music, though,” Professor Rubick said firmly.

“Arrangement, sir?” Tristan and I asked at the same time.

We were up for anything that could take us out of here!

“Yes. You two can join in Seth’s band, how about that? But wait! There’s a catch. Each one of you needs to deliver me an original song by the end of term. Joey can help you guys with yours, since she already managed a song in just one week!” he said, getting excited. “Oh! This is going to be such an interesting project! I can’t wait to see what you boys will come up with!”

“But … but … sir!” Seth intervened. “I need to talk to the rest of guys first! I don’t own the band, they all have to agree with new members …”

“Well, you talk with them and let me know! It’s that, or this …” Professor Rubick gestured to the chaotic commotion thumping around us.

Tristan and I looked desperately at Seth. Anything was better than another minute in this hell! Poor Professor Rubick. I wondered how he coped with those lessons. You had to really love teaching to endure long hours of horror in this room with these students!

We huddled next to Seth, while Professor Rubick shouted at the other students to stop playing the instruments for the love of all that is good in the world.

“Come on, man! We’ll just sit quietly at rehearsals and watch you guys play. You won’t even know we’re there!” Tristan pleaded. He looked like he would do just about anything to avoid attending this class!

Seth looked at both of our desperate faces, and sighed in defeat. “Okay. I’ll talk to the guys. Come on. Let’s meet them in the practice room,” he said, waving us to follow him.

We gave Professor Rubick a thumbs-up and darted out of the room, clapping our hands over our ears.

“Thanks so much, Seth. We promise we won’t disturb you!” I said in relief as we followed Seth down the hallway.

“Hey, don’t thank me yet. I still need the guys’ permission! If they don’t agree, the deal is off, sorry!” he said in a worried tone.

“Come on! They don’t like us, is that it?” I asked by Seth’s side.

Josh seemed to be quite easygoing, and we were training buddies at M.A. Harry might have a problem with us, because we were new people and he seemed really shy. I didn’t have a clue about Sam, since I hadn’t met him yet.

“Well … I don’t think they are going to mind about Tristan. Not after they hear him sing. But, you, Joey, I don’t know … because you’re, you know, a girl and all. The only girl,” Seth mumbled.

Oh. So it was a boy band. Boys only. Crap.

“I could be your songwriter, help you with some new song ideas,” I suggested, trying to sound like I didn’t care much about being in the band. But I couldn’t hide the disappointment in my voice.

Seth took a quick glance at me and saw how much I wanted to be in the band. “But then we won’t have your wicked piano skills on board,” he said, smiling warmly at me. “Do you think you can play again on the piano for the band to hear? It was amazing hearing you two together!”

“Sure,” I said, “Let me just practice a little more, take a few lessons with Professor Rubick, then my piano won’t sound so sucky.”

Seth laughed. “It wasn’t ‘sucky’. You were really good! You too, man,” he said, clapping Tristan’s shoulder.

Soon we arrived at the practice room. It was on the farthest east side of the school building, in a big stonewalled room. It was crowded with boxes and all sorts of repaired furniture, tables, chairs and benches. It was a junkyard of old furniture, but the guys had arranged things in a way that actually looked sort of cool. The room smelled of pinewood and dust.

Harry was already there, waiting, sitting on some boxes, his wild, dark-red hair falling over his pale face. Josh was also there, with his usual black T-shirt and black mohawk, setting his drums in place. They turned as soon as they heard us walk into the room.

“Hey, everybody, we have some company!” Seth shouted cheerfully. “Joe, Tristan, you two have met Harry, bass man, and Josh there, drummer boy. The gloomy stranger on the other side of the room, plugging in his guitar, is Sam Hunt. Lead guitar and lead singer. Sammy, my man, how ya doing?”

A tall, strong boy stood up and smiled at us. He had curly brown hair and deep, dark-blue eyes. He wasn’t as tall as Josh, but he was larger and stronger. And he had the most open, warm smile ever. Nothing about him was gloomy; he was absolutely vibrant and full of cheer. He came over to us, laughing loudly.

“So, these are the infamous Grays!” Sam said, shaking Tristan’s hand vigorously and turning to me. “Nice to finally meet you! Seth’s been babbling about you non-stop. It’s Tristan this, Joey that, all day long! I was wondering when you were going to show up!” he said, giving me a huge hug, which surprised me a little.

And I’d been worried Sam would have a problem with us! He was so nice!

Sam, Tristan and I chatted for a while, and I grew fonder of Sam by the minute. He was funny, kind and obviously the joker of the band. He made everybody laugh with such ease! He was just naturally funny, a born entertainer. Harry laughed at almost everything Sam did or said. And Harry’s laugh was really contagious. Once you heard him laughing, you couldn’t stop yourself laughing too.

Then Seth called the band to a corner to discuss our situation, and I stood in the other corner with Tristan, looking around the room. I could hear only parts of the conversation.

“You should have heard them. It was freaking amazing …”

“Professor Rubick actually liked them? Wow, that’s a first …”

“I’m telling you, man, he has a REALLY good vocal …”

“… she plays the piano! It’d be great in some of our songs …”

“… but she’s a girl, dude. What if someone asks about the name?”

“If we change the name …”

“We’re NOT changing the name!”

Apparently, there was a name-changing discussion happening over there. After a few minutes, they seemed to have reached agreement. They all turned in our direction, and Seth walked over to us with a poker face on. “That’s settled, then! Tristan, you’re definitely in!” Seth said, clapping Tristan’s back with a wide grin.

“Great! I’ll just stay out of your way, you won’t even know I’m here!” Tristan breathed, relieved to get rid of music classes.

“Sorry, dude, but you can’t stay in the corner just watching, you’ll have to sing too. And work on your lyrics. You heard the professor: each one of us must come up with a new song.” Seth smiled evilly at him.

Tristan nodded with a happy smile.

“What about me?” I asked Seth anxiously “They didn’t let me in, right? That’s okay, Seth, you tried,” I said shuffling my feet. I was a little bit disappointed, though.

“Oh, you’re in too, Joey. But you will have to just be our composer, because they don’t want to change the band’s name. I think they’re being stupid. We don’t need to be all boys playing in the band just because of the name of the band. It’s not a literal thing, it’s just an idea. And you do rock with your piano skills! It was brilliant! We should be begging you to join in!” he said, giving the others a pointed glare. Then he gave me a welcome hug.

I smiled while I hugged Seth. Tristan was looking at us kind of seriously, with a weird expression on his face, but when he caught me looking at him he averted his eyes, fast. I wondered why …

“I’m really glad to have you on board, Joe Gray!” Seth said into my ear. Then he turned to the band and shouted at them. “HEY! She even has a boy’s name, so it all still looks certified on paper and you don’t need to worry about changing the band’s name!”

“What is the band’s name, by the way?” I asked, intrigued.

Seth was strapping on his guitar on and walking into their practice area. “How about we give Joey here a preview of her song?” he said, winking at the rest of the band.

They were all set at their marks and ready to play. I sat on the floor next to Tristan, waiting to finally hear my song played for the first time! I was so excited!

“I hope you like it, Joey! And welcome to The Lost Boys!” he said, striking the first chord.

Chapter Eighteen

The Spell Bond

The song was good, but the band was amazing!

They were all really good musicians! Like, nearly-ready-to-record-an-album kind of good! I thought they were just a bunch of kids joking around with some instruments, but I was so wrong! No wonder they had pulled that arrangement with Professor Rubick. They really deserved it! I was so excited after hearing their rehearsal that I ran to my room and started working on some new songs right away. I wanted them to know that I’d do my best to earn my place in the band. I’d compose my ass off!

I spent the rest of the week, and my whole weekend, working on lyrics and melodies. Tristan helped a lot with the melodies and harmony composition. He was really good at blending and mixing those parts.

I called my mom and told her Tristan and I had to stay at school that weekend because of an intense load of homework, but really I’d stayed only to work on my songs. I felt guilty at first, because she sounded so upset that I wouldn’t be visiting her, and I could tell that she missed me a lot, but I was really excited about the band. All I could think about was music 24/7. It was like a light had turned on inside of me and I couldn’t stop glowing.