Lemonade Mouth (15 page)

I suddenly wish I had older sisters.

Before long our two families are walking around the temple together. Unlike a church, which only has one altar, a Hindu temple has several. Ours has eight, each for a different god, each lit with oil lamps and adorned with fruits and flowers. Durga Pooja is a harvest festival, sort of a party celebrating Mother Nature. The service is informal. Uday Sharma, a skinny, gray-haired old man who loves to play checkers with my dad, is our pundit, our spiritual leader. He wears white and has long hair tied in a bun at the back. We follow him from altar to altar, folding our hands as we watch him perform the prayers, which are in Sanskrit. Behind me I occasionally hear my dad or my grandmother or Selina’s mother say “Jai Durga Maa,” which means Hail Mother Durga. As I listen, I’m feeling a little less anxious. Something about the rituals and the incense and the sound of the prayers is calming.

Afterwards we head downstairs for the buffet. While everybody chats and eats, various people stand at the front of the room to perform. Madhu and some of her friends do a dance, and an old lady I don’t know sings some verses in Sanskrit. I don’t understand a single word, but it’s lovely to hear. Eventually my dad prods me.

“Go on, it’s your turn.”

So I get up and walk to the front of the room where my bass is already waiting. The chatting quiets a little as I take my bow in hand. I smile. I’m not nervous at all. The Dragonetti piece isn’t especially difficult. I attack the opening three half notes and then the descending scale, and after that I can’t help looking up and noticing the pride on my parents’ faces.

A while later I’m back in my seat and, for a joke, my dad leaps up onto the stage and starts pounding on a dholak, a kind of drum, which prompts a bunch of little kids to jump up and dance. The thing is, my father has about as much rhythm as a drunken octopus and everybody knows it. But he’s having fun.

“Sit down and stop playing the fool!” my mom calls over to him. But she’s smiling as much as everybody else.

Everyone laughs, including Selina and me.

And now a sudden realization hits me: My headache is gone. All the stress weighing on me earlier seems to have evaporated. How long has it been since Scott or his friends even crossed my mind? Or my Latin exam—which I didn’t do as well on as I’d hoped—how long since I fretted about that? Or even about Lemonade Mouth and how we still sound shaky, especially on the newest songs, even though the Bash is only a few days away? Instead I’m sitting at this long rowdy table clapping and cheering my dad on. And suddenly I feel a surge of gratitude.

Because I love my family. And because, for the first time in ages, I’m laughing like I don’t have a care in the world.

OLIVIA:
A Queasy Feeling About Something Gigantic,
Unambiguous and Personal

Dear Ted,

Nancy’s the same. This morning she picked at some tuna and even ate part of an egg, but the vet still thinks it’s only a matter of time. Got your card. I set it by her bowl. I’m glad you agree with Brenda and me about this. After all, she’s not in any pain and seems happy so we didn’t have the heart to have her put down just yet. (What a strange, cold phrase. “Put” seems so neutral, so everyday—like setting a cup on a table. And exactly what do we mean by “down”? The direction suggests something creepy. What a trivial, vague and detached way to describe something so gigantic, unambiguous and personal.) In any case, we’re doing everything we can to make sure her final days are filled with the things she loves. We’ve been putting on her favorite videos, carrying her around in a basket and taking her on walks. Brenda’s even letting her sleep on her pillow.

In the meantime, we’re trying not to think too far into the future.

You’re always in my heart,
Olivia

P.S.

On top of everything else, this Friday is the big night. In four days I’m supposed to sing in front of a huge crowd at the Halloween Bash. To hear Stella talk, she’s already convinced we’re going to blow everybody away, and she goes on about the Talent Show like we’ve already won it. Now she’s even suggesting that we sign up for Catch A RI-Zing Star, the battle of the bands WRIZ holds every winter. But she’s way ahead of me. I’m still sweating about the Bash this weekend.

With all this anxiety, Nancy, the band, plus the pressure of constantly being around Wen while trying not to let him see that I like him, I feel like I’m about to lose my lunch practically all the time.

What was I thinking two and a half weeks ago? Joining this band was a horrible mistake.

CHARLIE:
An Unexpected Goodbye

1 afternoon an odd thing happened in the basement it was Tuesday and we were practicing in the Music Room. All of us were worried because there were only 3 days left before the Bash and we still didn’t have enough music and we were still making mistakes on the songs we had. Mrs. Reznik wasn’t around. Maybe she went upstairs to the Office or outside to have a cigarette or something. I don’t remember. Anyway we stopped for a break and Olivia went to get a lemonade and when she came back she just stood in the doorway looking red-faced and bothered.

“What’s the matter?” I asked her.

“They’re taking the Mel’s machine away.”

At 1st I wasn’t sure what she meant. “What? Who?”

“2 guys in green uniforms” she said. “Some of the A.V. kids are there watching.”

Why would anybody take away the lemonade machine? It wasn’t broken or anything. Wen and Stella were fiddling with their instruments and Mo was sitting on the floor squeezing in some homework during the break. But now everybody looked up. I had a sudden uncomfortable glimmer. Something didn’t feel right about this. All at once the 4 of us set out into the corridor with Olivia to see for ourselves and sure enough when we got to the top of the stairs 2 muscle-guys in matching green outfits had the Mel’s machine strapped to a trolley. They were wheeling it down the hallway toward the freight elevator. Lyle was there along with 2 other A.V. Club kids, Steve Gelnitz and Dawn Yunker. The 3 of them looked like they couldn’t believe what was happening either.

“What’s going on?” I asked Lyle.

“Don’t know. They’re taking away the lemonade machine.”

“Yeah I can see that. But why?”

Lyle shrugged. “Don’t know.”

That’s when David Bickenracker and Vic Toules, a couple of juniors from the basketball team, happened to walk by. When he saw us David snickered and I heard him whisper to Vic. “Freaks.” I don’t know if anybody else heard him but I did. I pretended I didn’t.

By then the freight elevator doors were already open and the 2 men were on either side of the machine getting ready to move it inside. After a moment’s hesitation Stella stepped in their direction and the rest of us followed behind.

“Hey!” she called out. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like we’re doing we’re moving this out of here” the bigger of the 2 guys said. He had a barrel chest and a short black beard and kind of looked like that guy Bluto from
Popeye.

“Yes but why?”

“No idea. Our job is just to bring it back to the warehouse.”

“Is it . . . coming back again?” asked Lyle. “Or is this one getting replaced or something?”

The guy shrugged. “No idea. But there’s no replacement in our truck.” With a nod to the other guy the 2 of them pressed their shoulders against the metal and guided the big machine onto the elevator. A moment later the doors closed and we were left gawking at each other.

OK I know it was only a drink machine and this should of been no big deal. But for some reason it felt like a really crappy thing had just happened. I felt really bad. Betrayed almost. Only I didn’t understand why. But when I noticed all the other glum faces I suspected I wasn’t the only one.

“I don’t get it” Wen said still staring at the elevator doors. “I liked having that machine around.”

Olivia, Mo and the A.V. kids nodded but didn’t say anything. Stella looked kind of pissed off. “Why didn’t anybody let us know this was going to happen? Why didn’t anybody ask us?”

There was a pause where everybody just kind of stared at her. “What do you mean?” Mo said finally. “Why would anyone ask
us?
”

Stella didn’t answer because of course Mo was right. Who were we that anybody would need our approval? OK sure we spent loads of time in the basement and maybe we drank a lot of lemonade but that didn’t make it realistic that anybody would of let us know before taking it away. I thought of the basement clubs and the piles of empty cups I always saw in the trashcans. I knew that Mrs. Reznik wasn’t going to be thrilled about this either.

“It’s not the end of the world it’s only a stupid lemonade machine” I said just to say something.

Nobody answered. And even though I knew what I said was true I still couldn’t help feeling like we’d been somehow wronged.

Without another word we all trudged downstairs. When we got there the guys were already moving the machine out of the elevator and into the hallway. Instead of going back to what we’d been doing, we followed a few paces behind as they rolled the big metal thing down the corridor and onto the Loading Dock and then we watched them load it into the back of a white truck. Even though I couldn’t explain it, the heavy feeling in my chest was still there.

“It’s funny” Mo said as the truck pulled away “but it’s kind of weird to see it go.”

Stella didn’t say anything but her face was all red and her hands were shoved firmly into her pockets.

And then I remembered what Wen had said about the lemonade being like the official Underworld Membership Badge. At the time, he was joking but even so there was truth to it. The thing was, the lemonade machine had kind of been
ours.
Most other people got sodas from the dispensers by the Cafeteria. Even though I hadn’t thought much about it before, I now realized that in the past 3 weeks that frozen slush had become for my friends and me sort of a connection, almost part of our group identity. And not only for my band either. For the A.V. Club too, and the French Club, the math team and the
Barking Clam.
And even for Mrs. Reznik. In a strange way, the lemonade really felt like a membership pass to an underground society that I hadn’t truly realized I’d been part of.