Lemonade Mouth (3 page)

I was looking at Sista Stella, my alter ego, my evil soul-sister.

The girl glaring back at me didn’t need friends. She was a rock. She didn’t care about geniuses or about Mr. Brenigan, or Mrs. Birch, or planet-saving Frankenstein plants, or her cliquey high school, or anything. She wasn’t some frightened puppy, willing to sit down and obediently accept whatever crap the world dished out. She wasn’t about to let other people make any more decisions for her.

In fact, Sista Stella was about to make a few decisions of her own.

CHARLIE:
The Ultimate Symbol for No Right Answer

I have to be honest English Comp is not my favorite subject. Which must be obvious to you since here I am having to do this extra paper just to squeak by with a C. But I’m terrible at writing. It takes me forever to get my thoughts organized. And I’m never sure how to begin either.

So I guess I’ll just keep typing.

The 1st part of my story is kind of embarrassing I don’t come off very well. In fact it kind of exposes the fact that I’m a big fat loser. You might even feel sorry for me. But I promise you it won’t last.

The very very beginning part is also a little complicated. And kind of weird too. So bear with me.

I was in study hall minding my own business listening to my headphones. My eyes were closed and I was drifting in and out to Tito Puente. Do you know Mambo Diablo? Anyway that was the tune that was lulling me into a dream where I was playing my timbales and Mo Banerjee was getting into the rhythm she was dancing and it was a really good dream except I kept getting distracted by the voice of my dead brother Aaron. Right then he was saying things like
This is YOUR dream Charlie so why not make her dress shorter?
or
Get a grip! Stop playing your stupid drums and kiss her!

Sometimes Aaron can be a pain in the ass.

OK so to shut him up I gave her a very very short red dress and high heels that I know she’d never really wear in real life. Anyway my sticks kept whizzing through the air like my hands were on fire. Like my body was only there to support my arms, you know? The ecstatic crowd jumped to its feet. Mo kept moving her Hips and gyrating to the music. She was a good dancer in my opinion. Then the next thing I knew she danced right up close and I felt her dark eyes on mine and my heart started hammering because I suddenly realized she was about to kiss me but even so I just knew that Aaron was going to say something obnoxious and ruin it.

That’s when I felt the 1st spitball whack against my cheek.

I woke up with a lurch and yanked off my headphones. Gradually I remembered where I was. Mrs. Reznik the Music Teacher, a tiny scary old lady with a permanent cough, sat at a beat-up desk at the front of the room with her eyes closed like maybe she was having a dream too. The other kids sat quietly in their seats. Most of them were staring out the window looking bored out of their minds. Some of them were even doing homework. I touched my face. The wet wad of paper was dripping with someone else’s spit. It trickled toward my mouth. It was really REALLY gross. I scooped it off and rubbed my cheek on my sleeve. Yuck.

An instant later a 2nd spitball hit my left ear. Somebody stifled a laugh and when I turned to look, there were Scott Pickett and Ray Beech and Dean Eagler engrossed in their studies.

Yeah right
Aaron said somewhere in my head. I wasn’t surprised he was still there. He’d been making occasional appearances in my thoughts for days.
They’re not fooling anybody.

These guys were part of Mudslide Crush which as you know was a popular local rock band and everybody seemed to think they were the coolest kids ever to walk the hallways. They seemed convinced of it too. Ray especially enjoyed giving freshmen like me a hard time. He liked to call me Buffalo Boy. I guess because I have a lot of frizzy hair I keep kind of longish and I’m a little chubby. Not that Ray was exactly svelte. In fact he was a giant toad of a guy but that didn’t seem to matter. He had a name for everybody. Earlier that week I saw him knock Lyle Dwarkin into a wall. Lyle’s 14 but looks 10 and has to be the shortest kid in our grade. He was one of my few friends and he was ahead of me coming out of Metal Shop when Ray bumped into him and kept walking without even looking back. Like he didn’t even notice.

Ray was a real bastard.

I wiped out my ear. I figured I had 2 options. On the 1 hand I could try for revenge on the other hand I could just ignore those guys. After all there were 3 of them plus I had a list of Irregular Verbs to review for 6th period Spanish and my Mother had been on my case about the 72 I got on the first quiz. It wasn’t fair for them to get away with being such jerkoffs but what could I do? Everyone has to have their turn being freshmen I guess. Maybe if I studied quietly and didn’t make a big deal of the spitballs Ray and his friends would leave me alone.

It was definitely the safer plan.

Go for it
Aaron whispered.
Look at Scott’s wet fingers. It was him! Hurl a fat one right at his head!

Shut up I told him silently.

I want to stop right here and say that I’m not crazy in case that’s what you’re thinking. I knew perfectly well that Aaron’s voice was only in my imagination and that he was really long gone. But my 14th birthday was only the previous weekend and my Mom and Dad and I went to visit his grave. After that I started thinking about him and what life might’ve been like if he was still here. Or if I’d of been the one stillborn with the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck instead of Aaron. It’d just been the luck of the draw, right? And people do say twins share a special connection. I read one time about a guy that fell in a deep hole and his twin who was miles away started getting these weird vibes until eventually he went out and saved him so the way I figured, it wasn’t
completely
whacked for me to have these imaginary discussions with the brother I never knew.

Still, I know it’s not normal, is what I’m saying. No need to send me to the guidance counselor, Mr. Levesque. Or lock me in a padded room or something.

My eyes fell on a drawing somebody made on my desk. A circle with a curved line down the middle, 1 side filled in with pencil. Yin and yang. Of course. With my cheek still warm from the spitball here I was staring at the ultimate Symbol for no right answer. The struggle between opposing forces. Action and Inaction. Success and failure. There was an uncomfortable balance in the Universe and who was I to try and tip it?

I couldn’t make up my mind what to do so I pulled out a quarter and tossed it into the air. Heads I’d throw a spitball of my own, tails I wouldn’t. When the coin landed I was staring at George Washington.

Decision made.

I slid down my chair and quietly tore half a page from my spiral notebook. I wadded it up and popped it into my mouth. As I chewed, Ray whispered something to Scott and then Scott looked over at me and grinned. I dropped my eyes and pretended I was studying my list of Spanish conjugations.

Yo tiro. Tú tiras. El tira. Nosotros tiramos. Ellos tiran.

A moment later I held the spitball under the table and rolled it between my fingers. When I judged that the moment was right I wound my arm back. I focused on the skin between Scott’s ear and his annoying smirk. Then I let it fly. It whipped through the air and landed with a loud, soggy
thwack!

That’s when Mo Banerjee who was sitting right in front of Scott stood up and screamed.

“Aaaaaaaa!” she wailed, swatting the wad off her face and glaring in my direction. “So
gross
who was that aaaaaa!”

I cursed George Washington and my terrible luck. How had I managed to completely miss Scott and instead hit Mo right on the nose? I sank deeper into my chair. I wanted to disappear. Scott looked from Mo to me and back again. Then he laughed and so did Ray and Dean.

Oh man. You screwed up big this time.

Shut up.

With a violent cough Mrs. Reznik suddenly seemed to wake up. “Who did that?”

Since Mo was still screaming I worried I actually might of hurt her. Maybe even broken her nose or something. Was that even possible with a spitball? Oh God. Maybe.

“Mr. Hirsh” Mrs. Reznik said with her eyes boring a hole right through me. “Did you throw something at Miss Banerjee tell me this instant!” I know I shouldn’t say this but Mrs. Reznik always kind of freaked me out. Especially because she was really REALLY old and had this outrageous swirl of stiff brown hair like a giant chocolate cake on her head. It was lots more hair than I thought was natural and I was pretty sure it must be a wig because it never moved and never changed from day to day.

I felt my face heat up. I nodded. I knew this meant detention at the very least.

Behind me Leslie Dern and Kate Bates snickered.

“What was it?”

“A spitball!” Mo shouted. Her chin was out and her eyes narrowed at me. “Charlie you are a
pig
!”

I slipped further into my chair.

For once Aaron kept his mouth shut.

MOHINI:
Of Vampires and Victorian Ladies

“Need anything, Mo?” Mrs. Flynn asks from behind her computer screen. “Water?” From the way she’s looking at me it’s obvious she’s as surprised to see me in trouble as I am.

I shake my head and stare at my knees.

It’s Thursday afternoon and I’m fighting back panic on the long bench in the front of Mr. Brenigan’s office, my double bass under my feet. I start to gnaw at one of my fingernails but then stop myself. I feel pressure building up behind my forehead—the first signs of a stress headache. I should’ve guessed this day would turn out to be a complete disaster. First I get whacked in the face with a spitball (that space cadet Charlie Hirsh apologized five times, but a ball of saliva-saturated paper is still a ball of saliva-saturated paper), and now this.

My eyes catch my reflection in the glass of Mr. Brenigan’s office door. I scowl at my brown skin, dark eyebrows and straight black hair that I’ve always felt begins too high on my forehead. As the only Indian person in the whole school, sometimes I feel I stand out like a nigella seed in mayonnaise.

I want to scream at myself,
What were you thinking!?