Lemonade Mouth (32 page)

“And we don’t care about your schedule,” added Charlie. “We’re not changing our minds.”

Brother Slash rubbed his eyes. “And it doesn’t matter that we don’t have anything to do with . . . whatever it is you’re trying to protest here? I just deliver the machines, and he’s just the custodian. Why don’t you wait until Monday so you can take this up with the principal or something?”

I had to fight to stop my teeth from chattering. “No.”

Of course I understood that these two weren’t the decision makers here. But they were all we had, and through them I was pretty sure the message would eventually rise up the ladder. And there was no way we could wait until Monday. By then the machine swap would already be history.

The pumpkin took a step forward. The way he was looking at my arm, I had the sudden feeling he was about to reach down, grab me and force me away. But I squirmed. Even though he was at least twice my size, I gave him the most threatening glare I could muster. “Don’t you
dare
!”

He froze, his eyes wide. He looked unsure for a moment, but he backed off.

After that, they used scare tactics. The pumpkin sneered at us while Brother Slash hopped into the truck and started the engine. He revved it for a while. Perhaps he imagined that this would be enough to send the inconvenient anarchists scurrying out of his way. But it wasn’t. Eventually he gave up and came grimacing out of the cab.

“Dammit, Phil,” the disappointed pumpkin called to him. “I can’t wait here all day.”

Brother Slash, whose real name apparently was Phil, narrowed his eyes. “Okay, kiddies. Enough playing around. You better move your butts away from this truck right now or I’m calling the cops.”

I have to admit that until that moment, I sort of liked Phil. Not anymore. At the thought of the police, I considered jumping up and running away. How far did we really want to let this go?

But that’s when I heard Olivia’s voice, so raspy and tortured it was more of a series of croaks than the already breathy voice I was familiar with.

“I’M . . . NOT . . . GETTING . . . UP.”

My God! What had happened to her? She sounded like a crank call! Sure, she’d been quiet the whole time, but Olivia was
always
quiet. And what about when we’d spoken on the phone? Had I done all the talking? Now that I thought about it, perhaps I had.

And then Mo said, “I’m not moving either.” Wen and Charlie were quick to follow. “Not a chance,” they said. “No way.”

Picture it. Five supine agitators shivering in the snow, four of them in bad shape, and yet none of them agreeing to move out of the cold. Your prone protagonist could hardly believe what was happening. I could barely take in the full significance of the situation. These were the same kids that hardly cared to speak with me that first afternoon in Mrs. Reznik’s detention. And even though your formerly ostracized heroine knew each of them felt strongly about the lemonade machine, I also sensed that the true reason they were sticking by me was that they really were my friends.

Needless to say, I felt a rush of emotion.

Suddenly I had a little more confidence. Maybe I could take the pressure after all. Maybe those guys were bluffing about the police. And even if they weren’t, I thought, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that my friends and I were sticking together. And even if the lemonade machine ended up going away, nobody was getting us up off the ground without a fight.

“Go ahead,” I said finally. “Call the cops.”

As it turned out, they weren’t bluffing. A few minutes later a police cruiser pulled up and a youngish guy with cropped blond hair ambled out. His boots crunched through the snow. Finally, he stood over us. I read the upside-down name on his blue jacket. Officer Schumacher.

“What seems to be the problem here?”

So, from my position in the snow I told Officer Schumacher the whole story, how the Powers That Be at the school, together with big business, were manipulating the students, how we never had any say in the decision to take the beloved machine away. It was unfair, I explained, to disregard one group of people in favor of another. In fact, if you really thought about it, the soda machine situation was actually symbolic of a much larger issue—rampant tyranny, the callous oppression of the powerful over the voiceless.

Officer Schumacher had a kind face, which I saw as a good sign. He listened patiently until I was done, but after that he didn’t seem as sympathetic.

“That’s all well and good,” he said, “but now you need to get up. You kids can’t stay where you are.”

I couldn’t help feeling disappointed in him, even irritated. After I’d given such a long, heartfelt speech, how could he give such an indifferent response? Wasn’t he listening?

I folded my arms across my chest. “I’m not moving.”

Phil and the pumpkin waited behind him, their hands in their pockets. Frowning, Officer Schumacher stepped a little closer. It was an impressive view, this red-faced policeman towering over us, the other two peering over his shoulders. Even in the cold, I felt the heat rise in my chest.

“Technically, guys, you’re trespassing,” he said, obviously trying to sound reasonable. “And causing a public disturbance. Now, I don’t want to have to do it, but unless you move aside and let this truck through, I’m afraid I’m going to have to arrest you.”

“Arrest us?”

He nodded.

It’s not easy to admit, but I nearly panicked. I forced myself to stay put, though. “If anybody wants to get up,” I called out to my friends, “go ahead. Everyone will understand.”

But by then I knew. Nobody was giving in.

All five of us stayed where we were.

By the time my mom picked me up at the station, it was a quarter to two in the afternoon. I was the last of us to get sprung out of there. The frigid air of the parking lot stung my face even worse than before. I slid onto the Volvo’s passenger seat and closed the door. I couldn’t even look at my mother.

Finally, I couldn’t stand the tension anymore. “Mom,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

My mother didn’t answer. She started the engine and let the wipers clear the snow off the windshield. She stared straight ahead.

“Did you hear me? I just apologized. You probably want to ground me for the rest of my life now.”

She sighed as we backed out of our spot. “Look, Stella. They’re only giving you a warning, nothing that stays on your record. So let’s leave it at that, okay?”

“Mom, my friends and I got
arrested
today.”

“Don’t remind me,” she said quietly. We pulled into the street. She didn’t say anything else until we came to the light at Rumstick Road. Even when she did, she still didn’t turn her head. “But on the other hand, you weren’t hurting anybody, and it wasn’t as if you were doing drugs, or destroying property or beating people up. You and your friends were just standing up for what you believed was right. If you
had
to get arrested, I guess that isn’t such a terrible reason.”

At first I didn’t think I’d heard right. “Wait . . . you’re not mad?”

She gave a noncommittal shrug. “If you truly feel that strongly about this lemonade thing, I guess I can’t really fault you.”

This was too weird. I didn’t know what to say.

At last she turned to face me. “I guess I’ve been doing some thinking after our conversation this morning, Stella. You were right. Maybe I just needed reminding about backbones, and that some lost causes
are
worth fighting for.”

The light changed. I couldn’t believe my ears. But I knew enough not to say anything else. If this was really how my mother felt, I wasn’t going to ruin it by opening my stupid mouth.

Now I was anxious to get home and grab my uke. But instead of turning left on Rumstick toward the house, my mother took a right.

“Where are we going?”

She pointed her thumb over her shoulder. I looked around. My ukulele was resting in the backseat. “I hear there’s a revolution going on,” she said. “You don’t want to miss it, do you?”

The five of us agreed. It didn’t matter that we weren’t going to win. It didn’t matter how terrible we might sound. Even if we had to drag our broken bodies up onto that stage, we weren’t going to let anything stop us from playing Catch A RI-Zing Star.

Now, ten minutes before we were scheduled to go on, I sat backstage listening to the crowd. They screamed and cheered. Desirée Crane, this year’s emcee, announced the next band and then Jelly Belly, an electro-pop trio from Cranston, kicked into their song. The Civic Center, seating over fourteen thousand people, was almost full, both in the audience and in the dimly lit backstage area where we waited on fold-up chairs. Other musicians, most of them older, milled around. Some of them wore shiny, matching outfits, some had fifties pompadours or other mousse-dependent hairdos. Even here I felt like my band didn’t quite fit in. Instead of feeling nervous, though, I was experiencing an unexpected calm. I carefully set my uke on the fold-up chair beside me, closed my eyes, and grinned. I was enjoying the moment. Okay, so there was no telling whether we would be able to manage even one good song considering our various wounds and illnesses. But at least we were all here. I know it sounds crazy, but even then I thought we might somehow pull it off. After all that had happened, I was beginning to believe that together the five of us could do almost anything.

And it wasn’t as if our string of bad luck could get any
worse,
right?

Wrong.

That’s when your pensive protagonist heard the squeaking of metal wheels rolling past. Someone was pushing yet another cart full of equipment through the backstage area. The sound came closer and then stopped.

I opened my eyes, but it was too late.

A very fat, sweaty roadie was about to take the seat beside me. His butt, large enough for an IMAX double feature, was already making its ominous way downward. Before it registered in my brain what was happing, before I could even cry out, “No! Stop!” I heard an evil crunch, along with the twang of a snapping string. The guy heard it too. He immediately shot back up and spun around to look at the seat.

“Oh . . . my . . . God . . .” he said, bending over to examine the ukulele. Even the darkness couldn’t hide his blanching face. “I am
so
sorry.”

Wen, whose lip still looked about the size of a goose egg, was only a few feet away. “What was
that
?”

But I couldn’t speak. I gently picked up my instrument, the ukulele that, until now, I’d kept in perfect condition. Two of the strings were gone, and the neck hung at an unnatural angle. I gaped at the mortified klutz, the blood suddenly rising into my head. But even before I could choke any words out of my mouth, that idiot, the unwitting vehicle of cruel fate, must have realized how serious the situation was. He turned around and high-tailed it out of there, leaving his cart behind.

But I was out of time. That’s when one of the WRIZ clipboard guys appeared in the doorway. “Lemonade Mouth!” he called out. “Come with me. You guys are on in two minutes.”

The next thing I knew, he was leading us out to the stage.

CHAPTER 9

Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.

–Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

MRS. REZNIK:
Something Dreadfully Amiss

Desirée Crane, silicone enhanced and poofy-haired as ever, bounded back onto center stage. I couldn’t help laughing. The famous teen sensation wore a billowy purple strapless that didn’t suit her and a giant glittery tiara with stars and moons that wobbled at the ends of what appeared to be springs. She looked like a contestant in a beauty pageant on Mars.

Even as she theatrically waved to the cameras and the band that had just finished, all around me kids were already holding up signs and screaming for Lemonade Mouth.

“Thank you! That was wonderful!” she beamed. “Let’s hear it for Jelly Belly!”

Jelly Belly had been good but not great. The audience seemed to enjoy them but frankly, to me the band relied a little too heavily on synthetic sound and not enough on melody. But maybe I was biased.

There were quite a few Opequonsett High School students back here in the upper stands where I sat. The Civic Center was packed. This event, it seemed, brought together an eclectic mix of people. Pot-bellied bikers clad in leather, long-haired twenty-somethings in baggy pants, silver-headed grandmothers, buttoned-down men shouting into cell phones, middle-aged couples in tight tank tops, even a few families with young children. And all of them cheering alongside hordes of screaming teenagers.

But it was the Lemonade Mouth fans that stood out. I could see them sprinkled throughout the arena. It was our costumes. I have to admit, I was enjoying the attention I was getting as a Renaissance Minstrel. I’d borrowed the outfit from a friend affiliated with the Newport Shakespeare Society. I wore a red and green velvet hat, a jerkin with puffy, striped shoulders and frilled cuffs, velvet leggings and soft leather boots. I even carried a lute. Every time I moved, the bells on my ankles jangled.

So what if I was a little caught up in the spirit of it all? Since Lemonade Mouth, my school had felt like a different place. In the past few months some of the usual apathy and cynicism had been replaced with passion and a renewed energy. And the music—well it spoke for itself. It was original and exciting and somehow gave off a feeling of promise and possibility. I was a true fan.

Desirée Crane’s smiling face was gigantic on the overhead screen. Finally, she stared back into the TelePrompTer and the crowd settled down. I couldn’t help feeling butter-flies. And I wasn’t alone. At least in my section of the stadium, I could almost feel that I wasn’t the only one with sweaty palms.

Frankly, I was dying for a cigarette but I’d be damned if I was moving from my seat just then.

When Desirée spoke, her voice echoed through the sound system. “The next band is made up of five high school freshmen from Opequonsett.”

A spontaneous round of hooting and hollering drowned her out, so she paused and flashed her big, toothy grin until, a few moments later, it quieted again.

“Unknown to WRIZ’s staff only a few weeks ago,” she continued, “this group’s last-minute addition to our set list was the direct result of a passionate appeal from more than two thousand fans—” Another thunderous whoop, this time even longer than before. Desirée smiled again. “A group that has recently become one of the most intensely requested bands that
Local Emissions,
WRIZ’s new music show, has ever had, let’s give a warm welcome for . . .” She paused and squinted at the TelePrompTer. “. . .
Lemon Mouth!
”

She got the name wrong, but that didn’t stop the costumed masses from jumping to their feet. Including me. At last, it was here, Lemonade Mouth’s moment to shine. As I cheered, I couldn’t help feeling a tiny burst of pride when I recalled the small part I’d played in their story. And in that instant—and even up until a few moments later—I honestly believed that Mohini and her friends had a reasonable chance of making it to the Catch A RI-Zing Star finals. Maybe even winning the whole shebang.

Our cheering continued. I expected them to step out from behind the curtain, but it took longer than I thought it would. Soon I realized something must be wrong. Twenty or thirty seconds after they were announced, they still hadn’t walked onto the stage.

At last they appeared. Even from this distance I didn’t need the overhead screen to see that there was something dreadfully amiss. There was an audible gasp from the crowd. Charlie’s hand was wrapped in a cumbersome white bandage. And there was something wrong with Wen’s lip. And then there was Stella’s ukulele. As she plugged it into her amplifier, the entire neck momentarily teetered to one side. What on earth had happened? I watched her scramble to set it back in place. Was she trying to tune it? A ukulele with a broken neck? Was that even possible?

Uh oh, I thought.

The five of them soon took their positions and then Charlie called out the time. I held my breath.

DELILA CZERWINSKI:
The Plaintive Cry of an Injured Moose

Dina, Veronica and I came as belly dancers, with colorful skimpy outfits and bright transparent veils over our heads. We even painted each other’s eyes to look exotic and mysterious. We worked ourselves into a sweat twisting and slithering around as each of the first bands played. But when Desirée Crane finally announced Lemonade Mouth, Veronica started calling out, “Oh God oh God I love him! Oh God oh God!” By now, her early infatuation with Charlie had bloomed into all-out worship.

But the truth was, I was screaming too.

We’d been looking forward to this since we first found out that Lemonade Mouth made it into Catch A RI-Zing Star. Veronica had bagged all her classes one afternoon just so she could call into WRIZ. They were giving away tickets every half hour, and she kept hitting redial until she won. Which is why we were so close to the stage. And now we had our lemonades ready, along with a giant cardboard sign that said
WE LOVE YOU, CHARLIE
!

When we finally saw the band stagger out from behind the curtain, though, our screaming petered out pretty quickly. Dina shot me a puzzled glance. What was going on here? Why did they look like they’d just climbed out of a bus accident? Charlie and Wen looked beat up, and Mo had big gray suitcases under her eyes. For a second I wondered if this was some kind of onstage joke.

When they finally began, it took me a while to recognize the song. It was “Back Among the Walls,” but it didn’t sound right at all. Wen seemed to wince in pain with each sad blat that came out of his horn. Charlie whacked at his drums, but with only one hand it just wasn’t the same. Mo looked like she didn’t have enough energy to even hold her bow, let alone play it. And there was something up with Stella’s ukulele. She strummed it but the sound wasn’t right, like it was only a cheap plastic toy or something. Standing at the microphone, Olivia looked around in panic. I got the feeling this wasn’t a joke after all. Her face went red as a strawberry, but then she grabbed the microphone as if she wasn’t going to let this setback stop her. Unfortunately, when she opened her mouth to sing what came out was a God-awful screech—like a seal barking maybe, or the cry of an injured moose. If it wasn’t so horrible to see my band this way, I would have thought it was funny.

What was happening? This was not the way this was supposed to turn out. Lemonade Mouth was supposed to blow the other bands away. They weren’t supposed to suck.

My heart sank into my shoes.

We were close enough to see them start to sweat. But for a while they pressed on anyway. I guess they were determined to make it through this against all odds. But it was pointless. It didn’t work. The harder they pushed, the worse it got. The noise was hideous. Finally, even Lemonade Mouth realized they couldn’t go on. They stopped playing less than a minute after they started.

My hand rose to my mouth to stifle another gasp.

For a moment they were still. I watched them glance around at each other, their faces red and shiny. And then they stared out at us. I could see it in their desperate eyes. They knew.

It was over.

RICHIE BENEDETTI:
The Center of an Earthquake

For a moment, the entire Civic Center was quiet. Fifty-three rows back from the stage, my buddies and I sat in our seats, stunned into silence.

How could this have happened? This was Lemonade Mouth’s biggest gig so far. Look how many people showed up in costume! And I knew for an absolute fact that a lot of them weren’t even from Opequonsett High School! Everything had lined up perfectly. This was supposed to be the beginning of even bigger things. Epiphany Records. National radio airplay. Maybe even a tour.

How could they have blown it all? And so horribly?

Somehow, it didn’t seem fair.

My throat choked. And it wasn’t just because of the performance or even the recording contract. I just felt bad for those guys. As they started unplugging their instruments and backing away from the microphones, I thought what a shame it was that there were people in this audience who would never know what this band meant to so many of us. I couldn’t help remembering what my school was like back in September. Back then, Pete and I were like second-class nothings, shunned and cut off in our own lonely little world in the fringes. I didn’t feel like a Parking Lot Flea anymore. Look at the row of kids here with us: Terry, Digby, Leslie, Kate, Manny, Cynthia, all of us dressed as paper cups of Mel’s Lemonade. If it weren’t for Lemonade Mouth, Pete and I might never have hooked up with these guys. But then I looked around and realized there were people in this arena who never would understand that to us this was more than just a little high school band. To my friends and me, Lemonade Mouth was the center of an earthquake.

Desirée Crane’s face hesitantly poked around the curtain. She seemed uncertain what to do or say. I’m sure the short performance must have thrown the timing completely off. For all I knew, the next band wasn’t even ready yet. After a moment of hesitation, her shoulder appeared on the stage, and then the rest of her. A big, fake-looking smile grew on her mouth and then she started the long journey across the stage. In the quiet, the microphones picked up the clip-clop of her shoes.

Faces pale and embarrassed, Mo, Stella, Wen, Olivia and Charlie were already creeping to the back of the platform and would soon slip out of sight. I suddenly wished there was some way to help them. If only there was something I could do to show my support.

That’s when my buddy Terry Cabeleira—little nervous Terry who hardly ever spoke—stood up. For a second I thought he was just getting up to go to the bathroom or something, but he didn’t move. He just stood there. I was about to ask him what he was up to but I didn’t get the chance.

That’s when he started singing.

At first I just sat there and listened. What was he doing?

Lonely day

After the storm has come and gone

There will never be another tomorrow like today

It was “Back Among the Walls,” one of Lemonade Mouth’s slower tunes but just the same, one of our favorites. And as I listened, I started to understand. Now, I have the worst voice ever and I would normally never sing in front of anybody, but watching my band heading toward the curtain I suddenly had the urge to join Terry.

So I stood up beside him. Now there were two of us belting out the words:

In my own way

I wait for the light of dawn

I look for a sign of things to come and change to stay

I may be back among the walls

I may be back among the walls

I may be back among the walls

But I am not alone

By the end of the verse, Pete, Digby, Kate, Leslie, Cynthia and even Manny were on their feet. But in this huge stadium, even with all of us singing I wondered if our voices would even reach the stage.

RAY BEECH:
The Ultimate Insult

Believe me, it wasn’t
my
idea to sit through Catch A RI-Zing Star. Adding my own special twist to the previous night’s show at Bruno’s had been a blast and everything, but why did I need to see that freshman band ever again? But my buddy Scott said he was going and I didn’t have anything better to do so I said what the hell? Why not? Maybe they’ll bomb.

Okay, I admit that when I said that I was just talking. I didn’t honestly think it’d
happen.
But then it
did
—oh, and how! Their act was a complete train wreck. As far as I could see, there was no way anybody could ever overcome a humiliation like
that.
It was an absolute meltdown! When they finally stopped embarrassing themselves, there was this weird silence. Eventually I heard some polite applause. But I couldn’t help laughing. It was just
too good
!

Finally, maybe this would put a long overdue end to the cult of Lemonade Mouth!

But that was before those kids in the lemonade outfits down near the front stood up and started singing that damn song. When that happened, it seemed like everyone craned their necks to see what was going on. It wasn’t long before a couple more losers rose to their feet too. First one, then another, then another. Soon there were bigger groups getting up to sing, some in costume and some not. It started off kind of spreading out from the center, but before long they were popping up all over the arena.

I couldn’t believe this was happening.

And I couldn’t believe how many people seemed to
know
that stupid song!

That Desirée Crane chick reached for the microphone and opened her mouth like she was about to say something. Maybe announce the next band or maybe tell Lemonade Mouth how sorry she was about their pathetic act. Oh, wouldn’t that have been just
perfect!
But we’ll never know because her mouth closed up again. I guess she was waiting for the voices to settle down. She stood there smiling, probably thinking the song would just peter out.

But it didn’t. It kept growing.

I could have screamed.

And then the ultimate insult was when this string bean stood up in front of me. He was a pointy-nosed runt of a kid, probably about my age but with a neck like a straw. To have to listen to him warbling that damn tune right in front of my face—well, it was just too much to take.