Lemonade Mouth Puckers Up (33 page)

And yet …

And yet …

I’m glancing around at our kitchen and everything in my
world feels just a little … 
off
. Unsettled, somehow. It takes me a moment to figure out why, but then I do. I realize that right now, a warm, do-nothing morning is exactly the kind of time when Rajeev would have instigated one of his massive water fights. Now that he’s gone it’s like there’s a hole where he used to be. I miss him.

And then a very Charlie-like thought occurs to me: every upside has its downside. For instance, it’s great that Rajeev came to visit us, but now I have to pay for that by feeling bad that he’s no longer here. It’s just the world’s way of keeping an equilibrium. I make a mental note to tell Charlie about my revelation. “See? I’m getting it,” I’ll say. “Yin and yang. Balance in the Universe.”

He’ll be so pleased.

As if the Universe itself is trying to prove this point to me, my eyes happen to fall on an article on the back of the paper my father is reading. The headline says
Slash Out of Cash: The Queen of Rock Anarchy’s Festival Proves a Musical Success but a Personal Financial Disaster
. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this story reported, how the concert was organized on a shoestring budget and how there ended up being insurance issues and lawsuits and other unexpected costs. Even though her festival brought a lot of money to a lot of causes, it looks like Sista Slash herself might end up broke. I don’t know much about that kind of thing, only that it’s sad.

She did something big, so now of course she has to get knocked back down to size in some way.

Upside. Downside.

Yin. Yang.

See, Charlie? I really get it.

A stack of yellow flyers with black printing appears in front of my face. “Since you’ll be going through town
anyway, Mohini,” Maa says, setting the flyers on the table in front me, “could you please hang a few of these up by the community center, and bring the rest to Mr. Taxiarchis at Paperback Joe’s? He promised to pass them out.”

“Sure,” I say, taking in the jagged lettering across the top.

It was the Lemonade Mouth parents who came up with the idea. It’s basically a big party for our families and friends and anyone else who wants to join us in celebrating all the good things that happened, kind of a consolation prize for not being famous. It’s going to be in the field behind the high school. People are being encouraged to set up barbecues, and there’ll even be one of those bouncy castles for the little kids.

The five of us figure, why not? Any excuse for a party, right?

Plus, it’ll give us a chance to perform our newest songs.

At last there’s a knock at the door. I look up. There’s Charlie, with his big goofy grin, waving at me through the window. As if by magic, the unsettled feeling I was just having fades away. Behind Charlie are Stella, Olivia and Wen. Scott’s there too. I’m grateful for my friends, and all at once it occurs to me that my earlier revelation was only half complete, that the laws of the Universe work
both
ways.

For every downside, there’s also an upside.

I grab the stack of flyers, thank Maa for breakfast and head for the door.

“Monu, where are you going?” my father asks, peering over his newspaper. It’s as if he’s been so lost in his reading that he’s only just joined us.

“We’re on a mission, Baba. We talked about this earlier, remember?”

His brow wrinkles, but then he does seem to recall. “Yes, yes. I forgot,” he says. “Well … good luck.” And he’s back to his newspaper again.

Soon I’m outside with the others and we’re heading down the street. We have a job to
do
.

Now comes perhaps the least known and certainly one of the strangest episodes in the entire history of Lemonade Mouth. There trudged your dissident band of agitators, making their way across town on a sticky August morning to the one place you would never in a million years expect any of them to go.

It was Wen’s idea.

Since the summer began, each of us had realized, of course, that Scott had been in kind of an uncomfortable position whenever the topic of Ray Beech came up. It was clear that Ray was a dark cloud issue for Scott, a longtime friend who’d fallen by the wayside, and one who didn’t exactly bring warm and fuzzy memories for any of us, his new friends. So we all avoided the subject. Wen was the one who finally came to the rest of us and said it was time to talk with Scott about it. He had an idea how we might be able to help him out—as long as Scott
wanted
us to, that is.

I was surprised to hear Wen talk about helping Scott, of all people, considering how unhappy he’d been at having to work with him that summer. I also wasn’t sure there was anything we really could do to fix the situation. But I figured as long as Wen and the others were willing to give it a shot, what the heck?

So we went to Scott. It wasn’t the most comfortable conversation, especially at first, since I don’t think Scott would ever in a zillion years have brought up the subject himself. But I guess he must have seen that we meant well, and eventually he opened up about all the bad feelings going on between him and Ray, how it had been hard for them both since Mudslide Crush broke up and how crappy he felt about losing his former best friend. Ray pushed him away whenever he tried to communicate.

Then Wen told him his idea.

After a long pause Scott looked around at us and said, “Really? You guys would do that?”

Let me stop here to point out that, like Ray, Scott had a history with Lemonade Mouth that was far from unblemished. There had been a time in the not-so-distant past, in fact, when I’d considered them both to be about as evolved as a Neanderthals. But since then time had marched on, and people, it seems, can be mysterious creatures. Over and over fate seemed to be making a special effort to throw Scott together with us, and I ended up seeing there was more to him than I’d recognized. Sure, he could come off as a little cocky sometimes, but he could also be thoughtful and loyal and, in his own way, kind of a sweet kid. I’d never seen a hint of disrespect toward Mo (which would have been a deal breaker), and for her part, Mo didn’t seem to have any problem having him around.

Plus, there was no denying that Scott had come through for us a couple of times.

To my own astonishment, I found myself warming up to the guy.

So that’s how we found ourselves following Scott Pickett, the former Mudslide Crush golden boy, as he led us to the lair of Lemonade Mouth’s once-biggest tormentor, Ray Beech. The walk seemed to go on forever. Mo’s mom had asked us to stop by to distribute picnic flyers at the community center and Paperback Joe’s, and after that we continued down a turn off Wampanoag Road and Scott led us from there. Ray lived in the Claypit Farm area, a secluded and relatively rural part of Opequonsett at the opposite end of town, far from the main highway. In the entire year since I’d moved to Rhode Island I’d only passed through there two or three times.

While we hoofed it in near silence, I couldn’t help noticing when Mo reached for Charlie’s hand, or when Olivia rested her head on Wen’s shoulder. I was happy for my friends, but for me these displays of affection were also painful reminders of how much I still missed Rajeev. We’d been calling and texting each other, but those things almost made it worse, kind of like describing water to a thirsty person. Tragically, I hadn’t even thought to keep something of his, maybe a hoodie or a T-shirt or some other article of clothing I could have at least worn to remind myself of what being close to him felt like.

But I didn’t dwell on this. I was making a conscious effort to live in the here and now; I refused to let self-pity get the better of me.

“There it is,” Scott said at last. “Up ahead, where the road turns.”

At first I was confused. All I saw was an abandoned gas station with boarded-up windows. It looked like it had been out of business for quite a while. Surely Ray didn’t live there.

But then a hundred feet or so behind it I noticed a depressing little one-story brown house with a chain-link fence and a couple of rusty old cars on cinder blocks. It looked like a junkyard.

“That’s it?
That’s
where Ray Beech lives?”

Scott nodded. “Yup. When we were little we used to tie ropes to branches and swing from his roof. The place had more trees back then.”

I took in the mounds of mud and unidentifiable crap scattered across the enormous backyard. Near the side fence there was a wooden hutch with a railed-off area in front of it, like an animal pen. Finally we reached the front gate, where we were welcomed by a sign with big red letters that said,
PRIVATE PROPERTY, KEEP OUT! THAT MEANS
YOU!

Scott must have noticed us staring at the unfriendly message. He shrugged.

“That’s from Ray’s dad. He can be kind of a …” He seemed to search for the word. “… character.”

All any of us could do was nod. Ignoring the sign, Scott led us through the front gate. I glanced around in case we were about to be charged by attack dogs or something, but seconds later all of us stood huddled behind Scott on the front step of the house. I could hear the faint sound of a television. Somebody was home. My palms were sweating like crazy by then, and I don’t think I was the only one. After all, this was the home turf of Ray Beech, a gorilla-sized kid with a mean streak and a grudge against Lemonade Mouth. There was no way to know for sure how he might react.

I hoped we weren’t making a mistake. For all we knew, this was about to get ugly.

“Go ahead, Scott,” Wen whispered. “Ring the bell.”

We waited, but Scott was just standing there staring at the doorknob like it might bite him or something. He glanced back at us, and all at once I felt awful for him. For the first time I could see in his face just how hard losing his best friend must have been on him for the past few months. I realized how much he had at stake right now.

Mo gave his shoulder an encouraging squeeze. “It’s okay. No matter what happens, we’re right here.”

He nodded. “I’m warning you guys. As soon as Ray sees me he’ll probably slam the door in my face.” He took a deep breath and rang the bell.

Moments later we heard footsteps, and then a series of clicking sounds—locks unlatching. By the number of them it must have been like Fort Knox in there. Finally the door swung open and we were looking at an all-too-familiar hulking figure, one that I associated with high school tyranny and oppression of the voiceless and powerless.

Ray Beech.

It would be an understatement to say that Ray appeared surprised to see Scott at his doorstep with Lemonade Mouth standing behind him. He blinked at us, looking disheveled and confused, as if he’d spent the morning with his head planted on a sofa only to find himself suddenly face to face with invaders from the planet What The Heck Is Going On Here? I thought he was going to get angry, but instead he glanced around at the junk piled on the patchy ground behind us and I’m pretty sure I saw his face turn pink. Maybe he was embarrassed at the state of his yard.

After that, Scott and Ray leveled their gazes on each other.

“So … I came by to see you,” Scott began, “because I’ve been trying to talk with you even though you haven’t been making it easy. It’s been too long, man.”

Ray curled his lip a little but didn’t close the door. His voice was expressionless. “I see you brought some … friends.”

“That’s right.”

Another uncomfortable silence passed, and then Wen spoke up. “Ray, we … uh, we came along because we wanted to let you know that even though things haven’t always been great between you and us, we don’t see any point in carrying the hard feelings forever. If you’re up for it, we want to put all the bad stuff behind us and start over again. What do you say?”

Ray’s jaw went even tighter. He seemed to eye us with suspicion, studying our faces one at a time. I could see he wasn’t sold on the idea of letting bygones be bygones. After all, in his mind, Scott had betrayed him and we were the cause. It occurred to me that Ray might be about to go off like a bomb blast. At the very least, I expected to be sent packing.