Life in a Nowhere Town: Sing Out 1 by Hanna Dare

Author:Hanna Dare [Dare, Hanna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-01-26T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

The music room in Conor's high school went unused.

It was a large room in the scale of high school classrooms, but enrolment was always headed downwards so no one was looking for the space, and when the music program was cancelled two years ago (cutbacks always hit the arts classes first, Conor noted, but the football team kept its budget), the room was simply shut up and forgotten about. One day, Conor imagined it would be one of those jokes they told the freshman when they asked for directions, like the classic, "it's just past the pool" (the school had no pool), or, "try the third floor" (the school only had two). Just another locked door with no window that everyone passed, never wondering what was inside.

Except it was never locked.

Mr. Morricone, the music-teacher-turned-math-teacher ("Math and music have so much in common," he'd try to tell Conor to get him more interested in the class), liked Conor and, more importantly, had been friends with Conor's mother, and so had let Conor in on the secret— when the school shut up the music room, they'd never asked for Mr. Morricone's key back, and Mr. Morricone not only kept it, but unlocked the door at the start of the school year.

No one ever checked. The instruments were packed away in dusty cases, the music stands clustered in a back corner, and the stained carpet left to molder. A couple of the lights had burnt out overhead, giving the room a flickering, eerie feel. It was Conor's favorite place in school. As far as he knew, Mr. Morricone never told anyone else, certainly Conor never saw another student when he snuck in during his free periods or lunch. The room was well-soundproofed, so no one heard him practicing on the old upright piano, or even his more adventurous attempts to teach himself drums or the trumpet. He shared the secret with Megan and Ali— not that they were interested in music, but they were always very interested in avoiding the nightmare of the cafeteria.

Today he sat on the piano bench, while the other two, braver than he, dared the germ-ridden floor. He was so full of secrets at this point he thought he might explode, but he couldn't think of how to tell them any of it.

"Have you guys ever thought of starting a band?" he asked, because he had to say something, but could only grasp the most random thing in his head.

They both turned to him with blank looks.

"A band?" Megan said, her eyebrows disappearing upwards into her bangs.

"Yeah, like I could sing and play, and you could ... do something."

"Go-go dancers," Ali suggested.

"If you practiced enough, you could do anything," he was floundering and knew it. "I just mean, we sit around and talk about doing stuff, but we never actually do anything."

Ali's deadpan was as unyielding as granite. "Talking and sitting around is what I do. I practice. You think sitting like this is easy?"

He turned to Megan who at least looked a bit more sympathetic.

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