𝘞𝘦'𝘙𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘛 𝘴𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘕𝘨𝘦𝘙𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘠𝘮𝘰𝘙𝘦

𝐚𝐥𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐌𝐅𝐬, 𝐥𝐞𝐭'𝐬 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐝

♪♫♭♬♩♪♫♭♬♩♪♫♭♬♩

Davide wasn't all too happy about leaving Mabel, and neither was she, to be honest, but as soon as they returned home, into the warmth, and he had his dinner, he just curled into his bed and fell asleep. Anyone passing by would have thought he was dead.

"So when are you meeting Jade?" my dad asked as we had our dinner, lasagne with garlic bread, on trays on our laps, as we watched The Chase on TV.

I swallowed my mouthful and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand (I refused to get this hoodie dirty) and answered, "Six. I shouldn't be back any later than eight."

As soon as I was finished, pretty much, I set out on my commute to the library, getting there in about fifteen minutes, give or take. I found Jade in the music section, absorbed in a thin-looking book with her reading glasses on.

"Oh hey," she said when she saw me approaching, closing the book with her thumb still inside to mark her page, smiling at me. "You're early."

"As are you," I noted, flopping into the beanbag chair. So satisfying. "So, how was school and all that shit?"

She shrugged. "Oh, y'know. School-like. Shit-like. Went as well as any people-y activity can go. You?"

"Much the same," I shrugged, peering at the title of the book she was reading - 'Guitar Basics'. "Told two of my friends about our little plan."

She raised an eyebrow. "Wait. Were we telling friends already?"

"I mean, no, I just wanted to."

She nodded in understanding, leaning against the shelves. "OK, cool. Maybe I'll have to tell my friends. So how did they take it?"

"Well, Emmy did the classic Emmy thing - acted very over-excited despite having absolutely no idea what I was talking about," I said, to which Jade laughed. "Then Alex just made me realise, in that incredibly annoying way she does at times, how much we have to think about before we can actually do any of this."

Jade frowned to herself, and I knew she was thinking about the same thing I was thinking about when Alex bought it up. We truly had absolutely nothing properly thought through here. And yet, the moment Jade suggested it, I somehow knew it was perfect. We were definitely doing it... just how and when and every other question word we didn't know. "Hm. Yeah," was all she replied.

I stood up and joined her by the shelves, looking over the stuff on there. Jade and I were both exactly the same height standing up, maybe just less than half an inch difference in our heights. Five feet and two inches of emo BMTH-obsessed teenager-ness. This meant neither of us could look at these shelves like normal people - our eye level was perfectly in line with the shelf itself, rather than the books which were supposedly eye-level, meaning we had to look up for the higher shelves and down for the lower shelf. That did, however, leave me able to easily spot a little book nestled away where a normal person wouldn't be able to see it.

"Ooh, hang on, what's this?" I muttered to myself, pulling out the little book. A dust cloud billowed out with it. I stared at the title for a while, not sure if I'd read it right to start off with. Then I realised I had. "Oh my gods, look," I half-laughed, showing it to Jade.

The book's plastic covering had cracked and was peeling away, the pages were yellowed and some were haphazardly stuffed back in, peeking out at odd angles, but I was more interested in the title, which I read aloud. "A Guide to the World of Tribute Bands. Now how freaky is that?" I said, as Jade met my eye.

"Beyond freaky," Jade agreed, nodding. "We should definitely borrow that one."

"Yep," I agreed. I gestured at the book she was holding. "So, you're gonna be Lee then?"