Relying On Ben and Jerry (Waltham #1)

Chapter Nine: Dies Iraves

And we walked into a rave.

The lights were dim and someone was waving flashlights spastically from somewhere in the room, and the darkness was dotted with glow sticks. Everyone was milled around in clumps as they talked loudly over the Beach Boys blaring from a medium-sized silver stereo at the front of the room. Chairs were set up in a crescent around a large piano in the center of the room. The walls, or what I could see of the wall in the lack of proper lighting, were covered with everything from award plaques to pictures of the concert choir performing tamely in their Puritanical black dresses and immaculate tuxes, only to be partnered with miscellaneous fake mustaches stuck to the wall, one of them peeling and clinging to life next to a picture of a shot of a group of students holding guitars like Stanley Cup trophies. A chicken hat was hanging from the front board from a toy arrow with a suction cup instead of a point.

This place was like my mind put on a choir dress and exploded.

I felt my jaw drop, and Norma and Kline burst out laughing as they pulled me into the room a few more steps, the door closing unnoticeably behind me, trapping me in a room full of awesome maniacs. No one turned to stare at us even if they must have noticed the girl in mismatching colors and a tutu standing in the doorway and staring at the sight in front of me with a mixture of both horror and wonder. If they saw me, which I noticed they did, their eyes didn’t linger for long. I belonged here in this room of partying choir kids more than I belonged to the rest of the school, and I guess we could both accept that for what it was worth. It was a nice change, not being stared at.

I would have to be as blind as Stevie Wonder not to see that I would fit in here.

The bell rang, though I didn’t know how it was even heard over the chaos, and a collective sigh rang through the room. The flashlights flickered off and the glow sticks were shoved back into backpacks and pockets and the bright overhead lights came on. The music stopped playing and the voices quieted down to an acceptable hum as the bodies all waded calmly into the cluster of chairs, looking patiently at the front of the classroom as they waited for something to happen. I turned to ask Norma what they were looking at only to realize that she and Kline had already abandoned me, leaving me standing there a couple of steps from the doorway. I spotted them in the crowded crescent of chairs on opposite sides, smirking evilly, waiting as well.

Well, at least I rested assured that we were definitely friends—acquaintances would never have gotten over the guilt of just abandoning me in a strange situation like this one. Friends? In a heartbeat.

Despite the cheesy warmness in my tummy from that realization of mine, the thought that I was still awkwardly hovering on the fringes of a very bipolar school chorus was still very fresh on my mind.

An average-sized man wearing khakis and a bright Hawaiian shirt stumbled out of an adjoining office, his eyes gazing around, already knowing to look for me. He had these naturally wide blue eyes and white hair that stood straight up about four inches from his head. He wasn’t domineering of build, but I could feel his character and personality crashing down on me like a tsunami from here. He looked over at me and a wide smile washed over his face that could have also been classified as the grin of an evil scientist.

“New student!” he hollered into the classroom, his voice loud but not Colonel-loud. He started for me, grinning. “I’ve heard about you today—what is your name again?”

“Lena Mallory,” I told him, and he started nodding.

“Does your brother go here?” he asked me, but didn’t wait for an answer. “I have him in my guitar class.”

“I am so sorry,” I told him pityingly, but he laughed because he still obviously had no idea that my brother was undeniably tone deaf and thought that he was a total rock god. He smiled kindly at me before gesturing toward the giant crowd of staring eyes. I looked back without crying, barely.