The Gods of Song and Poetry

Chapter 2 - Feelin' Like A Rock Star

"So how long till I get a nickname?" Kelly looked at me jokingly.

"Bedroom Eyes," I thought to myself. "Apple-Bottom, take your pick."

"I guess we'll have to wait and see," I said out loud. "So, Kelly, did you just move here, or do you go to school at one of our co-ops?" Preston was small. Even after combining with two other local school districts, our high school seldom had more than thirty people in a graduating class. We had to co-op with even more schools to have full athletic teams.

"I just moved here this summer. I live with my grandparents, the Andersons."

Pixie chirped, "Remember Nurse Annie? The one that retired like, 6 years ago?"

"Yes! She worked at the school forever. I loved her. Wait," I turned to Kelly, "She's your grandma?"

"Yep," Kelly said. She was smiling from the compliment to her grandma. "I used to live in Madison. I didn't know anybody up here, so I was really glad when open gym started for volleyball and I met these guys."

"My sister does pick friends well. I'll give her that." That produced flattered smiles all around. "Putty in my hands," I laughed to myself, even if I did mean it. I was enjoying being on this pedestal a little too much.

*          *          *

I wondered later about Kelly's situation. Every year we had a couple of kids from larger cities move into the district to live with their grandparents. The usual story was that they got into trouble for drugs/petty crimes/truancy/etc., their parents would decide they couldn't handle the kid, and ship them up to live in our small town with relatives, thinking they can't get into any trouble up here. There's plenty of trouble to get into up here, though. You just have to look a little harder for it. As a result, they would eventually get shipped back to their parents when their grandparents weren't able to straighten them out. Kelly didn't scream "bad girl," though. She seemed like she fit in with the other relatively tame friends my sister surrounded herself with.

After another hour in the pool, the girls came back in and took turns showering off, then came downstairs to find the dessert bar I had set up for them. They loaded up bowls with brownies, ice-cream, candies, syrups, and whipped cream. Kristy led them into the downstairs family room for TV. I heard a lot of discussion about what they should expose Kelly to, being the new girl, as if they wanted to catch her up on years of shared experiences.

"I know!" My sister sounded excited. I heard cries of "Yes! Oh my god! You have to see this!"

A few seconds later, I heard the first few bass notes of Come As You Are by Nirvana. It was the audition video my garage band made. I went downstairs to be a part of the viewing.

"You're in a band!" Kelly said, pointing to the screen. I smiled at the way she said it, as if I might not be aware of the fact. "I mean, that's so cool that you're in a band!"

"We just mess around," I said. I took a seat next to her on a bean bag, but not too close.

"Don't downplay it," DJ said. "Look at you rock that bass!"

"It's easy to look cool when you pick songs that are so easy a rookie like me can play them," I said.

After that song ended, we went into American Girl by Tom Petty. It's another easy song to play, but the bass is a big part of the intro. The camera, a GoPro that belongs to one of my friends, stayed on me throughout most of it.

"That is so cool," Kelly said, staring at the screen.

"Seriously, these are like, our three best songs, and we played them over and over until we got them right for the camera."