Limelight

Chapter Eight

         She guessed she felt a little bad for her. She couldn't help but wonder why she was in public school anyway, considering her status, Aaliyah would have thought she would have chosen to be homeschooled, or sent to a private school at least. Jacks told her that Madison was here for the same reason Blair was, she wanted to be here. She had been a regular student here at the beginning before she rose to fame towards the end of their Sophomore year, and she didn't want to have anything change. Blair added that she was a little bitch before fame too.

         But despite her less desirable qualities, Aaliyah knew she was going to have to make nice with her, especially since they were going to be working together on her song, cursing, so she would at least try to make up some semblance of peace with her though she doubted that they would ever be friends.

         The students slowly calmed down and took their seats, though there were some kids that didn't really get the idea of settling down when the teacher started talking. Mrs. Brodeur stood before everyone, whilst Madison sauntered over to the seat two down from Aaliyah not giving her a second glance. Aaliyah couldn't help but be annoyed. Couldn't she sit somewhere out of her direct line of sight or did Madison purposely want to aggravate her? "I hope you've drunk a lot of water today because we're going to start off with some vocal exercises and we'll discuss one of the hardest pieces to sing, "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen. We'll also be learning it."

         Noise erupted from the class, laughter, excitement, and nervous chatter merging to make one big blur in Aaliyah's ears. Aaliyah knew the song, knew the rock legend, Freddy Mercury, with the craziest vocal range all exhibited in six minutes of pure gold. She had tried making her own covers of the song when she had gotten a better grasp of the piano and had trained her voice well enough that she could almost hit a falsetto. but she still wasn't there yet.

         A boy with a buzz cut fade, glasses, and a lip piercing raised his hand up and Mrs. Brodeur looked to him expectantly. "Do we all have to sing, or can we just play or something? Because like, you know I can't sing Mrs. Brodeur—"

         The girl beside him snorted, "I think we all know that Link," She said. The boy, Link, replied by punching her arm lightly and she only laughed. "But do we have to Miss? Because not that I can't sing, but I don't have Freddy's vocal range, I'm strictly an alto."

         A group of people started to agree and talk over each other and Aaliyah only observed curiously, wondering how such a messy group of people managed to work so well. There were two music classes in the Senior class; there was the Junior class with students who were more or less only taking music because all the other classes were full up, and the advanced class, the one Aaliyah was in, where the students were actually exceptionally gifted and probably had shown up in a few showcases and performances over the last few years. Somehow, Malcolm managed to pull some strings to get her into this class, because it was incredibly exclusive and Mrs. Brodeur only accepted the best.

         Mrs. Brodeur raised her voice above the class getting them to settle down. "Of course not all of you have to sing, you all have your gifts," She said in a calm voice, looking among her class with a smile, "But you all will have to do the vocal exercises, they are just as important outside this classroom as they are inside."

         "Then I'm definitely playing base."

         "Are you dumb? This is one of the greatest rock songs of all time, probably the best song in history, and you want to be the one to play such a complex piece—"

         "First of all. Relax. Bohemian Rhapsody's a cool song, but it's not the best by a long shot. Second of all, who do you suggest play the riff, yourself?"