“This could be considered kidnap, you know,” I said half an hour later.
Kevin turned around to face me from the front of Vanessa’s car, an exasperated look on his face. “What kidnap? You’re the one making us do this.”
“I told you to let me know what’s going on, not take me along with you!” I snapped. “How am I supposed to study for my math competition now?”
“Oh, don’t give me that.” Kevin glared at me. “You wouldn’t believe me about this if I didn’t take you along.”
“Believe you about what?” I gasped in realization and slapped my hand across my mouth. “You guys…you guys aren’t involved in anything illegal, are you?”
Kevin choked on his own spit and didn’t recover for a full two minutes. “No!” he managed to wheeze unconvincingly. “What made you think that?”
I groaned and sunk back into the leather cushioning of the seat. “Oh, my god. I’m in the company of criminals.”
“Who’s a criminal?”
“Oh, shut up, both of you,” Vanessa snapped. The car nearly swerved off the road as she smacked Kevin lightly on the head. “And you,” she chided. “You should know better than to pick a fight with your kid sister.”
“I’m almost eighteen,” I said flatly, but nobody paid me any attention.
“Weren’t you listening?” Kevin said heatedly. “She picked the fight with me! She said I was kidnapping her. Are we kidnapping her, Vanessa?”
“Will just listen to yourself? How old are you again?”
“Twenty-three—”
Vanessa smacked Kevin’s arm this time. “Oh, very witty!”
They went back and forth the rest of the way to…wherever it was they were taking me. I mainly stared out the window, trying to interest myself in the farm scenery and lakes that flew by, but I wasn’t much of a nature girl. It didn’t help that my subconscious kept nagging me for not at least bringing some extra material to review for the Junior Mathematics Tournament.
At this rate, Alexander Lin was going to beat me blindfolded with two hands tied behind his back. Not that it would make a difference one way or another. He basically did that every year anyway.
Vanessa and Kevin didn’t stop their bickering until we pulled up to a lone building and Vanessa cut the engine. Even then, they were so fired up about something completely stupid—something about the best first-person shooter game—that they refused to even look at each other when they got out of the car.
This made it a little awkward when they both reached for the guitar at the same time and their hands bumped together.
“Ack!” Vanessa yelled.
“Furb!” Kevin grunted as he pulled his hand back like Vanessa had shocked him. They both stood there for a moment, suddenly looking uncertain.
I broke the weird tension in the air by saying, “You know, you two act just like an old married couple.”
“Nancy, that’s disgusting,” Vanessa said immediately.
“Yeah, please spare me. I don’t know any guys desperate enough to marry this old—”
Vanessa jabbed her finger into Kevin’s chest. “Oh, yeah? Wanna finish that sentence, punk?”
“Are you sure you want me to?”
I sighed. While they resumed their arguing, I took the time to eye the derelict-looking building. There were vines crawling all over it. The building’s mahogany bricks were saturated with dust and a musky scent. My first thought was that someone had better call Stephen King, because I was pretty sure he was missing a vital part of a setting for his horror novels.
As you can imagine, seeing this building didn’t exactly do anything to disprove my theory of Kevin and Vanessa involving me in illegal activities.
“This is really, really creepy. You guys are looking more suspicious than ever,” I informed the two of them as we pushed through the doors and found ourselves in a hallway.
“You’re going to be eating those words very soon,” Kevin said mysteriously. He paused in front of the first door on the left and turned around to give me a knowing smile. “After you, Nancy.”
“Uh, not on your life, crazy. I’m still not sure this isn’t one elaborate trap.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m planning on mugging you so I brought along this big old guitar. Makes sense.”
Vanessa rolled her eyes at both of us. She elbowed Kevin out of the way and yanked open the door.
Then the world ended.
At least, that was what it seemed like from my perspective. One moment I was just standing there peering into the room a little nervously, and the next thing I knew there was a huge rush of screaming, and then flailing arms were engulfing me. Me, and Kevin, and Vanessa.
“Kevin, what’s going on?” I managed to shout once the mountain of—it looked like kids—had gotten off of us.
“Surprise! We’re in a choir,” Kevin said proudly.
“We’re the Singing Angels Choir,” a freckled kid piped up.
“Or what’s left of it,” Vanessa added darkly.
Kevin glared at her. “Gee, nobody would ever guess you’re the co-director of this group.”
“Co-director?” I looked between the two of them in mounting confusion. “Who’s the other…?” Then I gasped.
Kevin pointed at himself and frowned. “For a genius, you sure are stupid sometimes.”
I looked from Kevin to Vanessa to the roomful of kids—at least thirty of them, from ages as young as elementary to what appeared to be mid-teens—and found myself completely dumbstruck.
“Your sister doesn’t look as smart as you said she would be,” of the smaller kids said loudly.
“Okay, does someone want to tell me what’s going on?” I said.
Kevin took a seat at the piano bench—yes, there was a piano in the room—and set his guitar to the side. “Nancy, you remember the Singing Angels, right?”
“Yeah, that choir thing Dad made you quit?”
When Kevin was in his freshman year of high school, Dad had forced Kevin to quit and take up all these things as a last-ditch attempt to Americanize his deadbeat son. It failed, unsurprisingly.
“One year ago ago, I rejoined without telling him,” Kevin explained. “But I didn’t come back as a singer. The Singing Angels choir had officially been disbanded, and the director had quit. So I decided to stay as a director.”
I tried to imagine this happening. My brother, captain of the flying under the radar team, stepping up to lead these choir kids? It didn’t seem to compute in my mind.
“Have you been doing this every evening?” I said incredulously. “Instead of job-hunting, I mean?”
“Not every evening. We only meet three times a week.”
“And nobody has noticed that you’ve got all these kids holed up in an abandoned building?”
Kevin threw me a reproachful look. “Geez, Nancy. You make it sound like I’m torturing them or something.”
“With your singing? Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m implying.” I paused. “Besides, how could the kids’ parents be okay with you teaching them in this creepy building?”
“This might come as a shock to you, Nancy, but Kevin is actually quite well-liked with the choir parents,” Vanessa interjected.
Kevin nodded and puffed out his chest. “They practically worship me.”
“Probably mistook you for Buddha,” I said. He scowled.
“Anyway, don’t worry about us getting thrown out of the building. We won’t get thrown out even if a worker sees us here. My father has connections in the city,” Vanessa said loudly before Kevin could retort, leaning her body against the doorway. “When Kevin and I ran into each other and started talking again, he told me he was looking for a place to keep twenty kids for three nights a week. Lucky my father’s such an important man, otherwise he might have never found an area to stay.” Vanessa shrugged. “And that’s how I became co-director.”
“Because you want to make sure the building stays in one piece?”
“No. Because I like calling myself a co-director.”
Vanessa’s blunt honesty was refreshing, if nothing else. I saw Kevin shaking his head and rolling his eyes at what she’d said, but grinning at the same time.
The choir kids were growing restless as our conversation drew to a close. One of them, a short, freckle-faced kid, tugged on Kevin’s shirt.
“Can we get started now?” he said. “I want to sing that new Disney song we learned two days ago.”
Kevin ruffled the little boy’s hair affectionately. “Sure, Jeremy. Sure. Why don’t we start with some vocal warm-ups first?”
I sat through the whole rehearsal. Every last second, from start to finish. At first I thought it was quite a feat that I hadn’t dozed off in boredom, considering I’d never been much of a musical person, but then I realized that there was something about these group of kids that was special.
They were family.
Sure, it was a lopsided family, with about five boys and fifteen to twenty girls. And sure, half the time someone was yelling at someone else for hitting the wrong note, or singing a tune off-key, or forgetting the words to a part.
But from the way Kevin’s face shone as the kids managed to run through the piece perfectly, I could tell that for my brother, this was his second family. This was his place.
*****
“You’re not going to tell Mom and Dad, are you?”
I stopped just in front of my room with my hand on the doorknob. “Tell them that you’ve been skipping out on job-hunting to direct the Singing Angels choir?”
“Well...yeah.”
I turned around and smirked at Kevin, who was rubbing his neck and sweating profusely. “Maybe I should,” I taunted. “If I cared about truth and justice, I definitely would.”
“Nancy…” Kevin looked panicked now.
“Lucky for you, peace and quiet around here are far more important to me than truth and justice,” I said. “You’re off the hook. For now.”
Kevin breathed out a sigh of relief. He started to turn away, but then looked back with an odd half-smile on his face. “You know, you’re not that terrible of a little sister sometimes.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, thanks. Don’t flatter me too much or anything.”
“Don’t worry, that’ll never be a problem around here.”
After Kevin had gone, I went into my room and tried to get back to studying. I found I still couldn’t concentrate. Instead, I tilted my head back and stared at the window, just thinking.
When I’d left, it had been early evening, and now it was dark outside. I breathed a deep sigh and settled into my chair, leaving my review guide forgotten on the table. The night had always been my favorite part of the day. The stars always seemed to endless, stretching across the sky. If I stared at them long and hard enough, they made anything seem possible.
I imagined Jeremy and the rest of those kids were already home by now. I imagined Mom and Dad were just getting on their way home from the party. I imagined Alexander was inside his house studying his butt off for the Junior Mathematics Tournament.
College applications, the math tournament, and homework were calling for me, but it was senior year, after all. I let myself have one night of peace and turned in early.
*****
A/N - Sorry there was no Alexander in this...I wanted to squeeze him in, but this chapter would've gotten too long. Look forward to more of him next chapter :)