by Mary Amato
You need a notebook you can keep in your pocket.—Ms. Even
OCTOBER 21. TUESDAY.
PRACTICE ROOM B; 11:25 A.M.
When Tripp opens the guitar case, there is a pocket-size homemade notebook waiting for him, paper cut to size and stapled at the fold. On the front cover, a sketch of a guitar. On the back: Brought to you by the Thrum Society.
He records his “Mr. Odd” song—the whole thing this time without stopping once—and e-mails her the MP3 file. It isn’t perfect, but it’s done and it feels good. Then he opens the notebook and starts writing song number two. “Guilty.” He writes the title in the center of a page and jots down anything and everything that comes to mind, searching for connections and rhymes.
OCTOBER 22. WEDNESDAY.
PRACTICE ROOM B; 11:44 A.M.
Lyla is singing her song again. She doesn’t know quite where this voice of hers came from. It’s as if there’s a creature living inside her that she never realized was there. And now it’s coming out in this song.
Guilt on my sleeve and the bottom of my shoe.
Guilt under my collar sticks to me like glue.
Swallowed it on Sunday, and it’s eatin’ me alive.
Buried it on Monday, but it just won’t die.
’Cause it’s beating beating beating
Like a telltale heart.
Can’t make it stop once it starts …
When she’s done, she glances up. A small notebook of her own has been slipped under the door. She picks it up. The first page has a note:
Ms. Even,
I was going to slip this blank notebook under the door, but I couldn’t help stopping to listen to your new song. So then I decided to write you a note in it first. Your song rocks. I know you can’t sing too loudly in here, but I could hear all this energy. Are you playing it in E, which is the key I gave you the blues progression for? If so, try a Hendrix chord in place of the E7 when you get to the beating part. I think it would sound cool. Here’s the diagram for the chord, which is named after Jimi Hendrix, of course. God of Guitar. I’m going to make you some guitar-playing videos and send you the links.
The Roman numeral VI means you play this on the 6th fret
Lyla opens the door. The hallway is empty.
OCTOBER 23. THURSDAY.
PRACTICE ROOM B; 11:37 A.M.
“Hello.” Tripp looks into the camera and freezes. He stops and resets it so that the camera is focused only on his hands, not on his face. He starts again. “Here’s my tip of the day. One way to get a cool percussive sound out of your strum is to stop the strings from vibrating with your palm. Try strumming once, then instead of strumming again, just thump your right hand down on the strings, then strum again normally. Experiment with the rhythm.…”
He demonstrates and moves on to another tip. Before the period is over, he uploads four tip files, posts them on YouTube, and sends Lyla the links.
OCTOBER 24. FRIDAY.
ROCKLAND HALLWAY; 3:16 P.M.
Lyla pulls the notebook Tripp gave her from her pocket and rereads the lyrics for her guilt song, wishing that she could slip through the laws of time and space and float in a bubble of invisibility. If she could, she’d spend as much time as she wanted writing songs. Instead, she is supposed to meet Annie by her locker and go shopping with her mom to pick out new performance outfits.
Her phone buzzes. Annie. Reluctantly, Lyla puts away the notebook, closes her locker, and answers as she starts walking.
“Hey, Annie—I’m just leaving my locker now and—”
“Why didn’t you tell me first?” Annie’s voice is clipped with anger.
“What?”
“The talent show. If you wanted to do a solo, you should’ve told me first. And since when do you play the guitar?”
Lyla’s heart pounds. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Where are you?”
Annie hangs up.
Confused, Lyla changes direction and heads toward the music wing. The sign-up sheet for the talent show is posted in the hallway outside the orchestra room. In Tripp’s handwriting, her name is written in the 4:30 audition slot: Lyla Marks guitar and vocal solo.
The orchestra room door opens and Annie walks out.
“Annie! Tripp wrote that. It’s a joke. Look, I’m crossing it off.”
“Tripp?”
“We were talking about the talent show, and he was joking about how I should play the guitar instead of the cello, and then he must’ve written that.”
Annie glares, turns without a word, and begins walking down the hall toward the front entrance.
Lyla follows. “Don’t be mad.”
Annie keeps walking.
“Come on, Annie. Stop.”
Annie stops, pressing her lips together, her eyes darkening. “I asked you the other day what’s going on between you and Tripp, and you said nothing.”
“We had a conversation. Do I have to report every single conversation I have with anybody?”
“I’m not mad, Lyla,” Annie says quickly. “I just know he’s not right for you. He’s abnormal, Lyla. He doesn’t have any friends and—”
“Annie, you’re talking about him like he’s a boyfriend. He’s not. Forget it. Look, I’m not doing a solo. It was a joke.”
They stand looking at each other awkwardly. Then Annie looks at the place on the sign-up sheet where Lyla had crossed out what Tripp had written. “You’re not going to do a solo?”
“No.”
“Do you still want to go shopping?” Annie asks.
Lyla winces internally and tries not to show it.
“Now what?” Annie’s eyebrows raise. “You can’t go?”
Annie gives her an opening, and a lie comes spilling out. “I want to, Annie. But my dad called and said that I have a dentist appointment. But we can go this weekend!”
“Whatever you say, Lyla.” Annie walks away.
“Don’t be mad at me!” Lyla adds. “Be mad at my dad. Or the dentist. Or my teeth.”
Annie disappears, and the hallway is quiet. She feels guilty but also relieved. A long walk home sounds just right. She waits until she’s sure Annie is gone, and then heads out. In front of the school, the maple tree is blazing red against the brilliant blue sky. Every leaf seems to be singing with color. She takes a breath and starts walking.
Her phone buzzes, and she is happy to see Tripp’s name. “You got me in trouble with Annie,” she says. “The guitar solo sign-up thing …”
“I didn’t think about that. Sorry.”
“Yeah. I’ll get you back.”
“Are you threatening me with revenge of some sort, Ms. Even?”
“I’m signing you up for the talent show audition. Four twenty time slot. Don’t be late.”
“Villain! Erase it.”
“What good is playing music if you don’t share it?”
“Music doesn’t have to be shared to be worthwhile.”
“Yes, it does.” She crosses the street. “Otherwise it’s like one hand clapping.”
“If I’m alone in the forest and I sing a song, isn’t that good for my soul? Isn’t that worth something?”
She laughs. “Okay. True. I sing in the shower.”
“Aha!”
“But music is better if it’s shared.”
“Have you ever sung in public?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I play the cello. That’s what I do.”
“Bawk.”
“I’m not the chicken. I’m auditioning for the talent show with Annie.”
“Okay. I will admit it. I’m a chicken. Erase me.”
“The truth comes out.”
“Did you erase me?”
“I never wrote you in.”
He laughs. “Good. Well, I hope the rest of your day is … odd.”
She laughs. “Oooh. Well, in that case, I hope the rest of your day is nice and even. Bye.”
“Adi
os.”
She closes her phone.
Lining the street is a row of old oak trees, each one holding up its chorus of crimson and gold leaves. Lyla looks up and smiles as a cool breeze rustles her hair.
Whenever she’s with Annie, she feels tense, but when she talks with Tripp, something nice happens inside her: a vibration, a thrum. It’s as if a tiny wind chime is suspended inside her soul, she thinks, and his words are the wind that makes it ring.
OCTOBER 25. SATURDAY.
TRIPP’S ROOM; 1:23 P.M.
OCTOBER 26. SUNDAY.
PRACTICE ROOM B; 11:39 A.M.
Tripp is playing in the little room when his cell phone buzzes. He brightens when Lyla’s name appears.
“Hey,” he says. “It’s against the rules to use cell phones during the school day. Where are you?”
“In the girls’ bathroom.” Lyla giggles. “I’m calling because I’ve got a dare for you.”
“If it has anything to do with the girls’ bathroom, I’m not doing it.”
“Tomorrow at lunch … come to Room B.”
“But it’s an even day.”
“That’s the point. I’ll let you in. And then we’ll play each other the songs we’ve been working on. I finally figured out the chorus for my Hendrix-chord guilt song.”
“What about Jacoby’s rule? There can’t be more than one person using a room at the same time.”
“You make it sound like a law of physics. Jacoby’s Rule: If Mr. Odd and Ms. Even are ever in the same room at the same time, they will cancel each other out in total annihilation, like when matter and antimatter collide.”
“You’re blowing my mind. First, I never thought Lyla Marks would break a rule, and second, you sound like a science geek.”
“I love physics. Force equals Mass times Acceleration.”
“Okay. Maybe I’ll accelerate my mass to the little room tomorrow.”
Lyla laughs, and the sound makes him happy.
OCTOBER 28. TUESDAY.
PRACTICE ROOM B; 11:31 A.M.
Tripp is almost at the door to Practice Room B when he loses his nerve and turns around. He is heading back to the orchestra room when he hears Patricia Kent’s voice in the hallway ahead. She is coming this way. He turns back and quickly knocks on Room B’s door.
The door opens and he slips in.
Lyla is wearing blue jeans, a soft green T-shirt, and a scarf with lots of fringe. Her brown eyes have this intense warmth, as if they have some superhuman power to mend broken bones or unlock doors, he thinks.
“You made it!” she whispers.
The guitar is out, propped against the bench, like an old friend. He relaxes a bit.
“Did Jacoby see you?” she asks.
“No,” he whispers back.
They listen to the sound of Patricia approaching. Her door closes.
Lyla puts her finger to her lips. “Wait ’til she starts playing,” she says.
After a minute, the French horn begins.
Lyla holds up her lunch. “I’m eating tuna fish,” she says.
“No pomegranate?” he asks.
“Just tuna.”
He nods. “I can smell.”
“Sorry,” she says. “I’ll open a window.”
“Yes, please,” he says. “The one with the ocean view.”
She laughs.
“I’m just realizing this room is the size of a Pop-Tarts box,” he says.
“Tuna fish–flavored Pop-Tarts. Sorry.”
“This is momentous,” he says.
“The smell?”
“No. Being in the same room at the same time … I’m nervous.”
Lyla smiles. “That’s what is so different about you.”
“That I’m nervous?”
“That you admit it. Most people don’t say that kind of thing out loud. Most people pretend they’re not nervous about stuff like this.”
“What does that make me?”
Her eyebrows raise. “Odd?” She is about to add that she is nervous, too. But he has crouched to look at the cello lying sideways on the floor.
“Play me some Mozart-arello on the cello,” he says.
“No. Play me your new song on the guitar.” She picks it up and hands it to him.
He sits on the floor and strums a chord, then sings.
“Home, home on the range, where the deer and the antelope play …”
She laughs.
“Okay. Let your song rip.” He holds out the guitar to her.
“I’m too nervous. It’s easier to play my cello in front of a million people than it is to play one guitar chord in front of you.”
“I won’t look.”
“I’ll only do my song if you do yours,” she says.
“Okay, but you go first.”
She takes out the notebook he had given her and opens it up so that she can look at the lyrics if she starts to forget.
“Nice notebook,” he says.
She smiles and he turns so that his back is to her. The wall is absolutely blank.
She plays and sings, her voice sliding into the room, picking up confidence and strength as she goes.
Guilt on my sleeve and the bottom of my shoe.
Guilt under my collar, sticks to me like glue.
Swallowed it on Sunday, and it’s eatin’ me alive.
Buried it on Monday, but it just won’t die.
And it’s beating beating beating like a telltale heart,
Beating beating beating like a telltale heart,
Beating beating beating like a telltale heart.
Can’t make it stop once it starts.
Guilt on my tongue leaves a bitter taste.
Guilt in my bloodstream, running through my veins.
Hide it on Tuesday, but I got no choice.
Friday rolls around and you can hear it in my voice.
’Cause it’s beating beating beating like a telltale heart,
Beating beating beating like a telltale heart,
Beating beating beating like a telltale heart.
Can’t make it stop once it starts.
Don’t tell me you can’t hear it when I walk into the room,
Louder every minute, going boom boom boom.
When she gets to the final chorus, her voice opens up and envelops him.
Beating beating beating like a telltale heart,
Beating beating beating like a telltale heart,
Beating beating beating like a telltale heart.
Can’t make it stop once it starts.
She finishes and there is silence. “You didn’t like it?”
He turns around. “It was amazing. Really. I’m stunned.”
Lyla smiles. “Yeah?”
“Where did that come from? It’s so … not Bach.”
She laughs. “I know. A month ago, if you would’ve told me that I’d write a song like this, I’d say you were crazy. I used to think that, in order to write a song, I’d have to hear it in my head, and then I’d sit down with a pen and write it out in notation. That’s the way you see Mozart and Beethoven doing it in movies about them. But your way, of just playing until you find something by accident, makes a lot more sense. It’s like every song is a series of accidents.”
“Your song is a really good accident.”
His smile makes her smile.
“Well, anyway,” she says, “I’m not sure how to end the song.”
He takes the guitar. “Maybe go back to the Hendrix E chord and punch up the rhythm?” He tries it and teaches her a new strumming rhythm and her eyes light up. She takes the guitar back and practices.
“That’s great.” He watches her. “I can’t believe how fast you learn.”
“All that cello,” she says. “Let me borrow your pick.”
Tripp hesitates.
“I’m not going to steal it,” she says.
“It’s …
“Ssh!” She whispers. “I thought I heard Jacoby’s voice.”
“His rule is stupid
.”
“He’s afraid if there are two people in here, we’ll talk instead of play.”
“Two students talking to each other. Call the police.”
Lyla listens until she’s sure the teacher isn’t there. “Okay. It’s your turn.” She hands him the guitar and turns to face the wall. “No wailing or we’ll get kicked out.”
“I’m not going to sing.”
“Bawk.”
“My lyrics aren’t great.” He pulls out the notebook that she’d given him.
“Nice notebook,” she says, and smiles.
He opens it to his lyrics page and reads over his notes. “What’s interesting is that we both wrote in the key of E.” He plays a chord.
She smiles. “We’re on the same wavelength. Come on, sing.”
He’s nervous, but he sings.
Cheating, lying, and conniving,
Fraud and forgery,
Aggravated screaming,
Dreaming of conspiracy,
Flawed in every thought,
I’m a twisted guarantee,
I’m a menace, I’m a thorn
I should never have been born.
I’m guilty, oh guilty,
I’m guilty, oh guilty,
I’m guilty, oh guilty,
Doin’ time for my crime. Boom Boom Boom.
War crimes, won’t deny ’em,
Busted, tried without a trial,
No lawyer by my side,
I’m just hanging out to dry.
I’m a menace, I’m a thorn.
I should never have been born.