by Sarah Moon
Ty taps me on the shoulder. “There’s a spot for you there, Sparrow,” and points me to a table that’s half-filled with girls. I walk over because what else can I do? I sit down. Conversation stops. I should never have come. “Hi,” they say. They. It’s like one big talking girl head.
“Hi,” I say, staring at my fries.
“What’s your name?” the big girl head asks. I hear my mother tell me to make eye contact. I look at them.
“Sparrow.”
“Cool,” they say, and then they turn into seven different girls and introduce themselves. Liz, Lizzie, Katie, Kim, Maia … I am paying so much attention to looking at them and trying to seem like a normal person that I miss who the rest of them are. I smile as much as I can, which probably makes me look like a robot, and say hi again after they all finish introducing themselves, and then I kick myself for being such a weirdo. I turn my attention to my fries. Finally, someone approaches a microphone that I hadn’t noticed was on the stage. I hadn’t even noticed there was a stage.
She stands there for a second. She’s small, white, not much taller than I am, and just as skinny. She’s got freckles and a long red braid down her back. She’s wearing a polo shirt and khaki shorts. Honestly, she kind of looks like a dweeb.
Then she opens her mouth.
“WHO’S READY TO ROCK?” she shouts at the top of her lungs. Everyone who’s been here before screams their heads off. Everyone else looks away awkwardly.
“Dammit, no. Too often girls are told that they can’t, that they shouldn’t, that they should be quiet and be pretty. People like Gertrude Nix, you might know her as Ma Rainey, were pioneers for girls making noise, and each of you is here because there’s something in you that’s dying to get loud, even if it doesn’t have any words. Your feet might want to get loud, or your fingers, or your voices. So I’m going to ask you again, WHO’S READY TO ROCK?”
Now everyone screams. Except me, of course. But I want to, maybe. There’s a tiny squeeze in my throat—is that the me that’s dying to get loud?
“I’m Kendra; I’m the head of music here. We’re going to break you up by age group. Eight to ten, you’ll be over on the right with Ginger. Ten to twelve, you’re with Jane. Twelve to thirteen, you’re with me. Fourteen to sixteen, you’re with Ty.” I feel a little relief that at least I’m with Ty. I head over to Ty’s table.
“Okay, guys, I’m Ty. My pronouns are he/him/his. I’m in charge of your age group, which means if you’re having trouble with your band or on your hall, I’m the person you come to. Okay? What we’re doing today is breaking up into bands. Ren?”
A tall Asian woman with a shaved head and glasses with round bright blue frames gets up. She has navy designs down each of her arms. I notice that most of the adults here have tattoos. “Hi, guys, I’m Ren; my pronouns are she/her/hers. It’s nice to see all of you. Listen up for your groups.” She reads a list of groups with four kids in each. Somewhere in there, I hear her say, “Spike, Sparrow, Lara, and Tanasia.” Tanasia. My heart drops to my sneakers as I look up and see her. She’s wearing her hair in two braids down her back, a white T-shirt and ripped jeans. She smiles at me and waves a little. I look back at my sneakers. I never talked to her after the talent show, and there were two full weeks of us sitting next to each other in English, her looking at me and me looking anywhere else. And now, of course, we’re in the same band. With Spike. If this could get any more awkward, I don’t know how. But I’m sure it will. It always does with me.
“Hey, Sparrow,” Tanasia says as we head over to the table to get our classroom assignment from Ren.
“Hi,” I say.
“Funny that we’re both here, huh?”
“What?” I’m so distracted and nervous I feel like all the blood in my body is rushing through my ears; I can barely hear her.
“Never mind.”
“Y’all,” says Ren, “these are your bandmates. You do not have to like each other, but you do have to love each other and you have to support each other fiercely. Your day works like this. Every day, you will have practice together for two hours—an hour of songwriting and an hour of playing together. You will then have an hour and a half with the other people who are learning the same instrument as you. Depending on the day, you will have a workshop in the morning or the afternoon about leadership or women in rock history. You will eat breakfast with your hall for the next three days. Then, it’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner with your bandmates every day starting Tuesday. Any questions?” There are no questions. “Okay, then, counselors, grab your bands. Let’s do this thing.” She looks down from her perch on the table to me, Spike, Tanasia, and Lara. “You guys are with me.”
Ren takes us to yet another building. I’m starting to think that I’ll never learn my way around this place. Then I would just have to stay in my room the whole time. “Guys, this is ESG; we’re on the third floor.” At least the building is named for music I like; maybe it’s a good omen. I’ll take what I can get right now. We head up to the third floor.
“Okay,” says Ren, unlocking the door to our classroom. “You’re a band; you’re going to get to know each other real, real well. But first, we’re going to brainstorm.” On huge pieces of paper stuck to the walls we each write down what we think of when we think of rock and roll, who our favorite bands are, and what instruments we know how to play or would like to know how to play. This is easy; it’s even a little fun. I like the ones on the rock-and-roll sheet—words like heart and grit and power. I add hard to ignore and top of my lungs. The bands are the same ones I would pick and I wonder if it was Tanasia who wrote down the Smiths. I add TV on the Radio and Patti Smith. On the instrument sheet, I write one word: bass. When we sit back down, Ren has us introduce ourselves by our names and our halls. Tanasia lives on Palmolive and Lara lives on Yoko. Spike, obviously, has the luck of living with me on Nina. Ren tells us that today is a short day because it’s the first day (how is it possibly still the first day?) and so we’re going to divide up by instruments soon. She asks who plays what, and Spike says she plays everything, and Lara says she plays the drums, and Tanasia obviously plays guitar. “And you, Sparrow?” she asks.
“I don’t play anything.”
“Ah, so you must be … ” She’s looking at the instrument wish list. “… bass?”
I nod.
“I can see that. You’ll be a great bass player. Now, listen, guys, we have a performance at the end of the month. We have to take practice seriously, whether it’s in band or with our instruments. This is what we’re here to do. Tanasia, guitar is meeting on the second floor. Lara, drums meets right here with me. Spike, you’ll go down the hall for vocals, and our brand-new bassist, you’ll head upstairs to the fourth floor. I’ll see you guys in Heart after practice. Dinner together, remember?” I groan, but I think I manage to keep it inside.
I go up to the fourth floor to meet the other bassists. Ty is standing outside the door. “Hey, everyone,” he says, “let’s do this.” He unlocks the door to our room and turns on the light. There are six basses, one for each of us. The one I end up with is black and white with smooth curves and a red strap. I love it. It’s mine. None of us is talking; we’re all just trying on a bass, holding it, strumming it. None of has any idea what we’re doing. None of us wants to stop.
“Okay, okay.” Ty laughs. “I’m glad you guys are excited. Maybe we could go around and tell each other our names?” We go around. We’ve got Dina, Ana, Alexa, Lulu, Sienna, and me. We all live on different halls, except for me and Lulu. We exchange quick smiles.
“All right, obviously you guys are pretty excited to play. But first you have to learn about the equipment.” Turns out I will not become a bassist today. Today I will learn about frets and strings and how to turn on an amp. Still, this hour and a half is the best hour and half I’ve had for a while. It feels like a totally different day than the rest of this awful day. Until, of course, Ty marches us all back to Heart for dinner.
Spike, Tanasia, Lar
a, and I all eye each other warily as we head to our table. Okay, maybe I’m the one eyeing everyone warily. Dinner is kale salad, chicken, and broccoli. Mom would be in heaven. I take some broccoli and wish I believed I could eat anything else without hurling. Lara has a loaded plate and two glasses of juice. She’s chubby, but it seems like she hasn’t eaten in weeks the way she wolfs her food down, like someone is going to take it away.
Spike tries to start up a conversation. “So, how was everyone’s practice session?”
“Good.”
“Good.”
I just nod my head.
“Cool,” says Spike, looking longingly at all her friends at the other tables. No doubt wishing that she were with them instead of us silent losers. Or maybe just one big silent loser.
“It’s cool you’re here, Sparrow,” Tanasia says.
“You guys know each other?” asks Lara.
“We go to school together,” she explains. I nod and look down at my broccoli.
“Cool,” say Lara and Spike. The conversation stops. I cannot imagine doing this three times a day for the next four weeks.
After dinner, there is free time. Some girls take out their instruments and gather on the lawn to play together. Others cluster in groups, giggling. Spike doesn’t even go back to our dorm; she’s too busy with her hordes of friends, so I have the room to myself. It’s seven thirty. Good enough, I think. I turn off the lights; I don’t even change into pajamas. I just let myself fall asleep.
In the morning Ty wakes everyone up at six fifteen by blaring music. We all shuffle into the bathroom with our toiletry caddies. Some girls get into the shower right away; some line up by the sink waiting to brush their teeth. Friends make room for each other and share a sink. After the sleepiness wears off, everyone starts to chat. Hey, can you pass me that? What did you do after dinner? Do you have the new Tune-Yards album? I need a new guitar, but my mom won’t get me one. So lame. Then there’s the singing. The girls in the shower start a song and everyone joins in. It’s too much like an alternateen High School Musical in here. I can’t handle it.
I get out of the bathroom as soon as my teeth are passably clean. I don’t even stop to pee. I go back to the room. No Spike. She’s probably beatboxing for the shower girls. I dress and leave the hall as quietly as I can. Ty is nice and everything, but I don’t want him to stop me with his kind eyes and ask what’s wrong. I run down the back stairs and I push through the emergency exit door, hoping that there’s no alarm. There isn’t. The humid air hits me in the face. I thought fresh air would feel good, but now it’s even harder to breathe. My feet carry me over to Heart.
At the back of Heart is a dumpster and some tall trees and some bushes that haven’t been trimmed in years. They scratch my legs as I sneak past them. Heart has huge windows that go from the roof to the floor, but I duck behind the dumpster and into the bushes. You’d have to know to look for me to see me. Nobody knows to look. Between two scraggly bushes is a bench with cigarettes strewn on the ground. This must be where the counselors come to smoke so we won’t see them. It’s perfect. I lie down on the bench, breathing deep and looking up at the empty sky.
Hi, Sparrow!” Dr. K says through the computer screen.
“Well, this is weird,” I say. Skyping with my shrink from summer camp—I don’t know a lot of other people who could say that. Then again, I don’t know a lot of other people. Her hair covers the camera as she peers into the computer.
“You there?” she asks, in that slightly loud way that older people have when they use a new technology. Like she’s trying to keep herself from shouting from Brooklyn to here. She leans back and comes into view.
“This is weird,” I say again.
“I know. Just give it time. In a few weeks, you’ll think it’s weird that you won’t have to turn on a computer screen to see me.”
“Man … a few weeks … ”
“Yup. So, what’s it like?”
“It’s only the third day, but I feel like I’ve been here forever. Even though each morning when I wake up, I’m surprised that this isn’t a dream or that I didn’t run away in the middle of the night.”
“The thought’s occurred to you, though?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay, can you give me some basics? Your dorm? Your roommate?”
“I’m in Nina.”
“Is that for Nina Simone?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Have you listened to her?”
“No.”
“Do it. Immediately. What’s your roommate’s name?”
“Spike.”
“Really?” Dr. Katz laughs, maybe a little harder than she means to.
I smile. “I’m sure her parents didn’t name her that. I’m sure her name is Mary or Becky or Staci or something, but she goes by Spike—even her mom called her that.”
“So, how are you guys getting along?”
“She knows everyone here already. Apparently she’s been coming here since she was in diapers. We haven’t spent much time together. She stays in her friends’ rooms until lights-out—staying away from the weird girl, I guess. By the time she comes back, I’m asleep.”
“What about in the mornings?”
“Um.” I can tell I’m about to get into some trouble. “Well, the first day I got up with everyone and there was this crazy line for the shower, so now I wake up really early, bring my clothes to the bathroom, change when I’m done with my shower, and then go back to the room.” I decide this is close enough to the truth.
“Do you and Spike talk then?”
“No, she’s still sleeping.”
“Sparrow, how early are you getting up?”
Crap. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Yes, I do. I get up at four thirty. Regular wake-up is six thirty, so when I’m done with showering or whatever, I get back into bed and pretend to sleep until Spike gets up at six thirty with everyone else and leaves to brush her teeth in unison with her eight million best friends.”
“Then what?” It is not a good sign that Dr. K knows there’s more.
“I leave while she’s out of the room.”
“To go to breakfast?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
Ugh. “No.” I pause, sigh. “Breakfast starts at seven fifteen, so for that half hour I go sit behind the cafeteria, on a bench there behind some bushes. There are always new cigarette butts on the ground; I think it’s where the counselors go to smoke so we can’t see them.”
“So, you go hide under the coats by the cubbies.”
“Basically.”
“Sparrow—”
“I know! I know, okay?”
“Okay. What do you know?”
“I know that is exactly what we talked about. I know I’m doing my stupid crazy thing in the same stupid crazy way. I’m hiding in the bushes; you think I don’t know that’s weird? That no one wants to be friends with the girl in the bushes?”
“It’s not that no one wants to be friends with her, Sparrow.”
“Then what is it?”
“Nobody can be. She’s hiding in the bushes.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t care about the friend thing. It’s not like I have much to compare it to. I was just hoping this wouldn’t be the same. But instead of Monique, it’s Spike, and instead of lunch anxiety, it’s breakfast anxiety. It’s all just the stupid same.”
“Well, maybe. But the thing that sounds the same to me is you.”
“I’m not turning into a bird.”
“No, but you’re trying to bolt. You’re scared. Which means you’re also angry, which means you’re about halfway through stacking up those bricks, one on top of the other until you’re the only person inside four tiny brick walls.”
“I like the walls.”
“Do you?”
“Well, I like them more than I like feeling this. The world is
n’t your office.”
“No, but it’s not a shark tank either.”
“It feels that way.”
“That it does. I want you to try something. I want you to look for someone who seems like maybe not a shark. Look for something familiar. Maybe she’s wearing a Smiths T-shirt, or maybe she said something in class that you thought was cool but not enough people were listening, or maybe she seems shy and that feels easy; maybe she has Chocolate’s kindness or my loud laugh. Whatever it is, sit next to her. Can you try that?”
I nod.
“Okay, that’s our time, Sparrow. I’ll see you on here next week.”
The next day, I make myself sleep until six. I apologize to Dr. Katz in my head, but there’s no way I’m brushing my teeth and taking a shower and doing harmony on a screeching rendition of a Blondie song. In my head, I promise her I won’t leave the hall until breakfast. I open the door and walk to the bathroom.
“Hey, early bird.” Ty is plugging his iPod into the dock to get ready to wake the hall up. I smile vaguely in his direction, trying to fake sleepiness.
“Just looking for my worm,” I say, continuing into the bathroom and hoping I didn’t sound like an idiot. I brush my teeth, take a shower, and start back to the room as Ty is kicking up the volume on the dock. The voice reaches me first. The first line stops me in my shower-shoe tracks. Bird flyin’ high, you know how I feel. My hand goes to my lips, like the words just flew out of my mouth instead of hers. Then come the horns, and my head starts to go with the beat. I turn back to Ty.
“Who is this?”
“Miss Nina Simone.”
“Oh.” I feel stupid; I should have known that.
“Always Nina Simone.”
MOVE YOUR FEET, I tell my brain, and I walk back to the room. It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day. Oh, Nina. I hope you’re right.