Two high school misfits who hate each other. One music competition where they have to work together. Can their love of classic 80s rock unite them?
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High...
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Side A: Mitzi
After auditions I sit there feeling like my whole body is trembling. My knees are jumping up and down and my fingers don't seem to work. I managed not to throw up, so there's a plus. And I think I might have even sounded good.
"Wow," Casey says to me. She went close to the beginning, and an awful little voice inside thought that if she could pass with her audition, I should have no problem. "That was amazing."
Underneath her comment, I can hear the true meaning: why didn't you throw the audition like you talked about?
"Not really." Now that I've opened my mouth, the word vomit gushes forth. "I almost threw up. And I didn't move around the stage at all. I hope I don't marked down for that."
"Yeah, but your voice was, like, really good. Like." Casey doesn't add on anything else about what my voice was like. I have rendered her speechless.
I don't know what else to say. Having no sense of what happened during my audition, I can't say much more. The modesty sounds false... because I know I sang really well. I meant to put a lot of emphasis on certain lines, like "let's get high a while" and "oh, he's got the magic hands" to highlight how inappropriate this song is, but now I'm thinking I could have gone harder. I could have found a song full of swears, or I could have sung "I Touch Myself."
But I couldn't have sung "I Touch Myself." I would have died up there on the stage. Everyone would have been thinking sexual stuff about me and thinking I liked masturbating or dildos or gross stuff like that, which I don't.
I slump down, only half-listening to Elsie's audition. She's singing "Let It Go"—really? She's absolutely butchering it, too. My brain is more concerned that I couldn't let go of worrying about what people think about me in order to fail this audition. I'll be moving at the end of the school year, and it'll be onto another new school. Who cares what anyone thinks of me?
I do care what Miss Burgess thinks. I want to pass this class.
And I need to care what Shawna thinks, or I'll be sitting alone at lunch.
Half-hearted clapping signals that I need to clap, too.
"That was amazing!" Casey squeals when Elsie descends from the stage and joins us. "Wouldn't it be so cool if we all got to be in the concert?"
"There are only five slots for non-seniors," I say. There were so many good people. I'm not entirely clear on who's a senior and who's a junior, but I've heard a lot of good auditions today. Elsie, unfortunately, was not one of them.
Casey gives me an annoyed look. "I know."
"I missed your audition!" Shawna strolls up and sits down on the other side of me. She puts on a fake pout. "I really wanted to see it."
Elsie purses her lips. "It's okay. I was so nervous."
"But we have to be there for each other, and I wasn't there for you," Shawna whines.
