casual . calum hood

two

2006. Age 10.

     "BOBBY!" Despite having headphones in, I heard the shout all the way from my bedroom. I knew exactly who it was barreling up the stairs by the nickname. Nobody calls me Bobby except Calum. I sat on the floor before my piano when Calum burst through my door. "Bobby! It's here! It came!"

     I jumped up immediately. "No way," I gasped. "Your Mum let you have it early?"

     Calum nodded vigorously. "Mal convinced her," he said excitedly. "Come on! You have to see."

     I nodded excitedly, and jumped up after him. We raced down the stairs and into my kitchen. My mom was feeding the twins what looked like was spaghetti but it was hard to tell because more of it was on Ziggy's head than in their bowls.

     "Momma, I've got to go," I exclaimed hurriedly. "Cal finally got his own guitar and Mal convinced Mrs. Hood to give it to him early and we're going to go to his house and try it out and I'll probably be gone for a while and I know I have school tomorrow so I'll come not too late I promise."

     My mom was used to these kinds of situations happening frequently in the past three years. Either Calum was running through our front door unannounced and pulling me along towards his house or I was dragging him upstairs or out to my tree house. It was just last week that Cal slept over for two nights because we found an orphaned wombat in our backyard. Only our parents didn't know we were harboring a fugitive wombat and we got isolated for two days.

     "Okay," she replied with a shrug. "Don't stay for dinner unless Mrs. Hood offers."

     "She said Dylan can stay," Calum piped up from behind me.

     My mom narrowed her eyes at us as if she was able to see if we were lying if she squinted hard enough. "Okay," she finally said and we ran off immediately.

     In record speed, we were in Calum's bedroom and sitting on top of his bed was a red and white Yamaha Pacifica- not unlike the pink one sitting in my bedroom.

     I watched as Calum picked the guitar up and strung the strap around his shoulder. He grabbed a pick and strummed his first chord.

     Neither seven year old Calum or I knew in that moment what this guitar would mean for the trajectory of our entire lives.

-

2008. Age 12.

     "I swear to God if I get another Uniform Infraction I'm dropping out of school," Victoria grumbled as she sat down at the lunch table. Calum and I had already started eating lunch, and I had my notebook open with a song I was working on. His new friend, Luke- who had a terrible haircut- was sitting with us, as he had done the past week. I still wasn't too sure about him.

     "Vic, you're only 12, you can't drop out of school," Calum told her as if it wasn't already obvious.

     I looked at her and her Uniform- her plaid skirt was fine, but she was wearing a hoodie and was missing her knee socks. "Vic, maybe just wear the uniform. It's a great way to avoid the Infractions."

     Victoria rolled her eyes in response. "Oh! Check this out," she said. She dug through her hoodie pocket and fished out a blue piece of paper, placing it on the table in front of us all.

     "A talent show," I read off of the paper.

     "You guys should enter," Victoria told us with a big grin. "You could sing! You could become a band."

      Calum and Luke looked at each other excitedly. They had already brought up forming a band before, but they never included me in that equation. "That would so awesome," I said anyway, hoping they would remember I, too, was a great musician.

     Calum just laughed at my statement. I looked at him with confusion written all over my face and he replied, "Dylan you hate going in front of a crowd! Remember when we did the Christmas Play last year? You totally have stage fright."

     I glared at him menacingly. "That's because I can't act, Calum. I can sing perfectly fine in front of a crowd."

     That wasn't entirely true, I did have major stage fright, but I would work through it if I was in a band.

     "Dylan, I'm just saying-"

     "Forget it," I interrupted. "I'm entering the talent show, alone. Then I guess we'll see who's better."

      I stormed dramatically from the table before any of them could reply.

     Luke and Calum ended up winning the talent show, but they walked off stage with their first place medals and found me where I sat pouting in the crowed. They sat on either side of me and Calum put his hand on my shoulder.

     "Second place is still really good, Bobby," he said with a smile. I just glared at him.

     "He's right," Luke took the opportunity to say. "I know Cal and I said we didn't want you in our band, but you wrote an original song... that's, like, really cool! I don't know any girls who play the guitar as well as you."

     I smiled at Luke and his sincerity, but replied, "Luke, you don't know any boys who play the guitar as well as me either."

     But it was that day that I decided that maybe Luke Hemmings wasn't all that bad and that maybe I would be a singer when I grew up.

2012. Age 16. 

     "This is sickening. I'm literally sick right now," Victoria insisted dramatically. She was pacing around the treehouse, despite the fact that there was barely enough room for the six of us to sit, let around for her to pace. Ashton yelped as she trod on his toe. "Shhhh," she said to him before going on, "In one week from now you freaks will all be on different sides of the globe and I'll be going to fucking community college and all you guys want to do is sit in our childhood treehouse."

     I scoff in disbelief, "Vic, shut up. This treehouse is sacred- don't disrespect."

     "I'm sorry," she conceeds, sitting down beside Luke. "But guys, we need to do something memorable. Dylan is going to Los Angeles tomorrow and the boys leave at the end of the week."

     "I'm waiting for your suggestions, Victoria," Michael said expectantly. 

     "Matching tattoos!"

     "No!" At least three of us shouted simultaneously. Victoria rolled her eyes as Ash shrugged and said, "I would do it."

     "I'm not permantly marking my body in honor of any of you," Luke said with finality. 

     Calum raised his hand to gather everyones attention. "Why don't we do the most obvious teenage thing ever and just go into my empty house and get drunk."

     Victoria grinned from ear to ear. "Calum I could kiss you, genius."

     "Please don't," he grimaced.