The Busker Story

The Busker Story (Chapter 1)

"Beth may have had a reputation for being the smartest girl in her year, but she was such an idiot," Kai thought to herself as she shook her head at her blushing best friend.

"Come on, Jack doesn't like me. HE DOESN'T LIKE ME. We are not dating, and we never will be," she visibly wilted at her own statement. "I mean come on, why would he?"

Kai shook her head in disbelief. Her friend was not normal, and should obviously be tested. Beth always put her self down. She was short, admittedly, but had a thin, elegant body, one she had earned from years of ballet lessons. She was born in China, and had long, curly brown hair, and big dark eyes. She closely resembled a fairy, and often dressed like one.

Kai, on the other hand, was.... Well, not a fairy. She made her own clothes, and wore few of them. The ones she did consisted of customised jeans, t-shirts with words on them, and sometimes dresses with tu-tued skirts, and even in these she could not be described as girly. She wore what she felt like, and how she felt, she always said, was awesome.. She usually added a pair of converse or doc martens, and regularly made fun of her friends mythical tendencies towards clothing. She was tall, with shoulder-length black hair with blue tips, and her eyes matched her hair.

Their Second Year Class had spent the day discussing (among other gossipy tid-bits) the infamous 'relationship' (if it could be called that) been Beth Fairview and Jack Hunter, the dark haired, skinned and eyed giant from Beth's Business Class. They had been flirting in the barest, yet most obvious way possible, yet neither was aware of the other's feelings. Kai sighed.

"Look, I wanna change the subject. How's the Wordhouse doing?" Beth asked.

Kai's mom was newly divorced. Her husband had left her for another man, and Alice was chanelling her feelings into renovating the bookstore they ran together, and charging as much as she could onto her soon-to-be ex husband's credit card while she still had the chance.

"Well, she's decided to turn the upstairs into a cafè, and re-paint the downstairs green and white. It's gonna look great." Despite the couples many differences, they both had a love of books, which was both lucky and inevitable, considering.

"And I just remembered, I have good news." Beth looked up. "My mom wants to get in a big stack of books to start selling when the store re-opens, so she says if either of us wants anything we can just add it to the list." Beth grinned. "That's so nice of her. Look... I'm really sorry about this."

"B, I don't wanna be rude, but I also don't wanna talk about it."

"Ok. Well what do you..." Beth trailed off. Kai waved a hand in font of her face. "Are you there? Hello?" She turned around to look out the window. Outside were three students from the year above them, standing in the large field across from her house, which was located to the left of Beth's. One was holding an acoustic guitar, another was seated behind a set of drums, and a third was empty-handed. They were dressed similarly in jeans, black leather jackets, and multi-coloured band t-shirts.They signaled to each other, and they began.

It was, for want of a better word, epic. The song the trio played was full of good times and sunshine (as Beth would say), with a strong, rhythmic  beat and fast, hard to duplicate chords. The singer had a wonderful voice, one that held the long notes both strongly and tunefully. By the time they were finished, Beth and Kai had come down the stairs, out the door, and had arrived right beside them. The drummer knocked her green neon drumsticks together, signaling the end, and the two applauded, accompanying the large group that had gathered around them. "Encorè, èncore!" yelled the crowd, and the girls grinned, and started again.

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When the groups repertoire had been exhausted, they bowed, and started packing up their instruments. The crowd dispersed, apart from Beth and Kai. The guitarist noticed their reluctance to leave.

"Hey," she said suddenly. "Don't you too go to our school? Year three, St. Paddo's, right?" 'St. Paddos' was the affectionate name given to the occupants of St Patricks Highschool, known to the principal, and no one else, Scoil Naomh Padraig.

"Yeah. Aren't you Lilianne Grey?" Beth pointed to the singer.

The girl was famous at their school. She was the only fridget who had passed the leaving cert, and the only one in her year who didn't care.

"Yup," she smiled. "And these are my best friends, Addison Albright and Casey Steele," pointing to the two girls standing beside her.

"Not to ask an obvious question or anything," Kai started. "But..."

"Why were we playing just now? Well, we are The Ones Looking In. We're forming a band, and we wanted to see what people thought of us."

"But..."

"Why here?" Addison interrupted again. She was just one of those people who knew what people wanted to say, even if they didn't know themselves. It was both useful and annoying.

"Well, this area is near all of our houses, and these are heavy," she gestured to her drumkit.

"O..."

"K?" she giggled, as Kai stared at her with one eyebrow raised.

"Anyway, before my friend throttles your friend, You... "

"Were really" Addison started.

"Great!" Beth 'accidently' stepped on Addison's toe. "Anyway, good luck with this."

"Thanks," the girls replied. And so they went their seperate ways.

"Do you wanna..." Kai asked.

"Start a band? Yeah!" Beth smiled. Kai hit her. Beth laughed.

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Author's note.

This story will get better, I promise, I just had to set everything up.

And Eleanor, I did not, and never will, join facebook. :)

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