I Lost It All - a Lost & Found Music Studios Story [ONGOING]

Maggie

The day of open stage...

Today is the day! Today is the day I get rid of Leia once and for all! I've been practising so hard, and I'm going to give this performance my all.  I had previously been tempted to write down my whole plan, but then I thought "Someone will find the paper and tell everyone about my plan and that will be the end of me, like my life is some kids' show" so I gave up on the writing down.

But anyway, I get up and do everything exactly how I normally do, but with this bubbly feeling inside me.  I wave to my parents a little too enthusiastically, I walk to the bus stop with a spring in my step, I march into Lost and Found with an air of happiness.

"Hey, Maggie," says a voice. I turn and see Theo standing behind me. 

"Hi Theo," I reply, giving him a huge beam. "How's it going?"

"It's...it's really good! I, um, yeah! I was just singing a song about my dog. Wanna hear it?" he grins.

"Are you performing it at open stage today?" I ask, not really wanting to be held up. "'Cause I can hear it then, I just have something to do right now, ok, bye, see you later!" I cry as I run to the Rose Room, watching a somewhat disappointed and bewildered Theo wave to me.

+++

"Anyone else have anything to perform?" asks Mr T, standing onstage in the Rose Room at the end of open stage.  I take a deep breath.

"I...I have a song that I want to perform," I announce.

"Alright, well, give it up for Maggie!" he calls, and I am met with cheers and applause as I walk up to the stage.

I play Leia's song, in my own style (of course) and I see people watching me, shocked, whispering, and Mr T with a look of almost awe on his face.  Wow.  I am really glad Leia didn't perform this, she would become so popular!

As I play the last chord of the song and look smiling into the crowd, the audience jumps to their feet and breaks into rapturous applause.  As I walk offstage people congratulate me.  As I walk up to Luke, Rachel and Annabelle hug me. 

"Maggie!"Rachel calls breathlessly, standing in my way. "That was amazing! I, I haven't heard songwriting that mind blowing from anyone except..." she trails off, looking to her feet. But frankly, at this point, I'm too ecstatic to care that Rachel misses Leia. I gently move her to one side and carry on pursuing Luke.

"Luke! What did you think? How was my song? Did you like it?" I run towards him, beaming, on cloud 9.  This is just the best feeling.

"It was, uh, brill," he tells me, not looking up from his phone, clearly distracted by something.  What's more important on his phone than me, here, in real life? I need to see what's so urgent he can't even look up. I lean across and glance at his phone screen. He realises what I'm doing and pulls it away, the screen shutting off.  But he is too late. I see one word that sends me into an internal frenzy, the letters burning into my mind.

I look at him, my eyes full of disgust, then turn away as Mr T brings open stage to a close. Rachel and Annabelle link arms with me, and we walk off to eat some pizza. Normally I'd be delighted to have pizza, but all I can think about is the one word I saw on Luke's phone.

I saw the word 'Leia'.