Bass

Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Do I know you?

I was freaking out. If this boy had seen me as a girl, he might recognize me as a guy and that would surely mean my cover would be blown.

I had no more time to think about it as someone pushed from behind and I felt myself hurtling onto the stage. I stumbled over the drums as a tall man picked up the guitar leaning on the raised platform. I stepped up onto the platform and sat down at the drums.

Then the boy with green eyes and four other boys, including Niall, made their way on stage. The crowd went wild and I could see some people in the front row were crying. Geez, these girls must have been obsessed.

The boys were jumping with excitement and the crowd seemed to quiet down for a second so they could introduce themselves. A boy with short brown hair and a striped blue and white t-shirt and dark red jeans stepped forward.

“Hi, everyone!” He said and crowd cheered even louder. “Thank you so much for coming to our concert. I’m Louis, as you probably know.” He stepped back.

“I’m Zayn,” said another boy next to Louis with a red baseball jacket and blue jeans.

“I’m Niall.”

“I’m Liam,” said another with short brown hair and a maroon sweater.

“And I’m Harry.” So that was his name. Harry. “We hope you enjoy our last show here in Australia and... yeah.” He turned around to signal me and the guitarists to start the first song, catching my eye. He seemed to pause while looking at me for a millisecond but then quickly turned back to the audience.

The bass and guitarists started with a few simple chords before I came in. I was a bit shaky at first but then settled into the rhythm quite nicely. Louis, Liam, Zayn, Niall and Harry sang swiftly through the lyrics. They all had nice voices. Honestly, I wasn’t really concentrating on their singing ability while Simon was screaming in my ears (through the headphones) to ‘stop playing’, ‘start playing’, ‘throw my drum stick up in the air and catch it’. I just rolled my eyes at the last one. He would have seen it on those TV screens.

Serves him right. He was being really bossy. I figured I was just going to have to get used to it.

Great.

***

The show seemed to fly by. Simon was my life line through the whole thing (although I did rock out this awesome drum solo in a song called ‘NaNaNa’. Simon didn’t really like that). But it was fun. The rush that I got while playing was amazing, like a light in me was shining through to the crowd. I felt almost sad when leaving the stage.

“You did it!” Simon rushed up to me, giving me a strong hug. “You need to meet the rest of the live band then I’ll introduce you to the boys. Remember, you’re a man.”

Like I needed reminding! I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Especially my run in with Harry at Syco. I wasn’t sure what I felt about Harry. That moment looking into his eyes seemed so personal, so real. But I knew that I had to forget it and concentrate on my disguise. If he found out I was a boy then I was surely screwed.

I was once again being led by Simon, but this time he pushed me down a separate corridor with less people. We stopped in front of a door that had a big white sign saying ‘Josh, Andrew and Joey”. Simon pushed door open but we didn’t step through, only waited awkwardly at the door. Two men were sitting on swivel chairs looking at their phones like nothing else mattered.

“Joey, Andy, this is Charlie, Josh’s replacement. Say hi.”

They both didn’t even look up from their mobiles. They just sat there and mumbled a ‘hey’.