Heart Strings Chapter One

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Heart Strings

Sephy

This is our song. This is how it goes. You tug at the strings of my heart, plucking a tune only we know. But I resist. Why? Fear. Insecurity. Disbelief. I don’t know, but I do. Don’t give up on me though, I’ll realise. I promise. I love you, I do. I’ll realise, and as you pluck at my heart strings, the music comes, and we sing along to a tune only we know.

1

We're just girls who happen to crank up the volume, yell out the windows, sing like superstars and dance around like we're - F A M O U S - with ripped jeans and huge sunglasses

Anonymous

-Sephy-

‘I can’t believe it!’ I squealed at Sammie as soon as I heard the news escape her mouth.

‘I thought you’d overreact…’ She winced and looked around us.

We were on a bus but, really, who cared? Sammie had just found out something AH-MAY-ZING. I was sure the public would squeal their heads off if one of their best friends found our band an amazing gig which was in just two weeks.

As I said, AH-MAY-ZING!

‘Ooh, and then one or two weeks after that, it’s the Under 18’s Christmas Ball slash Disco slash total partay! Yeah baby! Some o’ that puh-lease!’ I giggled a bit too loudly. ‘It’s party, party, party leading up to Christmas isn’t it?’ Sammie tried to hide her smile but I saw it coming.

‘Actually, no. As you know, all the Christmas parties suck. Big time.’

‘True, true. It’s not exactly the most exciting egg in the eggcup...’ I half nodded. The party was boring. For Sammie anyway. She needed a wild time and excitement to keep her occupied on one thing for more than a nanosecond. But it wasn’t too bad for me. Best of all, it wasn’t a school disco or those other sad events (except prom coming along after GCSE’s! Oh yes,) it was a club and they were having a 14 to 18 Christmas party. I’ve never been to one myself but Sammie was the sort of person who is invited to these things all the time. The 14 to 18 club nights are on the first Saturday of every month. Mum said I couldn’t go to one till I was sixteen (jeez! It’s 14 to 18 not 16 to 18!) which I would be by the time the Christmas party came. ‘But we are going, right?’ She nodded, laughing at me.

‘Can Nick come?’

I shrugged, ‘haven’t actually asked him yet. Probably though.’ Nick is my totally awesome boyfriend, but he’s been really busy doing ‘stuff’ recently.

‘Good. We’ll have fun. Kind of. Ish.’

‘I know!’ I giggled, woot. I cannot wait.

Sammie is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. She is funny, kind, generous, calm, a great listener, the one (in our group) who always gets the gossip first and incredibly good at giving advice. She is wise too. Like one of those mums who seem to know everything and are friends as well as parents.

Or even our very own Yoda.

Except not green, short, or male.

To be honest, we are all alike. The whole gang. All natural brunettes, (though Aimee, another band member, had dyed hers blonde with a few pink highlights), our favourite colours are red and we all love music. We made our own band one week or so before school started, this year though we’ve been talking about it for years. We called our selves the ‘Red Heartz,’ which, admittedly, is kind of cheesy but whatever. I’d never admit it to a soul. 

Unfortunately, because I could sing, play guitar, write songs and came up with the name, I was voted leader (dammit) and that was the beginning of us. We’d only played once and it was November 14th so we thought we should really try and get out more and play though practising was important too.

I pressed the stop button as the bus neared the stop for school.

‘I can’t wait for the gig thing you’ve got for us! I mean, can you?’ Sammie shrugged.

‘To be honest, I think practice is really important right now. Though it was our first time, when we finally got to play in a gig, it was pretty embarrassing when we were on different bars at the end.’ I cringed as I remembered the end of our song First Impressions. It was pretty great, until the end, if we say so ourselves. To us anyway. A few people loved the grunge kind of my-ears-are-bleeding noise but Sammie was worried.

‘Yeah, it wasn’t the smoothest snake in the Sahara…’ I agreed as we walked off the bus and turned a corner, ambling up our school road.

She squinted and looked at me, grinning, ‘yeah. It wasn’t that.’ I laughed at her response.

‘Well anyway, not too many because my parents are getting freaked. We’ve got GCSE’s this year you know…’ I felt immediately guilty. As the leader I’d been getting everyone to keep practising when we had GCSEs.

‘Aww, yeah. Okay, we need to calm things down then I suppose.’ I thought, thinking about how mum and dad were getting fed up with me too. It’s all revision and coursework all day long.

I mean, they said I should play an instrument...right?

The practices were all in my garage which wasn’t used anymore because Liam (my thirteen year old brother) used to have his own band back when he still played drums so it was all soundproofed and cool-ified and my Uncle even had the heating done so we got it handed down basically. It’s also great for Aimee because she doesn’t have to bring her drums all the way from home, Liam said we could use his. (He is so into rugby that he doesn’t use it any more. Which is good for us…but…I mean, rugby?)

So basically, our positions in the band are:

Me (Sephy); Leader, Singer/songwriter, pianist (+ acoustic guitar)

Mel; electric + base guitar, singer

Aimee; Drums

Tabby; base + electric guitar (flute)

Sammie; Main singer, acoustic guitar, (piano)

And there you have it. The Red Heartz.

‘So what did you think of those Horn boys at the last gig?’ Sammie said out of the blue as we pushed open the heavy school doors.

‘Horn? Horn… Yeah! Weird or what? But their song was good. Though there was so much smoke on the stage for them I could barely see them. It didn’t help that we were back stage.’

‘Yeah, so what I thought. Well, they attend this school.’ Sammie said, mock calmly, inspecting her perfect nails.

‘They what?’ I shouted, eyes bulging. Mr. Adams, evil Chemistry teacher of the millennium, glared at me and put his index finger over his lips as he strode past. I would tell him where to stick his finger, but I was talking to Sammie, it would be rude.

‘They go to this school. Or is it come to this school? Ah, maybe it is attend this-’’

‘Sammie!’ My eyes grew, ‘that’s brilliant! Do you realize how brilliant this is? Who are they? Do you know? How old are they? They aren’t younger than us are they?’ She grinned and nodded, as we took the stairs two at a time.

‘Ian Donnings, Tony Miller, Sam Vine, David Thompson and Nathan King, and no, they are not younger they us Sephy, no worries,’ she replied feeling proud of her findings.

‘Really? Wow! They are in our class! Doesn’t Nathan King sit next to me?! He’s a huge heart-breaker right?’

‘Uh, yeah.’

‘Hmm…’ We both walked into the classroom twirling the information in our heads.

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