Blue Monday

Chapter 2 - On Top Of The World

***ALEX***

Inside, the ballroom is small but cozy, looking very old-fashioned - just as its name suggests. The whole place looks almost like a barn, complete with dirt floor and wooden walls. The story goes that it was actually built on the skeleton of an old Victorian that burned down in 1962, when the fireworks at Bearville's centennial celebration backfired right into the house. Some fire-elemental lost their wings over that one, I'm sure.

Onstage, there's a band getting ready to play - they all look sort of like they could be any of us, except their formalwear is a bit different. Very definitely old-timey, almost goth-like. I freeze up a bit as I see one of the band members - she's kinda small and mousy and unassuming, but she bears a pretty noticeable resemblance to Clara from Doctor Who. I can't help but stare at her - until Juliet snaps her fingers in front of my face.

"I'm right here, you know," she says, smirking.

"I know," I say. "Looks like Castledown picked a great band, don't you think?"

According to tradition, at prom time, the class presidents of the two schools flip a coin, with the winner picking the location and the loser picking the entertainment.

"I think they're called Midnight Daydream," Gideon says as he takes his seat.

I sit between Juliet and Gabe, shedding my jacket to show the pinstriped vest underneath. "Interesting. What, are they a cover band or something?"

"I think so," Gideon says. "I don't know too much about them. You should ask Juliet. I think she saw them live once."

"Sort of," Juliet says. "They opened for Graviga on their Left Coast Tour, but that's it, really. That's all I know."

Luca lowers the menu he's been consulting. "Funny, they don't look like a good fit for Graviga. These guys got actual instruments."

"It worked a lot better than I thought," Juliet says. "Put it this way - what Graviga is to Avicii, Midnight Daydream is to Imagine Dragons."

"Cool," Kyle says. He's a pretty big Imagine Dragons fan, so he must be looking forward to hearing this band now.

"You know what else?" Luca says. "My sister used to date this guy who was in a band back in the Bay Area - and the guitarist looks a lot like him. I think they're brothers."

"So was the bassist your sister's boyfriend or something?" I ask.

"No, he was the drummer. Mattia's boyfriend, I mean."

"Interesting. Whatcha gonna have, Juliet? Chicken or fish?"

Juliet laughs as she consults her own limited menu. "What, no T-bone steaks? Waste of a hundred-buck ticket, if you ask me."

"At least the music should be good," I say, turning to the stage as the singer approaches her mike.

"Okay," she says. Because of her Clara Oswald resemblance, it's a bit jarring to hear her talk with a plain old American accent. "Testing, one, two, three. Everyone hear me?"

A few scattered responses of "yeah" and/or "uh-huh" filter up from the crowd.

"That's what I thought," the singer says, grinning cheekily. "Okay. Most of you probably don't know who we are, so let's just get the intro out of the way. I'm Annie Troy-" Here she stops to let a few of us, myself included, chuckle at her name. "Yeah, I'm not a crazy Community fan. That's my real name, people. Um, all right, and these are my musical cohorts - Seamus Gravely on guitar" - Luca snaps his fingers and says that, yes, the guitarist really is his sister's boyfriend's brother - "Andy Toombs on bass, Jaye Tyler on drums, and Dale Cooper on keyboards. Together, we're Midnight Daydream, and we're here to...ehh, you know the rest. I guess we'll just start our song now..."