Oh, We're So Getting the Band Back Together
“FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOWWWW!”
“Thank you, Lemon Zest. Because I wasn’t deaf enough already.”
“SUNNY FLARE! WOO YEAH! Welcome to the show! Check out my guitar solo! Isn’t it sick?”
“Yes, it definitely sounds like something ill. And… what are you wearing? I use the word ‘wearing’ charitably, just so you know.”
“Isn’t it amazing!? Designed it, stitched it, and dyed it myself. Not as hard as you’d think to pull off this look. Why, I could do it like that in my sleep.”
“Didn’t you already? Seriously, I’ve been looking all over school for you. I came to ask you… Oh, what now?”
“Come on! Play the school’s grand piano!”
“Why?”
“Because no one’s using it. It’s gathering dust. Why not?”
“Again: why?”
“Easy. I’m forming a band with the girls – Indigo’s on drums, Sour Sweet’s got a bass, Sugarcoat’s even trying out a tambourine, but I think we’d be better off with a synthesizer or something – and you’re the last one I want to talk to!”
“Flattered.”
“I’m calling the band State of Heaven.”
“What, ironically?”
“What the what now?”
“More seriously: there’s a new shop opening in Manehatten Avenue today. Everything’s on a first-come-first-served discount, and frankly you could do with a new look.”
“Why? What’s the digs?”
“Erm… well, it’s a classy shop, and that’s all you need to know –”
“Wait a secundo momento: It’s not that Goth Complex, is it?”
“No.”
“Sunny. Be honest.”
“Oh fine, yes, if you insist, but you could do with toning down anyway. Monochrome is a classic style that’s welcome anywhere, especially if you know how to use the lightest accent of colour for that finishing touch –”
“I like this ensemble’s style.”
“What, vomit rainbow? Lemon, we’re Crystal Prep students. No one’s going to take seriously a spiky-haired loudmouth with no style or sense.”
“Well, no one’s going to like a dull-as-ditchwater vampire wannabe who’s too cool to hang out with her friends!”
“I hang out with Sour Sweet and Sugarcoat all the time.”
“You boss them around all the time! I’ve seen you!”
“Someone’s gotta take the initiative.”
“Oh, really? I happen to know for a fact that Sour Sweet’s been making voodoo dolls of you on the school grounds and setting them on fire. What did you do this time to tick her off?”
“What makes you think I did anything? Everyone knows she’s nuts.”
“You said that? To her face? Are you mad!?”
“Wh– Y– Buh – Y-You… You’re taking her side? She said my eye shadow looked like I’d been punched in the face twice.”
“Come the hay on! You do lay it on a bit thick.”
“So did she when she added, ‘But I just wuv you anyway! You’re soooo not afraid to try new things!’”
“She was trying to be nice!”
“She was just trying. Nice girls finish last, anyway. She should kick the habit.”
“Sour Sweet’s having a hard time at home, you know! She’s got enough to make her tizzy dizzy without you snapping at her!”
“Even assuming I said you have a point, which I don’t, why are you taking her side? She insulted me, remember.”
“So what, you insult her right back? Dude. Not cool, man. Not cool.”
“Oh, no problem there. We’ve been very cool all week to each other. From now on: Least said, soonest mended.”
“Sunny.”
“Anyway, what about you and Sugarcoat?”
“Wh– What about me and Sugarcoat?”
“She said she was getting good as Indigo on the motorcycle track –”
“Oh, that about me and Sugarcoat! Sorry. Mind went blankety-blank there for a sec.”
“– and you called her, if memory serves, ‘A big fat lip-flapper’.”
“I meant it as a compliment! You know, like how we call Indigo Zap a ‘speed freak’ and a ‘walking megaphone’. It’s like a joke!”
“Tell that to Sugarcoat.”
“I did. She called me a liar.”
“That’s because you have the social grace, if I may be so bold, of dehydrated duckweed. Tip number one: you can’t apologize to someone whilst smiling and banging your head to ‘The Mike’s About To Drop’.”
“I was just being fun.”
“I don’t deny that. You were just being fun, and not, in addition: sensitive, caring, understanding, sincere, remorseful, respectful, polite… just to stick to the top of the list, you understand.”
“She called me a liar!”
“And if I didn’t know you, I’d have called you a liar, too. You know she hates liars.”
“I’m not a liar!”
“Oh, sorry, my mistake. I should have said: You know she hates a big fat lip-flapper who’s just being, and I quote, ‘fun’.”
“Well…”
“Care to provide a comment? I’m sure it’ll look great on the next cover issue of ‘Oops, I put my foot in it again’.”
“I didn’t mean…”
“Yes?”
“It’s just…”
“Yeeeeees?”
“She… She wasn’t that good on the motorcycle track.”
“Le sigh. Was anyone else that good in the try-outs? Anyone? Ignoring Indigo Zap?”
“N–? N… N-Not…”
“I think ‘no’ is the word you’re looking for.”
“Yeah, but on her own…”
“Ah?”
“She was making it out like she was rad stuff.”
“She’s Sugarcoat. She always talks like that about everything. Her voice only has one setting.”
“Well, it sounded like –”
“I don’t frankly care what your delusional ears hallucinated that they sounded like. Just because you have the social restraint of a rabid dog, doesn’t mean the rest of us are like you ‘deep down’.”
“I only meant… I didn’t mean…”
“Although at least you picked up you hurt her feelings. Old dogs can learn new tricks, after all.”
“Yeah!? What about YOU!?”
“What? What about me?”
“You and Sour Sweet sure pick up each other’s feelings a lot, don’t you?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Don’t tell me! Tell her!”
“Tell her –?”
“YES!”
“Oh.”
“Yes!”
“Oh, right. I see.”
“Yes.”
“I see what you mean, Lemon.”
“Mm hm.”
“…”
“…”
“You know. It’s just so easy to forget what it’s like for her at home.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s not like she invites anyone for a sleepover.”
“But she’d like to, if she could!”
“Yeah, she mentioned the possibility to me once over lunch. I just thought she was being sarcastically pleasant, but now you mention it…”
“Ex-act-ly!”
“Well…”
“Yeah!”
“Well… It’s just eye shadow. It doesn’t make me a vampire wannabe.”
“Oho, you know Sour Sweet got you pegged good. Some-one’s in de-ni-al.”
“Well… vampires are classy, right? Someone has to set the standard.”
“Grand pianos are classy! That’s why you should play one in the band!”
“With Sour Sweet and Sugarcoat and Indigo Zap?”
“Eeeee-yeah, eventually we should all play together in the band. Once we sort stuff out.”
“Iron out the creases, that kind of thing?”
“Bingo!”
“Right.”
“Yuh-huh!”
“…”
“…”
“But Lemon, seriously: piano and guitar?”
“What’s the problem, Sunny? You never heard of Symphonic Metal?”
“Is it machine-washable?”
“Duh, it’s not something you put on clothes, dummy. It’s a genre. Of music. Very popular at the mo, if DuKanal’s anything to go by. That site’s got tons of videos up about it, the history, the first bands, the influences from Heavy Metal and Neoclassical.”
“What’s DuKanal?”
“You’ve never heard of DuKanal!? Oh, wait, I forgot. You don’t speak Skania-Sendere. Well, it’s like this foreign networking site for artists, and –”
“And you can speak Skania-whatever-it-was?”
“Naturligtvis kan jag tala språket! Hur tror du att jag kan prata så här just nu?”
“Oh.”
“Seeeeee?”
“Well, that explains the fact Principal Cinch hasn’t thrown you out yet. So you didn’t cheat on that last exam?”
“Course not. Why does everyone think I did? It wasn’t that hard, if you remembered all the stuff about the other stuff that happened in… nineteen… thingy-thinx, or… something.”
“Er… no reason. Just curious. But come on, how do you know so much?”
“Oh, I research everything. That’s how I recognized your vampire fixation. With that short haircut, you look just like Angelarri von Flüterbaat from Help! My Roommate Vants To Suck My Blud!”
“Huh. Never pegged you as a horror fan.”
“Good film, though, isn’t it?”
“Eeeh… the vampires were the best bit.”
“Darn tootin’!”
“So, this band… what gigs it got?”
“Nada, so far. But practice makes perfect! Think of where we could be after just one year’s worth of playing!”
“Taking requests at a back-alley bar?”
“Hitting the charts! We could be the next Countess Coloratura! Don’t you want to be a countess?”
“Countess Colora– No way.”
“YES WAY! Aw, yeah! Imagine going platinum!”
“Well, broadly speaking, yes, though I wouldn’t aspire to countesshood.”
“Ha! Count Sunny von Flare-sylvania!”
“Oh, yes. Ve come to suck… at playing.”
“I was thinking, ‘Ve come to suck at not sucking.’”
“Try sucking blood out of a stone.”
“All right, we don’t have to be as good as Countess Coloratura. But we could still have a lot of fun together, right? Right? Just like we used to do in freshmen’s year. Ha, good times!”
“Far be it from me to say anything about what’s left of your memory, but last time I checked, we weren’t in a band in freshmen’s year.”
“No, but we had fun together, right? You know, before the stress and the exams and so on?”
“Er…”
“Sour Sweet used to love hanging around with you and shopping for clothes.”
“I used to love giving her fashion tips, I have to be honest.”
“Just like Sugarcoat! She thought you were her soulmate!”
“Did Indigo really do that thing with the tornado-hunting, or am I just imagining she said that?”
“No, she really used to do it. That was before she moved.”
“Oh, now I remember. She said it at one of your parties. Of course, she said a lot of things at parties after one too many glasses of spiked punch –”
“A PARTY!? Ho, yeah! We should have one of those again! We could play at it!”
“‘We’ could play at it?”
“Come on, Count Sunny-feratu. Bring the band back together? Pweeeeeeeese? For old time’s saaaaaaaaaake?”
“Don’t do the puppy dog eyes.”
“I’m doing them as puppy-lovingly as I can!”
“Oh, no. Don’t. Seriously. Don’t.”
“Pupping-y-est! Loving-y-est! Eyes! Whimper, whimper…”
“D’oh, all right! All right!”
“Y-YESSS!”
“But one practice session. I don’t want anyone who knows me to walk in on us.”
“Like who? Who knows you?”
“T’chuh! Like, everyone in school?”
“No, they know about you. I mean who knows you.”
“Oh.”
“Go on. Impress me.”
“Oh, l-lots. Of… people.”
“Like who?”
“Well… there’s Indigo Zap.”
“She’s in the band.”
“And… Sugarcoat.”
“Als-o in the band-o.”
“And… Sour… Sweet.”
“Hon är också med i musikbandet.”
“Wha?”
“That’s Skania-Sendere for ‘She’s also in the music band’.”
“OK. And… there’s you.”
“Duh-ha-ha! I know there’s me, sassy lassy! Who else?”
“Er… that’s it.”
“Oh, r’lly?”
“Hey, I’ve got tons of friends outside the school you don’t know about.”
“YA HA HA YO-hee-hee-heeeeee, is that seriously so? No joshing or nothing? And I expect they all live in a magical land full of happy little fairy things, do they?”
“Le sigh. You always were good at not rubbing things in.”
“What are friends for!? Now get up on that piano and hit me!”
“I’d rather hire Sour Sweet to do it down here, but since she’s not here…”
“Aw, I love you, man!”
“I’m a girl, thanks. I’m sure I’ve patiently explained the difference to you before.”
“You act so tough and cool, but I know you love this, really.”
“Uh huh.”
“And then we’ll go ‘monochrome-shopping’ later, I promise. How’s that sound, huh?”
“Oh… all right. Deal. This never leaves this room, though, got it?”
“Si, major!”
“Er… I’ll try Moat’s Art in C minor instead, how’s that?”
“Take it away, Maestro! YEAH! ROCK ON!”
“Ahem?”
“Oh, right. CLASSIC ON! WOO!”
“Classic on, I guess. OK, here we go…”
“…Hey, you’re even better than I thought! This definitely leaves the room! You gotta go share your gift! Get in the mooooood! Like this: FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOWWWW!”
“Er… OK. If you insist… Freeeeeeooow? I guess?”
“FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOWWWW!”
“Free… ow?”
“Come on, don’t be embarrassed. You got the spark, Sunny! Let it out big time!”
“FREE… EE… ee… eeeeeeooow… OW! Sorry, Lemon. I’m afraid the humility’s getting to me.”
“Not a bad try! Gotta start somewhere, Sunny! Gotta start somewhere!”
“All right. So, now let’s take it from the top. All the way from the top, and then we’ll go wherever the music takes us…”
