When I headed home, I made myself a quick lunch and after I ate it I headed to bed and just crashed on it. Many thoughts crossed my mind: How did all of this happen? Why did all of this happen? And of course about the things that Flaming Star said to me: “Just want to be done.” “Don’t want a high grade!” I was lost. I just wasn’t sure what I needed to do.

I stayed there for hours replaying my arguments with Flaming Star. Then I realized it. Flaming Star didn’t care about the project from the first place. He didn’t want the mark at all. Then why would he try so hard to change my mind about getting this whole thing done in a certain way? Did he change his mind? No, that couldn’t be it.

It was then that I remembered his words again. “I thought this project was important for you so I tried to do my best.” He was doing this for me. So I could get a good mark! I sat up on my bed, then jumped off it quickly. I checked the clock on my phone. It was 6:30.

After I came to the realization that he was doing all this for me, I decided to call him. He didn’t pick up at first but the third time I called, he did.

“What is it? I thought we were doing this whole thing your way.”

“Listen Flame. I know that I was being lazy and that you just wanted me to get a good mark and I totally messed up again.”

“What are you trying to say?”

I stopped for a second and then answered. “I just want to say that I’m sorry. It was all my bad. I just wanted to get this project done so badly that I didn’t even realized how much time we put into it in the first place. And….”

“And?”

I looked at the clock before I answer him: “And if you think we can still do our best, I’m in.”

“And now you think of that! Now that we clearly don’t have time!”

“We have almost 12 hours before school; I think that’s enough time to get this done the right way. We both need another slideshow and we need to come up with our presentation.”

“And how are we gonna do that?”

“You have a laptop, you can create the slideshow, and we can talk on the phone.”

He didn’t responded for a few second, “Call me back in a few minutes, I’m gonna tell Alfredo to make me a coffee.”

When he said that I knew he was in.

I went and plugged my phone into the charger since it was going to be a long night. I called him again, and we started making both our presentation and slideshow. It went by so fast and the last thing I remember was waking up by the alarm I set up for my phone.

It was morning already and I didn’t have enough time to make myself breakfast, so I headed out hungry. And a little dizzy. Once I reached school, Twilight was there.

“Sunset, what happened to you? You look like you didn’t sleep at all last night!”

“Because I didn’t. Good call!”

“But why? If there is any day that you shouldn’t be sleepy it’s today when you have to present your project!”

“Because I wanted to get a great mark!”

Before we headed to class Flaming Star showed up. His state wasn’t any better than mine.

“Hi,” he yawned. “How much time do we have?”

“Enough to get to the bathrooms and splash some water on our faces.”

We both went and washed our faces as fast as lightning. Then we went to class in a much better state. But would it be enough?

When Professor Skull Mustache walked into the class everyone got silent. He was here for just a couple of weeks but he did make sure that students don’t joke around him.

“Greeting students” he said as he put his bag on the desk. “I hope you’ve all got your projects ready, since today is the day it will be judged.” He took his laptop and linked it to the class projector. “Let’s not waste a single instant; time is precious, after all.” He took out the list he prepared for teams to read and possibly place the mark. “Now, who is eager to be first?”

No one answered. For Flaming Star and me, it was obvious that we were sleepy and we still needed time to refresh our mind. But I don’t know why no one else volunteered; maybe they all were nervous.

“Well then, I guess it’s my choice. Ms. Pie and Ms. Sweetie Drops, please come and present your project.”

As far as I could tell about their project, it was nothing but rocks and I’m pretty sure you can guess who did most of the work. Sweetie Drops had memorized a script that she was reciting. It was obvious from how she was talking, though I wasn’t certain about Maud.

Their presentation took a long time, or maybe it just felt that way because it was all about ROCKS! It was clear that they weren’t getting a high mark.

“Thank you, but I’m afraid, you’ll only achieve 5 out of 10, just because you had something to present and because you were the first group. And-“

The Professor was interrupted by a familiar snore. Skull Mustache picked a marker. “Miss Wallflower Blush, you might want to keep your head down.” Then he threw the marker at Flaming Star and when it hit him he woke up with a start.

“Ouch!”

“Oh, please forgive me, Mr. Flaming Star, I intended to hit the fly that was buzzing around you so you won’t be bothered while sleeping. Sadly, I missed.” The way he said that and using his hand gestures made it ten times more sarcastic.

“Excuse me sir.” Flaming Star said. And then Professor gave him a serious look and asked Maud and Sweetie Drop to sit down. Then he asked the next team to come.

“Ms. Heartstrings, Mr. Chips please come and present your project.”

Their project started not bad, it was on the evolution of technology, though it ended so soon.

“That was it?” Professor asked.

“Um yes, sir,” Micro Chips answered.

“Then don’t expect anything higher than 2.5.”

“But WHY?”

“Do you really want me to go through every single awful point that thing that you dare call a project? Since I have many, many things to say, I believe you would rather I tell them to you two, privately.”

They said nothing and just headed back to their seats. Up next were Steely Armor and Wallflower Blush. Their topic was plants, and to my surprise it was way better than just what you would learn in science class. They both handled their parts pretty good, though they both lacked confidence to speak loud enough for all the class to hear them. Overall, though, they were the best team so far.

“Congratulation to you two, you got an 8, and that’s only because your voices were low. Also, relax a little. I can feel your bones shaking from up here!”

They both were quite satisfied with their mark. Only two teams were left.

“Ms. Sparkle, Ms. Rose, please come.”

Their subject was buildings and their design through history. It was a really good slideshow and Twilight’s speech was perfect. Rose didn’t really do much and I was afraid that would bring their score down.

“Thank you, I really did enjoy your project and the way you presented it, although this project is a demonstration of teamwork, and your team lacked in that regard. You get a 7, though I wish I could give you more.”

And now, it was our turn. Fortunately, we felt way better than we did earlier that morning. Flaming Star gave the flash drive which held our slideshow in it to Prof. Skull Mustache. After that he came and stood next to me so we could start. It was time for all that hard work to pay off. I took a breath and started:

“Life takes its shape by what it holds, and one of those many different things is music. As research shows, music was always a big part of life. And as we evolved, it also evolved. So let’s take a look at the stages of music, in history.” I did my part pretty great; now it was Flame’s turn.

“The first stage of music, according to the archeologists’ research, was shaped by an instrument like a flute.” I couldn’t look back over my shoulder at the screen, but I knew he said those things exactly at the right time of our slideshow. “Although there is no record of the pieces that our ancestors used to play with it due to the fact that they were probably destroyed over the years, a really close analyze confirms that it was an instrument of this sort.” He managed to gain the attention of the other students and that’s what we need to for the second part. My turn again.

“As you can tell, there isn’t much to get from this stage. In the second stage, however, we will encounter a massive evolution of music. And that’s when choral singing became popular, as an interesting entertainment in their ceremonies.”
“But this popularity also made its way through ordinary people and wasn’t restricted to trained choirs, and therefore there were many people participating and singing in a choir group.”

“And because of that, the leader had to deal with many different voices. So they invented a system to understand and organize their choir group. A system that today we call it low-pitch and high-pitch sounds.” We just did an amazing passing to one another, we hadn’t even practiced that, we just knew the whole thing and I guess we intended to complete one another other rather than competing with one another.

“The third stage of music occurred when new instrument came to play,” Flaming Star said, “instruments such as harp, and harpsichord, and of course, the oud. This particular instrument, though, was what started the tradition of busking or street entertaining. There were literally hundreds of busker in each city and all of them had an oud in their hand.”

“Though none of them became as famous as Ouden Wood. This man was a lumberjack, who found his passion in music, picked up an Oud, left his hometown, and traveled all around the globe, busking.” Just one look at our classmates and you could tell they were into our project for real.

“One of the other famous musicians was master Harmonysichord. His pieces were both complicated and beautiful and the main reason for that was that he mixed different styles and changed the tempo in his pieces. His talent meant that both his name and his pieces would be remembered forever.”

“The next stage of music was pretty much the successor of the last one, but it also contained a lot of development, too. One development was the classifying of instruments and styles such as classic from pop or folk or instrumental. And of course many other instruments and musicians appeared on the scene. A really important musician of this time was Clarence, known for a soft and relaxing style which it was said put people to sleep.” We were almost done.

“And it brings us to the last stage, which is now! There isn’t much to explain here as I’m sure you probably know everything, from all the up-and-coming stars and the tracks that hold their places in our hearts.” After he said that, we were practically done but I decided to keep talking.

“Music, like all of us, had a history, a story behind it. And as long as we live it lives with us, evolves with us. And inevitably, became a part of us, forever.”

The slideshow ended. Oddly enough, everyone was still silent and looked confused. I turned and looked at Flaming Star and it seemed like even he was clueless. Then we heard a slow clapping, and it was not coming from the students. We turned our head and what we saw was Prof. Skull Mustache.

“Fantastic! To be perfectly honest I didn’t think I’d be saying that today. Not to you two at least. But that was what I was hoping for my students. But you get a 9.5, since I believe you could do better. Now why don’t the rest of you clap for your classmates!”

I just couldn’t believe it! We didn’t just get a really high mark, but we also got the highest mark in the class. On top of that the whole class was clapping for us. Flame and I looked at one another, and the look on his face made it very clear, “WE nailed it!”

But just before we headed back to our seats, the Professor called us.

“Considering you got the highest mark, you may now have this. Consider it a prize.” He gave each of us an envelope. It was sealed with a skull icon.

The class ended immediately afterwards. But we stayed there to figure out what those were.

“So what the frick frack snick snack is this?” Flaming Star said.

“There’s only one way to find out!”

I opened it; there was a letter inside. I took it out and started to read it. The first thing I saw was “Welcome to the Boneyard Mansion”

-to be continued-

Author's Note

Special thanks to my editor Daniel Drazen.

Stay paitiant for the second part.