Rock 'n' Roll Rebel (16 page)

Chapter Thirty-Eight

O
nce the science project was turned in, Tig had the unfortunate task of telling the other girls that her parents had nixed band practice for the next few weeks. She wondered if they'd be upset . . . or relieved.

“So, long story short, no phone, no texting, no social media . . . and, worst of all, no band practice,” Tig explained. “I can still practice by myself after all my homework is finished, and I still get to go to my lessons, but there's no group practice until progress reports come out and my grades are back up.”

“My parents would have done the exact same thing,” Olivia said. “Either that or just killed me. I can't believe you didn't turn in your science project!”

“Take it easy,” Tig said. “I've already had enough lecturing from my folks.”

Olivia smiled. “Sorry. But, wow. That's big. You'll get your grades up soon, right?”

“I'm fine with taking some time off from practicing,” Kyra said. Robbie rolled her eyes at Tig. It wasn't like Kyra ever practiced anyway.

“Okay, let's say Tig brings her grades up,” Robbie said. “Then what?”

“What do you mean?” Tig asked.

“I mean, what difference does it make right now, anyway? We still don't know if we have a lead singer. So is there even a band?”

“Well, sure there is,” Tig said.

Just then Kyra spilled her cling peaches onto the table, so she got up to get some napkins. Olivia began talking to Will. Robbie leaned in and whispered to Tig. “I don't know, Ripley. Have you ever wondered if maybe this band is more trouble than it's worth?”

“The thought did occur to me this past weekend when the entire world came crashing down,” Tig replied.

“We can't have a band unless we have a real commitment from all the members,” Robbie continued. “Claire, at best, is on the fence, but probably out altogether; Kyra's halfhearted about the whole thing; Olivia's good, but eventually her tennis schedule is going to become a problem, and you? You're so all in, you can't handle your regular life anymore. This can't all rest on you. There's got to be buy-in from everybody.”

“Just give it some time,” Tig said. “Please, Robbie? If you bail, then there really won't be a band anymore. Please hang in there with me.”

Robbie sighed. “Okay, but you better get those grades up. And next time you have problems like the science project, let me know so I can help.”

Tig agreed. “Thanks for sticking with me,” she told Robbie.

“No problem,” Robbie replied. “I just hope Claire does the same.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

B
eing in the lunch room seemed less painful now that it was Tig's only social outlet. She hadn't sent a text in two whole days, and she was sure her thumbs were going through withdrawal. Every so often one of them would spasm as she held her pencil in math class, as though it wanted to say,
Remember what fun we used to have together?

The good news was that Mr. Ellis had given her a 70 percent on her science project. It was a good one. (Having a dad who was a mechanical engineer came in handy in times like this.) If she'd turned the project in on time, it would've gotten her a 100, but she was lucky Mr. Ellis accepted it at all, and she knew it. With her daily grades and a test coming up the following week, Tig knew she could be back in B territory before progress reports. Then she'd be free from this purgatory.

The other good news was that most everyone at school had grown tired of the jabs about the band and had gone back to tormenting other kids about their acne or weight. Well, it was good news for Tig. Not so much for the usual targets.

And still other good news was that Claire had fully recovered and was back at school.

Except this wasn't entirely good news.

On her first day back, Claire had made apologies to the Pandora's Box crowd and then had sat with the Bots at lunch. She'd promised she'd be back the next day, but from the looks of how tight she and the Bots seemed, Tig and the others had their doubts.

“She fits right in,” Olivia said. “She's well dressed, pretty—”

“Too pretty,” Robbie said. “Regan won't be able to stand for that very long. She doesn't like to be upstaged.”

“But by then Claire will have forgotten all about us,” Olivia said. “She'll have already been sucked into their machine, and she won't come back to us. She'll just stay in their clique and act out the frenemies dramas over and over like they all do.”

“Instead of singing with our band,” Robbie said. “What a waste.”

“Let's not get too carried away,” Kyra said. “Claire might not do any of that.”

Tig rolled her eyes. Of all the hypocrisy. Kyra would be the first to fall prey to the Bots' machinations, if only they noticed she was alive long enough to let her into their group.

But the next day Claire did sit with the band at lunch. Tig could hardly believe it.

Everyone tried to act normal, but Tig felt she could've reached out and touched the awkward vibe that hung in the air. The Pandora's Box girls were careful about everything they said, almost as though Claire were some sort of rare, delicate curiosity that they had to tiptoe around in a museum. Even Robbie was devoid of her usual who-gives-a-rip attitude and had morphed into a sort of frozen-smile, 1950s housewife creature.

“So, you're feeling better?” Robbie asked Claire, a weird smile plastered across her face.

“Yes, thanks,” Claire said. “Mono was no picnic.”

Robbie started laughing. “Hahahahahaha! Picnic! Good one!” Tig shot her a take-it-down-a-notch look. Robbie cleared her throat and took a huge bite of her sandwich.

“What did you do all that time you were out of school?” Kyra asked.

“Nothing, really. I was so exhausted, all I could do was lie around.”

Before anyone could ask a follow-up question, Regan came up behind Claire and hugged her around the neck. “Clairesy!” she said.

“Hi, Regan,” Claire replied.

“You're sitting with us again tomorrow, right?”

“Okay, sure,” Claire said.

“And this weekend you're going shopping with us?”

“Yes, Birmingham.” Tig liked the way Claire said
BUR-ming-um
, glossing over the
ham
.

“Oh, and what was that thing your mother used for your sore muscles?”

“Regan, please,” Claire said, blushing.

“Come on! Say it!”

“All right,” Claire said. “A hot water bottle.” It was the most British-sounding thing Tig had ever heard: it sounded like
hawt wawtah bawtuhl
.

Regan clapped her hands and squealed. “See you in a bit!”

The girls looked at Claire. “Apparently, I've created a bit of a catchphrase,” she said.

“Getting along well with Regan and Haley, huh?” Tig said. She just couldn't stand it any longer.

“They've been very kind.” Claire said the word as
bean
instead of
ben
.

Tig wanted to ask Claire if the Bots had told her not to be friends with her and the other girls in the band, but she was afraid of sounding needy and petty, so she let it go.

By the day's end Tig had heard at least a dozen people stop Claire in the hall to get her to say
hot water bottle
.

“Who knew the masses were so easily amused?” Tig asked Robbie when they heard some kids in the hall mimicking Claire's new “catchphrase.”

“They're making her feel special,” Robbie said. “All part of sucking her in. And, of course, away from Pandora's Box.”

Tig wanted to shrug off Robbie's assessment, tell her she was reading too much into things, but she couldn't.

Every time she heard someone else say
hot water bottle
, she could feel her new friend slipping away.

Chapter Forty

A
ll weekend Tig worried about losing Claire. She had sat with them at lunch exactly twice the previous week, and both times had felt awkward and strained.

Robbie had eventually mustered the courage to ask her what she'd heard about the disaster at Kyra's party, but Claire had brushed it off as though it were no big deal.

“One hears things,” Claire had said. “But no matter.” Kyra had even gone so far as to ask Claire if she'd watched the YouTube video, but Claire said she hadn't. Tig wondered why not; she didn't think she would've been able to resist watching someone else from school crash and burn like that. She wondered if Claire had really watched the video but was trying to be kind. Claire was very kind, after all. . . . Clearly, she was too kind to tell the Pandora's Box girls to buzz off now that she was friends with a higher social class.

The worst part of turning all this over and over in her head was that Tig couldn't agonize over and dissect it with her friends because she was grounded. Tig's mother had assured her that everyone in her generation had survived growing up without texting, cell phones, and social media, but Tig couldn't fathom what they had done with themselves. She'd already done all her homework and practiced drums for a full hour. “Read a book,” her mother had said. When Tig whined, her mother suggested various household chores, so Tig pretended to take a sudden interest in a novel and then retired to her bedroom. But instead of reading, she lay across the bed and obsessed about her friends and the band.

When she came down to the kitchen, Tig was assigned to set the table. Her mother handed her six plates from the cupboard. “Why six?” Tig asked.

“Uncle Paul's joining us,” said her mother. “Kate and the kids are in Montgomery, visiting her family.”

At dinner that night Uncle Paul told stories about his university students. “So I told her, no, you can't turn your assignment in late! And if you ever come to my office again with such an outrageous request, I will ban you from office hours altogether!”

Tig's dad shook his head and laughed. “I'm glad I wasn't in your class.”

“You'd never have made it,” Uncle Paul said, punching Tig's dad lightly on the shoulder. “But speaking of my class, I have a little proposition for you. Or more specifically, for Tig.”

“Me?” Tig asked. “What do you mean?”

“You know we have Ad Comp coming up soon,” Uncle Paul said. Of course they were all familiar with that. Uncle Paul had for years been the faculty advisor for Ad Comp. It was a big national competition where college teams competed to see who could come up with the best advertising campaign for a bogus product. One year it had been a car that ran on water; another year it was for doggie dental floss. Most of the time, UA's team won, largely because Uncle Paul was a creative genius and also because he rode his team like a drill sergeant.

“Yes,” Tig said. “I know about the competition. But what's that got to do with me?”

“This year's product is submarine pants.”

“What are submarine pants?”

“Ridiculously high-waisted pants with suspenders. The team's challenge is to sell them to teenage girls as high-fashion items.” He pulled out his phone and showed Tig a photograph of a World War I–era sailor wearing the goofy-looking pants.

“Um, nobody I know would wear those in a million years!” Tig said.

“Hence the challenge,” Uncle Paul replied.

“Okay,” Tig said. “But I still don't see what that's got to do with me.”

“Well, my students decided that they wanted to hire some teen models to lip-sync a song for the ad,” said Uncle Paul. “The team's concept is to make a highly stylized video with girls pretending to play and sing this old seventies punk song called ‘Submission.' But we can't spend money on models; the rules of the contest prohibit it. Remember that day I recorded your band playing ‘Sweet Home Alabama'? I showed my class the video, and long story short, my students think you rock. They want y'all to be in their commercial.”

“Oh, so you want Tig's band to lip-sync the song?” Tig's dad asked.

“No. That's the beauty of it,” Uncle Paul said. “They can really play! Make room in the trophy case, 'cause UA's taking home another cup!”

“You mean we'd get to make our own video, and we wouldn't even have to pay for it?” Tig asked.

“Yep.”

“Mom! Can we?” Tig was so excited, she could hardly think straight. Uncle Paul's students never did anything halfway. If they made a video, it would look superprofessional.

“When would they have to do it?” Tig's mother asked.

“End of next month,” Uncle Paul said.

Tig's mother did some calculations on her fingers. “That won't give her enough time. She's grounded from the band until progress reports, and those don't come out until the twentieth.”

“Mom, come on!” Tig said. “Can't you make an exception?”

“No, I can't,” her mother replied. “And don't you and your uncle even bother trying to gang up on me and make me feel guilty. I told you your punishment, and I'm sticking to it.”

“That would give her only about a week and a half to practice the song with the band,” Tig's dad said.

“Don't you start in on me, too,” Tig's mother said.

“Think you can get it together in a week and a half ?” Uncle Paul asked.

“I don't know,” Tig said.

“It will be great,” Uncle Paul said. “Just think, once the competition is over, the college ad federation will post the video on YouTube, and all your friends at school will get to see it.”

Suddenly Tig felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. YouTube. A video of her band. That hadn't worked out so well the last time.

A week and a half of practice? What if it wasn't enough time? What if someone had to be out of town again and couldn't do it? What if they made complete fools of themselves . . . again?

They wouldn't. Robbie would be with them this time, and she could rock anything. Especially seventies punk—she'd be all over that. And Claire! How great would her voice sound on a punk song?

That is, if Claire were still their lead singer. And lately that was looking like a very big if.

Tig was torn. If this went well, it would be a huge boon to the band and could undo the damage done at Kyra's party. If it didn't go well, it would be another nail in the coffin for Pandora's Box.

“Can I talk to the other girls and get back to you?” she asked her uncle.

“Of course,” he replied.

If only Tig could use the phone or text! But it would have to wait until school. Tig wasn't sure if she hoped her friends would say yes or if she hoped they'd stop her from making another big mistake.

In the meantime Tig listened to “Submission” over and over. It was a great song, and she desperately wanted to play it. Punk was a new genre for her, and she loved the fierceness of it.

Ever since she'd taken up drums, Tig's thirst for music had become unquenchable. She'd researched the greatest drummers of all time on the Internet and had listened to their music and watched drum covers of her favorite songs from their bands. As a result, she was completely over the pop songs she used to listen to and had instead developed an eclectic taste in music that spanned several decades. She'd watched Buddy Rich and Viola Smith at BD's recommendation, and had even changed her ringtone to James Brown's “Funky Drummer.” She repeatedly listened to her dad's copy of Led Zeppelin's IV on vinyl, admiring how their drummer was the engine that drove the band. She watched covers of the Rolling Stones' “Paint It Black” and wondered how anyone could move all four limbs that fast without taking off in flight. There was so much to learn, so much to take in! Tig wished school were half as interesting.

The only one who matched Tig's passion for music was Robbie. The two of them could talk for hours about bands and musicians. Olivia understood music from her training, and she enjoyed it, but her tastes were more in the pop realm, and Kyra just liked what everyone else liked. Robbie, Tig knew, would relish the opportunity to play seventies punk, but would Olivia and Kyra have any interest at all in this new venture? Tig hoped so. She could hardly wait to get to school the next day to get their reactions.