Fairy Metal Thunder (Songs of Magic, #1)

by

J. L. Bryan

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 Jeffrey L. Bryan

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Bryan books on Smashwords

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After school, Jason rode his bicycle across
town to Mitch’s house for band practice, with his guitar case
strapped to his back. His palms coated the handlebars with nervous
sweat. He’d spent the whole day ignoring his teachers while he
furiously scribbled lines of the new song, crossed them out, and
rewrote them. He’d accumulated three notebook pages’ worth of
jumbled, blotchy words, plus ink stains all over his fingers.

During sixth period Social Studies, he had
very carefully copied these bits of song onto a single page, using
the most legible handwriting he could muster. He’d titled the song
“Angel Sky” and then hesitated a minute before writing “For Erin”
underneath the title. Then he’d folded it into neat squares and
tucked it in his pocket, where it now burned like a handful of hot
coals.

He paused at the top of Mitch’s street. He
could see Mitch’s house, four doors down, the garage door open and
waiting for him. He could hear Mitch warming up on the keyboard,
the fake piano sound echoing through the tree-lined
neighborhood.

Jason’s nerves were rattling. He’d never
shown the group any of his songs. Erin was the singer and the
songwriter of the group. Like Jason, she was a junior at Chippewa
Falls High. Unlike Jason, she was actually talented at writing
lyrics.

“Hey, little kid, need a ride?” a girl’s
voice asked. He jumped in surprise and nearly fell from his bike.
While he was lost in thought, Dred had pulled up alongside him in
her beaten-up ‘97 Chevy van. She snickered at Jason. Dred was a
year older, close to graduation. She was a broad-shouldered girl
who liked Doc Martins and ragged plaid shirts.

“You’re hilarious,” Jason said.

“Race you!” Dred stomped her gas pedal until
she was halfway down the street, then slammed her brakes and
twisted into Mitch’s driveway.

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Jason muttered as he
pedaled down the street. Dred—or “Mildred” if you wanted to get
punched in the face—was the band’s drummer. She was a senior like
Mitch, a year older than Jason and Erin. Her van was perfect for
transporting the band to gigs. Hopefully, they would actually have
a gig one day.

Jason turned into Mitch’s driveway and parked
his bike just outside the open garage. Dred was already there,
juggling her drumsticks as she sat down behind her drum kit.

“Yo, Jason!” Mitch said. He sat at the
keyboard, his long hair unleashed from the plaid driving hat he
usually wore, and he pushed his John Lennon-style glasses higher on
his nose. His t-shirt depicted ghosts chasing Pac-Man through a
maze. Pac-Man’s thought balloon read: “This is a stupid way to
live.”

Behind Mitch hung a poster of pop star
Claudia Lafayette, in concert, wearing a pink dress and a headset
with a microphone, pointing straight out to the audience while she
sang. Mitch claimed the poster of the cheesy singer, whose
bubble-gum songs could stick in your ear and repeat themselves all
day long, was supposed to be ironic. He said the same about his
Claudia Lafayette T-shirt.

“What’s up?” Jason asked.

“Just stoking the flames.” Mitch resumed
playing his keyboard, switching it to a deep electric organ sound.
“Making the magic happen, man.”

Jason sat in a lawn chair and took his guitar
out of the case. He plucked a few chords and tried to tune it, but
couldn’t hear anything over the keyboard.

When he looked up, he realized Erin had
arrived, and his heart skipped. He gave her an awkward smile and
tried not to stare. He thought Erin was beautiful, with her intense
green eyes and blond hair dyed with blue and green streaks. Her
hair was long and usually hung down all over her face. Jason always
wanted to brush her hair back behind her ear so he could see her
better.

He waved to her, but she’d already turned
away to hang her jacket on a hook over the workbench.

“About time!” Mitch yelled over the noise.
Then he realized he was the source of the noise and stopped playing
the keyboard. “Where have you been?”

“Zach had to drop off a couple other people
first,” Erin said. “Chill out, Mitch.”

“It’s
Mick
,” Mitch said.

“You can’t be Mick. Mick isn’t short for
Mitch,” Dred said. “It’s for Mickey, or maybe Michael—”

“Don’t tell me what nickname I can
be…
Mildred
,” Mitch said. “It’s a free country.”

“Don’t call me Mildred!”

“Don’t tell me I can’t be Mick!”

“Okay, kids,” Erin said. “Do you want to
fight, or do you want to play?”

“Fight,” Dred replied. She aimed a drumstick
at Mitch’s head.

“I’ll be ready as soon as you admit that I
can use ‘Mick’ for my stage name. It’s really not that far from
Mitch—”

Dred interrupted him with a short, loud drum
solo, ending with a cymbal crash. Mitch scowled.

Jason tried to work up the nerve to tell Erin
he’d written a song for her, but he couldn’t seem to get his mouth
working. Though he’d gone to school with Erin since her parents
moved to Chippewa Falls back in ninth grade, he hadn’t spoken with
her very much at all. The sight of her always seemed to lock up his
mouth, and his brain along with it. He’d been thrilled when Mitch
asked Jason to join their band a couple of months earlier.
According to Mitch, their previous guitarist had been “a total spaz
who never showed up for practice.”

Instead of talking, Jason strummed his guitar
to warm up his fingers.

“Good,” Erin said. “At least somebody takes
this seriously.”

“Let’s go,” Mitch said. He played his fingers
across the keys, and an electrically synthesized piano buzzed over
the speakers.

Erin blew a short tune on her harmonica, then
spoke into an imaginary microphone.

“Hello, Wisconsin!” she shouted. Mitch played
the sound of an audience applauding from his synthesizer. “We are
the Assorted Zebras! Who’s ready to rock?”

“Don’t say that,” Dred said. “It’s
cheesy.”

“Just count us off, Dred,” Mitch said.

“What are we playing?” Dred asked.

“This is a song I wrote for my boyfriend
Zach,” Erin told the imaginary audience. “It’s called ‘The Next
Road Out of Here.’”

Dred tapped out a beat, and then Mitch and
Jason joined in with the keyboard and guitar. The song started
slow, with long, sad sounds from Erin’s harmonica. Then she
sang:

We’ve been in this town so long,

I forgot the world outside…

So let’s escape tonight,

It’s time to take a ride…

Then the song became loud and fast.

Let’s run together

To that place where there’s no fear,

The place we want to go,

The next road out of here!

Jason’s fingers flew across his strings as
the tempo accelerated. A few little kids from the neighborhood,
three boys and a girl, showed up on bikes and scooters and sat in
the driveway to listen, as they sometimes did. Erin smiled and
waved, clearly delighted to have an audience, even if they were in
elementary school and one boy was more interested in picking his
nose than watching the show. Two of the kids were even nice enough
to applaud when the song ended.

“Can you play some Weird Al?” the
nose-picking boy requested.

“Yeah, do a Weird Al polka!” another boy
said.

“We’re just practicing our own songs right
now,” Erin told them. “Want to hear those?”

“Who cares?” the biggest boy asked. He rode
away on his scooter, and the two other boys followed. The little
girl remained, but rested her chin in her hand and looked
bored.

“I’ve got something fun,” Erin said. “It’s
called ‘Cinderella Night.’ Want to hear it?”

“I guess,” the little girl sighed.

Dred tapped out four beats, then Jason and
Mitch joined in. Erin sang the upbeat song about a girl sneaking
out and meeting a boy in a nightclub.

The little girl smiled, entertained at
last.

They played two more of Erin’s songs. Jason
tried not pay attention to Erin’s hips swaying as she danced, or
the pale stretch of her belly that sometimes peeked out over her
low-slung jeans. He tried to focus on making the music.

Erin stopped halfway through the third
song.

“We need to mix it up,” Erin said. “It’s all
fast, dancey stuff.”

“What we really need is a killer love song,”
Mitch said. “One of those everybody-get-out-your-lighter
things.”

“I don’t have anything like that,” Erin
said.

“Maybe I’ll write one,” Mitch said.

“You? Writing a love song?” Dred snorted.

“Like you could do better,” Mitch said.
“Yours would probably end with the girl killing her boyfriend and
burying him in the back yard.”

“I think your songs are good, Erin,” Jason
said.

“Thanks, Jason, but Mitch is right. We need a
good, slow love song. I just don’t know how to write something like
that.”

Jason’s hand dropped to his jeans pocket. The
song was folded up there, “Angel Sky,” all about falling in love.
He hesitated, wishing he hadn’t written “For Erin” underneath the
song title. Everybody would laugh at him if they saw that. Erin
would probably think he was a weirdo for writing a song for
her.

“I’ll be right back,” Jason said. He put his
guitar aside and walked toward the door into the house.

“Whoa, hold it,” Mitch said. He stopped Jason
with a hand on his elbow. “Where are you going?”

“The bathroom.” Jason planned to find a pen
inside the house and scratch out the dedication. Then he could show
everyone the song without getting ragged on. Or at least, they’d
pick on him a little less. And Erin wouldn’t decide he was an
obsessive stalker freak to be avoided.

“No way. My mom says nobody’s allowed in the
house when she’s not home,” Mitch told him.

“Since when?” Dred asked.

“She says some of her jewelry’s gone missing
or something.”

“And she thinks we stole it?” Dred asked.

“Well, my mom didn’t accuse any of you of
stealing, exactly,” Mitch said, but he glanced at Dred. “She just
says nobody’s allowed in the house if she’s not home. She’s doing
the night shift at the hospital, so that’s a long time. Jason, why
don’t you go whizz in the back yard?”

“Oh,” Jason said. That wouldn’t help. Jason
doubted he would find a pen or marker out back.

“What’s wrong?” Mitch asked. “Were you going
to drop a number two?”

Jason felt his face turn red. Why did Mitch
have to say something like that right in front of Erin?

“He was!” Dred said. “Look at him blush.”

“I wasn’t!” Jason said.

“Yeah, right,” Mitch said. “Just hold it,
man.”

“I’m…” Jason realized he couldn’t think of
a single thing to say that would make this conversation less
humiliating. He wished he could escape into a hole in the earth
somewhere, and maybe never come back.

He was saved by an even worse turn of events.
A red Mitsubishi Spyder pulled into the driveway with its top down.
This was Zach Wagner, a senior over at the Catholic high school,
who was best known for modeling in the “Plaidwear” section of the
Fleet Farm catalog since he was thirteen. He had flawless skin, a
haircut that probably cost a hundred dollars, and dark blue eyes.
Erin’s boyfriend.

Zach stood up inside his car and drummed his
hands on the top of the windshield. He pushed his sunglasses on top
of his forehead. “Let’s go, Erin! Those orphans aren’t going to
entertain themselves.”

“What’s up, Zach?” Mitch waved, falling into
suck-up mode at the sight of Chippewa’s most famous male model.

“Yo, Mick! Dred! New guitar guy!” Zach gave a
mocking little salute. “Sorry to take your singer away, but we’ve
got a busy night of important stuff.”

“You’re leaving already?” Dred asked
Erin.

“I have to. We’re going to a benefit for
Stuffed Animals for Orphans, over in Minneapolis. Zach says
everyone else in the Minneapolis acting community is helping out.”
Erin gathered up her purse.

“He’s not an actor,” Jason said. “He’s a male
model.”