While the audience was still clapping, Mr. Radonski came out with a microphone in his hand. I waved one last time and started to leave the stage, but Becca stopped me.
“Wait just a second,” she said. Then she nodded to Mr. Radonski.
“As a special treat,” he said into the mike, “we would like Katie Friedman to play her new original song that she’s just written.”
I heard him speaking, but I wasn’t sure I understood the words. My heart started to race, and electric currents started jolting my skin. I turned to Becca.
“What did he just say?”
She was smiling. “I told you I wanted to hear the song, didn’t I? Well, let’s hear it.”
The crowd started cheering again. Some kids were chanting “Katie! Katie! Katie!” I stood there, in shock.
After a minute, I was finally able to pull myself together and pick up my guitar. The crowd got quiet, and I stepped up to the mike.
“Wow,” I said. Then, “Um.” After a few more seconds, “Okay.”
Pretty rock star of me, huh?
But gradually, my heartbeat started to return to a human level, and my nervous system was no longer on fire, and I started to calm down.
Okay. You can do this.
“I’ve never played this song for anyone before,” I said, and the crowd roared. “I just finished writing it actually.”
For some reason my eyes searched out Nareem in the audience. I found him, staring back at me with a weird half-smile on his face. I didn’t have time to try and figure out what it meant, though.
“I hope you like it.”
I strummed a few chords on my guitar to make sure it was in tune, then played the first chord of the song.
I closed my eyes and sang.
How do you
Speak the words
That you never thought would be spoken?
How do you
Break the heart
That never has been broken?
How do you
Find the strength
To finally walk out the door?
How do you
Tell the one you loved
You don’t love them anymore?
I want to know.
I need to know.
I have to know right now.
I’m on my knees
So someone please
Please come show me how.
My eyes were still closed. I think I was afraid to look out into the audience. But I could hear just fine. And when the crowd let out a deafening roar, my eyes jolted open. What was going on?
A voice behind me started singing.
How do you
Look someone in the eye
When you’re not sure what you want to see
I knew the voice. It kept singing.
How do you
Say the words
There is no more you and me.
I turned around and saw her.
Jane Plantero.
She was right there, on the stage of my middle school auditorium, walking toward me. She was wearing a white T-shirt and torn jeans. In one hand she held a microphone, and in the other, she was holding the crumpled-up lyric sheet that I’d sent her a week before. She was smiling. And she was singing.
How do you
Resist the urge
To hide behind a screen?
How do you
Know it’s time
To give up the machine?
Even though she didn’t exactly know the melody, she still sounded AMAZING. I guess that’s why she’s a rock star.
I stared, disbelieving, as Jane reached me. She put her arm around me. “Join me for this last chorus,” she said.
So I did.
I want to know.
I need to know.
I have to know right now.
I’m on my knees
So someone please
Please come show me how.
Then Jane gestured to the wings of the stage and the rest of the band came out. We sang the last part of the song again.
How do you
Resist the urge
To hide behind a screen?
How do you
Know it’s time
To give up the machine?
I want to know.
I need to know.
I have to know right now.
I’m on my knees
So someone please
Please come show me how.
This time I kept my eyes wide open.
