Lemonade Mouth: Adapted Movie Tie-In Edition

Dear Naomi,

Of course, you already know how it all played out that spring, how that first Providence Journal article led to a flood of letters of support for us and our lemonade cause. And that led to more articles and even an interview on the local news. And with the continued radio play, and with WRIZ-TV never seeming to tire of showing that clip of our disastrous performance at Catch A RI-Zing Star, interest in Lemonade Mouth kind of snowballed. People seemed to think we were hilarious. It even got to the point where complete strangers would sometimes come up and ask me if I was one of those funny kids they’d seen on TV or read about in the paper. For a few weeks there, we were almost like celebrities.

It was a weird time. My grandmother kept a scrapbook.

One day a columnist at the Providence Phoenix wrote an opinion piece that even called us “icons of their generation.” “You don’t have to be in high school to sympathize with their plight,” the writer said. “In a way, Lemonade Mouth is like Everyman. We can all relate to the difficulty of finding ourselves in over our heads, trying to maintain our dignity and sense of humor while undertaking tasks that sometimes seem out of our grasp.” After Stella read that one aloud at the Freak Table I still remember all the puzzled faces.

It was all pretty overwhelming.

Needless to say, with so much media coverage, the pressure on Mr. Brenigan and the finance committee to bring back the lemonade machines eventually got pretty bad. So bad that they eventually had no choice but to give in. The administration tried to play it all down—they didn’t even make an announcement about their change of heart. But somebody must have tipped someone off because word not only got out that the machines were coming back, but we even found out ahead of time which day the delivery truck was coming.

I’m sure you remember that Saturday in early April, the morning we all waited in the high school parking lot. After all, you were there too, along with what seemed like half the school. Despite the cool temperature, a bunch of kids set up lawn furniture, others ran around throwing Frisbees or playing guitars while we waited. It was a blast. There were reporters there, too, including Carolyn Brussat from the Providence Journal, the lady who’d written that first article about us. There were even camera crews from a couple of local TV stations.

Terry Cabeleira stood lookout at the corner of the street so he could spot the truck before anybody else. Finally he shouted, “I can see it! Here it comes!”

As the truck backed up to the loading dock everybody cheered and waved, and some kids held up signs. Along with the usual HOLD IT HIGH! RAISE IT UP! were others like VICTORY FOR THE UNHEARD! and WHEN LEMONADE MOUTH SPEAKS, THE WORLD LISTENS!

Turned out, I recognized one of the delivery people. It was Phil, one of the two guys who’d ended up calling the cops on us that day we’d all lain in the snow in front of his truck. But today he was in a much better mood. He seemed to eat up the attention. He grinned and waved to the crowd, and after wheeling the machine out of the cargo area he tipped his cap and bowed to the cameras. Which made us all cheer even louder. The TV crews loved it.

I wish I could have somehow recorded the giddy grins I saw the following Monday on the faces of so many kids—and some of the teachers, too. Sure, the school would have to return some of the scoreboard money to the soda company, but word was already out that the sports teams were going to make up the difference by selling chocolates.

At lunch Stella barely said a word. I knew she was trying not to gloat, but she looked like she might burst.

So now, Naomi, I’m grappling with a question: Where to end my part of the story? It’s a tough decision for me because, like I said before, I don’t think of stories as having any precise moment you can point to and say “right there is exactly when it all began” or “this is where everything finished.” Especially in real life, it doesn’t work like that. But I guess there’s no getting away from it, because wherever I happen to stop writing becomes, by definition, the end of the story, or at least my part in its telling.

So where to set down my pencil?

I suppose I could end with Mrs. Reznik, how after pressure from students and parents, she was eventually moved back to her old, quieter classroom, which was on the first floor but still not too far from the lemonade machine. When I asked her if she ever missed the symphony she just laughed. “It’s still there. Anytime I want to visit, I can. But I’m a music teacher now, and despite what certain people may want, they’ll have to drag me out kicking and screaming before I’ll retire!”

Or maybe I could write about Ray Beech, how with Dean about to graduate and move to Ohio for college, and with Scott Pickett uninterested in continuing Mudslide Crush, Ray decided to form his own band called the Vicious Circles, which featured Ray on the electric ukulele and Patty Norris on the timbales. They didn’t last long, though, because Patty quit in a huff after Ray told her she wasn’t keeping a steady beat and why doesn’t she at least take a couple lessons for godsakes? Patty Keane followed her out the door since she only agreed to sing because the other Patty was in the band.

But if I have to pick a single moment to end on, I guess I’ll choose a day that happened before any of that, one Sunday afternoon in mid-April that Brenda and I spent selling shell ashtrays at the church fair. In a fit of energy my grandmother had painted about fifty of them and we wheeled them all into town in our little red wagon. A bunch of people I didn’t even know stopped by our table only because they recognized me from the TV clip. And every one of our ashtrays sold.

On our way back home this grizzly old guy in a black coat, some random person on the street, walked right up to me, stuck his unshaven face directly in mine and growled, “You’re that plump girl with the voice like a brake problem.”

Now, another person might have been taken aback, insulted even, but I’m a reformed Virgo working hard to go with the flow, so I chose to see it as a compliment. This was merely one stranger expressing his brotherhood with another, a kind of hello. I smiled and then he smiled and we both continued on our separate ways.

Weird but okay.

Brenda and I rolled our empty wagon up our driveway and had just rounded the corner to our house when I noticed somebody sitting on the front step. It was Wen.

“Hey,” he called out.

“Hey yourself,” I called back. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you. Hello, Brenda.”

As we came closer I noticed that he was holding something on his lap. Something small, furry and orange. I got near enough to see what it was.

It was a kitten.

“I brought this for you,” he said, stroking its head. “A present.”

I blinked at it. It was a little tabby, probably eight or ten weeks old. It flopped on Wen’s lap and peered back at me, sleepy and content.

“Where did it come from?”

“One of Sydney’s friends found her under a tree in her backyard. She asked around but nobody seems to know how she got there or where she belongs. She can’t keep her, though, and neither can we because Sydney’s allergic. If you don’t want her, I can figure something else out.”

I looked behind at Brenda and saw in her expression that the kitten had already won her heart. Then I crouched down low to get a better look. When our eyes met, her tiny face perked up. She was only a baby. She rolled onto her back and wiggled playfully.

“Of course we want her,” I said, watching her bat at some invisible object in the air. “Thank you, Wen. She’s lovely.”

I held out my hand and the kitten let me scratch behind her ears. Her body vibrated under my fingers. I already knew what to name her. She reminded me of Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby, careless and charming, a beautiful fool.

Wen grinned and I felt a warm glow and an odd dizzy sensation. And then I remembered something my dad once wrote me about falling in love. He said the phrase was apt because falling is exactly what it can feel like, as if you’ve finally allowed yourself to let go of some safety bar you didn’t even know you were clinging to, and suddenly you find yourself tumbling towards the exciting unknown.

I picked up Daisy and stared into her face. I recognized at once that I’d found another kindred spirit. And I thought about all the people that had contributed, one way or another, to the events that led her to Brenda and me. Not just Sydney and her nameless friend, but also Charlie, Stella, Mo and of course Wen. And so many more, too—some that I knew and some that I would never know. I believe in a great and mysterious design. There’s no telling what’s ahead for any of us, but it feels right to be reminded that our lives are all connected, and that whether we realize it or not we are each playing an important part in some larger plan. Nothing happens without a reason.

And as I already mentioned, I don’t believe in accidents.