PRESERVING MY DIGNITY

3 MARCH, WEDNESDAY, AFTERNOON

I never thought I would join a band. There were many reasons for this, the main one being that I didn't play any instruments and one would assume that would be a prerequisite.

It's not that I never got a chance to learn one either. Florence (Dean's Mum) did try to teach me and Savy how to play the piano. I think Mrs Beta gave it a shot too. But I had shown no talent nor interest. I mean, I did try - I remembered Mum praising Dean for his musical ability and I had wanted to make her proud of me too, but I don't know if you knew, music lessons were very, very, boring.

Still, I bore with it. (Get it? Hahaha)

Anyway, it didn't amount to much. I managed to plunk out a few simple tubes. I'm told my rhythm was erratic. Mum bought a metronome, but the constant ticking in the background only ticked me off. (Get it again?)

I did learn to read a bit of musical notation - but believe it or not, I was worse at it than reading Lycan.

I much preferred reading Lycan. The pictures were pretty and I liked the way the latent magic made every string of words come alive - for the longest time I was convinced that there were teleportation spells in them, because every book transported me into another Lycan legend.

Don't get me wrong, I'd prefer kicking butt anytime, but in my downtime, I liked to read and watch cartoons.

Sometimes when the guys in my gang talked about music or practiced/showed off newly mastered riffs to each other, I would think to myself, "That looks like fun."

I even tried picking up the guitar, very briefly in middle school. I got Dean to give me free lessons on Saturdays... But my fingers hurt to press the frets.

"You just have to keep practicing till it callouses over." Dean told me. He showed me how the fingertips on his left hand were rough and hard, "Your hands are just too soft."

"My hands are NOT soft!" I took offense immediately. My hands were useful hands! I've been working hard at toughening them since the day Grandpa Alpha told me rough hands were good hands.

"No, they're not!" Dean argued.

This led to a hand roughness competition when we met the others later. We all took turns holding hands and ranked ourselves according to who had the roughest hands. To my horror, I was lined up right at the back with girly girls like Savy and Carol.

Roughest hands went to Jonah.

"That's because I'm a real man." Jonah boasted.

"Then what does that make me?" Lizzy asked. She had ranked fourth.

"Ah...urm..." Jonah scratched his head, "Ah... Actually, it's because I started washing the dishes cos Mum broke the dishwasher."

"Oh." Lizzy looked at her own hands, "So it's the detergent?"

"Mine's because of kendo class." Shannon said.

Morning Light had free kendo classes for boys 12 years old and up. Only the beginner class was free though. Shannon had this plan to sign up for the beginner class, fail and retake it to save his Mum some money.

"Oh, yeah, me too. And playing the guitar." Drew said examining where the callouses had formed.

Believe me, I took note, and for the rest of the week, I volunteered for dishwashing duty. Mum was quite surprised, but after a week without any signs of toughening up, I stopped volunteering because seriously... Dishwashing for an entire week was probably enough to last me a lifetime!

I moved on to Plan B and bugged Dad about Kendo classes till Beta Lucas got Flynn to teach me stick fighting.

"It's the same thing." Beta Lucas told me. It's not. But for the purpose of growing callouses and getting those "useful" hands I wanted, I figured it would work just as well, and it definitely beat dishwashing.

I practiced every day, but never got the callouses the guys had at the base of their fingers. By week 2, I did get a few blisters and excitedly showed my family at dinner time, "Shannon says that's how he got his callouses. If I keep blistering over the same place, I'll get warrior hands one day!"

Mum looked aghast and went to get a first aid kit. I wasn't allowed to practice till the blisters healed. And Beta Lucas bought the plushest tennis racket handle wraps he could find and by the next lesson, all the sticks in the training hall were wrapped in different colors of padded non-slip grip tapes.

And then I got distracted and forgot about my quest for rough "useful hands". By then, I had also given up going to the packhouse early on Saturdays to meet Dean for guitar lessons - he kept coming late, sometimes way after breakfast with the gang.

"Why don't you just stay home and wait?" Savy asked one Saturday morning, "If he actually shows up, it won't be too late for you to run over."

So I did, but maybe Dean had forgotten about the guitar lessons by then because I never had to run over. And I never did learn to play anything except for the A minor chord. But for some inexplicable reason, the combined sound of The Last Hurrah was just slightly better than I was as a guitarist. Everyone had practiced. I could hear it when we "warmed up" - everyone knew their parts by heart. But the moment we tried to do it together... wow, it was like the perfect example of synergy, but only if the goal was to play worse as a group. And adding me as a tambourinist? (Was there even such a word?) That was the catalyst for an all-new low.

But now we had Harvey. My good beta, Harvey, who aside from being student president of New Leaf Academy and heir to The Langston, also happened to be the lead guitarist of the Main Set of Battle of the Band's reigning champion high school.

Harvey, who made the romantic male lead of those laughably unrealistic pink cover mangas suddenly seem plausible.

Harvey, who I realized at the last minute, that we would have to play in front of for him to help us. I seriously considered telling him to leave the room and just leave us to crash and burn tomorrow. I mean, choosing to let one Mr Perfect see me play the tambourine in The Last Hurrah or be the laughing stock in front of the whole school... it was a really close call. But I remembered that Henry's Mum would be sending the video to Night Leaf and my internal decision making scales tilted in favor of looking like a fool in front of my perfect beta.

This wasn't about me. It was about Marcus' dream, Janice's love, Henry's future pocket money... and okay, it was a very little bit me. I think if the guys at home ever saw The Last Hurrah as it was now, I'd never be able to show my face in Night Leaf again.

We got into our positions. Beta Pete started recording from the back of the studio because Harvey said it might be helpful to film ourselves. It'll provide a way for us to review our performance and track our improvements over time.

Harvey stood next to Beta Pete, back against the war, arms crossed. He looked calm, like he had no idea the disaster that was just about to unfold before him.

"Harvey, what you're about to see, you have to promise to take to the grave." I ordered, "This is black out. You can't tell anyone back home - especially not Ben."

Because Ben would never forget it, and I had a feeling Ben would never let me forget it either.

"Sam..." Henry groaned, "Is that really necessary?"

"We're not that bad." Marcus laughed.

Harvey smiled, his usual wry smile, "Understood, I won't breathe a word of this to anyone. At any rate, I'm sure its not that bad...."

"Unfortunately, we are, Big Brother Beta." Fluffy smiled.

"Prepared to wish you were deaf!!!" EJ yelled into the mic.

Harvey winced, "Alright..."

He didn't look like he believed us though.

Marcus gave the count and then Henry's bass line stepped in, just as we rehearsed yesterday. Altogether, we played the first 3 seconds like we did yesterday, and then suddenly everything changed. Suddenly, we weren't playing as badly as we did yesterday - we were playing much, much, worse.

Maybe it was because Harvey was there "judging us", or because there was a camera "recording us". Marcus tried to drum some fancy footwork in the background, but it came out kind of jumbled - not because he was off beat or anything, but because he was too loud and drowned out the keyboard and singers. The only one he didn't drown out was Henry - who was just as loud, but like any alpha, he was going to play to his own beat. At several points, Henry also attempted some sliding action on his base. He didn't do this yesterday, but when he did it now, I realized that his dad was wrong. Henry didn't sound like a walrus when he played the bass. It was more like a sea lion and her cubs (the short squeaks along the frets after the long slide.)

In response, EJ had taken to hollering at the top of his lungs, dropping to his knees and tossing his head up to howl - like we had changed the genre of our song entirely.

Janice pressed on, ignoring the cacophony around her, bravely hitting the succession of keys, but since Marcus' beat was lost in the fancy cymbals and toms, and Henry's beat was something else, Janice (who was probably the only one keeping the right time) was a third song all on her own.

Fluffy just stood there and smiled. Me too, minus the smile though. I had clapped my tambourine twice, but couldn't keep up with the triple beat, and then I saw Harvey's face.

You should have seen my good beta's face. It was something of polite horror and steely self-control to not cover his ears or run away.

I wished we had thought to video Harvey's reaction, and then when it was over, we would be able to laugh and tell him we were just pranking him. I doubted any advice could save us now.

{What is pretty alpha plotting now?} Fluffy slipped a mindlink.

Eh? I wasn't plotting anything!

{Come now, pretty alpha. Even if others do not know, you won't be able to hide it from your favorite strategist.}

{Who's my favorite strategist?} I flared. Who said he was my strategist in the first place?

Fluffy's smile widened, just a little, {Come, tell me. I can help.}

So I told him about wishing we could just brush these 4 excruciating minutes off as a prank.

{Hm... it's not impossible. But let us only do so after he has given us his critique.} Fluffy advised, {It would be funnier.}

{It would if we had a camera to capture it.} I said. I wondered if my favorite adviser realized that?

{Leave that to me, Pretty Alpha. Just enjoy the show for now.} Fluffy took out his phone and typed one-handed into it. Beta Pete was using his phone to film us, but I noticed he tapped his screen thrice while it continued to film. A second later, Fluffy showed me his screen. Beta Pete had replied, "K."

{Okay.} Fluffy interpreted.

Okay.

The song trailed to an end like a train wreck might when it finally hit the end of its line. First EJ, with one final howl to the ceiling. Henry slammed the bass onto the floor, furious. Janice stopped, but mostly because she had played to the end of the song and there were no more notes on her score. And then finally, Marcus' cymbals made one last elaborate splash.

And then there was silence. Marcus stood up and got out of the drum booth, "So... how was it?"

This was when I started to suspect Marcus couldn't hear the rest of us AT ALL from inside the drum booth. A part of me considered not bursting his bubble. It might be easier to just not let him ever find out how bad the first band he founded turned out to be.

"I know we were probably a little messy in the middle..." Marcus admitted when no one said anything.

Did he not hear Mama Sealion calling for her cubs? What about EJ suddenly head-banging? And was I the only one whose ears were ringing from all that?

Beta Pete had discretely turned his camera on my good beta.

"Big Brother Beta, do you think we'll win tomorrow's contest?" Fluffy asked, "Tell us honestly, we can take it."