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18
CALLUM
“What’s going on?” I asked, bursting into the elementary school auditorium. I caught sight of Liz standing up front, placing mouse ears onto a small boy’s head. There were boxes in front of her that seemed to be vomiting feather boas and sparkly vests.
“You made it!” Liz said as she spun to greet me. But she immediately caught sight of a long, brown piece of fabric that she pulled out of a bin. “I found the lion’s tail!” she cried out. A nearby parent shrieked and came to take it from her.
“Is everything alright?” I asked.
Children were milling about everywhere, and the room was a mess of noise and movement. A woman at the piano was struggling to review a song with a group of children while a parent was putting safari hats onto their heads. Liz and another mother were sorting through the boxes in front of them while two teenagers were on the auditorium’s stage erecting two-dimensional trees.
“It’s a mess,” Liz said. “There was a PTA meeting in here last night which meant we couldn’t install the set until now! And the costumes didn’t arrive in time! They’re stuck in the mail somewhere, so we have to improvise!”
Liz held out her hands to the boxes of costumes in front of her, as if she wanted me to see how difficult it would be for her to salvage something from these plastic tubs. I smirked at her.
“What are you laughing at?” she asked. “This is serious stuff!”
“Oh, absolutely!” I said, feigning solemnity. “A summer camp play about the animal kingdom is not a laughing matter!”
“Make jokes!” Liz said, tossing a fuzzy sweatshirt at me that someone had painted cow spots onto. “But your niece will not be happy if this show is anything less than the Broadway production she’s imagining!”
“Alright, alright!” I said, holding up my hands. “I’m here to help.”
“Good,” Liz said. “No one can figure out how to set up the sound system.”
“And you think I know how?” I asked, giving her an incredulous look.
“You’re a musician!” she said. “You must know something about it!”
“I have people for that,” I said to her. “All I have to do is show up for mic check and plug in my guitar.”
Liz looked at me with exasperation as another group of children were ushered toward her. She smiled at them, eager not to show them any of the stress she was feeling.
“Are these our little bear cubs?” she asked, and the smallest campers nodded at her.
“Please, Callum,” she said, glancing over at me as she pulled brown baseball caps from the bottom of one of the bins. “Can you just try?”
I sighed at her.
“Fine. Let me look at it.”
“Thank you!” Liz said. She instantly turned back to the children in front of her as the piano began to plunk out a rousing number about a hungry tiger. I made my way to the back of the auditorium where an ancient-looking soundboard was sitting on a plastic table. I groaned as I noticed not a single cable was plugged into the board. Whoever tried to set this thing up had given up quickly.
I pulled out my phone and clicked to my YouTube app. When I needed to learn something quickly the site never failed me. But the last video I had searched was still there when I opened the app. It was the video of me playing my solo stuff. And it was up to 1.7 million views. I was about to quickly ignore it and type “Soundboard set up” into the search board, but my eye caught the comments section. I read:
Please make a solo album!
The comment surprised me. I thought most people were upset to think I might be abandoning the Horizon. But this person seemed interested in listening to my own work. I knew that a deeper dive into the comments section could only bring pain, but I couldn’t help myself. I read on, jumping over the nasty comments.
So good! Please do an acoustic album. We want more!
On the radio today he said he just played this for fun. Boo! I wish he was actually going to produce a solo album.
We need a petition for a Callum Jones solo album. Who’s ready to sign?
I blinked as I scrolled through, seeing more and more likes and positive comments. Were all these people actually interested in me breaking out on my own? Did they actually like my stuff? A slam of the door next to me made me jump, and I looked up to see Darcy striding through the door. I felt a sudden urge to look busy, and I quickly searched for the video of the soundboard set-up. But Darcy didn’t see me in the back of the room. I saw her head straight to Liz.
With new nerves as I realized Darcy was here too, I focused on solving the soundboard problem. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to talk to Darcy after this morning’s screaming match in her living room. And then there were my comments on the radio that I had no idea if she had heard. I decided to keep my head down until I could think things through.
