road trip draft 2

Road Trip

Chapter One

I've been cursed. It isn't your typical run of the mill you-sneeze-every-time-you-see-a-red-truck curse. Ive been lunch line cursed. It's a terrible thing to be lunch line cursed. One second you're waiting in line, and the next, BANG, they're out of food. I was shocked too, I know. It's pretty awful indeed.

I wandered down the cliche white halls of my high school looking for some way to cure my absolutely awful predicament. What could a girl like me possibly do to cure a curse? The only thing I could come up with was that I had to break the curse. But how? As I passed Brian's locker my mind was racing. What did I do that could possibly be the cause for my curse? Did I laugh at poor smelly dogs? No. Did I kiss toads instead of frogs? No. Then, suddenly I knew what I needed to do. I needed to talk to Peggy.

I spun on my heel dodging back-pack-laden-high-top-wearing-hater-loving teenagers, and headed down the sunlight deprived halls to my curly red headed best friend's locker. When I saw her she was pulling text book after text book out of her locker with a flinching motion as if they were cursed like me. A huge picture of our band was plastered on the inside of the metal tomb and I scowled at my unruly wavy hair gleaming in the lights of our studio. Beside me was Peggy, then Brian, and in the back holding onto a pair of hot pink drum sticks was Nel.

"Nice picture."

"I know... Dang these stupid AP classes." Peggy is the smartest person I know. She's so smart I can't even picture her in a regular people class.

"That's why I'm glad I didn't decide to deal with them."

"They look good on college resumes."

"Oh, whatever." I shook my head. Her amazing fiery curls swung perfectly as she turned to glare inside her locker.

"Wearing the usual I see?" I spun to acknowledge the new voice. It was Nel. Her hair was up in nearly white pig tails barely two shades brighter than mine. Nel was one of those people that knew every single hair color, eye color, body type, and hair type in existence, and decided to classify people out loud as soon as she saw them. She wanted to be some sort of hybrid cross between stylist, writer, cosmetologist, and some sort of psychologist when she grew up.

"Yeah..." I responded.

"That was super delayed."

I shrugged and smiled.

"Has anyone seen Brian?" Peggy asked, rolling her eyes as Nel glared at her, "oh, please, I knew him first."

"Well he thinks I'm cute."

"Says who?"

"Says everyone." They glared at each other and Peggy folded her arms tightly across her chest.

"Wait, I have a huge problem!" They both turned to look at me relaxing.

"What?"

"Well, I've been cursed." Nel raised her eyebrow and Peggy looked unsurprised.

"This isn't one of your little theories is it?"

"No! It's true. For the past three weeks every time I try to eat lunch they run out at least twice."

"I see." Peggy stared at me with amusement.

"I'm serious!"

"I don't know much about curses, but maybe you should find an expert."

"Alright," I sighed, "I'll try and find an expert." I then turned and left them to their bickering over our band's bassest. Briam was a babe. I mean, eve I admitted it. He was one of those surfer boys with blond hair who had absolutely no trouble keeping amazing good grades. Our band was nearly complete. We had everything but a guitarist. Peggy, our manager, thought it extremely vital we get one. We were holding auditions after school.

First of all I had no clue who dealed with curses, especially those dealing in the 'lunch department.' I decided to give up the cause for now and just head to class.

At lunch Nel and Peggy fought over Brian as usual. That is until he came, then they were pleasant as could be.

"Hey." He smiled pleasantly blue eyes crinkling.

"Hey." I waved at him as he sat down his lunch tray held firmly in his grasp.

"Excited for the auditions?" I shrugged. I didn't want to appear overly excited, but in truth I was just about jumping out of my shoes. I couldn't wait to have a new member in the band. Hopefully she was nice and someone I could confide in.

Again they ran out of food in my lunch line. Eventually after I had gone through two lines I got my lunch. I selected strawberry milk, as usual, and got my side of fruit. By the time I made it to the table again everyone was already finished. I sighed and sat down by myself. I ate as fast as I could, then headed out of the overly stuffed cafeteria and into the hallway.

Classes went by quickly for the rest of the day. We would be holding auditions at Peggy's dad's warehouse. It was basically an old building with a bunch of old stuff in it. As I put all my homework in my bag and headed out of the school I could feel my body flashing with excitement. Brian picked me up along with the other two members. I sat in his smelly old truck for what seemed like forever before we reached the east part of town. The east part mostly comprised of warehouses, empty houses, and grocery stores with no functions any more. No one really went into the east side of town any more. There was no point. All the arcades, stores, and mini malls were in the west side.

Brian parked and we all hopped out and headed inside. The building smelled of damp clothing and was full of crates. There was a large wooden platform of which we used to hold band practice. Various instruments were parked across the makeshift stage. We aranged a pile of crates into a judging desk and all set out a pile of applications. Our band was actually quite famous in our town. A lot of people came to our concerts, and a ton of girls and boys alike were obsessed with us. Even though we had gotten quite a lot of positive feed back I hadn't expected so many audition papers. We had at least fifty people who were coming in.

When we all were situated Peggy headed to the doors and started to let people in. They lined up against the walls. It was actually really fun to see all the different kinds of guitars. The first audition-ee was a fourteen year old girl. She got up on the stage and stared at us with huge small eyes.

"Gracie Joe?" Peggy read off. She nodded.

"What will you be playing sweet heart?" Brian interjected an encouraging smile playing his perfect surfer lips.

"See what I see." It was one of our first songs I noted with interest.

Little did I know exactly twenty-two more people would audition with that exact same song. After we had gone through a couple people I decided it was time we took a break. As we sat and discussed stuff I had a brilliant idea.

"Guys, I have a plan." They turned to look at me all with interest playing across their faces. Usually when I had a plan, it was either brilliant, or outrageous. "Since there are so many people here why don't we narrow it down."

"How?" Nel questioned.

"We could make them sing too. I know maybe it's a bit unfair, but we need a back up singer as well, and frankly if we could get both in one shot it would be a huge deposit in our time bank."

"What are we supposed to do about the people who already auditioned?" Peggy raised an eyebrow folding her arms.

"Have them come back... It's only a few, and sure it would take more time, but in the long run it would save us a whole lot of effort."

"That's you Cher, always the one to want to be lazy." Nel rolled her eyes but smiled. They looked over each other then deciding Brian spoke up.

"Brilliant idea, as usual. We'll call them back and have them reauditon."

"Now was that so hard?" I grinned and folded my arms leaning against our crate table pleased with myself. Peggy made the announcement. There was a lot of murmuring, but overall I was pleased with the huge procession's reaction. Gracie Joe came back and sang. Sadly she was worse than Brian, which is in fact saying something. After all of our returnees were done we started on the new people.

By the time we got through the thirtieth person I was seriously brain dead. We should have made some sort of limit as to how many people could come or not. I felt like my brain was full of flies. Not just any flies, the super annoying kind that eat all of your cantelope.