Hello everyone. This is my first story posted here - an idea born from my own love of music and a few goings-on in my own life. I hope you like it.

one

Ever since I can remember I’ve loved music. I’ve always liked saying that, too, because it sounds just like members of bands say in interviews when asked about their origins. So secretly, I’ve always wanted to say that in a real interview. But no one has interviewed me yet.

In year nine, there was only ever one lesson of music a week – nowhere near enough. I found myself joining every single music club I possibly could – choir, orchestra, dance band, everything. It wasn’t long before my mates and I, equally obsessed with music, started a band ourselves. And then we were off.

I was feeling in an excellent mood as I strode through the school gates as usual, my guitar and my bag of books slung on my back. The sun was shining, a gentle breeze blowing through the autumn air, carrying swirling leaves in orange and red. It was a perfect morning.

Then something hard hit me in the back of the head.

I whipped round, my hand flying to the back of my neck. A group of chavs giggled by the fence at my expression of annoyance. I looked down to see a conker by my feet. I paused, wondering whether to retaliate but decided against it – there were about ten of them and one of me, despite them being short and in the year below me. So I let it slide, hoping my morning wouldn’t be entirely ruined.

I turned away and continued up the path, head down, hearing faint yells of, “fucking ginger” and “fucking grebo” behind me as another conker skidded past my feet. I speeded up, turning the corner and breathing a slight sigh of relief as I removed myself from their sight. It had been a while since I’d run into people like that. I guess that was the disadvantage of coming in early, but I needed to hand in some coursework and put my guitar away in the music rooms.

I continued walking, pushing open the door to the main school building as I had a thousand times before... Well, maybe not a thousand yet, but getting on for it. Wait, I pondered, thinking of my timetable. At the moment I go through this door once before school, once after, and today I’ll go through it another four times to get to lessons, and...

“Oh shit!” Doug and I yelled in unison as I slammed into him, not looking where I was going, knocking the box of printer paper right out of his hands onto the floor.

His arms dropped to his sides as he gazed in horror and sadness at the bright white A4 sheets covering the floor.

“All three hundred...” he said, blankly. I felt my stomach sink and a pang of guilt shoot through my chest.

“Shit, Doug, mate, I’m so sorry,” I garbled, desperate to wipe that crushed expression from his face. “Look, lemme help you pick them up.”

I threw off my bag and guitar (well, removed the guitar carefully. I don’t throw my baby around like that) and went down on my knees, scraping the papers together as quickly as I could into a neat pile. After a moment of open-mouthed distress Doug followed, also gathering together the papers.

“Shitshitshitshit,” I muttered under my breath. “Seriously mate, I-”

“Nah, don’t worry,” Doug gave a weak smile. “At least they don’t have to be in any particular order... Mr Wilson just asked me to take them to the printer in his office cause he ran out...”

“Alright,” I said wit a slight sigh of relief. Between us we managed to gather the scattered papers together into a pile. A couple of them were creased now – I still felt incredibly guilty, but Doug seemed to have forgotten already.

“Music first,” he gushed with his lopsided grin. “Got your composition ready?”

“Yeah, I finished it ages ago,” I replied, waving my hand. “Easy. Remember what John said about this course?”

“No.”

I coughed.

“Er, well, he said that this course was really hard with the guitar. I mean, I’m not just doing everything on the guitar, but...” I shrugged, realising that Doug hadn’t been there, so mentioning John’s rambling was a little pointless.

“Well, anyway, I’d better take these away,” Doug continued after a brief pause, holding up the pile of papers. “Seeya.”

I watched him walk away, picking up my bag and my guitar and hefting it up the stairs to the music rooms, too lazy to swing it properly onto my back. I cursed the many steps as I panted my way upwards, finally reaching the door to the little corridor where the instruments and recording equipment were kept. I entered the code (C360B, practically tattooed onto my brain) and kicked the door open, making my way inside.

There was a confusing door in here. A door that opened outwards, and then straight after, another door that opened inwards, with no space at all between in the two. It was baffling and a pain in the ass when you were lugging heavy equipment into the storeroom to keep it safe. I wished that our school was full of honest people – it’d love to skip this routine every day but there was no way I’d leave my baby all alone with those gangs of vandals and chavs skulking around, smoking and destroying other people’s property.

As I left the room, making my way to the tower to give in my coursework, I saw a couple more of my friends from music, giving a wave or two and an acknowledging nod. Fortunately, not everyone was an asshole – just a large majority. No, everyone who wasn’t taking music. The guys in my music group were all lovely, no doubt about it. Wouldn’t hurt a fly. And thus we were all perfect targets for the bullies. But if we stuck together, we generally kept out of trouble, I guess.

I was looking forward to music. I was pretty proud of my composition – I’d been practising it all weekend, and it was pretty damn perfect if I do say so myself. Guaranteed A.

When I arrived at the music room after registration, Doug was waiting at the bottom of the stairs for me. We made our way upstairs together, chatting about Saturday’s episode of Doctor Who.

“That Captain Jack dude is a twat,” Doug informed me.

“What? Oh, er, yeah, a total retard,” I replied. On Saturday night I had sat, squirming in my living room as the opening credits flashed across the screen, admiring the nice orchestra arrangements. I squirmed even more as the actual episode began and within five minutes I was flicking through the music channels instead. No, Doctor Who was not for me, but Doug was absolutely obsessed, and who was I to tell him how much I really hated it? He always got so depressed and quiet when people told him things like that (unless it was music, in which case he was always enthusiastically defending his favourite bands), and I really hated it, so I pretended to know what he was talking about.

After a period of improvisation I tried to make myself watch it for his sake, but I just couldn’t get into it. The music was nice but... just no. The leads were ugly and self-centred and their accents pissed me off, not to mention the low-budget it seemed to constantly be on. Still, at least I was trying.

“Yeah, he might suck a bit,” Doug continued as I snapped my attention back to him, “but he’s a real interesting character to stick in there. I can’t believe we’re so far through the series already...” He sighed.

Thank God, I thought, it’s going to end soon.

“But there’s the Christmas special!” he grinned. “I wonder who the next Doctor will be?”

Oh, I thought. Crap.

We were first into the room, as usual. Even our teacher, Mr Smith wasn’t here yet. We lounged about the room as people arrived. I saw down at the organ and pressed a few keys, even though it was switched off.

“I think you need to use the ‘on’ button,” Tom told me, walking past and flicking said switch. I jumped as the loud dischord I had been holding down blasted through the room. Giggles arose from the people arriving in the room as I flushed, glaring as Tom and switching the organ off again.

“Jim,” came a stern voice from behind me. Once again I leapt into the air, wincing and spinning round to face Mr Smith.

“Sorry sir,” I cringed, but he just laughed.

“You can’t follow orders, eh?” he smiled, shoving my shoulder playfully. “Come on, off. Your composition had better be good.”

“It is,” I stated proudly, jumping from the stool with a smirk. “Trust me.”

“Alright, alright,” Mr Smith said, still smiling. He clapped his hands and faced the room, raising his voice. “Come on guys, sit down, chairs over here. We’re hearing your compositions today, so get yourselves ready.”

Having already retrieved my guitar, I sat down at the front, shortly joined by Doug and Tom. Tom was twitching a little, frowning at the sheets of music in his lap, running his fingers over an imaginary keyboard. Despite his initial confidence, I knew he was always a little nervous when performing.

“Tom, your notes still look like hyphens,” Doug told him, leaning over me to swipe Tom’s music from under his nose. “And you really need to work on your handwriting.” He squinted at the title. “I can’t even read your name.”

“Oi,” Tom grunted, snatching his music back. “At least it’s decent.”

Doug hmphed at this, leaning back in his chair and taking his guitar from its case. I followed, lovingly removed the case from my baby with a flourish. I smiled as I rested her on my lap, tuning up.

“Could you be any more in love with that thing?” Tom asked, prodding me. “It’s like your wife.”

“Yes, she is,” I replied proudly. Tom, a little taken aback, remained silent.

“Right guys,” Mr Smith shouted, clapping his hands again. “Time for our first performer.” He reached up and pushed his fringe to the side with his first two finger. I don’t know why he does that – his hair is always immaculate. I think he started with that little hairflip to impress the Ofsted inspectors, and it stuck. “Now Doug has kindly offered to be the first, so Doug, up you come.”

I watched as Doug stood, plugging in his guitar and twisting a few setting on the amp. Chatter rose up around us, and I heard Tom mutter, “this is gonna be good.”

And it was. Screw Jimmy Hendrix - I swear I’ve never seen a better guitarist than Doug. I’ve known him for a pretty long time now and as long as I can remember he’s always been an amazing musician, but the guitar is where his true genius really shines. It seems that no matter what it is, his sleek and shiny red Fender or one of the battered old school acoustics with only five strings, he just picks it up and makes music. Wonderful music. He makes playing the guitar look so easy – fingers sliding up and down the frets, half the time his gaze not even on the instrument but somewhere in the distance, gazing as he strums and picks, almost in a trace. I’ve never heard him play a wrong note. It’s perfect.

Today was no different. A brief second of carefully calculated feedback and he was away, fingers dancing, his right hand a blur, and I gazed in awe as the most fantastic piece I’ve ever heard him play filled my ears. I can barely remember what it was like – a soaring riff, scales and chords fusing together to create this masterpiece. And still, his face was vacant; his eyes elsewhere.

The class was entranced as he played. Even Mr Smith, who was hardly ever surprised by the extraordinary talents of his students, was looking on in awe, mouth slightly open. I’m pretty sure my own jaw was hanging on the floor (hey, a rhyme. Let me right that down) as Doug weaved this magical music.

And suddenly it was over, as quickly as it had begun. A pause, and then applause burst out from the class along with whoops of enthusiasm, and I felt myself joining in, grinning and slapping Doug on he back as he sat down again, a stupid grin plastered on his face.

“Blimey, that was short,” I heard Tom say beside me. “Shoulda been longer, Doug.”

“Yeah, well, I got kinda stuck,” Doug replied, shrugging.

“Kinda stuck?” I squeaked, realising that my voice was an octave or two higher than usual. Doug laughed and I coughed hard. “Seriously, I have never heard anything like that...”

“Amazing...”

“Fucking good job, mate! Oops,” someone behind me yelled, earning a warning glance from Mr Smith.

“Hey guys, calm down,” Mr Smith commanded, standing. The excited congratulations calmed down and Mr Smith grinned at Doug. “Excellent performance. One of your best, I might say,” he said. “Now. Jimmy, you’re up next.”

The grin faded from my face.

“What?” I asked, bewildered. How the hell was I supposed to follow up something like that?

Sorry this chapter is a little short - but please leave me a review. All comments/crit are appreciated.