Survival Of The Fittest

"Sorry, but I don't need Mrs. Garvey breathing down my neck when I'm in there. The lunchroom is crap, and the English Hall is always populated with loud people. So, i've pre-"

"Yo, Adam."

Turning around, Veronica noticed that Adam Morgan had just entered. She knew nothing about him, but it looked like he was just about to eat lunch. It was roughly 15 minuted into lunch period, and he's settled down now? Ah well, people will be people.

Turning to Jessica, who seemed dissected, she finished her scentence.

"presented my arguments. Your rebuttal?"

Right after that, she made an offhand comment towards Adam:

"Oh, it's a little noisy in here. If you don't like noise, I suggest you leave. It gets quite annoying."

Her rebuttal?

Veronica was being that much of a smartass, presenting an argument that made no sense whatsoever and then asked for a rebuttal? Jessica was given pause as she mulled over her options. Only one seemed to come to her following the deliberation. The perfect rebuttal, indeed.

Jessica placed her hands on her bass and began playing the first few bars of Seven Nation Army.

Duuuuuun dun dun dun dun duuuun. DUN.

Duuuuuun dun dun dun dun duuuun. DUN.

Duuuuuun dun dun dun dun duuuun. DUN.

'My rebuttal, madam!' she thought with a smirk.

"Hey, Paris," Adam replied to the other boy's greeting, offering a little nod. Saying that reminded him that he'd always thought Paris was a pretty funny name. Sure, there were some kids with weirder names at Aurora, but Adam couldn't think of any others that had such strong connotations with specific things. Okay, sure, technically he was pretty sure Paris was a name for people if one went way back to the Odyssey or whatever, but for Adam it would always mean cheese, wine, mimes, and the Eiffel Tower.

Paris had offered to play and let Rosemary sing. He hoped she was good. She wanted him to play something by the Stones, so that was a decent sign. Yeah, there were bands that rocked harder, but the Stones were a classic, kinda like the Beethoven of Rock.

Then Veronica turned to Adam and warned him that things were gonna get kind of noisy. She sounded really snippy and passive aggressive, and that rubbed Adam wrong. People who hated music tended to also hate puppies, rainbows, love, and all of mankind. Adam didn't want to antagonize anyone, but he also wasn't about to let someone rain on everyone else's parade.

"I don't like noise," Adam said, "I love it. Guitar's art, you know."

He mimicked strumming for a second, the speed of his movements suggesting something pretty quick-paced, probably amplified and accompanied by screaming.

Then, because he just couldn't leave well enough alone, he called to the musicians, "If you know anything by the Stones, how 'bout 'Get Off of My Cloud'?"

Veronica probably wouldn't have any idea of the significance of Adam's request, at least, that was his hope. It was just a little private joke for the people here who didn't want to grind fun and happiness into a paste and wash them down the drain.

"Mmmm."

Paris put the index and middle finger of his right hand up to the spot right between his eyes and looked down thoughtfully for a moment. His tapped the space on his forehead for a few moments before looking back up suddenly.

"Yeah, I know a few. Sympathy for the Devil, Paint it Black, Brown Sugar, Start Me Up, Satisfaction? I'm partial to Paint it Black and Brown Sugar but it's ladies choice."

He was aware somewhat on the periphery of his attention that there was some quarrel between Jessica and the other girl. He took a moment to think about it and decided to intervene gently.

"Indeed they are, Adam. It breaks my heart to see musicians break guitars at concerts. It's an awful waste, I think. Jessica, you've got good taste in licks but I think we've got a request for something more classic."

Get off my cloud, hu? Paris was fuzzy on that one. He started tapping his foot and hummed a flat note.

"I said hey, hey, you, you...."

Gradually it was a hum that sounded more like the song. He nodded, having remembered the melody.

"We could. What do you say, Rosemary? And as a benefit to our other guest, Veronica, you can have choice of the next one," he said with a smile.

Rosemary blinked a couple of times, giving a slight jumped when Paris came to and listed the songs he knew. She didn't have a problem with either of those choices, and a those had a few less lyrics to remember.

However, before she could reply Adam spoke up, suggesting Get off of my Cloud. A small smile couldn't help but spread up across her face. It wasn't polite since Veronica looked a little agitated, but Rosemary figured that it wouldn't be that bad. It's not like they would boo them (her) off the stage. I mean, we're all almost adults, right?

"I'm fine with that song selection." Rosemary replied with a small shrug of her shoulders, mentally running through the lyrics to the song in her head.

She would probably die of embarrassment if she stumbled or got any lyrics wrong. The Stones were considered a classic, and the words weren't that hard to follow anyway. She just had to keep the beat.

She was getting fed up with Jessica, and Adam wasn't really helping. Things weren't going her way, and she was getting pissed off, with Jessica, Adam and most everybody in this room. She clenched her fist and shot a death glare at Adam and took out a book.

Fuck it, like Calculus was important anyway.

She stopped speaking as she immersed herself in 'the Last Hope', trying her damned best to block out the music.

Jessica turned all of her attention away from Veronica, who seemed to have no response to the 'rebuttal'. Yeah, she figured about as much. Instead, she allocated her valuable attention to Paris and Adam and let her mind try to work.

She resisted the urge to wrinkle her nose a bit when the two of them mentioned the Stones. It was always Jessica's opinion that the Rolling Stones were a bunch of talentless hacks and, given how they were generally regarded as classic, she understood that there were those who didn't set well with that opinion. Still, regardless of the fact that she wasn't the biggest fan of the band, Jessica at least knew a few of their songs and even liked one or two. 'Get off of my cloud' wasn't one of her favorites, but it had a really memorable bass line that was also ridiculously easy to play.

She could do it better than the Stones could, damn it.

Fuuuuck, the lyrics are already stuck in my head! I hate you guys... ha.

"Giiiiiive me a sec," Jessica sang, resetting her hand on the fretboard and strings to try and remember just where those damn notes were. She plinked out a few errors until something sounded right, then took a few moments to remember the bass line. Yup, just like she expected, she had the thing ironed out in less than 15 seconds.

"Okay. Ready to go!"

Veronica shot Adam a nasty look. He was really tempted to give her a wink and a nod, but further goading wouldn't be productive, even if the girl very clearly needed to lighten up. Instead, he just stayed impassive. If the song actually got performed and if Rosemary actually knew the words, the second verse would make Adam's point nice and clear.

Paris, meanwhile, was trying to be polite and diplomatic, offering Veronica the next choice of song. The girl blew it off entirely, not even bothering to reply. Adam was tempted to suggest The Sound of Silence, but he figured he'd pushed things enough with the girl. Really, right now he wished she'd just leave. It wasn't that hard a concept. She had no interest in what was going on. The school had an open campus policy. She could go literally anywhere else in the city that wasn't an in-session class, and yet she'd chosen to stay here to rain on their parade.

Good thing music made a pretty sweet umbrella.

It seemed like everyone had gotten into the swing of the song. Jessica called out that she was prepped.

"It's sounding good already," Adam said. He was quite impressed. He'd always been a little bit envious of those of his classmates who'd learned cool instruments like the guitar or the bass. Adam had only ever tried the piano, and it wasn't quite the same. Doing a rocking Billy Joel, Elton John, or Coldplay just didn't offer very much badass cred.

((Ack, sorry dudes and dudettes))

Paris nodded and hopped up on stage near Jessica. He slung his guitar around he neck and played a few introductory notes with his head down in concentration. He lifted his head, nodded and Jessica and made a wave motion for Rosemary to come over.

"Alright, kids. One, two, one to three four!"


And he began to strum a happy little tune approximating the request.

Rosemary walked up on stage, standing off a little to the side so Paris and Jessica were the ones on center stage. Even though you see singers in the front, they both have much more experience with this than I do.

The girl swayed a little bit to the notes, before starting on the first stanza. At first it was low and a little flat, as it went along on her voice went into a better sound range for her higher tone voice, letting in a couple of jazzy hums and aahs near some of the ends.

The Stones did take a lot of their knowledge from blues-type artists as time went on, add a little bit of that in. Rosemary thought, then she started on the chorus, the feeling in the music taking control, making her voice blunt but not screaming. "I said "hey, you. Get off of my cloud! Hey, you. Get off of my cloud!"

FUCK THIS!

Veronica groaned loudly as Paris, Jessica and Rosemary broke out into song. Damnit, first it's Calculus, then it's this book! It just wasn't a peaceful day for Veronica. All this damn noise was driving her off the deep end.

But who said she was already on it?

"SCREW THIS!" She yelled, throwing her book up in the air. It landed a few rows behind her, but she didn't notice. Giving everybody in the room a dirty look, she collected her things and stomped out, kicking over someone's glitter can in the process.

I'll just ask Michael for some answers.

Now for Prom...

(Veronica McDonald continued elsewhere)

Huh. Hope she picked up her book.

Jessica couldn't afford to pay too much attention to Veronica's tantrum. It would hurt her brain far too much, and they had already started with the song. Having put up with much more in the way of distractions when practicing with the rest of her band, the girl worked to push the noises of a rustling knapsack and a closing door in order to stay on the bassline.

Rosemary wasn't half-bad as a singer, honestly. Ramble struck her as a lot better and definitely a closer fit to this particular song, but... well, you know. For somebody who Jessica had never heard sing before, it was turning out a lot better than expected. The song was clunky, what with the three of them not really rehearsing much and going straight from memory. For what it was, though, it was good.

More importantly, Jessica was having fun. This was easily one of the best breaks she had enjoyed all year.

The little impromptu jam session was actually rocking out pretty well. Better still, Veronica pitched her bizarre fit and stormed out instead of staying to make more of a scene. Adam wondered how she'd managed to survive until high school with the rough maturity of a three year old. Temper tantrums like that stopped being cute about the time kids could reach high enough to hit you where it hurt. He was pretty sure it was people like her who caused stories about stuff like road rage.

Well, whatever. She was out of his hair, maybe off to punch Principal Freeman and get herself and her boiling rage expelled or something. Unconcerned, Adam leaned back and ate as he listened to the music.

Paris' nimble fingers strummed the guitar moving quickly to and fro on the instrument's strings with precision, reminiscent of spiders. He played with his eyes closed and a smile on his face. He backed up a bit to play back to back with Jessica, winking at her and continuing on with their song, accompanying Rosemary. He was momentarily aware of Veronica throwing a hissy fit and opened one eye to look at her as she left. Her book lay abandoned on the floor. People with tempers like that didn't get far in life. Would she listen to him if he told her that? Maybe.

They finished their song and Paris looked up. He grabbed Jessica's hand, raised it high and then brought it back down in a theater-styled bow. "Thank you for the excellent bass work," he said motioning to Jessica. Paris then walked to Rosemary and took her hand.

"And thank you for performing on such short notice." He did a short little bow, dipping his head towards her hand while still looking up at her with a smile. He straightened back up and bounded down off the stage with his guitar and bag.

"Cool jam session everyone!," he said. He gave Adam a friendly tap on the shoulder as he walked by. "Thanks for coming out man. Maybe you'll jam with us next time. Gotta head out to class but I'll see you all later!"

And to the very clear observer it might be just barely noticeable that on his way out, Paris gracefully swopped down and picked up the fallen calculus book with just a hint of a smile still.

((Paris Ardennes continued in The King of Limbs ))

Rosemary flinched a bit at the sound of the textbook being slammed on the floor, bt when she heard a couple people in the auditorium give a few claps after the song was done the happiness of actually performing blotted out Veronica's tantrum. That wasn't so bad I suppose.

She smiled as Paris and Jessica took a bow, but looked faintly surprised when the guitar player walked over and took her hand. She tried to stop her face from turning red with her mind, but it was no use. Maybe she needed to work on how to control her emotions? Most of the time she knew her face was nuetral, indifferent.

"And thank you for performing on such short notice."

"It was no trouble." The girl replied with a small shrug, trying to stop the smile from spreading across her face. But she was happy. After Paris walked out of the auditorium Rosemary turned to Jessica. "You, uh, were really good."