Chapter
11
Sing
I
ended up joining the school choir after all. But I still had to audition. Not
that an audition bothered me, it was the idea of the other kids staring at me
as I sang.
- x -
“What
is your audition piece, Taylor?” the choir teacher, Miss Pollack, asked. She
had a clipboard folder in one hand, tapping the top of the desk with the nails
of the other.
“Good
Times Gone by Nickelback,” I replied. The song was a favourite of mine, haunting
but still an excellent piece of work.
I
nodded at Kim, who started the CD player. I closed my eyes and allowed my voice
to soar as I sang my song.
“Lost
it on the chesterfield…or maybe on a gambling wheel…lost it in a diamond
mine…it’s dark as hell and hard to find…
”Well you can climb to the top of the highest tree…you can look around but you
still won’t see…what I’m looking for…
”Where the good times gone…where the good times gone…all that stupid fun and
all that shit we’ve done…where the good times gone…I still don’t know…
”Out the back in the old corn field…underneath the tractor wheel…thought I’d
dig till I found it first…broke my back and died of thirst…
”Well you can bribe the devil, you can pray to God…you can sell everything
you’ve got…and you still won’t know…
”Where the good times gone…where the good times gone…all that stupid fun and
all that shit we’ve done…where the good times gone…and you still won’t know…
”Saw it on the silver screen…preacher says ‘don’t know what it means’…last page
ad in a comic book…bought me a map, told me where to look…
”It ain’t carved of stone or made of wood…and if you pay for it then it ain’t
no good…and you still won’t know…what I’m looking for
”Where the good times gone…where the good times gone…all that stupid fun and
all that shit we’ve done…where the good times gone…”
The
last echoes faded. Miss Pollack blinked, closed her mouth – which had been
hanging open for the entire duration of the song – and then spoke.
“Have
you ever been in a choir before, Taylor?” she asked.
I
shook my head. “No, Miss Pollack. Never in my life.”
- x -
“So
now you’re a member of the school choir?”
I
used my free hand to rifle through my CD collection. At that moment my
favourite CD was Killing Heidi’s Reflector. I was on the phone –
long-distance, mind you – to my brother, Isaac.
“Uh-huh,”
I replied, more focused on finding a decent CD to listen to than the phone
conversation.
“What
did you bribe them with this time?”
“Isaac!”
I protested. “You should have seen Miss Pollack’s face while I was singing. Her
mouth was hanging wide open.”
“You
never change, Taylor,” Isaac said jokingly. “Look, I gotta go. I still have a
couple of classes this evening.”
“Yeah,
sure. See ya.” I hung up.
“What’s
this I hear about you being in the school choir?”
I
turned. Mum stood in my bedroom doorway.
“I
auditioned this afternoon and I got in,” I said. “Of all songs I could have
auditioned with, it had to be a Nickelback song.”
“But
you still got in, right?” I nodded and turned back to my CDs. Mum walked in and
sat me down on my bed. “I wanted to talk about something with you,” she said
seriously.
“So
talk.”
“I
know that you’re an adult and are legally entitled to make your own decisions,
but I don’t want you going to university so far from home.”
I
looked at Mum. “Believe it or not, I can remember living in Wollongong.
I know why we moved here. We moved because I went deaf.” I played
absentmindedly with one of my hearing aids. “I want to go back to
Wollongong for university. Besides, I did my research. It’s the best university
in the country, and there’d be nothing better than having ‘University of
Wollongong’ on my résumé. It’d make someone look twice at my qualifications.”
I
sighed. “Look, I know how far it is from Emerald Cove to Wollongong.
Believe me, I know. But I have never been so sure about something before. Just
trust me on this one, okay?”
Mum
smiled at me. “All right, Taylor. I trust you.”
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