I've written a SHORT STORY!!!

So I have written a short story about a girl, and she loves music. I hope you enjoy it! EEEEK! I really enjoyed writing it. The title is based on a line the song "American Pie" by Don McLean. If you spot any mistakes, just comment below. And tell me what you think in the comments! 

THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED  By Meain Girl

The traffic on the way home was terrible. I was so bored in the bus, I actually got all my homework done. When I got off the bus, I ran home, opened the door and went upstairs, taking the usual two steps at a time. I ran into my room, grabbed my guitar and started to practice the song me and Edmond wrote. Me and Edmond have been best friend’s since I moved into the neighbourhood. He lives on the street behind me, so it’s easy to keep in touch. While I was in the middle of thinking what to put in the next verse, the doorbell rang. I was hoping it was Mum or Dad so they could put on the dinner. But who was at the door but Beth. Argh- Beth. She is my annoying next door neighbour, a few years younger than me but treats me like dust. I would have called her a ‘friend’ up until that day.

“Hey, Beth! Come in! Do you want a tea?” I asked, trying to sound like I liked her. Jess, my cat was circling around my feet as she hissed at Beth. She didn’t have to pretend she liked Beth.

“ Yes. Peppermint. And when you are done, can you play that song you were working on with that friend of yours?”she said, with a raised eyebrow when she said ‘friend’. I knew Beth thought I liked Edmond, but I do. As a friend. You see, me and Edmond love music, but she hates it and doesn’t understand it. I can’t believe we were friends when we were young. When she was six, she was holding my rabbit and it jumped out of her arms and out under a car. But eventually I forgave her for that. You have to move on and as my Dad says, ‘forgive and forget’. I walked into the kitchen and boiled the kettle, got my guitar from my room and walked into the sitting room, where she had made herself comfortable on my Dad’s armchair, flicking through one of my magazine’s.

“Here’s your tea. We only have rooibos.” I said.

“Oh. I don’t really like rooibos, but whatever” she said with a sigh, taking a sip from her tea.

As I started to sing, all the words just came to me like I heard the song on the radio a million times.

Follow the stones

Follow them closely

If you do that

You’ll know your destiny

Follow the stones

I got to the second verse before being interrupted.

“Stop! Stop! I can’t listen.That is the worst song I’ve heard in my entire life.” Beth said, with a snicker. I didn’t think anyone could say that to someone’s face. Not even Beth.

“Get out.” I muttered. She stared at me in disbelief.

“What?!” she said.

“I said get out! ” I repeated, shouting this time. I couldn’t even pretend I liked her anymore. When she left and slammed the door behind her, I sighed and slouched into the couch.

After a few minutes of sitting there and staring into space, I got up and walked into the kitchen to make a tea. As the kettle was boiling, the doorbell rang. Mum or Dad. But when I got to the door, it was Edmond.

“Edomnd!” I said in relief. Giving him a hug.

“Melody!” he said with a laugh.

We walked into the kitchen and sat down at the table, in silence as the kettle made it’s funny noise.

“Bad day at school?” he asked.

“Nah, just got an unexpected visit from Beth” I said.

“Oh. No. What did she do this time?” he asked sitting up in his chair. I explained the whole thing to him, and he totally understood. He told me not to let her set foot in this house again and if she speaks to me, pretend I can’t hear her.

“Want a tea?” I asked.

“Yup, why not.” he said.

“Hey, do you know where my parents are?” I asked.

“They told you they wouldn’t be back tonight. They have work party or something like that” he answered.

“Oh, yeah. I completely forgot,” I said “Who is going to cook dinner? I can’t cook!” Edmond raised his eyebrow, flicked his blonde hair and put his hand on his hip, before making a noise something like “Ehem!” and smirking.

“Oh, yes. If they are gone, you have to cook. And I almost forgot, you always stay the night,” I said half sarcastically.

“Come on then, help me get my stuff out of the car!” said Edmond. Ooops, I forgot he just learned to drive.

“Sure, did you bring your guitar and your video recorder?” I asked.

“Nah, I don’t need them,”he answered “Of course I brought them you dumbo!”

Turned out we didn’t get much more done with our song, we were mostly just joking around. So at around seven, we gave up and headed to shopping centre.

I jumped into Edmond’s car, and we drove all the way there.

“What shops will we go to?” He asked.

“I don’t know, maybe the make-up store and then a trip to The Paris Fashion Shop?” I replied. “No, the music shop of course, Edmond.”

“Get out of the car. We must evacuate the space so we can make space for our latest instruments!” he said, laughing. We have this weird habit and whenever we go shopping, we come back with a new instrument. Our parents don’t really like it.

Once we arrived at the music shop, we noticed something wasn’t right. There was no new display in the window and the lights weren’t on.

“That’s funny, I told Maria I’d be coming today!” said Edmond. Maria is the owner of the shop. I think she’s a bit older than my brother John, he’s in college. She always has an amazing display including instuments and everything that says  “music”. We come literally every time we leave the house.

“Yeah. Let’s go inside, maybe there was a problem with the lights.” I said. Thats’s what I hoped, anyway. We walked inside, and immediately the lights turned on. Then a noise came from behind the counter. The door with ‘PRIVATE’ written on it opened andout came Maria.

“Hey guys! Nice to see you! I was just testing the new lightbulbs, don’t worry.” she said.

“Phew! I was worried you’d closed down or something.” I said in relief. I turned to see Edmond, but he was at the back of the shop.

“What’s down there? I thought you kept the Asian musical instruments down there?” I asked.

“Oh, I moved them to the upstairs section. This week I’m actually starting to sell vintage records! And I have a few record players down there too if you guys are interested. Go ahead have a look!” she said excitedly. I loved the sound of music on a record player, the crackling noise is somehow soothing.

“What ya’ got there?” I say, while jumping over to the box of records next to Edmond.

“I never knew Maria added all these! They are amazing!” he said, grinning and staring at the record he was holding in his hands.

“I know! She even said she has some record players down here! We should save up for one!” I said happily. We were jumping around and trying records with Maria for ages and when we looked at the clock, three hours had passed.

“ Well, we’d better get going!” said Edmond, red in the face after all the singing at the top of his his voice.

“Come on then, Ed.” I said with a sigh, “Thanks for the fun, Maria! We’ll be back before you know it!”

When we arrived back home, I was exhausted.

“Wait! We didn’t even get anything after all that!” I said. It was a new record. Three hours in the shop, and we didn’t even leave with a guitar plectrum.

We were exhausted. We got into our PJ’s and headed downstairs to eat.

“Fancy beans on toast, Madam Melody?” asked Edmond in a posh accent.

“Only if we can have extra mature grated cheddar cheese lightly sprinkled on top,Sir Edmond!” I replied in an even posher one. We giggled and started to make our tea.

After tea, we watched a film called “Face the Music”. When it was over, we headed upstairs.

“So, which room should I sleep in?” Ed asked. I had just got a text from my Mum saying there was a matress in the spare room which we could put on the floor in my room.

“My mum said there’s a matress down here” I said, “We can put it on the floor in my room.”

“Sounds fine to me.” Ed says with a shrug.

Once we were both in bed, we turned off the light and pulled up our duvets. Jess curled up at the end of my bed, and fell asleep in a matter of seconds.

“You know, I can’t wait to go to the concert tomorrow with you and Julia. It’ll be epic” said Ed, dramatically. Tomorrow night we were going to a concert with my friend Julia. The tickets were on sale, and luckily Ed got backstage passes!

“It’ll be awesome!” I said.

The next morning we got up and had breakfast before heading off to meet Julia at the shopping centre, just to get our hair done while Ed went to get some presents for his little twin sisters, Cassie and Clara. They were turning eleven that weekend. When we arrived at the shopping centre, Julia was waiting for us in “Uptown Cafe”

“Hey guys! Are you as excited as I am for the concert?” asked Julia. Julia is a really bubbly, funny and musical person.

“Totally!” Me and Ed said in chorus. After a quick coffee in the cafe, we went our seperate ways, to the hairdresser and the toy shop.

At the hairdresser, I actually decided to get a trim and wash. Julia got curls and a wash.

“So, how did your music exam go?” I asked her. Julia’s parents are really rich, so they sent her to a music school. Obviously they do normal classes, but they focus on music more.

“Fine, I suppose. I won’t know until I get the results, really” she answered with a sigh. I wish I was in her school, with musical people all around me.

“Forfet about school and marks. Let’s just shop ‘til we drop'!” I said as we walked off, smiling.

We spent the rest of the morning doing some girly shopping, picking outfits and make-up for the concert. At lunch we had definitely dropped. We couldn’t move our legs, mostly because we both had like six giant bags at each of our heels, but partly because we had ran into every shop in the whole shopping centre.

“Let’s head home now. Edmond said he had to drop off the presents at his and he’d be back at mine in a while.” I said. We couldn’t wait for him anyway. We had our bus tickets bought.

Once we got home, we started playing some our favourite songs, me on the guitar and Julia on the piano. Ed and I had yet to show Julia our new song. We had nothing to worry about though, we were sure she’d like it.

The doorbell rang while I was upstairs getting a cool new guitar plectrum I hadn’t shown Julia yet. I heard Ed whispering to Julia and then Julia laughing. I hoped they weren’t going to do some prank on me like they often do when it’s just the two of them in the room. I walked downstairs, and saw Julia and Ed sitting on the sofas in the sitting room. They looked suspicous with those sneaky smiles on their faces. I sat down and put my favourite cushion on my lap and hugged it.

“Guys, what are you up to?” I asked.

“Oh, nothing.” replied Ed. That obviously meant they were up to something.

“Why don’t you show me the new plectrum you were talking about?” asked Julia, nodding towards the hand I was holding it in.

“I got it in Maria’s about a week ago, it was cheap but I tried it and the sound that comes out of it is amazing.” I answered.

“Cool. Why don’t you try it on your guitar so I can hear it?” she asked. Without answering, I took out my guitar. I stretched my hands. Took a deep breathe, about to sing the first note when a noise from behind me made me jump.

I turned around to where Edmond was sitting in the corner and noticed there was something behind him. Behind him was where the noise, actually it was a  song, was coming from. I had seen the thing  before. It had the soothing sound. Crackling. I smiled. A really beautiful old song from the 50s or 60s. My smile got even bigger when I looked at Edmond. He must have got it when he went to get the presents! A tear rolled down my cheek. I had the best friends in the world.

“Thank you so much, Edmond!” I said “You really shouldn’t have.”

When we arrived at the concert, it was packed. We got a seat at the front row and we could practically have touched the singer’s feet. The three of us were so excited to be there!

“I can’t believe we are actually here!” cried Julia, beaming.

“I know, right? We practically are-” I didn’t get to finish my sentence. I had seen someone from the corner of my eye. I turned around. Beth. Argh- Beth! She just knew how to annoy me!

“Hi Melody! I didn’t know you liked Poppy Diamond, she’s like- way better than any of your dumb songs.” she said nastily.

“Well, Melody is way better than you at everything. The only thing you are good at is being a bully” said Julia, putting her arm around my shoulder.

“Well, she threw me out of her house yesterday so I have the right to get my revenge.” she snorted, crossing her arms.

“You were rude and you complained and you were horrible to my face! I’m the one who needs to get my revenge.” I shouted, “But I don’t do revenge.” She stared at me in disbelief and then rolled her eyes.

“Shutup.” She muttered.

“You really are annoying. Melody’s annoyers are mine.” said Ed. Friends are great. Before Beth could say anything, the lights went off and everyone went silent. After a few seconds, the lights shined onto the stage and there was Poppy, surround by her dancers.

But we didn’t get to hear her sing yet. There was a problem with the sound, and the music couldn’t be heard. But after a few minutes Poppy was able to use the microphone.

“Welcome everybody! I am very sorry for the delays and thanks you everyone for being so patient. We will be starting very shortly.” She said apologetically.

“I hope we didn’t get backstage passes for nothing!” said Ed.

“Well, it seems like they are nearly ready to start. Oh look- the dancers are getting back into place!” I said. “Thanks guys- for standing up for me when Beth was being annoying. You guys are the best!”

“Awwww!” they both said together and then sandwhiched into a hug me between them.

We looked back up at the stage where the spotlight was now on Poppy. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and then it happened. The speakers did it. The noise you hate. The noise I hate. It was the loudest thing I ever heard. It was painful. I had been sitting right next to the broken speaker.

I can’t quite remember what happened after that, except Ed and Julia brought me home and I stayed in bed. It wasn’t serious, I just got a fright. I took Monday off school. I just stayed in bed while my Mum made a fuss over me.

The next day I got up, and it was half past nine. I was late for school because I didn’t hear my alarm ring. I was scolded badly by my teachers, but it was very difficult to hear them speaking.

Later in the week Mum and John brought me to the doctor to see what had happened. I was in the waiting room for ages, humming the song me and Ed wrote. Finally, I got into the doctors.

“Hello Melody. Today I’m just going to do a simple checkup on your hearing. I’ll ask you some simple questions.” the doctor said in a loud, clear voice.

“When d.d y.o.r ear. st.a.. becom..g pain..l?” I had no idea what she was saying. After several visits to the doctor, it turned out I had tinnitus, a way of slowly turning deaf.

I started learning sign language a while later. I missed music, a lot, and I missed hearing my friends and family. I started going to the ‘The School for the Deaf’ There is nice people in the school, but it’s hard to communicate with them. I wasn’t fluent in sign language, but most og them were. Most have them were born deaf. I liked sign language,but I wanted to hear. I texted Julia even when we were in the same room, but eventually that was frustrating. We texted when we weren’t together, just like with Ed, but after a while they both decided to learn.

I never heard the record player again, but I had a way to connect with music. I would put on the song Ed and Julia played the day of the concert and I could feel the music, the crackling. It made me feel soothing. They were still the best friends in the world, even though we didn’t get to play music together anymore.

One evening, last summer, I was sitting on the wall, looking up at the stars. They were beautiful and amazing but they didn’t have a voice. I wonder what they would sound like? It felt like I could touch them, ride them to the moon and back. If wishes were real, I would wish to hear. But that’s not how life works. Jess crept up behind me and jumped up on my lap. All of a sudden a bright light went over our heads.

“I wish for joy, even if I can’t have music.” I whispered. I hoped my wish would come true. I didn’t wish a fairytale wish, just a small thing that would make the world for me.

That day was the day the music died, but it still lives on in my heart. 

The quotes of the day are: 

Quotes about music

Meain Girl- going back to real life xxx