Facing the Obstacles

The curtains parted and there sat our student body. Before we had time to consider the intimidation of it all, Zach cued us to start and my keyboard led the way. After a few seconds Cam, Nate and Mikey started playing too. When Zach finally started singing, any sense of nerves that I had disappeared and exhilaration flooded me.
“Have you seen it yet? The headline of this issue… It’s as clean as clean can get! Now I’m scared to get my feet wet…”
Nate came in.
“…And this time… We’re all left out… So we take it to the floor, with the numbers on the board, we’re scared to get our feet wet.”
Zach began singing again. He took the microphone out of the stand and began walking around, becoming more confident with every step. I looked over at Nathan; he was walking around the stage, owning it like he did this every day. This was his element, there was no doubt. Cameron stood there, strumming the bass and beaming out at the audience. Michael’s dimpled smile was present as always, while he pounded on the drums.
I sang into my microphone, my fingers gliding easily over the keys. Whenever I play the keyboard, it relaxes me. It allows me to forget about everything else and just play. There’s nothing more soothing to me than working out a tune on my keyboard.
The song began to near the end. The other instruments stopped playing and the room was filled with the sound of my keys. As I finished, Zach, Nathan and Cameron all jumped in the air, as Cameron and Nate jammed the last note. Zach jumped the highest and did the splits in midair, as the room exploded. Everyone was on their feet clapping and screaming and Michael and I walked forward in awe. Did that really just happen; did we really just do that?!
“Thank you for that lovely performance! So what is your group called?” our principal questioned, walking back onstage. The five of us stood there, smiling widely with our arms slung over each other, as he handed me the microphone. I looked on either side of me, as the guys stared back, nodding at me to go ahead.
“We’re Allstar,” I said, thinking of what we had said earlier.
“…And who thinks Allstar should win?” our principal asked the student body. He was drowned out by the sound; it must’ve carried for miles. He tried to speak again, but it was clear there was already a winner.
He eventually gave up and dismissed everyone. A swarm of people came up to congratulate us.
“Nice job, Zach!” some girls said.
A guy walked up to Nate. “Your name’s Nathan, right? What you did with that guitar was awesome, you can really play!”
“Thank you!” Nathan smiled, walking away to go talk to him. Cameron, Michael and I stayed there, watching everyone. I don’t know about them, but I was still shocked at how much everyone had liked us. Some people walked by and congratulated us and we murmured thanks.
It’s not that I don’t like the compliments, don’t get me wrong, but I knew that this would happen. Everyone would flock towards Zach because everyone knew him and he was cute. Nathan was just a recognizable face, you couldn’t forget him… But Michael goes to a different school and as for Cameron and I, we were basically invisible. Not that I wanted to draw a ton of attention to myself, but I would like to get a little credit now and again. I mean, the three of us contribute just as much as Zach and Nate.
At least there will always be one person who appreciates all of us, I thought, as Heidi walked over. She had the biggest grin on her face as she hugged all of us.
“You guys were incredible!” she exclaimed. “Tom, Clarabelle had to go, but she told me to tell you that you were amazing and she loves you… Ok, but seriously, you guys need to continue on with this and be an actual band, people will love you!”
“Thanks gurl, that means a lot,” Michael replied.
“Yeah, your drumming was amazing! And Tom, you rocked that keyboard… and Cameron, I have never seen anyone smile as much as you. You glow up there and people can’t help but look at you!”
Cameron blushed. “Thanks, Heidi.”
“Hey, let’s get Zach and Nate, I have something in my car that I want to show you guys,” Heidi said.
After we got the guys, she led us out to the parking lot. She opened the driver’s side and popped open the trunk. She then walked to the trunk and pulled out a painting.
“Like it?”
“Heidi, that’s awesome,” Zach smiled.
She had painted a picture of Nathan’s garage. It was empty with our instruments and sheets of song lyrics everywhere. I noticed my hat was left on top of my keyboard.
“So who gets it?” I questioned.
“Well, I figured when you guys are famous, you can hang it in your tour bus. That way you’ll always remember where it all started.”
She handed it to Nathan. “For now you can keep it, since it’s from your garage… and Zach, I made you this,” she said, giving him a braided string bracelet. “It’s for good luck every time you go out to sing.”
“Aw, thanks,” he beamed, kissing her head. “I have a surprise for you too, but we have to go back to Nate’s garage so I can have the lyrics with me.”

When we all arrived back at Nathan’s garage, Zach walked in and picked up a guitar. After tuning it, he sat down with the piece of lyrics and began to strum the guitar.
“This song is called Hey, Princess,” he said. He played the opening chords and then began to sing. “Hey, princess; in a white dress… Chuck Taylors; got me obsessed. Wanna see you, so when can we hang out? Hey, princess, in a contest; you’re the queen and you own the rest… Someday we’re gonna take the crown.
“Let’s go, let go, hold on to me; uh oh! Let’s go, imma let you kno-o-ow! I’ll be the one that’s stormin’ the castle, we’ll be the two of hearts beating faster, ‘ever you want, ‘ever you want; I’m down. I’ll be the one that makes you adore me, we’ll be the two, the two, end of story; the one that I want, one that I want, I found! It’s your kiss… hey, princess.”
He sang it all the way through and when it was done, there were tears rolling down Heidi’s face. Zach put down the guitar and gave her a smile, as he stood up and wrapped her in a hug.
“I love you, Heidi.”
“I love you more.”
“Aww, you guys are just…” Michael said, tearing up. “…I have to go get some tissues.”
I smiled, watching them for a minute. Then Cam, Nate and I left to give them some privacy.
“So… we’re Allstar?” Nathan asked me. “I like that.”
“Yeah… I liked how Cameron said it earlier, so I thought it would be an appropriate name.”
“Wow, I must be pretty smart,” Cameron laughed.
As Zach and Heidi walked in, I questioned, “So Zach, since we have now performed once, do you think you could continue doing that?”
“Yeah, I suppose I can,” he grinned. “But I’m still not sure how much all of those other people will like me.”
Everyone started yelling at him at the same time. Heidi was insisting she’d have to keep thousands of girls off of him, Cameron was saying how brilliant he was and Nathan, Michael and I were mentioning how much of an idiot he was being. When we all stopped he merely nodded his head, his face slightly pink.
“So guys, now that the band is official, we have to get the word out. How are we going to do that?” Michael asked the room aloud.
“I heard there was going to be a Jonas Brothers concert next weekend, nearby,” Heidi said. “That would get you a lot of people.”
“Okay, so Heidi, could you make band flyers at some point?”
“Sure.”
“…And then we can go and hand them out there.”
“Sounds good!” Cameron said. “Let’s go buy some concert tickets!”

The flyers were working well. We passed them out as the girls stood in line. There were easily two thousand girls there, it was surreal! After we passed out about one hundred, we would play a song or two and then pass out more.
“You guys, this is going great!” Heidi said, as we walked into the venue. “We’ve already handed flyers out to about half of the people here and they love you guys!”
“Well of course; I’m here!” Michael said.
Some girls walked up to us, excitedly asking us, “Can we have your autographs?!”
I smiled. “Sure.”
“We’re so excited to hear you guys up there, it w--,” one of them started.
“Oh, no, no, no!” Cameron exclaimed, shaking his head. “We aren’t playing here.”
“You’re not opening?!”
“No, we’re not even famous, we just came here to pass out flyers and get the word around that we’re a band. We literally just started!”
“Are you serious?! But you’re so good and you’re all adorable! You look like you’re famous.”
We all laughed. “Thank you,” said Nathan.
They eventually left and we stood there laughing.
“That was so incredibly cute,” Zach chuckled.
“Oh, but I totally told you all,” Heidi smirked.
“Okay… maybe you did.”