Free Power Chord by Ted Staunton

Chapter One
    Denny is yelling, but I can’t hear his words. Onstage, Twisted Hazard has just ripped their last chord. It’s still bouncing around the gym.
    â€œWhat?” I yell back. I pull the tissue out of my ears. I always take tissue to Battle of the Bands.
    â€œ I got a great idea ,” Denny yells.
    Denny gets lots of ideas. His last one called for coconuts, shaving cream and our math teacher’s car. If this is a great idea, it’ll be the first time he’s ever had one.
    â€œWhat is it?” I say.
    Denny says, “We hafta start a band.”
    â€œWhat for?”
    â€œWhat for ?” Denny waves at the stage. The Hazard bass player is a hobbit in red plaid pajama pants. He’s talking to two girls in amazingly tight jeans. The lead singer looks too young to stay out after the streetlights come on, plus he’s in chess club. Three girls, one very hot, are chatting with him. The drummer has glasses and is wearing flood pants. He’s handing his snare and a cymbal to two girls in grade ten . One of them is his sister, but still.
    â€œLook at those guys,” Denny says. “Imagine how we’d do.”
    I hate to admit it, but maybe Denny has a point. Those guys are in grade nine, and we’re in grade nine. They are nerds, and yet those girls are all over them.
    We’re not nerds—even if Denny’s ears do stick out—but we’re invisible to girls. There are girls all around us, in cool shapes and sizes and smells. They don’t help us with anything, except maybe give us something to stare at.
    Maybe a band is the answer. I bet playing in a band is easier than playing basketball, especially for someone my size. There’s a problem though.
    â€œUh, Den,” I say, “don’t you have to play music to be in a band?”
    Up onstage, the next group is plugging in. It’s No Money Down. The guitar players are in my English class.
    â€œWell, duh ,” Denny says. He’s patting his pockets. He pulls out his cell and flips it open. “No problem. You’ve got that stuff at your house.”
    There is a bass and a guitar at my place. I fool around on them a little.
    Denny says, “And I play guitar and sing.”
    Denny did take some guitar lessons a couple of years back.
    â€œSince when do you sing?” I ask. In between ideas, Denny has been known to lie.
    â€œMe?” he says. “I sing great. I was in that choir, remember?”
    I make a face and say, “So was I, Den. That was grade four.”
    Denny says, “Yeah, well, I sing all the time at home. While I’m playing guitar. I just don’t do it around other people. Anyway, it’s your band style that counts.”
    â€œBand style?” I say.
    Denny says, “Yeah. You know, your look, your attitude. That stuff. Like, notice how cool bands never smile in pictures? Anyway, most of them don’t even play, they fake along to their records.”
    â€œHow do you know?” I ask.
    Denny shrugs. “Everybody knows that.”
    â€œOne problem, Den,” I say, “we won’t have any records to fake to.”
    Denny is too busy texting to answer.
    How did we end up talking about starting a band? Really, we only came to see who was around. And to look at girls and make jokes about them we don’t really mean. Soon we’ll probably yell and fake wrestle with some other guys. Later we’ll walk back to my place to watch downloads of Python Pit 6 and Facemelt and laugh at them. I mean, you have to do something on a Friday night.
    Up onstage, some goof from the student government introduces No Money Down. One of the guitar players hits a power chord behind him. Everybody is crowding the stage around them. Girls are crowding the stage around them.
    I look at the two guys from English. They look the same as they do in English, only they don’t. They have sweet guitars that I don’t know the make of. Lights are