Breakout Read Online Free Page B

are
in
.
    The Killer G riff is cool. It’s mostly on the low E string, and it’s all sixteenth notes with lots of upbeats. It sounds complicated by itself, but once you lay it over a half-time drumbeat it turns into this giant iron tank rolling over the battlefield.
    The three of us are sloppy at first, but Mr. Darren doesn’t stop us or tell us we’re doing it wrong because he knows you have to warm up, and so we keep looping it. It’s an eight-bar pattern, and after a couple minutes we start to lock in. Our forearms spike up and down in unison, almost like bows in a symphony. Time starts to become bars, and soon the rest of the world is gone and music is all there is.
    Until the door opens and Valerie walks in.
    “All right, Ms. White is here,” says Mr. Darren.
    “Hey, Mr. Darren,” says Valerie. She’s our drummer, new this year after our drummer from the past two years, Liam, moved to Tacoma. Nobody at school had any idea that Valerieeven played drums and we were worried because she doesn’t really look the part, but then she came to auditions and rocked it.
    “Hey, Valerie,” I say, trying to sound cool, casual.
    “Hey,” she says, smiling for a half second before she looks away.
    As she crosses the room I can feel Keenan watching me. He wants to see if I can keep my cool.
    Because lately, around Valerie, I’ve been having a harder and harder time.
Girls Who Slam Drum Fills
    The thing is, if you were sitting in my eighth grade class and you were checking out the girls for hotness, you wouldn’t notice Valerie Clark because at first there is nothing to notice. She doesn’t do all that stuff the Pockets do that makes them sparkly eye magnets. She’s also kinda tall and big, but not
big
big, maybe just more like normal-sized, and she doesn’t wear the really stylish leggings and low-cut shirts and all that the Pockets wear. And don’t get me wrong, those outfits are hot, but it’s not worth looking at for too long because the Pockets are only interested in a certain model of boy and Keenan and I have already figured out that we are
not
that type.
    With Valerie it’s weird because you’re not sure what she’s supposed to be. It’s like she doesn’t fit an obvious type. Shenever really dresses up: just wears jeans and either a flannel shirt or a hoodie every day, her dark hair back in a ponytail or braids. She has light brown skin and is maybe part Native American? I feel like maybe that’s what she did her social studies presentation on last year, but I wasn’t really paying attention. But the main thing about her look is that she doesn’t seem to be that worried about it.
    Keenan and I have been trying to decide if she’s cute and I’m pretty sure I think she is, except I’m not totally sure because it’s like her cute is written in another language. She’s like when you’re flipping channels and you stumble on a movie with the overdubbed Spanish and even though you know the movie by heart it feels different, and you can’t be quite sure that it’s the same because you didn’t pay very good attention in Spanish class.
    But then the drum playing starts.
    Valerie walks up to the top level of the room and sits behind the five-piece cherry-red DW drum set. “Check it out,” she says as she redoes her ponytail. She gets her sticks out of her stick bag, Vater 5Bs with wood tips, and then smacks down the opening fill to “D’yer Mak’er” by Led Zeppelin, ending it with a vicious cymbal crash. She and Mr. Darren have been going through the Zeppelin catalog and working out all of Bonham’s sick drum fills.
    “Nice,” says Mr. Darren with a big grin. Sometimes he is just like any other guy with how a tight drum fill makes him completely happy.
    “Thanks,” says Valerie. She makes that half smile that shehas, the one that’s not extra wide and fake like so many girls. It seems honest. You feel like you believe it.
    “Yeah, cool,” I say to Valerie, glancing at her for a nanosecond.