Gawky Read Online Free Page A

don’t want them to know so don’t tell
Because I am thinking of you
Oh I just can’t bear it but I know it’s true.
    This was good. Much better than Chances are . . . I’m in love with a star. I was on to something with these incredible lyrics. They were vague yet specific. I could imagine a girl listening to this soon-to-be-hit on her Walkman and substituting either a cute boy from class or teen heart-throb Michael J. Fox for whom she was “thinking of.” This song had no limits. But I was more of a writer than a musician, and I wasn’t sure how to go about setting it to a tune.
    The pressure was too much to bear. I had to impress Amanda, and I had to be a star. So I did the unthinkable: I stole the melody from Wham!’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.” I loved George Michael so much. I loved his album Faith , even if it was inappropriately sexual for a girl my age. I loved his butt, and I loved that he wrote a song called “I Want Your Sex,” which caused my mom to blush and then change the channel every time it came on the radio even though I knew she loved it, too. A few years had passed since “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” set the world on fire, inspiring thousands of pale teens to don knock-off “Choose Life” T-shirts. I figured everyone in my hometown had moved on to Bon Jovi, and no one would remember poor old Wham!
    It worked like a charm. A few days later, when I premiered the song in Amanda’s bedroom, she thought it was pure genius.
    â€œMargs, we should totally take this to Mr. Fervor, he’s super connected in the music industry.”
    Perfect. This was a great opportunity to prove to our band teacher that I wasn’t just some oversize fourth-grade deadbeat who had switched from flute, to clarinet, to sitting in the audience taking notes during band class. He’d be amazed by my songwriting talent. He might call me a prodigy. And then he’d put me in touch with some of his Hollywood connections.
    Amanda and I stayed after in band class the next day and showed Mr. Fervor our brilliant opus, handwritten on Mead loose-leaf paper.
    â€œYou girls wrote this all by yourselves?” asked Mr. Fervor.
    We both nodded. I fought the urge to call Amanda out for taking co-credit for a song I had both slaved over and stolen.
    â€œWell, do you want to sing it for me, then?” he asked.
    Amanda and I enthusiastically nodded. I counted off, “One, two, three, four,” the way I’d heard Bruce Springsteen do on the many, many live concert albums my parents owned.
    Amanda and I proudly sang “Thinking of You” to the tune of “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” a capella. I twirled the hot-pink jelly bracelets on my wrists to distract myself from the fear of being found out. We finished the song, took a pregnant pause, and waited for Mr. Fervor’s response. Then we hit the jackpot.
    â€œWell, girls, I’d love to work with you. How’d you like to perform this song in the school and community assemblies? I’d be happy to play the accompaniment. Sound good? Sound cool, girls?” Mr. Fervor always spoke as if he were at a beat poetry slam. Amanda and I nodded furiously. “Oh and, girls, or ‘Jersey Girls,’ should I say, a song this good is sure to get stolen. Believe me, I’d look into copyrighting this puppy.” Mr. Fervor had clearly been through some ups and downs in his music career, leading him to err on the side of caution.
    Amanda and I left Mr. Fervor and began to jump up and down, screaming as soon as we were out of the room. A record deal was a mere assembly away! That afternoon, I followed Mr. Fervor’s advice, and with my mom’s help, sent the song off to the Copyright Office to claim my legal ownership of a song stolen from Wham! My mom seemed super knowledgeable in the art of copyrighting something, most likely because, as she had told me countless times,