On the Strawberry Moon - 10. Chapter 10

It was the night of the competition and the gang were people of their word and they arrived and grabbed some seats at the back of the hall.

‘Stop squishing me,’

‘You’re too big.’

‘That’s insensitive.’

‘Oh, stop being mean Ronny.’

‘I am mean.’

Kalum smiled as his friends bickered in their seat. He felt his brother sit next to him laughing. He copied the laughter.

‘Shh!’

‘Hello everyone,’ the headmaster announced on the stage. ‘Thank you all for coming, as you know each ticket paid is going towards out loved charity…’

‘Should have been given to us, we are charity,’ mumbled Sammy.

‘… Our judges this year are the lunch lady Cassie, janitor Robbie and our lovely teacher, who you may know from some of the English groups, Mrs. Tillson.’

‘Fabulous bunch of judges,’ Daz muttered in a deadpan voice, staring at the older boring judges near the front of the stage.

‘In no order we have Sandra doing her cheerleading gymnastic.’

‘Robert better not be last,’ muttered Billy.

‘Robert on guitar’

The gang hollered hard and wooed so hard that the headmaster glared a little at them, ‘Okay, okay, settle down.’

Then acts came through one by one. Each had a ten minute spot.

Kalum felt a jitter of excitement and he tried not to tap his foot.

What if Robert was bad? But then it didn’t matter if he was, the fact he was doing this at all was amazing. He was braver than Kalum ever could be.

Finally.

‘Here we go, Robert Youngling with guitar.’

The tired gang jumped and applauded loud and proud as Robert walked on stage with his classical brown guitar in hand.

Sitting on the chair, he began adjusted his guitar and the microphone stand.

Then he nodded at the judges and cleared his throat.

His hand swayed through the strings and the harmonic notes lifted the air.

‘Starry, starry night,’ he sang.

It felt like the world opened up then for Kalum.

‘Wow,’ muttered Billy.

‘Incredible,’ muttered Sammy leaning forward, resting her elbows on her knees.

His voice was smooth and deep. Completely in tune and synchronised with the notes from the guitar, almost effortless.

Kalum was glad no one was watching him. Because he could not hide or disguise how he felt. For those moment as Robert sang and played guitar, he felt like he could breathe out. Swallowing and taking the sounds that were the magic in. It felt so good to have in his ears. He felt like his heart was swelling up completely. His voice was soft and strong.

It was beautiful.

He was beautiful.

Kalum could not deny this moment, he couldn’t stop watching, his heart was pounding through his body. His feelings for Robert were just so overwhelming and completely undeniable.

This feeling was so huge.

Then the song was over.

Everyone clapped hard. But Kalum’s heart was still pounding hard.

***

‘That Sandra totally rigged it, like,’ declared Ronny.

‘What she do; sleep with the judges?’ asked Oscar as they all walked home from the school.

‘Can you even imagine,’ laughed Daz.

‘Ew, ew, no!’ Sammy said. ‘She wins every year. So boring.’

Tom looked over at Robert while he was carrying his guitar, ‘Sorry you didn’t win, dude.’

‘You were totally robbed!’ declared Ronny. ‘You were the best on there!’

Robert laughed, ‘Thank you.’

‘You were awesome,’ grinned Jasper.

Kalum looked up and caught Robert’s eye. He nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak.