Elle's Drummer Drumming

His head was spinning, his vision was blurring, his ears were ringing.

Will was experiencing a sensation he wasn’t used to and, to be perfectly honest, wasn’t all that comfortable with. If anyone asked the question, Will would deny what was plain to see: he was drunk. Very drunk.

Will had drunken alcohol before, he’d even smoked a few cigarettes before. He’d never been caught, as technically sixteen is too young for either activity, but in his secondary school there were always ways to get them.

This feeling though, being drunk, didn’t feel like what other people in his year had described at house parties, it wasn’t this state of being happy. It felt like a loss of control.

While he couldn’t say it in words, especially not in his state, what he knew for sure was that the world around him was different to how it was just 30 minutes ago; the red of the Santa hats and the yellow of Elle’s flowing hair were duller, as if someone had turned the dial down on the colours in his mind; the heavy metal that Danny had on full blast could barely be heard. Not to mention the taste.

That horrible after-taste of cheap, supermarket-own-brand vodka that Ryan had his older step-brother buy for him in return for help on his maths homework. Nerd.

The very prospect of Maths made Will want to drink more, and he would if he could find the bottle.

What he found instead was that the voices he could hear were a lot louder than he thought they should be.

“Were they arguing again?” thought Will to himself.

Yes, Will’s 3 bandmates Elle, Danny and Ryan were in fact arguing, rather intensely as well. The ‘why’ to their arguing was unfortunately unknown to Will, who was slumped on a sofa adopting a posture similar to what his teachers constantly told him off for.

“Sit up straight, William!!”, he heard one of his teachers say.

“Well, Mrs Ward, if you could see me now, I doubt posture would be what you told me off for”, he replied in his head.

Like she needed any more reason to tell him off anyway, she hated him.

Mrs Ward taught Maths and, in Will’s opinion, was the strictest teacher in the entire school, if not the world. She had Will sat up at the front of the class, right in front of her desk, and had him in detention almost every week. The reasons were usually for lack of effort, talking in class and an “attitude not worthy of my standards, William.”

“What did she expect from people in bottom set Maths at 9am, Perfect Peter?!?”, Will wondered to anyone that would listen.

Will wasn’t a morning person; anyone could see that. What they didn’t see was the sometimes all-nighters, chatting online with his bandmates or watching drum tutorials on Youtube, or even the energy drinks he kept in his bag for sneakily drinking when Mrs Ward wasn’t looking.

“I’m just glad school’s finished for Christmas, I can’t stand any more algebra” thought Will.

In fact, even thinking about algebra made Will sleepy, and at that point the last of the resistance to passing out finally gave in and as his eyes got heavy, Will heard a voice utter the word, “Georgia”.

***

The band had been together for just 6 months and came as a mix of friendships starting at different times. First, Ryan had been Will’s best mate since the age of five and lived just across the road from him, making him easy to reach when Will’s over-achieving family

was getting too much for him. Which was a lot.

The two boys both had a lot in common; they both watched football, even though they supported Tottenham and Arsenal; they both liked rock music, especially Green Day; and they were both hopeless around girls.

Danny joined the friendship bubble when they were all twelve, having gone to a different primary school across town. He got Will and Ryan into rock music as well as introducing some of the care-free attitudes that Will now demonstrated, at least in Mrs Ward’s not-so-humble opinion. Danny was also more successful with girls, having had several romances over several years.

Elle was a different story, since she actually joined the school at fourteen from an all-girl’s school, so she’d had little to no experience of boys. Of course, of the three boys in the friendship group, Danny was the first to introduce himself and after an initial awkwardness, they got on like a house on fire.

When she then met Will and Ryan, however, it was like she was an alien from another planet.

It was a few months previous to the Christmas party, in the heat of the summer holidays, when Will was running late to meet Ryan and Danny at Danny’s house across town. He thought it was so unfair that they should have to go to Danny’s when Ryan’s was right next door, but he reluctantly agreed to the location.

When he eventually arrived, exclusively fuelled on the last energy drink in the house, he was immediately met with the question,

“So Will, what do you think?”

“About what?” he replied, attempting to play catch-up.

“About Elle joining the band.” Danny replied, as if Will had been there the whole time.

So, in the half-hour that he’d overslept due to yet another late-night FIFA tournament, they’d not only agreed to starting the band, something that only he and Ryan had talked about the day before, but they’d added a girl into the band as well.

He’d be a lot angrier if Elle didn’t catch his eye and give him a smile, saying “It’s okay sweetie, I don’t bite.”

“Okay, now she wasn’t just a girl. She was a girl with telepathic powers”, thought Will to himself. However, Will agreed to let her practise, partly because she called him sweetie, which he liked. Not that she needed to know, of course.

What the newly-formed band had for “practise” was more make-shift than anything else, with Will patting his legs in time to the music played out of the speaker, Elle humming along and Danny and Ryan debating who got to play guitar and who was left with bass.

Over time, as Elle got more and more confident with singing in front of the boys, she sang in what Will thought was the most beautiful voice ever heard. Not that she needed to know, of course.

She noticed his admiration and smiled again, only this time it felt genuine, like he’d caught her enjoying the moment he found her in. She then said,

“So am I in the band now?”

Will had never said yes to anything so quickly in his life. In fact, his enthusiasm made Elle laugh.

“Awww, you’re sweet. I’m Elle.”

“Yeah, I know, Danny told me. I’m Will.”

“Yeah I know, Danny told me.”

This made them both laugh and completely broke the ice between the two. As Will and Elle carried on chatting and getting to know each other, he started fancying her more and more. Not that she needed to know, of course.

He didn’t know if her telepathic powers could tell, but he was glad that Danny and Ryan were too busy arguing to notice. However, as evening fell and Will, Ryan and Elle all left Danny’s, Will couldn’t stop thinking about Elle. Not even Ryan’s deal to take bass in return for Danny teaching him how to get girls could take his attention away.

In the six months since, however, he’d never told her how he felt. They still talked a lot, but Will had never taken it further. Partly because he didn’t want it to end badly and lose his only female friend, but also because of Ryan and Georgia.

Georgia was Danny’s twin sister, not that you’d know on first glance. The two were literally chalk and cheese. He was a punk, and she did ballet.

“What more can I say” is what Will would imagine Elle to reply to that description.

Georgia also played football for the school, which is what she had in common with Ryan. Once upon a time, Will played football for the school, but that was back in primary school, before drumming lessons fell on the same day as after-school football. Of course, Will chose drumming lessons, but by the time the timings changed, and he could do both, the skill level had gone way too high for Will’s liking. Plus he would never have met Elle, although maybe he would have more drunken experiences, since sports teams always had alcohol-filled house parties.

However, Will was still interested in school football, turning up to matches when he could, always arriving there early with Ryan since he usually played.

During one match, about a month before Christmas, Georgia came up to Will, who she vaguely knew through Danny.

After politely accepting her offer of chewing gum, they both got talking, mainly about the match, when she started talking about who she knew in the boy’s team. Turns out the boys and girls from different sports teams all knew each other, so Will asked,

“So have you met my friend Ryan yet?”

“Yeah, he’s an interesting one.”

Will asked her what he meant by that, and she replied,

“So he’s nice and all, but he keeps asking me out on dates.”

“Ohh, are you not interested?”

“Not in that way, no.”

“How come, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I dunno, he just seems kinda boring, you know. Plus it’s awkward cos he’s mates with Danny.”

Will had never considered Ryan to be boring, but then Will wasn’t into guys. Will just put it down to Danny’s lessons on flirting not working. After all, he had a lot of ground to cover in that regard.

“Have you spoken to him about it?”, Will continued.

“Who, Danny?”

“Yeah.”

“If he does it again, I may have to. It’s getting annoying now!”

The frustration in her voice suggested to Will that she and Ryan were never going to be a thing. Not that Ryan would let that stop him; he was the type of person who kept going at something until he had what he wanted.

Walking home, Will casually mentioned Georgia to Ryan, to which his eyes lit up.

“Ohh Georgia, yeah she’s this really nice girl from football. We’ve been chatting for a while and I think she could be my girlfriend.”

Knowing for definite that there was no chance she would be his girlfriend, Will asked,

“What are you gonna do about it?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking, her birthday’s a few days before our big Christmas do, and I wanted to send her a gift. Do women like flowers?”

Thinking nothing of it, Will said yes. After all, Georgia was probably exaggerating what she told him at the football match.

***

An hour after he passed out, Will came round, feeling like only a minute had passed. The room was now much quieter, meaning that he could now survey the mess him and his bandmates had made. Spilt alcohol, party poppers everywhere, cups littering every work surface. Will was suddenly so grateful that this was Danny’s house; Will’s parents would kill him if that kind of mess was in their kitchen.

Still, at least the arguing had stopped.

At that moment, Elle came out of the bathroom and saw Will finally sitting up.

“Ahh, he’s awake, at long last!!” she jokingly greeted him with.

Sober enough to now hold a conversation, Will asked,

“Were you guys arguing earlier?”

“Well, Danny and Ryan were, I was trying to calm them down.”

“Of all times to argue, they choose when I’m the most drunk I’ve ever been.”

This caused Elle to giggle, and then in no time the two of them were laughing uncontrollably at how silly it was, no one noticing Will because of the argument.

After what seemed like an eternity, Will calmed down enough to ask,

“So what were they arguing about? It seemed pretty heated.”

It turns out that Ryan actually had bought her the flowers and Georgia wasn’t lying with her threat of telling Danny, who wasn’t exactly sober when he brought it up, hence the argument.

This got Will really anxious, and not just because he may have had a hand in causing the situation. What if he finally confessed his feelings for Elle and something similar happened?

Wanting to test the waters with Elle in a light-hearted way, he said,

“Damn, that sounds intense. I really hope that doesn’t happen when you get a guy.”

“Well it depends on who the guy is, but there’s one in particular who I would definitely say yes to” came the reply.

Elle then gave Will a stare that, in Will’s head, meant that the ‘one in particular’ was him.

Butterflies now racing around in his stomach, Elle set Will back down on the sofa he’d previously slept on and kissed his cheek, before making her way back to the kitchen for a glass of water.

While lying on the sofa, Will started to formulate a plan of action for the morning.

First, he would chat to Danny, see if he needed any help tidying up the mess around the house. Will had no idea what state either of them would be in, so he wouldn’t immediately rush that one.

Elle would finally know that Will had feelings for her. Yeah, there was still the fear of rejection, but it was much smaller than the fear he’d previously had.

If tonight was anything to go by, Elle was much more willing to say yes to Will than Georgia was to Ryan. Plus, Elle was an only child, so no possessive brother to deal with.

This new motivation was also partly fuelled by the kiss she gave him. Not that she needed to know, of course.

Ryan, he would save until last, since the two were walking back from the party together, since they lived on the same road. Will imagined Ryan would be upset about the whole Georgia thing, but hopefully wouldn’t leave the band. “Every band needs a bassist”, he would say.

As Will drifted off to sleep, he thought of two things. He thought of Elle saying yes and kissing him again, like she had before. He also thought of the band performing together, touring all the big stadiums, and having the crowds cheering and shouting and singing their lyrics back to them. Elle would stand out more than the others, of course she would. She would be the best singer of them all.

Not that she needed to know, of course.