I'm going to end up using up all my words and just fizzle out
SO UH lol two posts in one night because LOOK WHAT I MADE. STOP LETTING ME DO THIS.
I'll Write It All Across The Wall (In Crayon)
RATED PG FOR MR. STUMPH'S delicious FOUL MOUTH.
Fandom: Bandom! \o/ Mostly Panic boys but with Fall Out Boys and a surprise William.
Pairing: ...Gen? Pete/Patrick if you squint? Cuddly first grade OT4?
Warnings: ...Swearing? Brent is a warning, I guess.
Summary: "When I grow up, I want to be Mr. Stumph." Same teeny universe as Send My Love to the Playground, which Eggo should be making a podfic of right now because she loves me.
Notes: This was supposed to be about first grade!Brendon's hero worship of Mr. Stumph the music teacher and Spencer's jealousy, but uh. It just kind of turned into a bunch of vignettes about Jon Walker being awesome Brendon being a giant nerd.
Patrick was sitting in the teacher’s lounge, very much enjoying his turkey wrap and Coke, when Pete just had to charge in to inform him that “Patrick, my dear, you have got yourself a stalker.”
“…What? If this is about your crackpot theory about the secretary-“
“No, no, a kid.” Pete sat down in the chair next to him, scooting over to be as far in Patrick’s lap as he could while still being in a separate chair. “Brendon. One of the Uries.”
“Oh, him?” Brendon was one of his favorite students, actually. A bit odd, but very enthusiastic about music for a kid his age. “You think he’s stalking me?”
“Well, seeing as he just tried to skip recess to go back to your class.”
“You’re shitting me. No first grader tries to leave recess.”
“Brendon does. Got as far as the front door where I was watching, too. I told him to go back to the playground and he pouted, pouted, do you know how hard it was not to give him a baby unicorn right there?”
“Because you keep baby unicorns in your pocket for any needy first grader who happens to wander by, of course.” Patrick rolled his eyes. “I really fear for your kids once you start teaching fifth grade next year, aren’t they working on similes and metaphors now?”
“Yes, and it’s awesome. Andy was showing me some of his papers, you should see what these kids come up with. He fell on the ground like a broken Weeble, how adorable is that?”
“Is this even your break?” Patrick checked the clock. Pete had a habit of skipping his own class just to talk to Patrick that was going to get him fired.
“They’re doing math worksheets, they’ll be fine.”
“You’re way too trusting. The second you left the room they probably ran for the paint.”
“…Shit, you think so?”
“I know so. You heard about what happened in that kindergarten class, didn't you?”
Pete paled and ran out the door before Patrick could also mention the other time Pete had left his first graders alone and came back to find Gabe trying to start a cult, weird snake symbols and speeches from on top of his desk and everything.
~~~
Brendon was so done with recess.
“It’s so boring,” he was telling Spencer underneath the jungle gym. “I’m bored with kickball and tag and four square. I want to go back to Mr. Stumph’s class.”
“You didn’t think it was boring when you got in trouble and had to stand against the wall instead of play,” Spencer pointed out.
It was true, he’d spent the whole time wishing he was on the swings, or running in circles, anywhere but against the wall, but. “That’s different. When you’re in trouble anything’s better.”
Spencer just sighed and lay back on the woodchips. “Well, you already tried, right?”
“Yeah, and stupid Mr. Wentz said music time was over and I had to wait until tomorrow.” Brendon crossed his arms. “Tomorrow, it’s not fair, we should have music all the time.”
“Maybe you could make music out here?”
Brendon looked at Spencer. “How? There’s no instruments.”
“We could sing. And clap.”
“And hit things with sticks! And I could bring in my toy trumpet!” Brendon pulled Spencer back into a sitting position so he could hug him. “Spencer, you’re so smart.”
~~~
Ryan already didn’t like Brendon’s band.
“We should make our own music,” he told Brendon at their first recess rehearsal. “At least then you’d stop getting the words wrong to other people’s songs.”
“I’m telling you, it’s mowa a shamble in a pretty cabinet. You just can’t handle the truth.”
“No, it’s definitely moan on a chandelier.”
“That’s not even a word, Ryan.”
“Yes it is! It’s in my dictionary, the one with the pictures. It’s one of those things with the candles on the ceiling.”
“Whatever, we just won’t do that song.” Brendon stuck out his tongue at Ryan.
“Uh, you guys?” Brent waved his hand to get someone’s attention. “I’m bored.”
“Me too,” Spencer said, the traitor. He was supposed to back Ryan up in anything, it’s what best friends do.
Ryan ignored both of them to keep up the argument about whether or not they should make up their own songs.
~~~
“Mr. Stumph, Mr. Stumph!” Brendon raised his hand in the middle of a lesson about the difference between ta and ti-ti. “How do you start a band?”
Mr. Stumph put down his chalk and looked at Brendon. “Brendon, could you ask me this later?”
“But it’s important!”
“Ask me after class.”
Brendon grinned. He’d never been asked to stay after class before, unless it was to get in trouble for trying to take one of the guitars. The only other time he’d stayed after was when he’d hidden in a cupboard and tried to pretend to be a third grader when they came in for their class. It didn’t work.
After music was over, Brendon walked straight over to Mr. Stumph instead of following everyone else back to Mr. Wentz’s room. “So how do you start a band?”
Mr. Stumph sat down at the piano bench, facing away from the piano. “Well, you have to be older.”
Brendon pouted.
Mr. Stumph laughed. “Don’t worry, you can still play music, but actually starting a band is difficult. You need money, and luck, and a group of people who are totally committed to putting up with each other.”
“…Did you ever have a band, Mr. Stumph?”
Mr. Stumph shrugged and looked away. “No, not really.” He looked back at Brendon. “Right now, you should just be thinking about if you want to join band or orchestra here at school.”
“But I can’t do that until third grade!”
“Then you’d better start practicing, so you’ll be the best third grader in the whole band once you join up.”
Brendon thought about it. “…All right.”
Mr. Stumph smiled and stood up. “Now come on, the third graders are going to be here soon, and Mr. Wentz is probably wondering where you are.”
~~~
“Mr. Stumph says we can’t have a band until we’re older,” Brendon told his band at recess that day.
“Okay,” Brent said, and walked off.
Brendon, Ryan, and Spencer sulked under the jungle gym for a while, trying to think of something else to do, when some kid they didn’t know climbed to the top of the jungle gym and looked down at them.
“Are you guys playing hide and seek? ‘cause that’s not a really good hiding spot.”
“No, we’re bored,” Ryan said, lying back to look up at the kid. “Who’re you?”
“Jon. I just moved here.” Jon jumped down and nearly landed on Spencer. “Why’re you bored?”
“Because Mr. Stumph says we can’t have a band,” Brendon said, lying back too.
“You could play pretend band?” Jon lay next to Ryan.
“That’s what I thought we were doing, until these guys got all serious,” Spencer said, stretching his arms and lying back. Now they were all staring up at the sky.
“Pretend band sounds good,” Brendon said with a yawn. “Maybe in a bit.”
“That cloud looks like a tree,” said Jon, pointing.
“And that one looks like a sneaker,” Spencer added.
“That one looks like a guitar.” Brendon liked the cloud game. And the new kid.
“That one looks like my wallpaper,” said Ryan.
“Your wallpaper looks like a bandana,” Spencer said, looking over at him. “With the squiggles and the dots.”
Jon just laughed, and the rest of them joined in.
~~~
Even if he couldn’t be in a real band, Brendon still wanted to play music. He watched Mr. Stumph play guitar, and Greta play piano (Greta was allowed to touch the piano because she had lessons. Brendon didn’t think it was fair, but he didn’t want to make Mr. Stumph mad at him) and he tried to learn as much as he could. It didn’t help much, especially since he wasn't allowed to actually play the instruments. Being in first grade sucked.
At recess, at least, he got to play invisible guitar and invisible trumpet and even invisible violin with Ryan and Spencer and Jon. But it wasn’t the same.
Some days, they’d be a parade, and Brendon would find a stick to wave up and down to lead the other three. Other days, they were an orchestra, and Brendon would find a smaller stick so he could conduct. Some days Ryan would get bored of Brendon being the leader all the time, so they’d be the Beatles, and Ryan would get to be John, even though it got confusing with Jon there.
“Can we be the Grateful Dead?” Jon asked one day, after Brendon and Ryan finished arguing about the difference between violins and violas (they eventually decided they were the same thing).
“What’re their names?” Brendon asked.
“I dunno. My dad listens to them. They’re kinda cool.”
“What’s so great about being dead?” Spencer asked.
“Maybe they’re zombies,” Brendon said, and they spent the rest of recess stumbling around and groaning and trying to eat girls’ brains.
~~~
“Maybe we should change the curriculum,” Patrick told Pete at lunch. “Y’know, let the kids get their hands on some instruments before third grade.”
“Don’t second graders still play recorders?” Pete asked through a bite of his sandwich.
“No, we had to stop that this year after one of them nearly choked on his.” Patrick rolled his eyes. “It’s stupid, banning the whole program for one kid.”
“Now, now, don’t let the wise and honorable administrators hear you saying things like that,” Pete said, complete with sarcastic jazz hands and a smirk.
“Like you ever gave a fuck for authority.” Patrick smirked back.
“Patrick Martin Stumph, do you use that kind of language around your students?”
“Okay, enough of the goody two shoes act, you’re killing me here.”
“All right, let me just pull my flask of vodka from out of my sock, then, that anti-establishment enough for you?”
They were still laughing together when Joe walked in, looking exhausted.
“Fifth graders?” Patrick asked. Teaching those monsters was hard enough on Andy, he couldn’t even imagine being their gym teacher.
“First graders. The Urie kid is going to be the death of me, I swear.”
“Oh, the one Patrick wants to adopt?” Pete chimed in. Patrick punched his arm.
“Go ahead, take him home, just don’t let him near your grandmother’s vase or something.”
“Or your hamster. Especially if he’s got paint,” Pete said with a grimace. Patrick didn’t ask.
“I’m not adopting him,” Patrick sighed, “I just think he’s a good kid who loves music.”
“So that’s why you want to change the curriculum!” Pete smirked as if he knew this anyway.
“That’s not-well, it-it’s just-Pete,” Patrick finally went with.
Pete just laughed. “Well, since even second graders can’t seem to handle instruments-“
“That was one kid!”
“Just up the singing or something. You can’t choke on your own throat.”
“Brendon could,” Joe said, sitting down in a chair a few feet from Pete’s.
“No, no, I think he’d be fine. He likes to sing.” Patrick leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling, thinking.
~~~
Mr. Stumph brought his own guitar to school one day. It was signed by someone famous and there were a few scratches across the front, which Mr. Stumph said added “character.”
He sang for them, which happened a lot in music class, but this time he just asked everyone to listen and sing along if they knew the words already, instead of find the song in their books. He sang a few songs Ryan knew, a few Brendon knew, and a few nobody knew but they all asked what they were so they could ask their parents to find them later. It was the best music class ever.
Brendon just wished he could sing like Mr. Stumph.
~~~
“When I grow up, I want to be Mr. Stumph,” Brendon announced to his fake orchestra that day at recess.
Jon put down his invisible cello. “I want to be a hippie.”
“Why?” Spencer asked. He walked right through his invisible xylophone to get closer to them.
“They seem so happy all the time.” Jon shrugged.
“Have you ever seen a real hippie?” Ryan asked, his invisible violin falling to the ground.
“No, but I see them on TV all the time. Even like, the news.”
“You watch the news?” Brendon stuck his tongue out.
“No, my dad watches it, and then I sit next to him and ask if we can watch Nick, but he makes me watch until the end of the show before he lets me change the channel.”
“Your dad’s lame,” Spencer said.
“Yeah, well, the point is, I want to be Mr. Stumph. That way I can play guitar, and read music, and sing.”
“You can sing now,” Ryan pointed out. “I can sing now.”
“You made that dog cry when you sang that one time,” Spencer added.
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
“Did not.”
“Are we going to sing?” Jon asked. “We could be like, those guys in the robes in Monty Python. But without the books.”
“You’re allowed to watch Monty Python?” Brendon stared at Jon.
“Never mind, your dad is awesome,” Spencer said, “Can we come to your house and watch it?”
They ended up being zombies again, in the end. Singing zombies.
~~~
“Gabe says if you try to eat my brains again, he’s going to put a plague on both your houses,” Bill told them at lunch the next day.
“But there’s four of us,” Brendon said.
“Yeah, well, that’s what he told me to say.”
“Why doesn’t he tell us himself?” Ryan asked.
“He’s busy drawing pictures of you guys getting eaten by snakes.”
They stopped playing zombies for a while. They tried to be singing vampires, but Gerard interrupted their game to say that he was the only singing vampire, and it just ended in a big argument about whether vampires were cooler than werewolves.
Ninjas won, in the end. Ninjas always win.
~~~
Mr. Stumph brought in his guitar again, and told everyone that if they were very, very careful, they could hold it.
Brendon’s hand shot up as soon as Mr. Stumph asked who wanted to go first.
“That’s E,” Mr. Stumph said as Brendon picked at the first string. “That’s A,” as he picked at the second.
Brendon repeated the letters to himself, even if he didn’t really get why they were there.
After he’d learned the names of each string, Mr. Stumph showed him where to put his fingers to make a chord. Then another chord, and another, and another, and then Mr. Stumph smiled at him and said, “Now you can play ‘Don’t Stop Believin’.’”
Brendon had never felt so awesome in his life.
~~~
“Let’s be rock stars today,” Brendon said at recess. “It’ll be good practice for when we have a real band.”
“We can’t be rock stars. You want to be a teacher,” Spencer said, but he was already looking for sticks to hit his invisible drums with.
“No I don’t, I want to be Mr. Stumph. I think he’s secretly a rock star.”
“You can’t be secretly a rock star. Rock stars are famous,” Ryan said.
“Maybe he uses a different name.”
“Yeah, like, Tree,” Jon added, “Tree Stump.”
“That’s a stupid name.” Spencer poked Jon with one of his sticks.
“Is not. I knew a guy named Bush.”
“You sure it wasn’t Butch?” Brendon asked.
“…Maybe, I dunno. Let’s just play.”
Brendon grinned.
~~~
Patrick looked out his window at the playground outside. Brendon and his friends were playing, probably singing, and Patrick smiled.
He strummed a few chords on his guitar, and ended up getting halfway through a song when Pete barged in. He sat on the piano bench, a few feet away from Patrick and the window.
“So your kid seems to have the complete works of Alan Menken memorized.”
“He’s not my kid, quit that.” But Patrick was still smiling. “Is he terrorizing you with his rendition of ‘A Whole New World’ too?”
“Every day. At least it’s not too terrible to listen to. If that kid doesn’t join choir I’ll eat your hat.”
“Hands off the hat.”
“Teeth off,” Pete corrected, grinning at him. “But yeah. Kid’s going to be famous one day, just you watch.”
“Yeah,” Patrick sighed, watching Brendon argue with Ryan about something. “Famous.”
Pete got up to go wrap an arm around Patrick’s neck. “And it’s your job to make sure he keeps on playing and singing, right?”
“Right.”
But Patrick got the feeling Brendon would grow up to be talented and successful even without his help. Maybe all of his friends would, too.
Either way, as long as there were more kids who loved music, Patrick had done his job right.
I'll Write It All Across The Wall (In Crayon)
RATED PG FOR MR. STUMPH'S delicious FOUL MOUTH.
Fandom: Bandom! \o/ Mostly Panic boys but with Fall Out Boys and a surprise William.
Pairing: ...Gen? Pete/Patrick if you squint? Cuddly first grade OT4?
Warnings: ...Swearing? Brent is a warning, I guess.
Summary: "When I grow up, I want to be Mr. Stumph." Same teeny universe as Send My Love to the Playground, which Eggo should be making a podfic of right now because she loves me.
Notes: This was supposed to be about first grade!Brendon's hero worship of Mr. Stumph the music teacher and Spencer's jealousy, but uh. It just kind of turned into a bunch of vignettes about Jon Walker being awesome Brendon being a giant nerd.
Patrick was sitting in the teacher’s lounge, very much enjoying his turkey wrap and Coke, when Pete just had to charge in to inform him that “Patrick, my dear, you have got yourself a stalker.”
“…What? If this is about your crackpot theory about the secretary-“
“No, no, a kid.” Pete sat down in the chair next to him, scooting over to be as far in Patrick’s lap as he could while still being in a separate chair. “Brendon. One of the Uries.”
“Oh, him?” Brendon was one of his favorite students, actually. A bit odd, but very enthusiastic about music for a kid his age. “You think he’s stalking me?”
“Well, seeing as he just tried to skip recess to go back to your class.”
“You’re shitting me. No first grader tries to leave recess.”
“Brendon does. Got as far as the front door where I was watching, too. I told him to go back to the playground and he pouted, pouted, do you know how hard it was not to give him a baby unicorn right there?”
“Because you keep baby unicorns in your pocket for any needy first grader who happens to wander by, of course.” Patrick rolled his eyes. “I really fear for your kids once you start teaching fifth grade next year, aren’t they working on similes and metaphors now?”
“Yes, and it’s awesome. Andy was showing me some of his papers, you should see what these kids come up with. He fell on the ground like a broken Weeble, how adorable is that?”
“Is this even your break?” Patrick checked the clock. Pete had a habit of skipping his own class just to talk to Patrick that was going to get him fired.
“They’re doing math worksheets, they’ll be fine.”
“You’re way too trusting. The second you left the room they probably ran for the paint.”
“…Shit, you think so?”
“I know so. You heard about what happened in that kindergarten class, didn't you?”
Pete paled and ran out the door before Patrick could also mention the other time Pete had left his first graders alone and came back to find Gabe trying to start a cult, weird snake symbols and speeches from on top of his desk and everything.
~~~
Brendon was so done with recess.
“It’s so boring,” he was telling Spencer underneath the jungle gym. “I’m bored with kickball and tag and four square. I want to go back to Mr. Stumph’s class.”
“You didn’t think it was boring when you got in trouble and had to stand against the wall instead of play,” Spencer pointed out.
It was true, he’d spent the whole time wishing he was on the swings, or running in circles, anywhere but against the wall, but. “That’s different. When you’re in trouble anything’s better.”
Spencer just sighed and lay back on the woodchips. “Well, you already tried, right?”
“Yeah, and stupid Mr. Wentz said music time was over and I had to wait until tomorrow.” Brendon crossed his arms. “Tomorrow, it’s not fair, we should have music all the time.”
“Maybe you could make music out here?”
Brendon looked at Spencer. “How? There’s no instruments.”
“We could sing. And clap.”
“And hit things with sticks! And I could bring in my toy trumpet!” Brendon pulled Spencer back into a sitting position so he could hug him. “Spencer, you’re so smart.”
~~~
Ryan already didn’t like Brendon’s band.
“We should make our own music,” he told Brendon at their first recess rehearsal. “At least then you’d stop getting the words wrong to other people’s songs.”
“I’m telling you, it’s mowa a shamble in a pretty cabinet. You just can’t handle the truth.”
“No, it’s definitely moan on a chandelier.”
“That’s not even a word, Ryan.”
“Yes it is! It’s in my dictionary, the one with the pictures. It’s one of those things with the candles on the ceiling.”
“Whatever, we just won’t do that song.” Brendon stuck out his tongue at Ryan.
“Uh, you guys?” Brent waved his hand to get someone’s attention. “I’m bored.”
“Me too,” Spencer said, the traitor. He was supposed to back Ryan up in anything, it’s what best friends do.
Ryan ignored both of them to keep up the argument about whether or not they should make up their own songs.
~~~
“Mr. Stumph, Mr. Stumph!” Brendon raised his hand in the middle of a lesson about the difference between ta and ti-ti. “How do you start a band?”
Mr. Stumph put down his chalk and looked at Brendon. “Brendon, could you ask me this later?”
“But it’s important!”
“Ask me after class.”
Brendon grinned. He’d never been asked to stay after class before, unless it was to get in trouble for trying to take one of the guitars. The only other time he’d stayed after was when he’d hidden in a cupboard and tried to pretend to be a third grader when they came in for their class. It didn’t work.
After music was over, Brendon walked straight over to Mr. Stumph instead of following everyone else back to Mr. Wentz’s room. “So how do you start a band?”
Mr. Stumph sat down at the piano bench, facing away from the piano. “Well, you have to be older.”
Brendon pouted.
Mr. Stumph laughed. “Don’t worry, you can still play music, but actually starting a band is difficult. You need money, and luck, and a group of people who are totally committed to putting up with each other.”
“…Did you ever have a band, Mr. Stumph?”
Mr. Stumph shrugged and looked away. “No, not really.” He looked back at Brendon. “Right now, you should just be thinking about if you want to join band or orchestra here at school.”
“But I can’t do that until third grade!”
“Then you’d better start practicing, so you’ll be the best third grader in the whole band once you join up.”
Brendon thought about it. “…All right.”
Mr. Stumph smiled and stood up. “Now come on, the third graders are going to be here soon, and Mr. Wentz is probably wondering where you are.”
~~~
“Mr. Stumph says we can’t have a band until we’re older,” Brendon told his band at recess that day.
“Okay,” Brent said, and walked off.
Brendon, Ryan, and Spencer sulked under the jungle gym for a while, trying to think of something else to do, when some kid they didn’t know climbed to the top of the jungle gym and looked down at them.
“Are you guys playing hide and seek? ‘cause that’s not a really good hiding spot.”
“No, we’re bored,” Ryan said, lying back to look up at the kid. “Who’re you?”
“Jon. I just moved here.” Jon jumped down and nearly landed on Spencer. “Why’re you bored?”
“Because Mr. Stumph says we can’t have a band,” Brendon said, lying back too.
“You could play pretend band?” Jon lay next to Ryan.
“That’s what I thought we were doing, until these guys got all serious,” Spencer said, stretching his arms and lying back. Now they were all staring up at the sky.
“Pretend band sounds good,” Brendon said with a yawn. “Maybe in a bit.”
“That cloud looks like a tree,” said Jon, pointing.
“And that one looks like a sneaker,” Spencer added.
“That one looks like a guitar.” Brendon liked the cloud game. And the new kid.
“That one looks like my wallpaper,” said Ryan.
“Your wallpaper looks like a bandana,” Spencer said, looking over at him. “With the squiggles and the dots.”
Jon just laughed, and the rest of them joined in.
~~~
Even if he couldn’t be in a real band, Brendon still wanted to play music. He watched Mr. Stumph play guitar, and Greta play piano (Greta was allowed to touch the piano because she had lessons. Brendon didn’t think it was fair, but he didn’t want to make Mr. Stumph mad at him) and he tried to learn as much as he could. It didn’t help much, especially since he wasn't allowed to actually play the instruments. Being in first grade sucked.
At recess, at least, he got to play invisible guitar and invisible trumpet and even invisible violin with Ryan and Spencer and Jon. But it wasn’t the same.
Some days, they’d be a parade, and Brendon would find a stick to wave up and down to lead the other three. Other days, they were an orchestra, and Brendon would find a smaller stick so he could conduct. Some days Ryan would get bored of Brendon being the leader all the time, so they’d be the Beatles, and Ryan would get to be John, even though it got confusing with Jon there.
“Can we be the Grateful Dead?” Jon asked one day, after Brendon and Ryan finished arguing about the difference between violins and violas (they eventually decided they were the same thing).
“What’re their names?” Brendon asked.
“I dunno. My dad listens to them. They’re kinda cool.”
“What’s so great about being dead?” Spencer asked.
“Maybe they’re zombies,” Brendon said, and they spent the rest of recess stumbling around and groaning and trying to eat girls’ brains.
~~~
“Maybe we should change the curriculum,” Patrick told Pete at lunch. “Y’know, let the kids get their hands on some instruments before third grade.”
“Don’t second graders still play recorders?” Pete asked through a bite of his sandwich.
“No, we had to stop that this year after one of them nearly choked on his.” Patrick rolled his eyes. “It’s stupid, banning the whole program for one kid.”
“Now, now, don’t let the wise and honorable administrators hear you saying things like that,” Pete said, complete with sarcastic jazz hands and a smirk.
“Like you ever gave a fuck for authority.” Patrick smirked back.
“Patrick Martin Stumph, do you use that kind of language around your students?”
“Okay, enough of the goody two shoes act, you’re killing me here.”
“All right, let me just pull my flask of vodka from out of my sock, then, that anti-establishment enough for you?”
They were still laughing together when Joe walked in, looking exhausted.
“Fifth graders?” Patrick asked. Teaching those monsters was hard enough on Andy, he couldn’t even imagine being their gym teacher.
“First graders. The Urie kid is going to be the death of me, I swear.”
“Oh, the one Patrick wants to adopt?” Pete chimed in. Patrick punched his arm.
“Go ahead, take him home, just don’t let him near your grandmother’s vase or something.”
“Or your hamster. Especially if he’s got paint,” Pete said with a grimace. Patrick didn’t ask.
“I’m not adopting him,” Patrick sighed, “I just think he’s a good kid who loves music.”
“So that’s why you want to change the curriculum!” Pete smirked as if he knew this anyway.
“That’s not-well, it-it’s just-Pete,” Patrick finally went with.
Pete just laughed. “Well, since even second graders can’t seem to handle instruments-“
“That was one kid!”
“Just up the singing or something. You can’t choke on your own throat.”
“Brendon could,” Joe said, sitting down in a chair a few feet from Pete’s.
“No, no, I think he’d be fine. He likes to sing.” Patrick leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling, thinking.
~~~
Mr. Stumph brought his own guitar to school one day. It was signed by someone famous and there were a few scratches across the front, which Mr. Stumph said added “character.”
He sang for them, which happened a lot in music class, but this time he just asked everyone to listen and sing along if they knew the words already, instead of find the song in their books. He sang a few songs Ryan knew, a few Brendon knew, and a few nobody knew but they all asked what they were so they could ask their parents to find them later. It was the best music class ever.
Brendon just wished he could sing like Mr. Stumph.
~~~
“When I grow up, I want to be Mr. Stumph,” Brendon announced to his fake orchestra that day at recess.
Jon put down his invisible cello. “I want to be a hippie.”
“Why?” Spencer asked. He walked right through his invisible xylophone to get closer to them.
“They seem so happy all the time.” Jon shrugged.
“Have you ever seen a real hippie?” Ryan asked, his invisible violin falling to the ground.
“No, but I see them on TV all the time. Even like, the news.”
“You watch the news?” Brendon stuck his tongue out.
“No, my dad watches it, and then I sit next to him and ask if we can watch Nick, but he makes me watch until the end of the show before he lets me change the channel.”
“Your dad’s lame,” Spencer said.
“Yeah, well, the point is, I want to be Mr. Stumph. That way I can play guitar, and read music, and sing.”
“You can sing now,” Ryan pointed out. “I can sing now.”
“You made that dog cry when you sang that one time,” Spencer added.
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
“Did not.”
“Are we going to sing?” Jon asked. “We could be like, those guys in the robes in Monty Python. But without the books.”
“You’re allowed to watch Monty Python?” Brendon stared at Jon.
“Never mind, your dad is awesome,” Spencer said, “Can we come to your house and watch it?”
They ended up being zombies again, in the end. Singing zombies.
~~~
“Gabe says if you try to eat my brains again, he’s going to put a plague on both your houses,” Bill told them at lunch the next day.
“But there’s four of us,” Brendon said.
“Yeah, well, that’s what he told me to say.”
“Why doesn’t he tell us himself?” Ryan asked.
“He’s busy drawing pictures of you guys getting eaten by snakes.”
They stopped playing zombies for a while. They tried to be singing vampires, but Gerard interrupted their game to say that he was the only singing vampire, and it just ended in a big argument about whether vampires were cooler than werewolves.
Ninjas won, in the end. Ninjas always win.
~~~
Mr. Stumph brought in his guitar again, and told everyone that if they were very, very careful, they could hold it.
Brendon’s hand shot up as soon as Mr. Stumph asked who wanted to go first.
“That’s E,” Mr. Stumph said as Brendon picked at the first string. “That’s A,” as he picked at the second.
Brendon repeated the letters to himself, even if he didn’t really get why they were there.
After he’d learned the names of each string, Mr. Stumph showed him where to put his fingers to make a chord. Then another chord, and another, and another, and then Mr. Stumph smiled at him and said, “Now you can play ‘Don’t Stop Believin’.’”
Brendon had never felt so awesome in his life.
~~~
“Let’s be rock stars today,” Brendon said at recess. “It’ll be good practice for when we have a real band.”
“We can’t be rock stars. You want to be a teacher,” Spencer said, but he was already looking for sticks to hit his invisible drums with.
“No I don’t, I want to be Mr. Stumph. I think he’s secretly a rock star.”
“You can’t be secretly a rock star. Rock stars are famous,” Ryan said.
“Maybe he uses a different name.”
“Yeah, like, Tree,” Jon added, “Tree Stump.”
“That’s a stupid name.” Spencer poked Jon with one of his sticks.
“Is not. I knew a guy named Bush.”
“You sure it wasn’t Butch?” Brendon asked.
“…Maybe, I dunno. Let’s just play.”
Brendon grinned.
~~~
Patrick looked out his window at the playground outside. Brendon and his friends were playing, probably singing, and Patrick smiled.
He strummed a few chords on his guitar, and ended up getting halfway through a song when Pete barged in. He sat on the piano bench, a few feet away from Patrick and the window.
“So your kid seems to have the complete works of Alan Menken memorized.”
“He’s not my kid, quit that.” But Patrick was still smiling. “Is he terrorizing you with his rendition of ‘A Whole New World’ too?”
“Every day. At least it’s not too terrible to listen to. If that kid doesn’t join choir I’ll eat your hat.”
“Hands off the hat.”
“Teeth off,” Pete corrected, grinning at him. “But yeah. Kid’s going to be famous one day, just you watch.”
“Yeah,” Patrick sighed, watching Brendon argue with Ryan about something. “Famous.”
Pete got up to go wrap an arm around Patrick’s neck. “And it’s your job to make sure he keeps on playing and singing, right?”
“Right.”
But Patrick got the feeling Brendon would grow up to be talented and successful even without his help. Maybe all of his friends would, too.
Either way, as long as there were more kids who loved music, Patrick had done his job right.