Page 2 of Sing For Me

“Nah,” I say, making up my mind in an instant. This is probably the kind of thing my mom always gets mad at me for.Impulsive, she calls me. I’m not totally positive what that word means, but one time I heard my dad laughing with her after they’d yelled at me for getting caught sneaking into one of the hotel pools on the last tour. “Kid acts first and thinks later,” my dad had said.

“Sounds like someone else I know,” Mom said, laughing with him.

I’m pretty sure that’s what impulsive means—acting first and thinking later. And mom would definitely get real mad at me if she could see what I’m about to do.

I grip the edge of the crate and give it a huge push. It’s heavy, but luckily it has wheels, and I manage to move it a couple inches.

“What are you doing?” Rose hisses.

“Giving us a way to see.” I push on the crate again, with my shoulder this time. It moves a little more.

“Awesome!” River calls softly. “I can see Daddy’s piano!”

“A couple more feet,” Rose tells me, crawling over to where I’m still pushing on the crate. She adds her shoulder to the side and we both give a good hard push—sending the crate sliding quickly forward, way faster than before. “The wheel must have been stuck!” Rose whisper-yells.

We both watch in silent terror as the crate keeps on rolling until it’s right on the stage. In the middle of Ransom’s sold-out show.

“Get down!” I whisper, pulling on Rose’s arm. We crawl across the dirty floor before throwing ourselves behind River’s crate. “Did anyone see us?” I pant.

“Uncle Lennon looked over here,” River whispers back. “But I don’t think he saw you.”

Peering over the crate, I can see my dad standing just a few feet away. He’s in the middle of a guitar solo, not paying any attention to what’s going on backstage, and I let out a relieved sigh. Across the stage, Uncle Lennon keeps looking over at the crate, probably wondering where the heck it came from. Then a roadie darts out to pull it back into the wings and I let out a relieved breath. We got away with it.

Rose slaps a hand over her mouth, giggling. I grin at her. Sometimes it’s fun to almost get caught.

“Ooh, I love this song,” Rose says happily, settling in next to me. The three of us rest our chins on the top of the crate, careful to keep our heads low. It doesn’t matter—from here we can see just about everything. Our dads playing their instruments. Uncle Lennon with his bass guitar. The flashing lights reflecting on the stage. And the huge crowd filling up the stadium, yelling and cheering for Ransom.

“This is so much better than the box,” I say, excited. For most of the shows, that’s where we sit, in the fancy boxes up at the top of the stadium with our moms and all of our cousins. There’s more room up there for the babies to play and for all of us to spread out—we have a super big family. And there’s usually a waiter who will bring me as much root beer as I can sneak without my mom noticing.

But the boxes are really far from the stage. Nothing like this little hideout in the wings. I’m close enough to see my dad’s fingers on the strings of his guitar.

“It’s definitely louder,” Rose says, rubbing her ears. “Now I know why mom always makes me wear those headphones when we come close to the stage during a show.”

“Louder is what makes it cool,” I say, eyes glued to my dad’s guitar. “Rock music issupposedto be loud.”

“Can you see Uncle Reed?” Rose asks, twisting her body around to see the back of the stage.

“Nah, can’t see him from here.” But the pounding of his drums means he’s out there with his brothers.

“Someday, I’m gonna be out there, too,” I mutter, mostly to myself. I have it all planned out. When I get older, I’m going to be a guitar player, just like my dad. I already know a bunch of my chords, which Grandpa says is really good for my age. By the time I’m a grown up, I know I’m going to be just as good as my uncles. Then they’ll have to let me in the band.

“Not me,” Rose says, shaking her head. “I would hate to have all those people looking at me.”

“How many people are there?” River asks, craning his neck to see the crowd. “A hundred?”

Rose snorts. “No way, Riv. This stadium seats twenty thousand people.”

River’s eyes go wide, like he can’t even imagine a number that big. I kind of feel the same way. I have no idea how many people that is, all I know is that it’s alot.

Because Ransom is the best band in the entire world and so, so many people want to come see them play live.

“I wish we were on the other side of the stage,” River says. “We can’t see Daddy’s face!”

Across the stage, my Uncle Daltrey is pounding on his piano keys while he sings, his back to us.

“It’s good we can’t see his face,” Rose mutters. “You’d probably wave at him or something and then we’d be caught.”

“I would not!” River cries, way too loud. I slap a hand over his mouth.