Rose's Journal

Chapter 5: The Assignment

It was Friday morning, and Flynn came by Julie's house to pick her up for their last day of school before spring break.

"Are you ready to go?" Flynn said as she stood in front of the studio, waiting for her best friend.

"I'm coming," Julie said, frantically grabbing her stuff from the studio. "Bye guys," Julie yelled into the studio as she walked out the door.

Flynn looked into the garage and saw Alex holding up his whiteboard, "Good luck, Flynn, see you later!" the whiteboard read. Flynn smiled. Today, she was going to have to do a little detective work of her own.

Julie and Flynn walked to school. Flynn was quieter than usual: she hated the fact that she was lying to Julie about the boys, and it was getting to her.

"Flynn, what's wrong you've barely said two words to me. C'mon you should be excited this is the last day of school before spring break!" said Julie, trying to perk up her friend.

"Yeah," Flynn said, putting on a fake smile, "I️ am excited. I️ just didn't get a lot of sleep last night."

Now that was true. She stayed up half the night thinking about what the boys told and showed her. She was still struggling to believe that Bobby could have killed all 4 of them, but she needed to keep that thought far from her mind when she was around Julie. They needed to tell her, but Bobby was a sensitive topic for Julie, and Flynn knew and accepted that.

Flynn headed into her music production class. It was one of the few classes that her and Julie didn't have together. Carrie was in the class too and sat right in front of her, so she figured that this was the time to take her notebook. Mrs. Harrison was starting her lecture: another story about her girl group from the 90's that was "one discovery away from becoming the next TLC." Flynn purposefully dropped her pencil, so she had an excuse to get on the ground and take Carrie's planner. It all felt so Mission Impossible to her. She went down to grab the pencil and slowly made her way over to Carrie's backpack. But before she reached it, she was interrupted.

"Flynn," Mrs. Harrison said, "if you'd like to stop crawling on the ground, can I️ explain the spring break project?" The class laughed.

"Yeah, sorry I️ just needed to grab my pencil," Flynn said sheepishly. "Welp, here it is!" she said, turning around to grab the pencil behind her.

"Anyways, for your spring break project, you will pair up with someone you've never worked with to create an original two-minute song. It can be about whatever subject you want, and it can include lyrics or no lyrics, and it can be in whatever style you want."

Flynn smiled. This was her opportunity to ensure Carrie was distracted when the boys went to search the house.

"Hey Carrie," Flynn said as she tried to act as pleasant as possible. "Do you want to be partners for this project?"

Carrie laughed, "You and me? Partners? No, I'd rather eat paint."

"C'mon Carrie," Flynn said, with a big, corny smile, "We used to be great music production partners when you, me, and Julie used to be in our group together." Carrie tried to suppress a smirk. Some of her fondest early memories came from their girl group, but a lot has changed since then, and she didn't want to work with her.

"Well, I️ guess that leaves Carrie and Flynn to be partners," Mrs. Harrison said, trying to hide her concern.

"Wait... but... Mrs. Harrison.. I️-," Carrie began to say.

"Sorry Carrie, all the other partners have been taken, plus it might be good for you two to work together. I️ think you'll be more surprised with the results than you think."

"Ugh FINE," Carrie said, looking with disdain at her partner. Flynn just smiled: her plan was gonna work.

"So, Carrie," Flynn said, "what do you say we meet at your house around 2:30 on Monday to get started?"

"3:00," Carrie said, obviously trying to assert power, "and bring your turn tables so we can try out a few things."

The bell rang, and it was time to leave. Julie had to finish a test after school, so Flynn knew she had just enough time to go talk to the boys about the new play. "Hey guys," Flynn said bursting into the room, "we only have 30 minutes so we have to make this quick."

"'Sup Flynn?" Reggie's whiteboard said.

"Anyways," Flynn continued. "I️ got Willie a whiteboard, so he can stay in the conversations too." No one grabbed it. She figured Willie wasn't there. "Also, I️ got this for you too." She takes out an old flip phone. "It was my dad's before he got his new phone, and he's leaving it hooked up for when my brother gets a starter phone, and he's 10, so I️ figured we could use it for this. Plus, it's probably the only technology you guys can understand."

"That's only them," Alex's whiteboard said, "I️ can search an email inbox."

"Impressive," Flynn said sarcastically, rolling her eyes. "What's next, you're gonna tell me you also knew how to restart it?"

Alex frantically erased his whiteboard. Flynn could hear the squeaking and giggled a little at the fact that that was actually what he was gonna say.

"Back on task, we're going to Carrie's house Monday at 3:00. I'm working with her on a project for school, so that'll buy you guys some time to sleuth around," she said.

"We'll be there," Luke's whiteboard said, with a drawing of a smiley face next to it.

Reggie held up his whiteboard that said, "You can count on us," with a bad drawing of a thumbs up next to it.

Flynn smirked. Sure, she wished she could do all of this with Julie but having the boys as partners would work just fine, she hoped.