Chapter 137: one night without a plan

Chapter 137 — One Night Without a Plan

The notice was pinned to the student activity board in cheerful purple ink. Open-Mic Night, Thursday, the Lower Hall. Sing, recite, joke, juggle, confess. Participation voluntary. Judgement optional.

Roxanne read it while Isla and Tessa crowded in on either side.

"We’re going," Isla said at once. "All of us. I’ll bring a blanket."

"It’s indoors," said Tessa. "I’m performing. Something competitive."

"You can’t compete in an open mic."

"Watch me." Tessa’s eyes had gone narrow and bright. "I could do a feats-of-strength recital. Or an impression of Professor Wren. Whichever is more impressive."

"Neither is a talent," Isla said.

"Both are gifts."

The argument carried them halfway down the corridor before Roxanne could slip a word in. "I’m going to attend one event without being responsible for anything," she declared. "I’m sitting in the audience. I’m not carrying, organising, or fixing."

Isla looked delighted. "Wonderful. You can be responsible for buying snacks."

"I’m leaving both of you behind."

She did not leave, of course. She was still standing there ten minutes later, listening to Tessa rank her own imaginary acts in order of difficulty.

She met Liam outside the student centre that afternoon, sitting on a low wall with a stolen apple. He heard about the notice before she had finished mentioning it.

"Are you performing?"

"No."

"You answered too quickly."

"Would you prefer a written explanation?"

"You should do comedy."

"I’m surrounded by enough comedians without volunteering to become one."

"You have exactly the right personality. Sharp, unimpressed, faintly threatening."

"You mistake insulting people for a talent."

"It is a delicate art," Liam said solemnly. "Years of practice."

She laughed, and he saw that she had hesitated, a small pause before the laugh that she had not meant him to catch. He took a bite of his apple. She waited for the dare, the grin, the elaborate wager.

"Watching other people embarrass themselves is also very entertaining," he said instead. "Underrated hobby."

"That’s it?"

"That’s it."

He went back to his apple. It was, she thought, oddly kind.

On Thursday evening the Lower Hall had been turned into something between a café and a coronation. Mismatched chairs stood in uneven rows, a battered stool waited at the centre of a low stage, and a microphone leaned against it like a tired guest. Roxanne sat between Isla and Tessa with a bag of toffee in her lap, which she had bought as instructed.

It was gloriously imperfect. A boy sang half a ballad, forgot the second verse, laughed, and sang the first again, to cheers. A girl read a poem about her grandmother’s kitchen that silenced the entire room, then drew applause so loud that she ducked behind her pages. Two roommates performed a sketch about the horrors of shared dormitory bathrooms, with a plunger as a recurring villain, and Roxanne laughed so hard she dropped a toffee.

She loved watching them. People she had passed in corridors for months turned out to be quietly funny, or moving, or magnificently terrible, and not one of them seemed to be measuring anyone’s rank. The academy felt like a school full of young people trying things.

When a trembling first-year finished a clumsy song to warm applause, Isla elbowed her. "You could do that."

"I could also fall asleep in the back row. Both are possible."

"I’m choosing to ignore your lack of ambition."

Roxanne grinned and turned back to the stage.

Halfway through the evening, the host, a gangly third-year with a paper crown and a growing air of panic, stepped up to the microphone. "Our next performer has, ah, withdrawn. Very sudden. Illness of the nerves." A pause. "Does anyone want to fill a few minutes?"

Silence. Someone coughed.

"Roxanne should go up," Tessa whispered. "And complain about the quality of the acts."

"No."

"You’d be wonderful."

"No."

But the host was shifting from foot to foot, and the audience had begun to rustle and murmur the way crowds do when a gap opens. Roxanne watched his hand tighten on the microphone stand. She remembered, quite suddenly and quite clearly, what it felt like to stand alone in front of a crowd that was waiting.

She did not want to perform. She stood up anyway.

"I’ll help you fill the gap," she said, climbing the two steps. "I won’t do an act. I’ll just keep them occupied until the next person is ready."

The host nearly wept with gratitude. He thrust the microphone into her hand and fled to the wings.

The lights were warmer than she expected. She looked out at the sea of faces and her stomach gave one quick lurch. Then she found Isla’s grin and Tessa’s thumbs-up, and she took a breath.

"Apparently," she said, "the most dangerous thing at Moonstone Academy isn’t an advanced training exercise. It’s a microphone and an audience with free time."

The room laughed. It was a good laugh, warm and surprised, and it loosened something in her chest.

"I’d like to thank the performers so far. The boy who forgot his song, you were brave. The plunger, you were the star." More laughter. "I’m told the next act will be along shortly. In the meantime, I’ll remind you that the toffee at the back is excellent and the chairs are not, and that if you have stage fright, it helps to remember that nobody is looking at you. They’re all looking at the person next to them, worrying about their own face."

She finished with a small bow, and the applause was louder than she had earned. She was not suddenly a professional. She had simply discovered that a little attention could be pleasant when she was the one who chose it.

She slid back into her seat to find that the row had grown by one. Liam sat on the end, boots stretched out, a coil of cable looped over his shoulder. He had plainly been helping move equipment.

"So," he said. "You’ve been hiding a talent."

"I spoke for three minutes."

"Three unforgettable minutes."

"Were you even listening?"

"Unfortunately. Now I’ll have to hear about your rise to fame for days."

She rolled her eyes, but the pleasure of it lingered. Liam did not tease her about nerves. He did not suggest she do it again.

"Did you enjoy yourself?" he asked.

"I did."

"Then it was worth doing." He said it with perfect simplicity, looking at the stage, and the joking fell away for a moment like a coat slipped off. Roxanne realised he could encourage her without turning everything into a game.

Then he turned. "Will you be signing autographs?"

"I’ll throw you off that stage."

"I’ll consider it a compliment."

Afterwards they walked back toward the dormitory in the cold, Isla and Tessa trading verdicts on the best acts. Tessa maintained that the plunger had deserved a prize. Isla nominated the poem. They argued the whole way, and nobody asked Roxanne to take charge of anything, and nobody treated her three minutes as a grand achievement. It was precisely what she had wanted. For once, she had tried something simply because the chance had appeared and she felt like taking it.

At the dormitory door, her phone buzzed. Liam.

Next open-mic night, I’m performing.

She typed: I’ll make sure I’m busy that evening.

You can’t escape greatness.

Roxanne laughed and put the phone in her pocket.

"The organisers are posting recordings on the student page," Isla said casually, pulling open the door. "Of the whole evening. I overheard."

Roxanne stopped on the threshold. She had not thought about people watching it later, strangers, over breakfast, with the sound turned up.

Isla grinned at her expression. "Relax. You were good."

Roxanne groaned, and walked inside. The peaceful evening was probably over. But as she climbed the stairs, she noticed that the idea of being seen did not feel entirely unpleasant.