Read Online The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman by Ben H. Winters - Free Book Online Page B

perfectly straight blond hair and very pale skin. According to the band assignments Ms. Finkleman had just made, he was to play drums in Band Three, the one doing nineties rock.
    “Oh,” said Ezra. “Yeah. So, what are the bands called? ”
    “Hey, yeah,” echoed the girl sitting next to Ezra, Hayley Eisenstein, speaking thickly through her retainer. “Real rock bands aren’t just called Band Number One or Band Number Two.”
    There was a murmur of general approval.
    “Excellent question,” answered Ms. Finkleman, and looked quickly at Tenny, who nodded slightly. “Very well. Each band will decide upon its own name. We havevery little time to waste, so please divide into your bands and let’s take …” She glanced at her watch. “We’ll take thirty seconds to name the bands.”
    It took the rest of the period to name the bands. Band Number One, who would be playing sixties rock, swiftly devolved into discord when tambourinist Natasha Belinsky dismissed the first suggestion from drummer Chester Hu, which was Barf Hammer.
    “Ew! ” Natasha protested. “No way.”
    “Okey-doke,” replied Chester cheerfully. “How about Barf Machine?”
    “Ew!”
    “But we’re all agreed it should have the word ‘barf’ in it?” “No! Ew!”
    Band Number Two, the eighties rock band, was equally deadlocked over a suggestion from rhythm guitarist Carmine Lopez that it would be cool to name the band Floccinaucinihilipilification, because it’s the longest word in the English language. Rory Daas (lead vocals) protested that, first of all, Floccinaucinihilipilification would never fit on a T-shirt, and secondly, it isn’t the longest word in the English language—the longest wordis pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.
    Hayley thought those were both dumb, and she lobbied to name the band after her dog, who had recently been hit by a bus. Unfortunately, the late pet’s name was Ms. Pinkbottom, and nobody thought that sounded right. Carmine then suggested they name the band after the bus (“The M43! C’mon, that’s a great name!”), but Hayley didn’t think that was very funny.
    Only for Band Three, who would be doing nineties rock, did the naming conversation go smoothly, and only after its members remembered that they had an expert in their midst.
    “Um, so, Tenny—it’s Tenny, right?” said Suzie Schwartz.
    “What? Yeah.” Tenny was so rarely the center of attention that he was kind of startled to find the other seven kids in his assigned band staring at him.
    “Do you have any thoughts on a band name?”
    “Uh, yeah,” he said, with a little smile. “I mean, the name is, like, super key, you know what I mean? ”
    The other members of Band Number Three did not really know what he meant, and they looked at each other quizzically—except Pamela Preston, who exhaled heavily and looked at her watch.
    Like anyone who is really into rock, Tenny Boyer spent a lot of time coming up with cool band names. Some people like names that sort of
feel
like the music the band does, like Metallica or Devo or Soundgarden. Some band names are more like little stories, like the Grateful Dead, or Minor Threat, or They Might Be Giants. Some are just nonsense, like one of Tenny’s favorites, Pearl Jam. What’s a Pearl Jam?
    But Tenny had a special affection for band names that are the Somethings: like the Modern Lovers, or the B-52s, or the Replacements, or the Talking Heads.
    “Tenny? ” He looked up—whoops. He had totally drifted off into his own thoughts.
    “So, what do you think?” It was Bethesda Fielding, this intense girl with the glasses and the pigtails, who since yesterday was suddenly this big part of his life. She smiled at him encouragingly. “Do you have any suggestions? ”
    Tenny smiled. “The Careless Errors,” he said. “How about the Careless Errors?”
    Everyone in Band Three looked over at Bethesda, who had made this whole rock thing happen. (Except for Pamela, who looked at her watch