We are beautiful on Magical Arts Room and Sports

Georgia Kirkly

November 11, 2018 2:17 AM

We are beautiful by Georgia Kirkly

Georgia stood outside the MARS room, taking a deep breath. She wanted to improve her singing. She really did. But she was finding the time spent with the stuffy portrait she’d come to know within those walls harder and harder to stomach each time she came down here for a lesson. She had never realised how much it lay within her power to do something about this. For all that MARS was a projection of her own subconscious, she had a stereotype of what a singing teacher should be, and that had come into her early experiences with the room. She couldn’t deny that those portraits had taught her well but she hadn’t been happy singing with them, much as she wasn’t really happy singing with the choir. She sang because she enjoyed it, because music was uplifting, and because she was actually starting to believe she was really quite good at it. Or rather, she wanted all those things to be true. The stuffy old portraits who wanted to force her to learn classical pieces, who drilled her remorselessly and talked about her ‘attitude’ had rather sucked the fun out of it. Choir was sort of fine, but she - ironically - didn’t feel like she really had a voice there either. She couldn’t make her own choices about what to sing because she lacked a shared reference with a lot of the other people involved.

She pushed open the door, ready to find an austere looking witch brandishing a wand and a tuning fork, but instead there was a tall, slim portrait of an elegant black woman, her dress studded with sequins, painted in the jaunty angular scenery of an Art Deco style night club. The name under the frame informed her that she was speaking to Eleanora Cole.

“Good evening,” Georgia began, a little formally, because the previous portrait had been very clear that ‘Hi’ was not an acceptable greeting. “Uh, you’re not Madam Warble. Where’d she go?”

“This is your room, honey,” Eleanora smiled. “So, I think I should be asking you that. Why, do you want her back?”

“Not really…” admitted Georgia.

“I guessed as much. If you’ve got something different, it’s probably because you came looking for something different. So, what are you looking for in a singing teacher?”

Georgia considered this question. The honest answer was someone who was just… a bit nicer. A bit more chill. Someone who would let her sing what she wanted. But she was worried that all of that made her sound like she lacked discipline. Which, she sort of worried was true.

“I want to improve,” she said, starting with the positives, “I really do. It’s just… I feel like Madame Warble and I had… uh… pretty different tastes,” she said, finally finding her rather dormant Teppenpaw tact. “I guess, as I was opening the door, I was thinking about how even though I wanted to sing, I didn’t really want to see her… And how I wanted to… uh, have fun.”

To her surprise, this did not produce a negative reaction. In fact, it was quite the opposite.

“Sounds good to me!” beamed Eleanora, “Singing should be passionate. It should bring joy. Unless, of course, you’re singing the blues. But I prefer jazz. Quick beats. Things people can have a good time to. How about you?”

“Uh, well… I know mostly Muggle music,” Georgia explained. Again, there was no comeback on this, but Eleanora merely nodded encouragingly, “And there’s a few songs I want to sing. Songs that make me feel good.”

“I might not know them, but you just dream me up the sheet music and we can give them a shot. I can run you through some of my favourites too,” Eleanora nodded encouragingly.

*

Half an hour in, Georgia was having a great time. Maybe the best time she’d ever had in MARS, or with signing. She had selected ‘Beautiful’ by Christina Aguilera - a choice which Eleanora had, obviously, not been familiar with, but which had been met with enthusiasm nonetheless. Eleanora had delighted in the message of the song and they had bonded further over how people could (in Georgia’s words) kick you down for who you were (Eleanor had corrected her, and pointed out that they could try). Georgia still couldn’t hit or hold all the notes, but it was a challenging song and she felt like she was making progress. She was still struggling with the bridge of the song, which was not only musically challenging but just… didn’t feel like a voice she could really own. She didn’t have the attitude and the swagger to sing like that… There was something about Eleanora’s personality though, that made her want to belt things out and really give it her all - something that the staid and polite music of Madame Warble had definitely not suited. And when you went for it, it got easier.

They had just worked their way through the song together, when the door opened.

“Uh, hey,” Georgia greeted them. She had always assumed that the MARS rooms were sound proof - she certainly had never heard anything from the other side of that door - and so presumably they had not just witnessed that performance. Although she found she minded a lot less than she would have done before. It wasn’t like she never sung in front of people, what with being in choir. This was a rehearsal and it hadn’t been perfect, but she didn’t find she had any embarrassment about what she was doing. “Were you wanting to use the room? If you’re ever looking for a singing teacher, by the way, this is Eleanora,” she added. She wondered whether it was weird to introduce the portrait, but it seemed rude not to. “She’s really cool.”

13 Georgia Kirkly We are beautiful 346 Georgia Kirkly 1 5

Jasmine Delachene

November 11, 2018 5:23 PM

No telling how far we'll go by Jasmine Delachene

One of Jasmine's favorite passtimes was going into the MARS music room to sing to Disney songs. It was a different kind of good to how she played soundtracks at home and belted out the lyrics with her mom and siblings. That was fun in a social way. The MARS room was fun in an awesome way: she could actually ride a magic carpet or sail on a wayfaring ship or climb a snowy mountain; basically do whatever the animated character had been doing during their movie. It was amazing, and definitely not something she could do at home.

As she stepped into the room today, feeling in a Moana mood (as could be immediate assessed by anyone with eyes given that she was currently wearing a Moana dress and a Heart of Te Fiti necklace right now), she was initially confused that she wasn't standing on a tropical island beach, but was instead inside a boring room with a portrait hanging on the wall. She never had portraits for her singing sessions herself because she wasn't interested in improving her vocal techniques or anything. She just wanted the Disney Magic.

Then she noticed the older girl - one of the prefects, judging by the badge on her robes, though not one Jasmine had ever had any kind of contact with, nor did she know exactly what year the girl was in either: just that they were far apart enough apart in age that they had never shared a class. "Uh, hi," she said, sounding more apologetic than like she was offering a greeting. She hadn't meant to interrupt anyone else's visit to the MARS room.

Jasmine looked in mild confusion at the portrait of the dark-skinned woman. Tiana, her mind said, even if the resemblance ended at the skin color. "Uh, hi," she said again, just as awkwardly the second time. "Nice to meet you." Her gaze shifted back to the older girl, "I'm Jasmine," she said, in case her own identity wasn't something that had gotten carried up into the Advanced Class, which she wasn't sure why it would be, other than her being friends with Arianna Tate. "I . . . don't really need a singing instructor," she said, not sure if this was a previously unknown personal failing or not. She had no idea if her singing voice was any good or not, though Mom told her it was (Mom, however, was not an unbiased judge of such things, even Jasmine knew that). She just sang for her own enjoyment. She wasn't even part of Choir anymore - she'd tried it briefly during her first year, because Peyton did (or maybe Peyton did because Jasmine thought it might be fun; she didn't remember anymore) - but just singing for the sake of singing wasn't really what she liked to do and the club hadn't been as fun as she'd hoped. She liked her songs to carry a plot, or at least a characterization. Jasmine didn't just sing; she acted. If Sonora ever got a Drama club together that did musicals, Jasmine would be all over that, but that sounded like way too much work to try to organize herself, or to expect anyone else to bother with either.

"I . . . can come back later," she said, edging back toward the door. "I was just going to sing some Disney songs."

1 Jasmine Delachene No telling how far we'll go 1397 Jasmine Delachene 0 5

Georgia

November 12, 2018 7:15 AM

Be our guest by Georgia

"Disney?" Georgia asked in surprise. She was about to ask whether they weren't a bit old for that but stopped herself, both because she realised that might hurt the other girl's feelings and because... "Actually, that sounds kind of fun.” Maybe she would get Eleanora to do some with her another time.

"I'm Georgia," she added, realising she had failed to introduce herself when she'd introduced the painting. She had sort of got out of the habit, she supposed, with Sonora being such a small school and now with being a sixth year - it wasn't like anyone in their classes didn't know who everyone else was by now. But Jasmine wasn't in her classes. And although Georgia had paid limited attention to the third years last year, she was pretty sure Jasmine had not been amongst them. And, as Jasmine was not a small Teppenpaw and thus had not had Georgia pointed out as one of her prefects, had no reason to really know her name. Jasmine's face and even her name kind of rang a bell but Georgia definitely wouldn't have been able to volunteer the information if asked.

"Thanks for the lesson. This was great," she smiled, turning back to Eleanora, "But I don't want to stop someone else using the room. I'd definitely like to work with you again though," she added.

"My pleasure. And I look forward to next time. Just think of me when you walk through that door," she smiled, and then the portrait vanished with a pop.

“Ok… Want me to leave you to your Disney songs?” she asked Jasmine. Georgia was feeling more and more like having a nostalgia-fest the longer she had to think about it, but she also knew that singing might not be something everyone wanted to do in front of someone else. Or, even if they did, that they wanted to extend ‘someone else’ to people who were weirdly older than them, and she wasn’t going to hang around unless invited.

13 Georgia Be our guest 346 Georgia 0 5