The Guitarist: Part One

     The orange Grundo stopped in his tracks. He ran his paw through his bright green hair as he turned to look at me. A slight, almost unnoticeable look of annoyance came upon his face, and though the expression went away as fast as it came, I could tell he was not his usual self. Something was amiss.

     "Johnson." I jogged up to him, flashing as bright a smile as I could. "I've been looking for you the whole day. Why didn't you go for practice today?"

     He looked at me long and hard, and I could feel his eyes drilling into mine. I couldn't help but shudder a little at the intensity of his stare. John had never looked at me like that before. It almost burned with a sense of contempt, even hatred. After a long pause, he finally answered.

     "Busy."

     This was not the Johnson I knew. We had known each other since our days as baby Neopets, and Johnson had been my best friend even before we knew how to speak. He was always the cheery Grundo who was mostly unaffected by anything and everything, who taught me how to live each day without worries, who would grip my arm tightly to signify his determination to stay by my side as my best friend no matter how difficult a phase I was going through. No, this wasn't the affable and optimistic Johnson I knew.

     "What's wrong, John?" I asked, concerned. I could tell he was upset - but why? The question lingered in my head. The intense glare, the reluctance to answer, the strange air about him - it was all wrong. As his best friend I always could read Johnson's mind like a book. For once in years I couldn't understand him.

     "It's none of your business," he spat. Malice sprouted from his words. With that, he left, continuing in his path, nonchalantly walking, as if the conversation never took place. As if we were only strangers who happened to cross each other's paths.

     "John?" I called. He only moved further and further away from me.

     ***

      "Mike! Can you PLEASE concentrate and stop playing all the wrong notes?" A commanding voice and a burly figure shook me back to reality.

      It was Tuesday once again, exactly one week after that chance meeting with Johnson on the street. Since that day I never saw him again. I tried to look for him everywhere - his Neohome, our favourite hangout, the Neopian shop he liked to go to... Nothing worked. He didn't come for band practice and no one could contact him.

      Johnson and I belong to a rock band called Gruundo. The four of us in the band - Henry, "Mupper", Johnson and I - were childhood friends with one true love - music. We especially liked rock bands like Wock Til You Drop and Sticks 'N Stones. They were, in fact, our childhood heroes - and yes, they are still our most favourite bands today. "Mupper", Johnson and I are almost equally adept at playing the electric guitar, something we picked up after watching our first Wock Til You Drop performance. We always enjoyed experimenting with our guitars, making weird but fun sounds, creating avant-garde, alternative rock music. The three of us sometimes get together to have impromptu jamming sessions at my Neohome - it always ended up in us composing a new song. Then "Mupper", as he wants to be called (as a boy he used to be teased for his name - Scarver - and so he made up this nickname for himself), decided that since we met up with each other so often, we might as well come up with our very own band, and so we roped in Henry as the drummer. And here we are today.

      As a band we were, I guess, pretty accomplished in the genre of rock music. We travelled frequently from our homeland in Kreludor to the Tyrannian concert hall to perform, and each time the attendance was almost full. Soon we had enough Neopoints to rent a small studio, and we no longer had to go to each other's house for our weekly practices. In fact, some of our wildest fans have even personally come to Kreludor just to drop by for a visit. We had a degree of popularity, dare I say, comparable to that of Sticks 'N Stones.

      "Has anyone seen Johnson, anyway?" At the sound of the name I jerked up, abandoning my thoughts. Mupper looked around the studio, with a worried look on his face. "I wonder why he hasn't come to practice these few weeks. Do you know why, Mike?"

      I shook my head sadly. Part of me was ashamed that even as a best friend I was ignorant of where he was. Another part of me blamed Johnson for not turning up for practice for so long. It seemed as though he was ready to quit the band - which was exactly what I was tremendously afraid of.

      "Do you think he'll be coming anytime soon?" Henry asked. Mupper and I simply shrugged.

      Then, as if on cue, the studio door swung violently open, and there stood an orange Grundo with that very familiar green hair - Johnson. Henry, Mupper and I were dumbfounded.

      "John!" I shrieked, my mouth still hanging wide open. "Where did you -"

      "I'm quitting," he said, in a cold, unfeeling voice. His face bore no expression whatsoever.

      "You're…what?" Henry, like the rest of us, was wildly shocked as well.

      "I'm quitting this band. I'm of no use here anyway. I bet Gruundo can survive with just the three of you experts." The tinge of sarcasm in his voice stabbed at my heart.

      For a while, the room experienced a deadened silence, unnatural and awkward.

     "What do you mean?" I asked, breaking the silence. As soon as the words left my lips I regretted even asking that question. He could, at that point, simply lash out at each and every one of us in the studio. Apparently I had said something without thinking - what if the reply was too hard a blow for me?

     But Johnson was quiet. His eyes, full of fires of spiteful anger, even hatred, pierced me deep and hard, as if he was trying to answer with his eyes.

     "You all know full well what I mean." And he went out, as abrupt as he came.

     ***

     It had been two weeks after Johnson's departure, and Gruundo had not been performing well. In actual fact, we had not been performing at all. Without Johnson, we no longer looked forward to each practice, simply because our cheerful element was not there anymore.

     What was worse, without Johnson's bass part, all the songs had to be redistributed between Mupper and me, and difficulty coping with extra stress and workload made each of our performances a big flop. Neopians no longer wanted to pay to watch our concerts. We lost a large part of our fan base. What with all that competition from other up and coming rock bands, our ticket sales dipped even more. But what was worse, I would say, was that we no longer enjoyed ourselves playing music anymore. Not without Johnson.

     If John was here he would have said something like, "Aw, come on. Don't you think you guys need more perseverance than that?"

     If he was here. And if he wasn't acting all strange, like he did two weeks ago.

     I still didn't understand why Johnson claimed that we should be able to comprehend what he said. Why did he think that he was useless in the band? Could it be something we did?…I tried hard to recall incidents when we had been nasty to him - but he must have forgiven us! I never knew John as one to hold grudges. Quickly I tried to divert my attention to thinking about why he should stay. Had he forgotten the first day we formed our band, when we said we would stay together for as long as we lived? I was his best friend - all the more reason he shouldn't leave!

     I was sitting in Hubert's Hotdogs, pondering hard over John's sudden departure, searching my heart and mind for an answer. Henry, coming back with a plate of piping hot hotdogs, sat next to me.

     "Mike," he began, munching on a Water Hotdog. "Stop thinking so much about it. What has happened has happened." He handed me a Hotdog, but I pushed it away with my paw.

     "Don't starve yourself, Mike. He's not going to come back even if you don't eat for days. And - you'll need a full stomach to think better, don't you?"

     I relented and took the Hotdog. Henry was a natural born coaxer. Somehow he was always able to persuade us to do what he wanted. I grinned in remembrance of the time when he convinced us to perform without him, simply because he wanted to spend that day with his cousin who came to visit. I don't know how, but we made do without a drummer that night, and actually managed to do quite well…wait a second - maybe he can help convince Johnson to come back!

     "Henry, do you think you can persuade Johnson to come back to the band?" I inquired, hoping that he would say yes. "I mean, you're such a great persuader,"

     The drummer paused for a while. Slowly, he said, "Well, as the assistant leader of the band I am obliged to question John over his abrupt exit…but whether I can get him to come back would be another matter all by itself. And then there's another problem - we don't even know where he is. Have you tried looking him up in his Neohome?"

     "I have. He's never there. Looks like he's made up his mind to avoid any contact with us, so much so he's willing to abandon even his Neohome."

     The two of us were silent for a while, looking out of the glass window at the Neopets and Neopians passing us by.

     "You know," Henry said quietly, breaking the silence between us. "The only other time we had such difficulty with Johnson was when we lost the Neopian Guitar competition. Mostly he's a nice guy, but he can act pretty extreme when he's provoked."

     I nodded slowly. That Guitar Competition incident, as we had come to call it, took place not too long ago. In fact, I can still remember vividly what happened then…

To be continued...