Read Rock 'n' Roll Rebel Online
Authors: Ginger Rue
Rock 'n' Roll Rebel
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2016 Ginger Rue
Cover illustration by Amanda Haley
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews and articles. All inquiries should be addressed to:
2395 South Huron Parkway, Suite 200, Ann Arbor, MI 48104
© Sleeping Bear Press
Printed and bound in the United States.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Rue, Ginger, author.
Title: Rock ân' roll rebel / written by Ginger Rue.
Description: Ann Arbor, MI: Sleeping Bear Press, [2016]
Series: Tig Ripley; book 1 | Summary: Looking to propel her into the spotlight at her middle school, thirteen-year-old Tig Ripley starts an all-girl rock band with her cousin and two school friends.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016007658
ISBN 9781585369454 (hard cover)
ISBN 9781585369461 (paper back)
Subjects: | CYAC: Rock groups--Fiction. | Popularity--Fiction. Middle schools--Fiction. | Schools--Fiction. | Self-perception--Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.R88512 Ro 2016 | DDC [Fic]--dc23
LC record available at
https://lccn.loc.gov/2016007658
For the Orbits, who never made a record or sold out a concert hall, but whose drummer is still one of my all-time favorites. I love you, Daddy!
Contents
O
n the long list of reasons why Tig Ripley shouldn't have set out to form an all-girl rock band, probably the biggest was the fact that she couldn't play an instrument or even sing particularly well.
But Tig had never been one to let details interfere with her plans.
After all, there were so many good reasons to do itâlike major middle-school street cred, for one. If she were in a bandâand the leader of it, no lessâshe'd cease to be a background extra in the drama that was Lakeview Heights Middle School.
She'd become the leading lady, and girls like Regan Hoffman, with their sixth sense of exactly how many bangle bracelets to stack per arm and when to put a belt with a dress for a touch of I-just-threw-this-togetherâwell, they'd just be gnats on an Alabama summer night. Who could compete with a girl who plays drums?
But the real catalyst behind Tig's interest in playing drums? Truth was, it had a lot to do with Will Mason.
No, Will Mason wasn't some dreamy, unattainable guy Tig barely knew but had been pining away for since he'd accidentally brushed up against her in the hall or asked to borrow a pencil. Hardly. What Will lacked in dreaminess, he more than made up for in annoyingness. One might have said Tig and Will were friends . . . except for the fact that she couldn't stand him. They sat at the same lunch table, but that was more a function of their having the same social status (basically none) and the same circle of friendsâthe pretty-smart B students who could have probably made As if they cared enough to try.
Will played drums in the school band and carried sticks in his back pocket at all times. Tig felt that Will thought this made him cool, so one day when he began teasing her about her hair, her braces, or one of the other billion things he picked on her about, she decided to set him straight.
“Let me guess: you're so into your music that you can't be without your drumsticks for even a moment?” she asked. “Or do you just want everyone to know you're a drummer because that's, you know,
such
a big deal?”
“I suppose you think you could play the drums, Antigone,” he countered.
Tig's first name was Greek and pronounced
Ann-TIG-ah-nee
, but Will liked to pronounce it
AN-ti-gone
, as in, “against going away.”
“I'm sure I could if I felt like it,” Tig said.
“Yeah, right. Girls don't play the drums.”
Of all the guys to get stuck next to at lunch. Will always sat at the end of the adjoining table of his best friend, Sam, so Will and Tig usually ended up elbow to elbow.
“Um, 1960 called,” she said. “They want their male chauvinism back. What, you think girls aren't strong enough to beat two puny little sticks against a circle? Or we're afraid we might break a nail?”
Will scoffed. “It's not an issue of physical strength. It's an issue of leadership. Drummers set the pace. The whole band depends on them for the beat.”
“You're actually saying a girl couldn't lead a band?” Tig asked.
“The truth hurts.”
“For your information, if you can learn how to play the drums, it can't be that hard. I could probably get in a band before you could.”
“Maybe,” he said, trying to sound like he wasn't riled. “It's good business to throw a good-looking chick in a rock band. Probably get more gigs that way.”
Although Tig was a little thrown by the “goodlooking chick” comment (did Will think she was good-looking?), she was more focused on his ridiculous arrogance. Like he knew anything about business or gigs. Did he not realize he was thirteen, like nearly everyone else in their class? “I suppose you're speaking from your vast gigging experience in the band room, playing snare with a metronome?”
“Haters gonna hate,” he said.
“And furthermore, you assume that bands are made up of guys.”
“They are.”
“Ever hear of the Go-Go's?”
“I think you just made my point. The only girl band you can think of is from, like, thirty years ago. And besides, the only reason you know who they are is because you saw their documentary on VH1 about how they crashed and burned. Girl bands are gimmicks. They don't work.”
“How would you know?”
“Because girls can't get along, period, much less keep a band together. Girls are too jealous of other girls. They can't trust one another.”
“Will, you're such a doofus,” said Kyra, who'd been half listening while drinking her water.
Somebody else at the table changed the subject, and that was that.
Except that it wasn't.
Because when Tig got home, she called Big Daddy. “I want to learn how to play the drums,” she told him.