First off I suppose I should tell you a little about myself. My name is Riley Aaronson. I grew up in Brookline Massachusetts in the shadow of the great city of Boston. Plenty of great bands came out of the Boston area, Aerosmith, The Cars, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and well Boston of course, and my friends and I were going to try our damnedest to add Valefor to that list.

Valefor was your classic definition of a rock band. Alice Kelly played the guitar, her twin sister Ann sang. Kelsi, LeBeau played that drums and yours truly played the bass. We all met as kids around the Brookline area, we were all always interested in music and as our senior year in high school approached it’s end we began to pour all our effort into forming a band, that is when we weren’t studying and such, school comes first kids, remember that. Well I kind of mean it when I said school comes first, cause if it wasn’t for our high school we wouldn’t have had our first actual gig, playing the Senior Prom.

The bell for the end of fifth period rang through out the school signaling the daily migration to the cafeteria, that is if you had the third lunch period. I stopped at my locker and grabbed the books I’d need for the rest of the day, I placed them in my backpack, though I didn’t actually wear it on my back today, the was reserved for my bass case, we had a very important practice session planned after school this afternoon. As I closed my locker I saw one of the posters for the prom, included on it was a blurb of our band being the musical entertainment, and even though it was only Xerox toner it was good to see our name in print.

“Valefor, aren’t they a band made up of kids from this school?” said a girl near me who had no idea who I was or despite the Fender precision bass strapped to my back that I was in the band. “Man do we have the cheapest school or what?” she said as she turned her head, whipping her long red hair and began again down the hall. I didn’t know her name, it was a pretty big school and you can’t be expected to know everyone, plus I think she might have been a year below me, either way I gave her a little double take as she made her way around the corner.

“Don’t let her get you down Riley,” said Kelsi who had overheard what the girl had said. “We’re gonna be great, by this time next week everyone will know the name Valefor.”

After classes had ended I met up with the girls and we made our way into the gym.

“Wow, you can hardly tell this is the gym!” exclaimed Ann.

“Yeah you can, see up there,” pointed Alice. “There’s the basketball hoops,”

“Yes, well I suppose they can’t actually take those out now can they,” retorted Ann.

“It’s amazing what they can do with a hundred dollars of construction paper and few disco balls,” added Kelsi. “And just Look over there, there she is, our very own stage!” exclaimed Kelsi as she ran towards the far side of the gym where a stage had been built and her drum set was waiting to be assembled. The rest of us made our way to the stage and checked over the equipment. The school really went out of their way to get us some decent sound equipment, even if it was just a rental. I helped Kelsi set up her drums and get the pick up mikes just right. Once I was finished with that I plugged in my bass to the amp and strummed a few notes to get a sense of the sound system, everything seemed to check out.

“This is a pretty nice setup they have for us here,” I told the others.

“Yeah, it is nice,” added Ann. “Should be no problem playing here, and this list of song requests they gave us is very doable.”

“Totally,” agreed Alice. “Even though I’ve never heard of some of these songs I’m sure I could play them.”

“Well looks are one thing,” I said. “But how does this place sound? Before we get ahead of ourselves should we, you know, test the acoustics?”

“You’re right Riley,” replied Ann. “You have any particular number in mind?”

“Nothing too complicated, something simple just to get a sense for the room’s sound,” I said.

“Well how about, Learn to Fly. That’s a simple enough song, we were planning on starting with that song anyway,” proposed Kelsi while finishing the set up on her drums.

“That sounds like a plan, “added Alice who picked up her guitar and strummed a few chords, checking for tuning.

When all tuning and set up was complete Kelsi counted us off on her drumsticks and then her, Alice and myself broke into the opening riffs, we all harmonized beautifully, guitar, bass and drums merging together seamlessly, and when the first verse came along Ann joined in adding her voice to fully complete our unstoppable force of rock.

When we finished the song we didn’t expect to hear the sound of clapping but from the side of the stage there was a lone figure applauding our performance, to our surprise it was Dr. Walker, our school’s principal.

“Very good,” praised Dr. Walker. “Glad to hear you guys can actually play.”

“Thank you sir,” we all answered.

“I trust you got the song list vice principal Garnet authorized?” he asked.

“Right here,” answered Ann, shaking the list in her hand.

“Very good,” he responded, he then took out a folded slip of paper from his back pocket and handed it to me. “Seeing as I am the principal and all if you accidentally play one or two songs from this list I think I can let it slide.”

I then unfolded the paper and saw Dr. Walker’s list, labeled personal favorites it was more or less the short list of some of the best classic rock songs from the Sixties and seventies.

“I think we can work something out sir,” I answered.

“Excellent,” he said with a smile. “Very well, I’ll let you continue your practice then, I’m expecting good things tomorrow night.”

A few hours passed, a bead of sweat ran down my brow and stung as it entered my eye, we were all sweating a little. It takes a lot of energy to rock this hard.

“Everything seems to be in order,” said Kelsi, twirling a drumstick in her fingers. “I think we can call it a day”

“Yeah we all sounded great,” said Alice.

“And the acoustics are great,” added Ann.

“All true,” started Kelsi. “But there’s one thing we’re missing.”

“Pyrotechnics?” asked Alice.”

“No, but write that down for later, that sounds cool,” replied Kelsi. “What we need for now are cool rock monikers, I mean Riley’s ok, but Ann and Alice are a bit plain, needs more rock.”

“Yeah, I suppose you may have a point there,” said the plainly named Ann. “I guess I’ll go with Ayashi, I mean I use that name in pretty much every game I play, I suppose it can be my rocker name too.”

“Good name, I like it,” replied Kelsi, who then turned towards Alice. “How around you?”

“I was thinking maybe Saviris. It’s the name of a character in a story I’m writing, though Saviris is a dude in the story, but I like the name.”

“Alright, alright. So how about you Riley?”

“Um,” I said, beginning the thought process. “How about Ryle.”

“But that’s already your name,” protested Kelsi.

“Yeah, but you spell it with a y, makes it more edgy,” I countered.

“I suppose that works,” remarked Kelsi, weighing it all in her head. “Good names all around.”

“Well what about you?” I asked Kelsi.

“What about me?” she responded.

“What name are you going to use?”

“Well, Kelsi of course.” She answered. “My name already has the sense of rock credibility, so why try to build up on greatness?”

“Ok then,” I said. “Well either way, hands in every peoples.” I then held out my hand and the others soon followed. “Ayashi, Saviris, Kelsi and Ryle, with our rocking powers combined we form Valefor!”