Chapter 3 - Stay Standing
Malik woke the next morning to half a million strangers knowing his face.
He preferred when only forty-three students at Jefferson Arts Academy knew he existed.
His mother had already left for work.
A note sat beside a bowl of cereal.
DO NOT SKIP BREAKFAST BECAUSE YOU'RE INTERNET FAMOUS.
— MOM
Malik smiled.
He ate standing beside the counter while scrolling through messages.
Some praised his voice.
Some asked where they could hear the full song.
One person offered to buy him a keyboard.
Another offered shoes.
Malik deleted that message immediately.
He knew generosity wasn't always insulting.
But after being laughed at for looking poor, accepting gifts from strangers felt too close to agreeing with the people who had decided poverty was the most interesting thing about him.
At school, hallways changed when he entered them.
Students nodded.
Some clapped.
Others called out, “Stay Standing!”
The attention made his shoulders tighten.
Jordan wasn't at his locker.
Brianna was.
She approached cautiously.
“Hey.”
Malik kept walking.
She matched his pace.
“I wanted to apologize.”
“For which part?”
Her steps slowed.
He stopped.
Brianna looked genuinely uncomfortable.
“The laughing.”
“You'll have to narrow it down.”
“I deserved that.”
“Yes.”
She folded her arms.
“I was being stupid.”
“You were being honest.”
“What does that mean?”
“You saw somebody carrying something cheap and thought it was funny.”
Brianna looked down.
“I didn't know you could play like that.”
Malik stared at her.
She immediately understood the mistake.
“That sounded terrible.”
“It sounded honest.”
“I meant—”
“You thought I needed to earn basic respect first.”
“No.”
“Then why did my voice change whether laughing at me was okay?”
Brianna had no answer.
Malik walked away.
She didn't follow.
During third period, Ms. Reed called him into the music office.
A manila folder lay on her desk.
“I checked your attendance,” she said. “No problem. Academic standing, no problem. Discipline, nothing.”
“So?”
“Your audition application was changed.”
Malik sat.
“Changed how?”
“The original copy listed you for talent-show consideration and regional scholarship consideration.”
“And the copy in the office?”
“Talent show only.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Who changed it?”
“I don't know yet.”
“Can people just erase stuff?”
“Not legally or ethically, no.”
She showed him photocopies.
The scholarship box on one version had been checked.
On the other, it had been covered with correction tape.
Malik felt anger arriving slowly.
That frightened him more than sudden anger.
“Why would somebody do that?”
Ms. Reed hesitated.
“There are two regional nominations.”
“Who?”
“Jordan Banks is one.”
“Already?”
“His paperwork was processed before auditions.”
Malik leaned back.
“So why audition?”
“That is exactly what I'm asking.”
The second presumptive nominee was senior vocalist Alyssa Grant, a student Malik respected.
Unlike Jordan, she deserved consideration.
Ms. Reed explained that the audition committee was supposed to evaluate everyone first.
Instead, Jordan's nomination had been entered five days ago.
“Who signs those?”
“The principal and department chair.”
“You're department chair.”
“I didn't sign it.”
The room became still.
Malik looked at her.
“You're saying somebody signed your name?”
“I am saying the digital record says I approved something I never approved.”
For the first time, the situation felt larger than teenage cruelty.
Malik thought about Jordan's confidence.
Talent show, not donation drive.
That hadn't sounded like nervous competition.
It had sounded like someone who believed the stage already belonged to him.
“Ms. Reed?”
“Yes?”
“Jordan knew.”
“I can't prove that.”
“He wasn't scared of losing.”
“Confidence isn't evidence.”
“No. But fear is.”
She studied him.
“What fear?”
“After I played.”
Malik remembered Jordan's face when applause erupted.
It hadn't been simple embarrassment.
It had been alarm.
Later that afternoon Malik returned to the practice room.
The battered keyboard sat on a folding stand.
He opened the voice-recorder app on his phone.
His original demo of “Stay Standing” had been recorded there three weeks ago.
He always recorded new songs because he couldn't afford studio time.
He opened the file information.
September 11.
8:42 p.m.
Then he noticed something.
Beneath the file appeared a cloud-sharing history he had never examined before.
The school tablet he sometimes used for recording automatically synchronized files to Jefferson's student media server.
His demo had synced.
September 11, 8:48 p.m.
Downloaded:
September 13, 4:16 p.m.
Malik frowned.
He had never downloaded it.
He opened the device details.
Access account:
BCOLE_MEDIA.
Brianna Cole.
Malik stared at the screen.
Behind him, a floorboard creaked.
He turned.
Brianna stood in the doorway.
She looked at his phone.
Then at his face.
All the color drained from hers.
“Malik,” she whispered.
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He held up the screen.
“Tell me why you downloaded my song.”
