“I’m pretty sure choir and band take up his schedule. He doesn’t have time to add another club to his schedule. Do you think your grandmother can get a job up here? Then we can just sign her up.” I was nervous to ask anyone.

“What about your dad?”

I shook my head. “Against school policy. I already asked.”

“Let’s just ask Mr. Everett. The worst he can say is ‘no’ and then we’ll ask someone else. Oh. We can also ask Ms. Hill, the librarian.” She nudged me down the hallway to the choir room.

“I don’t think the library is the best place for us. We won’t be able to be quiet.” I didn’t mention that the library was in the middle of campus. If we met there, anyone could see who was in the club and hassle us. I wasn’t as worried for myself because I had the football team behind me, but I didn’t want to put anyone else in a bad position.

“Then we should try to get the choir room. It’s carpeted and virtually soundproof,” Hayley said.

“Does getting the choir room have anything to do with Zay being in the choir? You’re not going to do some weirdo ‘oh, my God, he stood right here in this spot’ or ‘his fingers were all over this piano.’” I made my voice high to emphasize I was pretending to be her. Truthfully, her voice was deep and raspy for a girl. I smiled when the red splotches appeared on her cheeks. It was fun to tease her because I rarely got the chance.

“Stop it,” she muttered.

I gently squeezed her cheek but refrained from saying anything more. She was sensitive and I knew when to back off. “You’re adorable and I love you. Let’s go find Mr. Everett and see about the room. You should probably let me do the talking.”

“What does that mean?”

Hayley was a bit much at times, and even though she was wonderful, I thought it best coming from the assistant principal’s daughter. “Because nobody’s going to tell the assistant principal’s daughter no.”

She nodded. “Good point. Okay, you schmooze him instead. I’ll go touch the piano keys.” We both laughed. “Serious faces. Ready?” At my nod, she knocked on the door.

“Come in,” Mr. Everett said. He ate his lunch in the choir room partly for quiet, but also, he wasn’t friendly with the staff. When my dad thought I couldn’t hear, I heard him talk about how disagreeable Mr. Everett was.

“Mr. Everett, hi. We’re starting a new club at the school and we were wondering if you would be our faculty advisor. It would be every other Tuesday at lunch. I already checked with Ms. Clarissa and it’s the one day you don’t have practice.”