New Year, New Stuff...Kinda
The first book of 'The Jr. Pop Diaries: Year 2' is OUT NOW! Read below.
1. All Right, Then!
Hey! It’s me, Trevor Sanders. You probably read our previous adventures A.K.A our first year of being Jr. Pop Kids! Well, this was our second year, and maybe this adventure was a little bit of another scary thing. Brace yourselves, I’d say, but if you want to go for the full-on hit, I’m not stopping you.
2. The Big ’n Bad News
It was a couple of days after New Year’s. Wylie, Elijah, Tana and I were sitting outside Tana’s new home, hanging out and playing with Tana’s new pup, Holly.
“I gotta say, this place is sick,” Wylie said as she stroked Holly’s back.
“We’re thinking of acquiring some porch furniture,” Tana said.
“Porch furniture will look quite interesting.” Elijah pointed to the backyard. “You can add a swing there. It’ll give the idea that you are quite into outdoor relaxation.”
I nodded. “I think so too.”
“When are you going to drop the accent, Elijah?” Wylie rolled her eyes.
“I prefer to be a little more formal than most youngsters.” Elijah pretended to straighten a bow tie.
We laughed. Then, we saw Tamira and Thomas, our fellow JPKs, walk to where we were sitting.
“You guys! Where have you been?” Tana asked, waving them over.
Tom sat on the snow-covered grass and brushed his jacket. “We were coming from Youtube Studios, as we had some paperwork that should be in order.”
I scrunched up my face. “Paperwork?”
“Yeah.” Tam sounded uncertain, though. “Listen, we have some…news; we’re retiring from Jr. Pop.”
Our jaws dropped. “Why?” Wylie asked.
“Look, we’ve done everything that we had to,” Tom said, “We pitched in not just for a year’s worth of fun, but also so that Tana doesn’t feel so alone. We know you were there, Trevor, but…we just felt we had to.”
I shook my head. “But—but we’ve got three years! You can’t just—“ I sputtered, “give up!”
“We’re not giving up.” Tam squeezed Tana’s shoulder. “We’ve got dreams of our own. But we had signed a one-year contract, while you signed three years.”
I remembered. The day we were selected and arrived at the original studio, the authorities had us sign some papers, which then I knew was a contract. I recalled signing for three years. I thought everyone signed for three years, too. Turned out that Tamira and Thomas escaped.
“Did Dad know?” Tana asked. ‘Dad’ referred to her foster dad and our director, Mr. Bowers.
Tam nodded. “We told him to switch our papers so that we get the one-year contract. It worked.”
I nodded sadly. “I guess we won’t have you guys this year.”
Tom bumped my shoulder with his fist. “Don’t be so bummed out. I’m kinda glad you’re looking out for her. She needs the moral support.”
I don’t know why, but when he said the words ‘you’re looking out for her’, my heart had this weird fluttery feeling. I shook it away and nodded.
When they left, I still sat there, wondering. If they were always trying to help Tana, why hurt her first?
Then, there was my insides that I had to worry about. Maybe it was in my head. I didn’t mind anyways. Guess ignorance is bliss.
Or so I thought.
3. New Amigos
When we went to the studio that day, Mr. Bowers found us and told us to head to the common room. When we did, we found four new kids, a boy and three girls, sitting on the couch and some beanbag chairs.
“Jr. Pops,” said Mr. B, “meet the new Jr. Pops.”
We waved to them. For new kids, they didn’t seem shy at all, and gladly said their hellos.
“I’m Cooper,” the boy said to us, “and I’m from Texas.”
Texas? Cool!
“I’m Alana, and I’m from Ohio,” one of the girls said.
“I’m Liv, from California,” the next one said.
“And I’m Indigo, from Pennsylvania,” the third one said.
Wow. Last year, all of us were from New York City. But having different kids from different places—that sounded awesome! Maybe we could be learning things from different states. But truth is, we had a lot more in common than we thought.
Elijah and Cooper loved Sherlock Holmes, so they talked about spying and detective work.
Wylie and Alana went to one of the studio kitchens to whip up a good meal.
Tana and Indigo probably shared a taste for art, because I saw them hunched over a sketchbook, making suggestions about some drawings.
Then, it was just me and Liv.
“So, what do you like to do?” I asked.
“You mean…apart from singing and dancing?” She asked.
I nodded.
She thought for some time. “I like filming. Making little movies, and acting. Something that I’m supposing most of you do?”
“You’re right,” I said.
“Hey, can kids do any filming while they’re here?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, but you could ask Mr. Bowers. He’ll be willing to let you do it.”
“All right, then. I do film some stuff on my phone, but the videos are too short.”
She pulled her cell out, then showed me some videos. She actually had a steady hand, and her little films were proof of that. They were awesome!
“Maybe Mr. Bowers can let you use the cameras.” I looked at our director, who was chatting with our music teacher, Ms. Tempi.
“Maybe I will,” she said, smiling.
4. A Closer Look
Narrative Continued by Elijah
I liked Cooper. He knew so much about spies and detectives. I was thinking that he’d teach me some tricks. Fortunately, the time was coming. I was going to train as a master detective!
“Dude, you wanna learn?” This was Cooper’s reaction when I asked him the aforementioned sentence.
“I do,” I said. “I made mistakes while trying to guess what my friends felt last year.” I thought back to Trevor, when we were on tour. I didn’t even know what he was going through, and I felt guilty that I didn’t take care of it sooner. “Please. This year, I can make up for it when you teach me.”
He seemed to mull it over. “All right, then. But first, I’ll need to give you a little idea about what we’re working with.”
“Perfect! I love the background as much I love the practical work. Let’s do this!”
“Rule number one: when you’re going to start detective work, Sherlock Holmes always looked out for clues, even the tiniest ones; a smidge on a fabric, a bit of rust on iron, anything. That’s part of detective work.”
I nodded.
“Now, take a look at this.” Cooper pulled out a costume that I knew all too well: the T-Shirt I wore for our first music video in Jr. Pop, ‘Ocean Eyes’. I still hadn’t forgotten.
“From what I know,” Cooper continued, “you’ve got a photographic memory, which will be very helpful. You will be able to zoom in on and remember every detail. Now, if you do—“ He smirked. “—you can maybe see any mark on this shirt, plus recall what caused it, or so.”
I stared hard at the shirt. There were no plainly visible marks, but I knew it wasn’t spotless.
I zoomed in a little more, and then, I found a scuff mark. I reported it to Cooper.
“Good work. Now, what do you think caused the mark?”
I tried to remember. Honestly, it was something I didn’t notice, so I wouldn’t exactly remember. That was the same thing I told him.
“Okay, let’s say it’s possible you don’t know. Any guesses?”
“Maybe, during a makeup session, a substance must’ve fallen onto my shirt. Or maybe I rubbed it against something,” I said.
He nodded. “You’ve got good reasoning skills, dude.”
“The kids used to call me a ‘know-it-all’ at school,” I mumbled.
“Hey, don’t take it personally. That’s what they all do.”
“My caretaker, Mrs. Wilson, said that I had a huge mind.”
“Which is making me think,” said Cooper, “that this could be your last lesson.”
I went bug-eyed. “Sheesh. You mean it?”
“I do.”
Even though Cooper was more assured than ever that I was ready for real spying, I still wanted to make sure I got used to it. But not only did I get used to it, It was practically stamped onto my brain. It went like this:
That day, Trevor and I were looking at Egan’s Instagram, where, in his photos, it was imminent tha he had gone to perform at LEGOland Florida that week. I could notice every single detail, from the kinds of blocks used to make the huge and colourful statues, to the type of fabric used in Egan’s costumes.
I even noticed when Mr. Bowers put on this strong-smelling cologne. Seawater was my guess. It was pretty valid, for he smelled like salt all day. Not great, but not bad either.
That was the way my birth ability was used more than often those days. And it was put to the ultimate limits that year, too.
5. I’m Not Always The Expert!
Narrative Resumed by Trevor
I’m used to dealing with emotions. Believe me, I am. I can name all of them, and tell you how to counter them as well.
Too sad? Take a deep breath, and think of something happy.
Too angry? Take a deep breath, and work things peacefully.
Too excited? Nothing wrong with that, but try to focus on the task at hand (and take a deep breath, too).
Most of the counter-actions involve deep breaths, actually.
In a nutshell, all I’m saying is, I can do this stuff. I’m a peer counsellor, people! Emotions are (apart from singing and dancing) basically my jam. But, even I’m clueless sometimes. I don’t know everything, and I can end up in a problem which involves emotions, and I may not know how to solve it!
Remember I mentioned that heart-fluttery thing at the beginning, when a comment was made about Tana? I had been having it a lot, lately. I turned my situation into an observation. The observation was: I only felt it around Tana and when Tana was mentioned, but, I never told anyone, not even my mom or Angie. However, it was getting uncontrollable. I needed to spill my beans, whether I was gonna be scared of the results or not.
I found Elijah coming out of the common room, scrolling though something on his phone.
“Dude we need to talk,” I said, pulling him back inside and heading to a corner with a beanbag chair. I planted ourselves in it.
“Ol’ chap, slow down!” Elijah exclaimed, but I shushed him.
“I got some probs: I’ve been feeling strange things, and yes, I know I’m supposed to figure this out on my own, but my head and my heart just go wonky when Tana’s around or mentioned. I don’t know what it means, so I want you to tell me what it means.”
I said this all pretty fast but Elijah got it, though, from his expression, I thought ‘got it’ meant that he was looking at me like I’m the biggest turnip head in the world.
“It’s so obvious, even a fool knows, Trev! You like her.”
“Pfft. No, I don’t.”
“You do.”
“I don’t.”
“Do.”
“Don’t.”
“Do!”
“Don’t!”
“Do!”
“Don’t!”
“Hey, guys!” That was Tana.
I was so relieved that someone came to break the fight, when I realised that the one person who came to stop it was the very person about whom we were arguing about! What a coincidence.
Tana was looking at us oddly. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“We’re good,” Elijah agreed.
She nodded, eyes wide. “O-kay, then. Just a reminder, Wylie and Alana just made this awesome tasty and healthy pizza they called ‘The Jr. Pop Pieces’, and they’re serving it up. Come downstairs quick, and—ooh, Trevor, you okay? Your face and neck are as red as a ripened strawberr—”
I slapped myself in the face to make the redness go away and stop her from finishing the simile, even though I knew that wouldn’t work to do both at the same time. It startled her. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m okay. It’s so cold here. And I’ll be digging into a hunk of hot pizza ASAP, but first, me and Elijah gotta finish discussing, uh, ‘HSMTMTS’! We’ll be down soon, yeah.”
Tana gave us another suspiciously odd glance. Geez, I’m not smooth when it comes to trick-talk. She left, and then we exhaled.
“‘High School Musical: The Musical: The Series’?” muttered Elijah, who decoded the abbreviation. “Friend, you’ve got to give a better answer.”
“It was the only thing I could come up with! And you’re right. I do like her.” I buried my face in my hands. “What do I do, dude?”
6. Una Chica Así
We were set to shoot our first music video of that year, and it included special guests: the Jr. Pop En Español, the Spanish-speaking kids from Central America. It was the first time I met them,, even though they had been part of Jr. Pop since last year.
The Español kids didn’t come to NYC from their home city, Miami. Instead, we travelled to Miami, because Miami was also going to be the primary set for our new MV, ‘Girl Like Me’.
Truth is, we hadn’t even recorded the song yet. Fortunately, there was a studio at Miami who supervised recording for the En Español JPKs, and they were going to do it for us too!
We were scheduled to stay in Miami for a week, with Monday to Friday being the time to prepare, record and shoot ‘Girl Like Me’, and Saturday and Sunday, being our free days, to tour the city and have fun.
On Sunday, we took a flight to Miami and landed 8:00 am. After checking in at the hotel and resting up a little, we met the En Español JPKs, Nina, Elena, Lupe and Bobby. They had been training professionally in singing, dancing and acting ever since they learned how to walk! They were pretty awesome, and also showed us the beach, too.
“I love it here,” said Bobby.
“It seems pretty empty,” Wylie remarked.
“Oh, that’s because they went to fancy tourist beaches.” Nina made a face. “They say that this beach doesn’t look ‘classy’. Elegante.”
“The place is nice, though,” said Lupe.
“Tourists just go by popularity. They don’t even see the beauty in the smallest of things.” Elena shook her head.
“That’s true,” Elijah said.
“Kids!” Mr. Bowers appeared from behind a post. “I just checked out the studio, as well as the hotel. It seems that we can use it with the beach, for the supplementary areas are great. It’s pretty much going to be a primary set.”
Okay, that was definitely big news.
We got set to shooting the MV for ‘Girl Like Me’. We had recorded the songs couple of days ago, with us singing the English part and the En Español kids covering the Spanish part. We definitely had a lot of fun shooting the song, because of two things: the set and the costumes.
Let me tell you what was the set. exactly: the beach, a huge pool area nearby the hotel, as well as a theatre with open seating, and a lifeguard tower standing on the beach. I know. You can already imagine the whole thing being so colourful and crazily awesome.
The costumes were an assortment of shorts, shirts and half-sleeved jackets for the boys, and all kinds of tops and skirts and shorts for the girls. All of the clothes were decorated in a beach print. And everybody sported sunglasses and/or caps. And they could’ve been our regular clothes, too, but Mrs. Bowers had to archive them after we were finished shooting. It was sad, but if future JPKs came to the studio to find these wonderful and antique artefacts, then they had to be there to show the huge timeline of Jr. Pop.
Our dance routine was short, but we had to practice it a lot of times for hours on end to get it right. That was how it went: practice makes perfection. But apart from the dancing, we also got to have fun filming. For instance, we got to shoot volleyballs, chill around the pool, and dance around and play instruments (I took the electric guitar!) and make music.
One of my best. Days. Ever.
7. The Sunset
It was Friday evening, and hours before, we had just finished the shooting of ‘Girl Like Me’. I was at the lifeguard tower, waiting quite impatiently for a sunset, when Tana climbed up to join me.
“So, you’re looking for a sunset that is very common on TV?”
I shrugged. “I guess?”
She shook her head and smiled. “Classic.”
“Hey, everyone likes a sunset. Besides, I never saw one in New York, and since we’re in Miami, we will get a view, right? I mean, look at this!” I gestured to the beach.
She laughed. “Yeah.”
There was a pause. Then, she said, “I can’t believe we’re in Miami. I mean, we shot a music video in a freaking Miami beach with a freaking Miami hotel! This is the biggest thing, you know.” She paused again, worried. “Did I say that too loud?”
“No,” I said.
“I didn’t count on me being so open,” she whispered.
“I’m glad you’re making friends and being a little braver.”
“Thanks.”
The sun started to move downwards, and the sky suddenly began to dapple with orange and little flecks of pink and purple. I nudged Tana so that she can see it too.
“I don’t think of you as a friend, but more than that,” I heard Tana murmur to herself. “I can’t say it, and I have to live with that regret all the time.”
“Why don’t you, then?” I blurted.
She looked at me, surprised. “You heard?”
I pressed my lips together.
“It’s never gonna happen. I’ll admit that.”
I wanted to say something, but instead, my hand slid into hers, fingers interlocking. It was oddly seraphic, almost calm. And evident that Tana felt the same.
We stood there the whole time, holding hands. It actually felt like no one was hoarding Tana around, and that she was going to be mine for maybe the whole day, or at least then. We finally released when Tana had to leave. Apparently, Mr. Bowers wanted his daughter in the hotel 30 minutes before we had to. Can’t risk our safety.
As she walked away, I could see change. It was all I needed to do.
8. Deja Vu
When we returned to NYC, we decided to tackle the song ‘Deja Vu’, and as Alana termed it, it was sung by the star on the rise, Olivia Rodrigo. It was going to be like one of those videos where it would be like some kind of an empty room and there wasn’t going to be so much to work with. I thought, at least. I still wasn’t so sure. But it was probably going to be candy coloured all over. That was no doubt.
We actually had no dance routine for this, just a practice of freestyle, so we didn’t have to exert ourselves like usual. It actually felt awesome. We also practiced singing, of course, and then, we headed downstairs from our area to see the set. It was, like my guess, painted in shades of candy pink, blue and purple. There were some boxes stacked around, and those were probably where we may be sitting or standing. There were even instruments of the same colours, for all of us to play. I wasn’t in the solos, unfortunately, so I had to play the lead guitar. But it was okay, because it felt nice to be playing an instrument after a long time.
Tana, Indigo, Liv and Cooper were the soloists, so they were vocals for the band. Wylie, Elijah, Alana and I took our respective instruments. But here was the fun part: we didn’t have a background track playing for us while we sang. Instead, we had to play the instruments for the track! It was hard, but also fun. We made the same music, and sang, too. Ms. Tempi helped us prepare, and then we recorded the song. It was a one-take success.
We also started recording the music video the next day. Our costumes were darker coloured than the set for both parts, to make us stand out.
The first part were the band shots. We were standing in the middle of the set, instruments in our hands. Then, Elijah, who was on the keyboard, played the starting notes for the song, before Tana took over.
“Car rides to Malibu
Strawberry ice cream, one spoon for two—”
Cooper was up next.
“And tradin’ jackets
Laughing ‘bout how small it looks on you.”
There was a faint line that we covered after it, and it went like:
“ Ha-ha-ha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha…”
The rest of the verse continued, then, we launched into the bridge and the chorus, and then I took over the music with a guitar solo, which, let’s be honest, sounded completely awesome to me. After we finished the first part, we got into the second part, which was just sitting around, singing, and we went into dance freestyle. Boom.
Call it déjà vu (pun intended), but the whole shooting felt so nostalgic and familiar, as if it was only yesterday that EliTreLie and the 3Ts were making MVs.
9. This Cannot Happen!
I went into Mr. Bowers’ office a couple of days to drop some of my mom’s cookies after shooting ‘Deja Vu’, and found more heaps of paperwork than usual. He wasn’t there, so I decided to take a look at his work. The first paper I saw was titled ‘Pet Adoption’. Maybe he was going through Holly’s adoption proceedings. The next paper had ‘Camera Orders’. Maybe that was for filming our music videos. The third paper was strange. It said something about houses in Minnesota, Delaware, Ohio, and a bunch of other states. What did that mean?
I saw an entry of Mr. Bowers’ diary too, open in all of the heap. It said this:
I had too much work to fill out. But that didn’t egg me. What egged me was that I hadn’t taken the news to the kids, not even Tana. I was afraid of disappointing them. I could’ve told Trevor, and he would’ve been approving, but now, I’m not so sure. I see the way he looks at Tana. I know he doesn’t want her to leave. But what can I do? I want her to be safe. I had to look into houses as far from New York as possible. I also need to start trials for directors to look after Jr. Pop when I’m gone. I only knew one thing to do, and even though it saddens me to say this, we need to move. Me, Wendy, and Tana need to move away.
My heart stopped when I read the last line. I couldn’t read after that. The box I was holding dropped, and the glass and cookies shattered to pieces. But I didn’t care. I ran out of there.
How could they do that?
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