December Spotlight Series – Christmas Karaoke Party – Part 10

Checking back in with these three! We saw them early in the month before the groups were assigned.

Ba Da Da Dum

Roll Call: Deveron, Galien, Serian, Jasper
Scenelette Type: Meta

Deveron woke up from his nap to the sound of Serian… singing? No, that couldn’t be singing. Even without the promised Autotune, Serian’s singing didn’t sound like that. It was almost like he was… braying like a donkey…

“Yeah, I know,” Galien said, commiserating with the unspoken confusion on Deveron’s face. “Sounds awful, doesn’t it?”

Galien was sitting at the table staring at something. Serian was nowhere to be seen, so he was presumably doing his animal impressions upstairs. “Is he serious?” Deveron asked, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

“Apparently,” Galien said, but chose not to elaborate more than that.

Deveron looked out the window to where the farm stretched away from the house – bare and lonely.

As much as he resented how exhausting and unrelenting farm work could be, he always felt a little sad during winter when there was nothing growing out there.

He shook his head slightly to flick off the grogginess and looked around for the pile of paper and scissors he’d been cutting up before he fell asleep. His team thought it would be fun if they hand-cut a bunch of paper snowflakes for as decorations for their song.

Deveron generally shied away from more artistic things, so he offered to cut the paper into circles and leave the pretty designs to the other three. Selwyn had even let him borrow a bizarre looking tool that helped him draw a perfect circle on the page before cutting it. (Sometimes having a math friend came in handy.)

As he resumed cutting and stacking the soon-to-be snowflakes, Deveron kept one eye on Galien. His mentor tended towards bottling things up when something troubled him, so Deveron hoped the man wasn’t stressing out too much over getting on stage and singing.

“Is that your song?” Deveron asked eventually, nodding towards the paper Galien was bent over at the table.

Galien let out a slow breath that ended with, “Sort of.”

“How can something ‘sort of’ be your song?”

Rather than answer, Galien got up and handed Deveron the page, and then set about making coffee.

It was a poem – The Night Before Christmas. “Ah, got it,” Deveron said. “So, no singing then?”

“That’s right,” Galien said. “It’s me and a few other…” he couldn’t quite figure out a good way to describe his teammates.

“Ultra-Introverts?” Deveron tried.

“Sure.”

“I’m jealous,” Deveron admitted.

Deveron finished reading through the poem (it was rather lengthy) while Galien made the coffee. He brought a mug of it over to Deveron without being asked. “Thanks,” Deveron said, exchanging the paper for the hot beverage. “It’s nice. The poem.”

Galien nodded. “There are certainly worse things.”

As if to provide an example, Serian let out another string of donkey brays, at which Deveron and Galien both winced. “That can’t be a real song,” Deveron said.

“Apparently it is,” Galien said, with a ‘I’m just not up to arguing with this insanity’ kind of shrug.

Serian came clomping down the stairs a moment later. He was wearing an obnoxiously large donkey head costume. From the way he immediately bumped into the table, Deveron guessed that it didn’t have eye holes. “Are you actually going to wear that?” Deveron asked, though he couldn’t say it surprised him in the least.

“Well, yeah,” Serian said, wrestling the thing off and tucking it under his arm, “Since someone won’t let us borrow an actual donkey.” He sent a pointed glare in Galien’s direction.

“I don’t have a donkey,” Galien said, returning a tired version of the same glare back to his younger brother.

“Yeah, but you have other animals,” Serian pointed out. “Goats. Chickens.”

“You can’t borrow the chickens, either.”

“It would be so cool, though.”

“No.”

“It would really add atmosphere.”

“No.”

“I would—” Serian started, but then stopped and raised his hands in surrender when Galien gave him ‘the look.’ “Fine. No chickens. How’s the poem coming?”

“It’s okay.”

“Are you guys both rehearsing down here?” Serian asked. “Dev, what’s your song?”

“White Christmas,” Deveron said. “The Drifter’s version.”

“Oh, good. That one’s super fun,” Serian said. “Which part are you singing.”

“Just the backup.” Deveron actually felt supremely grateful for this. “You know, the Ba-da-da-dum’s.”

“The what?”

“Ba-da-da-dums,” he repeated.

“Sorry, one more time?” Serian cupped a hand around his ear, and Deveron figured out that the man would make him keep ‘Ba-da-da-dum-ing’ all day if he let him.

“You know what I mean,” he said, much to Serian’s disappointment.

There was a loud knock at the door, and Serian announced, “Those are my Donkey Friends!”

“Please call them anything else,” Deveron begged, but Serian wasn’t listening. He greeted the two men at the door and they quickly compared various parts of their donkey costumes, occasionally breaking out into random ‘Jiggedy-jig’s’ and more donkey braying. Deveron did silently admit that Serian was the most convincing animal impersonator, so at least all that time practicing hadn’t been for nothing.

On their way out, Jasper (who was also in Deveron’s White Christmas group, and who had generously agreed to do the majority of the actual singing) asked Serian, “So, what did he say?”

“He said no.”

“Not even just the chickens?”

Galien had his back to them, so he allowed himself a small, amused smile that only Deveron could see.

Hope you liked it! I always have a good time working with Serian. You’ll be seeing more of him (and the others) as we get closer to the new book’s release.

Also, if you aren’t familiar with the song Dominic the Donkey, do yourself a favor and give it a listen.

December Giveaway!

At the end of December, I’ll be giving these three bookish ornaments to one lucky person! I made these beauties out of upcycled novels (Left – Pride and Prejudice, Middle and Right – Sherlock Holmes)

To enter, just comment on any of my blog posts for the month of December! And, if you really want to increase your chances, you can also comment on the pinned post on my Facebook Page.

Last day to enter is December 30th. Winner will be announced on December 31st. Good Luck!