Idalia (the secrets of the whispers)

How did it all start? It started with detention. It was about twenty five years ago, I was a simple timid and fashion blundering introvert, with no friend other than my books, my laptops and my imaginary best friend. I was just twelve, a girl with a natural given talent concealed from sociality until that day.

It was my first time in detention, still don't know or understand how I got there. The principal who detained us had gone to attend to something else, while we died of boredom and fatigue. Then all of a sudden, a girl jumped in front of the class with a giddy smile and a excited shriek.

"Let's have some fun y'all!" I knew her too well, who didn't know and admire the beautiful psycho that beared the name, Victoria Banderaz.

"Tori, can you go sit before you get us into more trouble?" A boy asked with a frown. Tori had trouble following her anywhere she went to.

"Bah!" She exclaimed with a dismissive swipe of her hand. "I have been in here over and over again like it's my father's bedroom. I know that old wench more than the back of my own clean hands. She won't come back, not until every scream of ecstasy is drawn out of her by the gardener. Let's pass time with something more useful."

"Something like what?" Judith asked plainly. She was the second queen bee of the school, a know it all.

"I dunno," Tori said with a shrug, "but I'm open for suggestions, any ideas?"

"Aha!" A girl with big bright emerald eyes exclaimed with a snap of her fingers. "How about music? I love music!" She shrieked with utter excitement. I didn't know this one much, but she was the school's dye freak. She could dye her hair to any colour and change eye lens like she changes her shoes.

"Let's sing our favourite songs, we could take turns and I volunteer to be the first," she added with the same excitement.

"That's a good idea," Tori smiled, but then looked at the girl sitting behind dye princess, "but let's start with the school's she-devil."

Her name was Sage Valentine, the school's most feared junior female. Not because she was extremely quiet with a scary face, but because she packed a strong punch for all who dares her. Sage surprisingly smiled and nodded in agreement.

"I'm not much of a singer, but I rap like hell, wanna hear?" She didn't sound as scary as my classmates made her to be. Her smile even showed the opposite of cruelness.

"Excellent," Tori said with a clap of her hand, "then let's sing my favourite song, take me back to London by..."

"Ed Sheeran!" Dye queen shouted. "that's my favourite song too!"

"Hey! Me too!" Judith shouted too. Sage only shrugged. Tori turned her eyes to me, I almost fainted when her golden eyes met mine.

"Hey, you will sing with us, no?"

"Me?" I choked.

"Yes, you Idalia." A gasp left my mouth, she knew my name. How on earth did she get that information?!

"I...I...I...I can't sing,"

"Idalia, when I point at you and you don't sing, tomorrow I'll make sure you get stoned with rotten eggs and flour. Do you want that?"

"N...n...no," I stuttered.

"Then when you see me looking at you, even if you don't know the lyrics or can't look me back in the eyes, sing." It was a simple instruction but it felt like the words were laced with an irresistible command. I nodded, I was going to sing even though I didn't want to.

Tori laughed, a sound that is worth a siren's envy. "What are your names? Mine is Lady Victoria of Wales," she said with a curtsey.

"Oh, I'm Emerald, mom named me after my eyes." She twinkled her lashes. I thought the emerald was another eye lens.

"Sage,"

"Judith, everyone knows that."

"Alrighty then! Emerald, you sing first, followed by Sage, Idalia and then me. Or I'll just coordinate myself, just follow my hand signal. Idalia, no excuses. I know how you have been singing from your mother's womb, you are from a family of generational singers."

She must have research on me or didn't, don't know. That was how we became friends. We sang from that song to another and another and eventually swapped numbers. From that day, a new bond was formed, a bond between five different girls with different personalities but similar interest. Our hates and likes were similar, our passion for music was exceptional. It was music that bonded us, love that sealed it.

About four months after we became friends, Tori and Judith, the boy crazy ones dragged us to see their favourite band. They forced Sage, Emerald and I to join them to do a challenge that would win us special tickets to see the band's face to face. A group of mid year teenagers who knew nothing else but to look pretty and flirt. Tori already wedded and bore a child for one in her head. Judith on the other hand was ready to strip to get a kiss. They could be extreme when it came to celebrity crushes.

We won the tickets and was asked to wait to see the boys. Hell! They kept us waiting, who did they think they are! I had a curfew to keep up with, a father that would literally stand at the front door with an axe to wait for me anytime I returned home late. Mother would nag me to unconsciousness if I survived the axe. The axe meant "the talk" by the way. Sage was busy clawing at her eyes so she would stay awake and Emerald, ten years gone.

Judith suggested we sing to pass time and it sounded good to us. We had playfully rewritten Eminem's lucky you song, added vocal notes and changing some words to fit the rewritten version. It was something we did all the time since we spent so much time together. While Tori and Sage did the rapping, the rest of us sang the added notes. It was easy for us to remix beat since Sage's older brother was a DJ and studio engineer, he would let us use his equipment and most times helped us for the fun of it.

We ended our song but was shocked to hear an applaud. It was a woman, a simply dressed woman. She complimented on our work and introduced herself as a talent agent. Also sister to one of the boy's manager and had come to see the show. She openly spoke of her interest in us and how we could be stars if we let her make us into one. We scoffed at it and dismissed her offer. But before I knew what was happening, we were signed into a record label two months later.

We undertook a one year training before our debut. What were we called? Vivid Kiss. Why? The director said it had a nice ring to it and gave us a very outstanding vibe. It would also suit the future brands they were going to make for us, it sounded right when called. He also gave us stage names according to our appearance and what we liked. Tori insisted on being called Lemon drop, Sage chose Karela, Judith picked honey because of her hair, and Emerald went for Sherry. I went for what my mother called me, Candy.

Within four years, we were world wide sensation. Our growth was just surprising, like magic. Our friendship never wavered, our love for each other stretched up to greater heights. Sage and I did more training than the others as we were both songwriters and composers. We learnt from others and even had others to write for us too. Our genre rotated around pop and it subgenre; electropop, technopop, dance-pop, pop-rock, poprap and few times, bubblegum pop. We also did rock, electronic dance music, R&B and in rare cases, Jazz. We loved trying different things, like Judith would playfully call it kissing every genre.

We were happy, we were perfect, no one expected what was coming. What happened? Tori died. No one knew or suspected that she had cancer, she hid it so well even us didn't know. She had found out a month after our debut, but kept shut. No one questioned her excessive dark or light makeup, no one suspected when she shaved her head and took to wigs. She was a wacko, so what were the odds? She never grew lean until her final months which she covered up with the excuse of losing weight and excessive makeup. I had only suspected after she wrote and released her first and last song and her tenth solo, Marked. One describing her pain and the afterlife.

Then she publicly announced that we were going on a break to bond, without anyone's knowledge. She made us spend two weeks making more memories and telling us – me especially – of stories her grandmother told her and revealing hidden things of her hometown. It was then it struck me, I knew she was going to die and confronted her. That day she collapsed and all was known.

Her last statement was "my departure would threaten to divide you, rip you apart with force. But don't for my sake, don't ever depart from each other. Love unconditionally, sing endlessly and do remember me. The time will come for you to stop singing, take a break and go to college, meet people and live. When that time comes, you will know. Willow Spring will hide you, Cameroon Lance's University will be your guide. Don't forget, temporarily stop when the time is right."

It made no sense to us but we nodded. I was the last person with her when she crossed over, she had held me tight by the shirt and said under her breath. "Hard times will come, bitterness would rise, but never lose sight of the path ahead. All this I did for the one, all this I did to stop what is to come. Remember the sapphire leafed Oak Tree of White Spring Lake, when you hear and see the word WHISPERS."