Performance
The X-Factor cameras were following NICH Machinegun at band practice this afternoon.

Pauline sat at the edge of the performance space while the rest of the band adjusted and soundchecked, looking thoughtful and idly fidgeting back and forth just a little bit.
Suddenly, she spoke up. "I want to do 'In My Backyard' at our next show."
"Uhhh," Ignacio the drummer speaks up. "I dunno ... I think it needs a lot of tweaking. Especially with that ending. I know it's making a point, but..."
"We can pull off the ending, Nacho. It'll come together. Let's go over it right now." And Pauline simply looked at him intently until he gave in.

And so they start. The music begins much more sedately than is their usual wont, and Pauline pretty much croons cliche-laden lyrics painting the very picture of normality. Then DJ's guitar cuts into things in earnest at the line "But it's just not safe for the children when the neighbor kid grows wings."

Pauline's proud of this song. She and DJ collaborated pretty heavily on it. They'd adapted for the verses a lot of the 'explanations' given by School Boards and PTAs in calling for the firing of mutant teachers or transferring of mutant students. Most of them they got from DJ's mom, of course, but there was even a phrase given by the Two Forks School Board when firing her mother -- before she went crazy. Not that anyone but Deej and Miss Vangey knew about that. Still, it was very personal, and Pauline really got into the song, the heavy, deadening sorrow in her voice adding to the effect.

And as the song approached the end, her voice weaving into the now-fervor of the music, Pauline sings the throwback homage to a much older song that had raised such concern with her friend behind the drumset. She starts it first sing-songily, then gradually approaching a snarl -- a better one than one would figure a sweet, tiny blue thing like Pauline could manage.

"'Cause you've gotta be taught, before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate!"

Her voice cuts off abruptly at that exclamation, and all the instruments follow one emphatic chord later. And Pauline, rather than let a look at her exhausted expression spoil the effect for the viewers who will end up watching the rehearsal if it's cut into the show -- and it will be; the girl knows when she's killed -- goes straight into the practically patented Argosy Fantasia bow.