Chapter One: Bad News

The Great Council of Woodwinds sat in the Great Hall of Instruments, discussing which instruments to use in the march to State. Suddenly, Bundy, the baby flute scurried into the meeting.

"Momma! Momma!" shrieked the girl.

Pearl, a sweet flute, and Bundy's mother, smiled bashfully at the council.

"A drum corps, Momma! Now I can't march when I get older! They say no more woodwinds!" Bundy's eyes filled with tears.

The council gasped collectively. A drum corps? No more woodwinds? What would become of them? Where would they play, and how would they provide for their children? Would they be banished to the land of the Beginners forever?

From outside, the woodwind council could hear some bass drums bellowing and some trumpets boasting about how they would lead the corps to victory…

Chapter Two: Capture

Buffet and Yamaha, and elderly clarinet and saxophone couple stormed out of the band hall. The rest followed them tentatively, a dread rising in their keys. Yamaha ran up to the first tuba she saw and exploded F # at it.

"What do you think you are playing, mister? What kind of outrageous…"

But she was cut off by Buffet, who had quelled his rage and decided to approach the situation with dignity.

"This poor tuba isn't to blame for this, Yamaha, he is just a follower! We should attack at the root! The trumpets!" The tuba looked gratefully at Buffet and proceeded to continue practicing. Then, Arthurt Een the head clarinet, pointed toward the marching field.

All of a sudden, a roar came from the brass. "All hail King Conn!" They snapped to attention.

"All hail King BOB!!!" shouted percussion, with no respect for the drum major. Then, fear filled their eyes as the King's head turned toward their side of the field. They groveled in the dewy grass with weeping and banging of their heads with drumsticks.

"We're sorry your majesty, we didn't mean it!"

All of the woodwinds turned toward the drum major's stand to see who they were worshipping.

A trumpet, wearing a cape and crown stood on the throne of the rightful drum major.

"You are forgiven." He tooted. "However, you shall run twenty laps for your insolence. Let it not happen again."

"O gracious king! Thank you!" cried percussion as they wept on the field.

Seeing this, Rolly Key, a fiery flute, and Reedy, the oboe tackled the trumpet.

"Who do you think you are, you can't make a drum corps!" they screamed as they were wrestled from the trumpet by some euphoniums.

"I am King Conn! Ruler of all instruments! You woodwinds will never be in the band again! I can't stand your caterwauling day and night. It's time for the brass to rule! Kelon! Put them in the abandoned color guard storage shed! Rip out the flute's keypads, use sprite if you have to, and break that oboe's reed. They will never play again!"

Kelon, a shy mallet darted to the podium and took the two with a quiet agility, and hauled them off to the old flag shed.

"Fight… for… FREEEDOMM!" Reedy managed to gasp at the woodwinds before being knocked out by the mallet's head…

Chapter Three: To War

With only ten present at the marching field, the woodwinds knew they could not defeat the evil King Conn. They fled to the main Woodwind Chambers, to prepare for war.

By the time they arrived, the winds were in a panic. The tenor saxes were packing to leave, and the bassoons were boarding up the windows.

"Stop!" shouted Yamaha and everyone looked up from what they were doing. "You cannot run in the face of danger. Yes, the brass are a threat, but you are woodwinds, graceful and swift! Your lovely melodies alight upon the band and make its sound complex and beautiful. The band is awfully boring without you! We go to war! To fight for our right to march! Don't run! Prepare for war!"

"Yeah!" came the cry from the oboes and flutes.

"To war!" from the clarinets and saxophones.

Then Yamaha spoke again. "The fastest and smallest must travel to the land of E Minor to find the only ones who can defeat the Drum Corps…

Sir Gemeinhardt and the piccolo pygmies!!!"

The crowd erupted.

"The land of E Minor?"

"But they are only a legend!"

Yet amidst the chaos, a tiny voice rose, "I will go."

It was baby Bundy.

Buffet looked down at her. "Are you brave enough, little one?"

She nodded her head.

"Then you may go."

Pearl, her mother, embraced her and wept.

They filled her case with food; and put a message in her foot joint, and sent her to the land of E Minor.

Meanwhile, the rest of the winds prepared for war. They greased their keys and worked up an ear-splitting cacophony with which to defeat the brass.

They would come to the marching field during water from the concessions stand area and go on to overthrow King Conn. The Selman colored instruments were arranged in the front, much in the Scottish tradition, to scare the enemy with the unnatural color.

Then as silently as possible, they began the march to the field…

Chapter Four: Sir Gemeinhardt and the Piccolo Pygmies!!!

Never had a flute run so fast. Though young, Bundy knew how important it was to get the piccolo pygmies to the battle as soon as possible. Her own future, and the futures of the other woodwinds depended on her speed. So she ran and ran through the woods, towards the land of E Minor.

Suddenly, Bundy found herself lip-plate down in dirt. She tried to pull herself up and found she could only roll over and sit up. When she tried to stand, there was an excruciating pain in her low Eb key.

She looked down and started to sob. She knew she could never make it to the land of E Minor in that shape, not only that, but now her low B foot probably wouldn't ever grow either. She would be cast into the land of Beginners, forced to be played by a little kid for a few months, and then cast into a closet for the rest of her life. As you can imagine, all this weighed heavily on the little girl. Thinking about how her life would be ruined, she played a slow, sad tune, lamenting how she could not even deliver a message right and save the band.

When she was finished, she heard small voices coming from the trees around her. Preparing the defense tactic of high-high C, she sucked in all the breath her lungs would hold and…

A high pitched fanfare started to play, and out of the darkness stepped a magnificent flute.

"I am Sir Gemeinhardt… knight of Mozart's table, defender of the small, delighter in rapid melodies… I fend off trombones with a single Ab!"

"Sir! Excuse me sir!" Bundy tried to shout over the yelling. "We need your help!"

However, Sir Gemeinhardt was still going on about himself. She knew only one thing to say to make him stop.

"DRUM CORPS!!!" she screeched. He stopped dead.

"How dare they!" he trilled, "Piccolo pygmies, unite!"

A discord of angry C# and D's ran through the small army.

"To war!" he shouted.

"Um, excuse me, sir, I need your help," Bundy said.

"Yes, yes" He scooped her up and they ran towards the marching field.

Chapter Five: The Battle and the Motivational Speech

The woodwinds had been waiting near the concessions stand for nearly three hours, waiting for a break. King Conn was very obviously an evil king; the record for a non stop practice was one hour and thirty minutes. One of the quads was lying in a heap near the 40 yard line.

Finally, a melophone dared approach the podium.

"Please, sir, we must… have… some water…" he managed to rasp before falling unconscious.

King Conn paused, looked around as if to consider the state of the band, and said at last, "Fine, everyone take five."

As the last of the snare drums limped off of the field, Arthurt Een prepared the troops.

"There may be a day when we forsake our brothers… But it is not this day! There may be a day when we forget our namesakes and the parents who raised us and leave their honor to be trampled and we leave the rest of the band to become rampant with bad behavior and stop oiling our keys and cleaning our head joints…"

One of the bassoons coughed.

"Oh, right." Arthurt Een sighed. "BUT IT IS NOT THIS DAY!!! Today, we fight!!!!"

The woodwinds roared and took the field, wailing and screeching.

The brass didn't know what hit them. A tuba fell, smashing two mallets. The brass scrambled into formation, and blasted notes as loud as they could.

A bassoon and a saxophone cried out in anguish and fell limply to the ground.

"Come on!" Arthurt Een screamed over the noise, "You can take them!"

But all of the woodwinds knew there was not much hope. Woodwind casualties climbed faster than that of the brass, they needed the piccolo pygmies.

All of a sudden, some high pitched, very-out-of-tune notes erupted over the hill. All of the instruments fell to the ground and cried out in agony. An army streamed down over the hill, playing Flight of the Bumblebees.

The woodwinds stood and cheered, their hope renewed. The bassoons belted out notes with everything in them. Oboes and flutes trilled rapidly and clarinets and saxophones made horrendous sounds on their reeds.

A few of the brass held onto their notes, but those too eventually fadd away into nothing. With a final, "Nooooo!" from King Conn as he was bashed by Sir Gemeinhardt, the brass and percussion fell down unconscious.

The battle was won.

Chapter Six: The Treaty

The woodwinds combined their effort to move the brass back to the hall of Instruments and to the hospital. It took hours, but they knew that they had only barely defeated the brass.

King Conn had his valves tied down and was muted. He was placed in solitary confinement like this, so that he couldn't even toot his own horn.

When the brass regained consciousness, they still couldn't hear very well, but neither could the woodwinds, after the piccolos had done their thing. Two representatives were chosen from each instrument clan and a written conference was held.

The woodwinds were quite angry, and perhaps rightfully so, but the brass and percussion insisted on being innocent.

Ludwig, a bass drum, said that he just went along with everyone else and got nods from everyone else in the drum corps.

Arthurt Een insisted on punishment of the wrongful instruments, and a treaty was formed. It stated:

"Never again will a drum corps be formed without consent of the woodwinds. They have as much right to pay as everyone else. In compensation for the drum corps incident, brass and percussion must clean the hall of instruments and the hall of woodwinds for one whole year.

The woodwinds must be kind and forgiving and help repair the damage done to the field during the battle.

All instruments will respect each other and consider them an important part of the band."

And everyone lived happily ever after….

Except…

Epilogue

Reedy managed to get the gag off of her reed and helped Rolly Key to get hers off too.

"Do you think they are coming for us?" she asked.

"I don't know it's been a while" Rolly Key replied…

Bundy's Eb key could not be repaired; therefore her B foot would never grow. In reward for her bravery, Bundy was to be raised in preparation to fulfill the role of drum major, instead of being banished to the Land of Beginners.

And THEN they all lived happily ever after.

THE END