Strike Up the Band

Chapter 1: The First Day

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or those quoted song lyrics right below this disclaimer...c:

"But I'm gonna try
To get better and overcome each moment
In my own way..."

--Motion City Soundtrack

Tenten hopped out of the car, clarinet case in hand. Her father opened his door and moved to open the trunk. Tenten paused to take in the campus of her new school. It was green, beautiful, and reminded her vaguely of a summer camp or college campus. Setting the brown case on the ground gingerly, Tenten moved to help her father unload the car.

She was so lucky, she kept telling herself as she walked up the drive towards a table labeled, "Check-In". How many kids had the opportunity to study at one of the best pre-professional art schools in the country for free!? She couldn't think of many and counted herself even luckier for winning her scholarship. She re-adjusted the strap of her bag and grip on her instrument case as she took another look around at the stone buildings and the dense forest that was her new home and school.

"Hello, can I help you?" asked a woman sitting at the check-in table. Tenten guessed she was in her mid-thirties. She had choppy black hair and a name tag that read "Shizune".

"She's a new student here." Her father supplied.

"Ah, I see. Welcome to the Konoha Academy of Fine Arts! What year are you and your last name?"

"I'm a junior and Tanaka." Tenten replied. While the woman was shuffling through papers, Tenten surveyed the other arriving students. Many lugged instrument cases others fussed with large portfolios and their baggage. Many had their hair dyed unusual colors and wore expensive looking clothes. Tenten felt a little out of place with what she considered her Plain Jane brown hair twisted up into two buns on her head, her hand-me-down red and grey summer dress and her gray beaten-up Converse.

"Tenten, right?" The woman asked looking up from her papers, Tenten nodded. "You're in Gershwin room 2D. Gershwin is right through that arch and on your left. Your room assignment, key, map, schedule, counselor assignment, and some general information packets are in this folder. I hope you have a great year here. If you need any help, look for staff or students in the blue polo's. I'm sure they'll be more than willing to help you."

Tenten gathered up her belongings and her father and trekked over to Gershwin House, lugged her belongings up the stairs, found her room and successfully opened the door to 2D. Inside they were greeted by a girl with shocking pink hair and bright green eyes. Tenten immediately identified her as one of the most unusually beautiful girls she had ever seen.

"Hello! I'm Sakura Haruno. I guess I'm your roommate!" Sakura had already started unpacking. Her bed was made and there was a green area rug on the floor between their beds.

"It's nice to meet you, my name's Tenten."

"Tenten—I like it. Sounds sort of exotic or like some sort of drink like a Mai-Tai…"

"Honey, I should probably get headed home. Will you be all right without me?" Tenten's father asked from the doorway.

Tenten quickly took stock of her belongings and nodded towards her father, "I think I've got everything."

"I'll miss you. You'll do great here." Her father wrapped his arms around her.

"Love you too, Dad." Tenten grinned into his shoulder. "I'll call and write e-mails, 'kay."

"Take care, be safe, and remember to practice."

"I know! I love you." She gave her father one last hug goodbye.

The dorm room door shot behind him. Tenten stared after him. She was truly on her own now. She would make her family proud of her and she would prove herself worth of the scholarship.

"So, what's your major?" Sakura asked as she put her clothes into the school issued bureau.

"Major?" Tenten asked.

"Oh, you must be new here. Most everyone here has a major, if not there in General Studies, which is sort of a big waste of time and money in my opinion. Majors are your primary focus. Like, I wanna be a famous author so my major is Creative Writing."

"That makes sense. I guess I'm Music major then." Tenten replied, setting her clarinet case on her wooden desk and unlatching her trunk to pull out her bedding and pillow.

"Really? Music is pretty competitive here. What do you play?"

"Clarinet and I like to play saxophone, too. Have you gone here for all of high school?"

Sakura looked up briefly before continuing her work, "I came here last year, as a sophomore, after I won this writing contest that covered most of the costs. I probably wouldn't be here without it. I'm not poor or anything, but I'm not exorbitantly wealthy like most everyone here."

"People aren't snobby type of wealthy are they?"

"It depends on the people. I've got a pretty good circle of friends— who you should meet by the way— but are you all set with the uniform and everything?"

"I think so. I've got enough navy bottoms than I ever thought I would need and the blue polo shirts were mailed to me. I have my dress for performances. I think I'm set besides books and stuff."

"I need to pick mine up, too. We can go together after you finish unpacking."

"All right." Tenten grinned. It seemed making friends wouldn't be as hard as she thought. She tucked her dinosaur printed sheets in at the corners and threw the dark purple comforter over it. Sakura was on her laptop and soon some music was playing that Tenten didn't recognize. "What's this song?" she asked as she began to move her clothes from her trunk to her own bureau; uniform parts in the second drawer and her street clothes in the third.

Sakura arranged a few pictures and things on her corkboard and lifted a stack of books from her trunk onto her bed. She glanced at the laptop screen quickly, "It's Bob and Bonnie by Houston Calls."

"Never heard of them."

"It's okay. I like a lot of lesser known musicians."

"So do you wanna go get those books?" Tenten asked as she shut her trunk. She had a few pictures she wanted to put out and her lamp, but that could wait. She wanted to look around.

"Yeah, let's go." Sakura nodded jumping off her bed. They passed out of the doors of Gershwin when Sakura suddenly screamed loudly. A girl with long blonde hair tied up in a pony tail ran towards them. "Pig!! How are you?" Sakura hugged the blonde-girl and jumped up and down in excitement.

"I'm fantastic. How are you! I love your haircut! How was your summer? Who is this?" she exclaimed excitedly and with the last bit she latched onto Tenten's arm.

"My summer was great. This is my new roommate, Tenten. She's a Music major. Tenten this is one of my best friends, Ino Yamanaka."

Ino grinned, "Well you're just a cutie! I don't think I've seen you around before. Are you new?" Tenten nodded shyly. Ino was a tad bit overwhelming. "Well," Ino continued, "my parents are around her somewhere and I need to lug all my crap to my room, but I'll see you guys at the Convocation later, yeah?"

"Sure thing, Ino. Where are you this year?" Sakura started to pull me away from the blonde.

"Gershwin, 2C." she read from a slip of paper.

"We're right across the hall!" Sakura squealed excitedly.

"This is seriously going to be the best year ever!" Ino enthused.

"See ya, Pig!"

"Au revoir, Forehead."

"Nicknames?" Tenten smiled.

Sakura laughed, "It's a long story that I'm sure you'll hear sometime soon. In short, I have a big forehead and Ino eats like a pig."

Tenten nodded and scanned the courtyard they were standing in. There was Gershwin behind her, Warhol House on her left and Chopin House on her right. Sakura was leading her down a concrete path away from the dormitories. Off to the side of the path was this hill that seemed to have been cut into and laid with concrete so to look like a grassy stair case. Sakura pointed to it, "That's the Terrace. My friends hang out there a lot, but when the weather's bad we hang out in that cabin back there" she gestured back into the forest where Tenten could make out the outline of a small structure. After walking a little ways more Sakura pointed towards a large, fairly new looking building across the grass, "That's the Hyuuga Center. Most formal performances happen there. There's like three theaters in there. The Motion Picture Arts kids and Theatre majors have their classes in that building next to it." After walking for a few more minutes they came upon a collection of buildings, "This is Konoha Square, but everyone just calls it the Square." She gestured towards a building labeled Lewis Hall, "That's where most academic classes are held and that one over there, the brick one, is where the Practice Rooms are. There's the lake, the Cafeteria is there, and here's the Bookstore. That path between Lewis and the Cafeteria leads to the Art and Dance Studios. That path down by the lake leads to the Writing Lodge, Music Wing, and the Rockefeller Library commonly known as the Rock. Campus is pretty big, but you'll get used to it in no time."

The two girls entered the Bookstore which was busy with kids and their parents trying to buy uniforms or books or forgotten belongings. "The Bookstore has practically everything. They have most musical supplies, notebooks, textbooks, everything, but what they don't have they've got in Tanzaka which we can ride a bus to."

After waiting in line for nearly thirty minutes, Tenten was finally able to receive her materials for class which was a large stack of music books, a math textbook, a few novels, and physics textbook. Tenten and Sakura deposited their books in their room and rushed off realizing that the Opening Convocation was to start soon.

Ino waved over the girls where she had saved two seats. Ino introduced Tenten to her roommate, a pale girl with bright lavender eyes and long, black almost purple hair. Her name was Hinata Hyuuga. Hinata was quiet and according to Ino, an Art major. The auditorium was full of chatter when a busty woman with blonde hair tied in two low pigtails stepped up to the microphone.

"Welcome! I'm the Dean of Students, Tsunade. I know everyone's excited to see old friends and make new ones, but could we settle down? Thank you. You all know that Konoha Academy place an emphasis on the development of your individual artistic talents. However, it's important to remember that good marks academically are also necessary for getting into the prestigious schools you all are dreaming of. Talent is important, the ability to work hard and diligently is essential. We expect you to work to your limits within your respective majors and encourage you all to support one another. Make the most of your time here. We know you are capable of fantastic things; otherwise, you wouldn't be here. Be creative, diligent, and successful. I wish the best of luck to all of you this year. Here's Kakashi Hatake, the director of the music program." The students clapped as Tsunade took a seat on stage and Kakashi took the podium. Kakashi had silver-grey hair although he appeared to be in his mid-thirties. Tenten leaned forward in her seat. This was the man she had to impress, a child prodigy at trumpet, he moved on to conducting in his early twenties.

"Thank you, Tsunade. Hey-ya, kiddies, seating auditions will take place tomorrow in class. The audition proctor will ask for two scales: one major, one minor. Please have an etude prepared or maybe a selection from a longer piece or concerto. Results will be posted Tuesday. Jazz Ensemble auditions will take place next week. The audition piece and information materials are available outside my office. That's all. Good luck."

Tenten sank back in her chair as he took his seat behind Tsunade. The head of the Dance department took the microphone next, making general announcements, but Tenten blocked the sound out. Her thoughts were racing. She had all of her major and minor scales memorized, but she needed to pick her prepared piece. There was the etude she had been working on, but that was too easy. She had the first movement of the Mozart clarinet concerto memorized—she could play the beginning of that for the audition. She wanted to double check her scales and the Mozart. She would need to find out how those practice rooms worked…and eat some dinner. She was hungry. She decided she'd bring her clarinet to dinner than try and find someone who knew about the music department to help her with the practice rooms than go to sleep after that. She had a plan. She always had felt calmer about auditions when she had a plan of preparation before them.

A/N: I hope you liked the first chapter! c: There's more to come. Oh yes. Oh yes. Hopefully. I can't promise weekly updates, but I'll try my best. For those of you reading/waiting for an update on "On My Way" ... you'll have to wait longer. Sorry. Please review! I'd love feedback. Also, Konoha Acad. is based off of Interlochen Academy...so if you attend school there I'd especially love to here from you!! Thanks.

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