Only like a half hour more. I plop down on the vinyl tarp watching the directors chit chat away up in the bleachers. I love indoor percussion, but seriously, the first couple practices are such a waste of time. I could be sleeping or eating or knitting scarves right now. I look over at Ryan, lying on his back with his bare feet up in the air, spelling letters with his legs.
"Ryan. What the hell are you doing?" I say, giving him a grin. Causing trouble is second nature to everyone in the drum line. We just can't help it.
Ryan glances down at me and shrugs. "Spencer, shut it. I'm trying to tell that new girl in the pit she's cute, duh. Fresh blood, gotta call it before Olli does."
I turn around and look at Olli who is snoring quietly face down on the floor, a small puddle of drool forming under him.
I laugh. "Well I don't think you have to worry about that. Maybe Olli drowning though. That girl is in junior high man. Gross."
Looking over at the pit, everyone is sitting on the tarp under the xylophones and marimbas. Most of the kids are in high school with us, but some of the new ones were brought up from the junior high to fill holes. They just finished their rehearsal and were waiting to meet our new kids.
"Dude if I was in the pit I'd make a fort right now," I say. "By the looks of things we're not going to get anything done today anyway."
The minute hand was slowly approaching 9pm on the gymnasium clock, and then we could finally put all the instruments away, fold up the tarp, and head home.
"Allen said the junior high kids who were joining the drum line would be coming over tonight. So. There's that I guess," Ryan says, flipping himself over onto his stomach and resting his chin on his hands. "You ready for that?"
"Yeah I guess we have to be," I grimace. Having junior high kids in a high school ensemble is a touchy subject. I'm the percussion section leader, so if anything goes wrong with these junior high kids it's on my head, which sucks, since everyone is more than excited to corrupt the little ones, not excluding me, which will no doubt end in some sort of trouble.
Our high school has had a state champion indoor percussion ensemble for the past two years, which is a huge deal since we've only been competing for two years. What is indoor percussion? It's like marching band kind of, but way cooler and it's only percussion stuff. It's all indoors, super competitive, and it's very artsy, which is a great way to make big tough drummers feel stupid when they dance around on their tippy toes. Other high schools view us as, and I quote, "the competition." They want to be us; practice like us, look like us, win like us. Unfortunately, we lost a lot of seniors after last season and didn't have enough people to complete the line, so we had to call on some junior high kids to fill the group out. This year wasn't going to be as easy to win like my freshman and sophomore, but if you aren't willing to work I guess you don't deserve to win.
"Alright guys stand up! The bass drummers are here!" Mr. Allen yells, motioning everyone to gather on the floor.
"Well I guess we know where the newbies will be playing," I say under my breath to Ryan beside me. Band politics. I don't even know why we have tryouts.
I look at the new kids coming in and then I see her, and my whole world suddenly becomes clear.
I cannot throw up, I keep reminding myself, wringing the bottom of my shirt. It's just a bunch of high schoolers, no big deal. I swallow the huge knot in my throat and look at the other faces around me. There are only four of us, awkwardly standing behind the door that leads to our first high school practice.
"Hey guys, it's cool. This is gonna be fun," I say, trying to sound convincing.
"Not helping Ashley," Chase mumbles, pushing his glasses up his nose.
Mr. Allen told us we'd be playing bass, which is cool because I love it, but I can tell from everyone's faces that we're not in love with the idea of being the junior high kids in the high school drum line. I've watched the kids in this line for years. They're wild, always running around making animal noises and jumping all over each other. The blonde girl is like their ring leader. All the boys would walk through fire for her. Actually now that I think about it, I feel like I heard about that happening at one of their camping trips last summer. Either way, we are fresh meat. I can only imagine what they have in store for us.
"It's time to go in," Kevin says, opening the gym door and walking in like he owns the place. At least I don't look like him. Douche.
"Alright guys stand up! The bass drummers are here!" Mr Allen yells and I roll my eyes. Great. A welcoming party. I walk around the corner and the first person I see is Spencer, standing with her arms crossed, watching us come across the floor. Finally face to face with the girl I've looked up to for years, my role model in anything drum related, and only one thought explodes into my mind.
She's beautiful.
The next day…
"Hey Allen," I say, poking my head into his office. "Ryan, Olli, and I are going over to the junior high to work with the newbies. I'm gonna need whatever music you have lying around for the show."
"Alright Spencer." Mr Allen pushes some papers around on his desk, searching. He tries so hard to be organized, but eighty-five labels on something doesn't make a bit of difference when all of them are in a pile on your desk. He gathers together a small stack and hands them to me. "Spencer I expect to still have four bass drummers after today, you know," he adds with the infamous eyebrow lift. Oh geez.
"Allen, I wouldn't lead my little sheep astray," I say with a smile, batting my eyes for good measure. Allen knows how ridiculous we can be, but he also knows we always get the job done, so he pretty much gives me free range to teach and lead as I see fit. We're pretty cool, Allen and I.
"Mhm. Let's keep it that way Carlin."
"Olli, Ryan, let's hit it," I say, walking through the band room and out the door. I zip up my jacket against the chilly December wind.
"I feel like, if the junior high is gonna join our drum line, they should have to come pick us up so we don't have to walk across the parking lot," Olli says, kicking a pebble off the sidewalk.
"You do realize they can't drive right?" Ryan says, pulling his toboggan down over his eyes.
"They should build a sled and pull it with their bicycles," I say, for the sake of good argument. Olli looks at me with an excited face, pointing his sticks up at the sky. "YES! And then they can make us sandwiches!"
"I do like sandwiches," Ryan says as we open the door and enter the junior high. Their classes get out later than ours, so I peek into the cafeteria study hall to see what's going on and stop suddenly. Olli and Ryan both run into me, drumsticks falling and clattering across the tile hallway.
"Geez Spencer what the heck," Olli says looking over my head. "Hey isn't that one of ours?"
"That's what I thought too," I say. "What's her name?"
"Ashley," Ryan says, bending over to retrieve his sticks. "She's the only girl."
I look towards where she's reading her book at the table and realize she's looking at us too.
"I'm gonna go talk to her. You stay here."
Math is so boring. I flip through the pages in my book and look up at the clock. Twenty more minutes and then we would be having our first lesson with the high schoolers. Suddenly, there's a ton of noise in the hallway. I swear you can't even find quiet in a study hall these days. I look towards the source of the noise and see three familiar faces peering around one of the doors. Spencer, a guy in a toboggan, and a tall kid with shoulder length dark hair talk quietly for a second. She turns and starts to walk my way.
I look around to see if there is anyone else she could possibly be heading towards but it seems unlikely. Everyone is staring at her like she just got off the rocket from Mars and solved world hunger. What to do, what to do... I clear my throat and look back down at my book, pretending like I didn't notice her.
A shadow falls across the table as she sits across from me. Holy hell.
"Hello Ashley." Spencer is sitting with her hands folded in front of her, smiling mischievously. "My name's Spencer and I'm here to bust you out."
"m hm I'm.. Hi." I say. I've never been this close to her. She's got outrageous blue eyes. "I'm Ashley."
"Yes, yes we've covered this dear," Spencer says smiling, gathering my books into a pile. "Come along now." Standing up she picks up my things and starts to walk away, looking back at me. She stops and leans over the table because I haven't done anything but stare at her with my mouth open. "If you walk with purpose, no one will doubt you," she says with a wink. I stand up and attempt to fall in beside her as she turns and walks away, trying to keep from blushing as everyone else stares.
Holy hell.
"What is all this stuff anyway," Spencer says, flipping through my books.
"It's homework," I say, thankful that actual words came out this time. She looks at me quizzically. "You know, work you do at home?" I add.
"Ah." She shakes her head and tucks my books under her arm, flipping the bangs out of her eyes. "Yeah I don't do that."
I'm walking through my study hall with Spencer. My week has just been made.
"I'm home Mom," I yell up the stairs as I drop my bag on the floor. Three hours of making bass drummers play exercises and nothing to show for it but a giant headache and an armful of bruises from Ryan pinching me every time I told the kids an embarrassing story about him. What a baby.
"Spencer honey there's dinner in the fridge if you want it," Mom yells down. Oh thank heaven. I pop a plate into the microwave. There's something naturally calming about the quiet whir of a microwave. I would totally buy an mp3 of microwave whirring. Or of a typewriter. Or dinosaur noises.
Hm. I laugh to myself quietly thinking about how red Ashley's cheeks were when I stole her out of study hall earlier. I should really like all the kids in the drum line equally but there's something about that Ashley. She seems really nice, but so quiet. I'm going to have to figure out how to break her out of her shell. Or at least make sure she can manage to get herself out of study hall next time. Kids these days. No creativity.
I drum my fingertips together and practice laughing maniacally. I put on oven mitts and clap. I whistle the theme song to The Flintstones. The microwave dings.
Yessss I'll have to think of something.
Review please! Should I keep writing this or not? Mehhhhh :)