Lily's sophomore summer was not what she expected.
Lily leLontre was the kid in every band: a little short, a little young, and more than a little talented. She refused to believe she was good at playing clarinet, but no one else hesitated to say so. She was the baby of the clarinet section in the Wind Ensemble, North High School's most prestigious band. She had ambition. Practicing for an hour or two after spending two or three periods in the band a day was normal for her. In the summer, she practiced twice a day on occasion. She was the youngest member of the Band Staff, the leadership group, after John had moved to Texas. She was also the solo clarinet section leader for that year ("Only one section leader for the largest section?" Roberto exclaimed. "What was Locke thinking? Flutes have four, and trumpets have five!"). Because she was so young and nervous, she had a rep. Mr. Locke, the director, believed she was scared of everything (which she was not, she firmly told him on many occasions). She was sometimes called "Triple L" after her initials, or "the Clarinet Kid". Of course, members of her own section just referred to her as "the kid."
Lily was nervous for this year to start. She had been pretty close (to an extent) to the seniors of the previous year. Roberto, Amanda, and Keith were all gone. She would still see them sometimes, but it wasn't the same. However, without pressure from band, it would be easier for her to be friends with them (though with Amanda, she never knew). Kristin and Kelsey were now seniors. Kristin had made the cheer leading team again, and wouldn't be marching. Kelsey had convinced Mr. Locke to place her as the Band Staff Vice President after losing the presidency to a flute player named Alexa the the previous year. Bailey and Mary were now juniors, and still likely to do everything together. However, they had a surprise for their section that year: they were marching trombone! The two had learned to play at the end of their sophomore year, and decided to march for no clear reason. There was one new member of the clarinet section: Maggie. She was a sophomore like Lily, and very good, though she didn't have the same dedication. Lily knew she didn't want to be there either. There were only 6 clarinets, down from the past year's 8, but there was a high chance of gaining members at the semester break.
But Lily wasn't worried about that yet. At the moment, she was only concerned with copying music. She was currently alone in the copy room running part after part of this year's marching music. It was very routine: load the parts, two on a page, onto the copier, run the number of copies, collect the papers, cut them in half with the slicer, stack them, and remove the originals. It was long and tedious work, but Lily had chosen to run for Librarian. It was her own fault she was inside running copies on a hot July day.
"You done yet?" asked Alexa, coming back into the room with another handful of pieces.
"Almost," Lily answered, slicing the Tuba part. "Here's the show tunes, without percussion pieces." She handed the five stacks to Alexa, trading her for the five new stacks of pom tunes.
"That's great!" Alexa said, smiling. "We'll be finished up fast. I'm going to go finish writing out the mini-band parts." She left with the copies, and Lily picked up the flute part of the first song on the first stack. In 40 minutes, she had finally finished everything, and went back into the band room to find Alexa hard at work on the computer.
"I'm done!" she called out, placing the copies on the counter with all the other pieces of music. "Is there anything else I need to do?" Lily and Alexa were the only ones in the abandoned band room. Not even Mr. Locke was there. What was so full and lively during the school year seemed dead and lonely. The other librarians were also nowhere to be found.
"Nope, I think you're done for today," Alexa said, looking up from the computer. "We haven't gotten drumline numbers back yet, and we don't have fight song lists yet, so you're done. Have a nice day!"
Lily went in almost every Tuesday, and occasionally other days (depending on when Alexa decided to do things), and the routine was almost always the same.
One day, after copying was done, they stuffed music folders for the wind players. Many people in Band Staff were there: all the librarians, Alexa, the pit captain, one of the jazz managers, and one of Alexa's friends, an ex-librarian who graduated two years before. Section leaders (along with Alexa and her younger sister) had decorated all the envelopes to be used for holding music in marching band conveniently. Lily's sister Emma Lissa had confiscated the clarinet folders to do herself. Lily didn't mind. Less work for her.
Setting up the folders involved taking every piece of music from one part at a time, laying each part on the ground, taking a folder, and inserting one copy of each piece. The goal was for everyone to have one copy of each piece of music, but they weren't perfect. Extras went into a cabinet so it was easy for the Band Staff to access, in the case that a person had missed a part.
When each folder was filled with the right music and put into the box, sorted by instrument, Alexa dismissed them. "That's it! We're done with music until Band Camp!" Everyone was happy.
Just because the music was done, everything else was not automatically perfect. Two major tasks weren't done: t-shirts and recording. Band Staff members traditionally wore decorated shirts so they could be identified easily. Each shirt contained the person's name and position. Recordings were made of a smaller group of band members: mostly section leaders, Band Staff, and a few seniors who had just graduated. They would run through and record all the show tunes for the band and color guard to hear.
Lily had helped Alexa and Rachel, the secretary, get the t-shirt supplies one day after copying music. They had gotten lime green tie-dye at a craft store, and went to Walmart for t-shirts and fabric paint. Alexa and Rachel almost lost Lily ("Imagine trying to explain that one to Mr. Locke at Band Camp!" Rachel said), but had found her. Lily was excited that she got to be part of the Staff. They were a pretty close group.
The plan for Tuesday was to make shirts at Alexa's house at 11, and then go to school around 1 to do recordings. Lily's mom let her drive to Alexa's. She was excited. Every other member of the clarinet section had a license, and she had just gotten her permit. When she rang the doorbell, Alexa told her to just come on in.
Her dog, Parsley, attacked Lily as soon as she stepped into the house. Lily laughed as the small puppy ran around her. Dogs could always find other dog owners. Lily had a German Shepard mix named Sadie. A few other members were setting up to tie-dye their Staff shirts. There was newspaper taped to the floor, and a few people were looking at instructions. In the end, all four librarians, one of the jazz managers, the junior drum major, the treasurer, and Alexa did their shirts then. They also dyed extra shirts for the pit captain and other jazz manager. Rachel had volunteered to do the shirts for herself, the senior drum major, and Kelsey, since none of them could be there. They still had to write with fabric paint their names and positions, but could do that the week before Band Camp.
For recordings, Alexa arranged for a few other members to meet them at school, such as a saxophone. The treasurer had to go, so he dropped off one of the librarians, and took everyone but Lily, Alexa, and one other librarian to North. The girls waited, and Alexa told them that their ride would come soon. When she left to find her flute, someone knocked at the door.
Lily walked over to answer it. She couldn't believe it! Even when she went up to the door and put her shoes on, he continued to bang against the door frame. "You can stop knocking and just come in," Lily said to Roberto, who was holding his clarinet. She saw his car parked on the curb.
"Are you ready for recording, Lily? We're going to rock the clarinet part," he said, stepping inside. Lily nodded, but knew she was going to suck. She had her crappy clarinet, her least favorite mouthpiece, and was not entirely sure she had a decent reed on her. Roberto had a bag of about 30, all weights and brands, he always carried with him, but Lily wasn't going to ask him. She still wasn't sure what he was doing here. The other librarian looked just as confused.
"Hi, Roberto," Alexa said casually. Apparently, she had been expecting him the whole time. She hadn't informed Lily, who was now very upset. She did not need to see Roberto again!
"So, we should make a new Band Staff position," Roberto said. "Chauffeur. It's what you become after President." They all laughed, but Alexa said she wouldn't be very good at it because she didn't have a car. There was that detail, Roberto agreed. He handed Lily his clarinet to hold in the backseat. "Take good care of Clari. You have a wood clarinet; I trust you." Roberto's clarinet was named Clari. His plastic clarinet for marching was Clari Jr. He was very particular about them, and was always instructing Lily in proper clarinet care (as if she didn't already know).
Roberto and Alexa did most of the talking during the ride to North. He did tell Alexa not to swear on one occasion. "There are small children in the backseat!" Since the other librarian was a junior, Lily knew that's not who he was talking about. "I'm not that young!" she protested. Lily saw him rolling his eyes in the rearview mirror. "Honestly!" she muttered under her breath.
At North, she started working pretty quickly. As soon as she got to school, she got the folders for the band members, and random folders for last year's seniors. Alexa got Mr. Locke to unlock the choir room, and they brought in stands to set up. Within half an hour, everyone had music, an instrument ready to play, and an area set up. There were 3 flutes, 2 clarinets, an alto and tenor sax, 3 trumpets, a horn, a trombone, and a sousaphone. All in all, it looked pretty good.
They played through every song at least once. Tom, the horn, was the senior drum major, and helped set starting tempos. The junior drum major was there too, and learned a little about playing. Roberto covered the top line of the clarinet part, and Lily took the bottom. The tenor sax had a wrong piece of music, so Lily went to go find a new one. It was a lot of work, but satisfying. Lily liked how much better she could play the pieces this year, as opposed to last year, even when she was sight reading!
Shortly after they had gotten through all 4 pieces, Locke pulled them into the band room to make the recording, which was relatively painless. Lily really wished she'd brought her wood clarinet and a better reed and mouthpiece. Surely Roberto noticed the lack of sound and quality, but he didn't mention it.
The bigger ordeal was putting everything away, but they still managed to do it quickly. So quickly, in fact, that no one wanted to go home quite yet.
"Let's hang out. Steak and Shake, everyone?" asked Roberto. The general consensus of the group was that it was a great idea. Lily was just closing the latches on her clarinet case when Roberto turned to her and asked, "Lily, are you coming?" This shocked her.
Everyone knew that Steak and Shake outings were big. They had a lot of unofficial rules. They were almost organized by seniors, usually seniors on Band Staff. You had to be very well liked to get asked to go. With the exception of Kristin, who spent most of her time with the cheerleaders, Lily was almost positive every clarinet except Amanda went to Steak and Shake. And freshman were never invited. Pass up a chance like this? Never!
"Sure!" she said.
She ended up getting a ride from Roberto, and after a very fun hour at Steak and Shake, they hung out at Tom's, the senior drum major's house. At first, they played soccer and volleypong (a sport created by Roberto and Woody), but the sweltering heat forced them inside to play video games. Roberto spent most of the time complaining about how hot it was and how it would hurt his wood clarinet. Lily was glad for a second that she had brought her plastic one. She didn't think Roberto had ever told her that much about proper clarinet care.
But it was almost time to put all of that behind them. After all, there were only two weeks till band camp!
AN: And Lily's back for her sophomore year! What kind of things will Wind Ensemble be up to this year? Well, here's a major spoiler: this year, the band's taking a trip to the Bahamas! For fans of Roberto, Amanda, and Keith, they will still be making a few guest appearances. As always, review please! Next up: Band Camp! How will Lily do, managing her section by herself? And which new college freshmen are going to make a return to the band room?