Carnie Williams was scared out of her mind. Today was the first day of band camp and she didn't know anyone. Her best friends weren't in band and her one friend from last year's band class had been accepted into Julliard high school in New York City for her brilliant saxophone playing. Man, did Carnie miss Jamie, but they still talked all the time on the phone and online. Jamie had just yelled at her last night best band camp had always been something Carnie and Jamie had wanted to do together. But since Jamie didn't go to a regular high school, there was no marching band for her to join and band camp for her to attend. But Jamie was still totally happy to be at Julliard, where she was the first freshman to be a first chair alto saxophone in the jazz band.
Carnie stood in front of the four large coach buses that were parted in the parking lot of Stinson High School. There were handfuls of people milling around you could tell the three different types of people walking around. The band parents were the ones crying and hugging and carrying large bags and cases for their kids. The personal with the band, like band directors and color guard directors, held clipboards and were yelling at everyone to stop talking and calm down. The band students didn't care what anyone was saying, they were to busy saying to bye to parents and telling them to leave, and saying hello to the all the people they haven't seen all summer. There was lots of yelling coming from everyone and finally, someone that looked like the head guy, pulled a whistle from his pocket and blew really hard. Everyone stopped talking and covered their ears. Some students looked like they were about to yell something at him, in till both directors and parents alike stared them down.
The director but his whistle away and help up his clipboard. He opened his mouth wide, like he was about to yell something loud at everyone. He had bright red hair and was about six feet.
"Okay! Everyone, listen up. I want your stuff on the buses. The woodwinds on Bus 1. Percussion on Bus 2. Brass on 3 and guard on bus 4. I want everyone on his or her own bus, all your stuff on your own bus and if anyone gives any crap, you're off the bus and you can find your own way to camp. Do I make myself clear?" He shouted. After a quick look at everyone's face, he smiled. "Parents, kiss your kids good bye and head home. You'll see them in 3 weeks, and hopefully, they would have actually have learned something."
The parents gave a little laugh and kissed their children goodbye. Carnie's father left when he dropped her off, so he could head to work. And Carnie's mother left the family when she was two years old, so she had no one to say goodbye too. Carnie swung her backpack around her shoulder and pulled her cell phone out of the front pocket. The time blinking on the screen read 4.45 and just the thought out it being that early in the morning made Carnie want to rub her eyes. She knew that she was going to get yelled at for waking up Jamie, seeing that it was 7.45 in the morning. During the summer Jamie didn't wake up in till at least 9.
Carnie scrolled down her contact list and click the send button when she reached Jamie's name. After six rings, Jamie's cheery voicemail picked up.
"Hiya! You've reached Jamie Crock's cell phone. I'm probably sleeping because the only time I don't answer my phone is when I'm sleeping. Or when it's charging. But when it's charging I'm usually sleeping. So leave a message when the funny little sound goes off. Some people call it a beep, but to me it never really sounded-"
Jamie voice was cut off as the beep sounded. Carnie quickly spoke into the phone as she picked up her bags and case and headed over to the bus labeled '#3'.
"Hi Jamie. It's Carnie, guess where I'm calling from? A parking lot! I know, I've never been in one of those before. Right now, I'm heading over to my bus. I get to ride in a bus for five hours with a load of people I've never met before. Lucky me. So, I work up this morning at, gag, 3 in the a.m. I had seriously walked around my house for an hour before I could finally do something productive. My father walked was in the kitchen looking like its no big deal to be up that early. You'd die if someone woke you up at early. Because good knows that you wouldn't wake up on your own, or wake up to an alarm clock. So, do you miss me? Of course you don't, seeing you have all your little New York friends. Just promise me you won't forget all the people you left behind in Washington when you left. Hasta luego mi amiga!"
Carnie flipped the phone close as she handed her large duffel bag to the elder bus driver. He placed the green bag into the left storage container under the bus and when she handed him her sousaphone case, he placed it in the right container, along with all the other black cases that where already in there. She pulled her tie-dye backpack back on her back. She headed her way into the bus.
As she stepped on to the bus, she looked around. The rows of seats were lined with students, a good majority of them being male. There were a handful of girls littering the back rows and Carnie, not wanting to be the odd girl out during camp she headed back there to meet them. There didn't seem to any freshmen ion the bus. Carnie wondered if she was the only one. She walked up to a girl with long red hair. She tapped her on the shoulder. The girl turned around. She noticed Carnie and smiled.
"Hi, I'm Carnie Williams. I'm the new freshman trumpet player." Carnie stuck out her hand. The girl shook it.
"Hi Carnie. I'm Molly Fitzpatrick. I'm a baritone player. A sophomore baritone player." Molly smiled. "So your our new freshman. We only have five freshmen this year. Probably resulting from the cut back in the music program that only happened the year you guys started band. Lucky you."
"I seem to be hearing that phrase a lot this morning." Carnie smiled. "So, are you related to the band director?"
"Ah, the Fitzpatrick curse. Yeah, my brother's Patty. And I'll say this again, lucky me." Molly took a sat down in the seat closest to her. She motioned for Carnie to sit down with her. Everyone was taking seats. Carnie was just about to sit down when a boy came up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder. Carnie turned around. Molly spoke, "Oh, I forgot Carnie. This is my boyfriend Sheen. I told him he could sit here. He's a trumpet."
"Oh, pleased to meet you. I'll talk to you later Molly." Carnie turned around and looked around for a seat. The closest one was in the middle of the bus. There was a guy already in the seat next to the empty one. He was turned around, talking to the girl behind him. The guy next to her was reading a book, not interested in whatever the two were talking about. Carnie walked over to them.
"Hey, ah is anyone planning one sitting here?" Carnie asked.
"Nah, it's all yours. I'm Ducky Stevens." Ducky moved his bags off of the seat. The girl sitting behind him smiled and waved at Carnie. "And this is Gracie Michaels and Kelley Murphy."
"Hi, I'm Carnie Williams. Great to meet you." Carnie sat down and placed her backpack on the floor by her feet.
"So Carnie, what instrument do you play?" Gracie asked. She was flipping through a magazine, which looked like Carnie's favorite magazine, Blender. The cover held a picture of Meat Loaf, Carnie's favorite rock musician. Gracie seemed to like everything that Carnie liked.
"I play the sousaphone. I have for years now." Carnie took a piece of orange gum offered to her from Ducky and popped it into her mouth and started chewing. She had an addiction to gum, any flavor. She was trying to get over it, while on vacation. Well, all her hard work had just gone down the drain.
"Wow, a new sousaphone player!" Ducky said. "I've never seen one of those in Seattle! What are you, a sophomore?"
"I'm a freshman. But I am new. I just moved from Plate, up north to Seattle." Carnie answered. She snapped her gum a couple of times. "Are there any other sousaphones?"
"Oddly, you picked the perfect place to sit. Me, Ducky and Kelley are the entire sousaphone section. Well, you too now." Gracie smiled.
"Really. That's awesome. My other school only had me. And they all didn't like me. Well, everyone but my best friend Jamie. But then again nobody liked her. But not because she was different, but because she was the best. She's off in NYC playing with the big dogs. She's the first chair saxophonist in Julliard's top jazz band. I'd never be as good as her."
That's so cool! I wish I could go to Julliard. But there are a couple of things in my way." Gracie said. "One, I'd never get accepted. Two, I could afford to go there. And three, I only play the sousaphone and tuba. And there is nothing there for tubas. Sometimes being a tuba sucks."
"Yeah. It does." Ducky said. "Hey, which director is going to be one our bus?"
"Who are the directors?" Carnie asked
"Well, the head honcho is Kyle Fitzpatrick. We call him Patty. And he's Molly Fitzpatrick's brother, so it may seem like she gets away with a lot. Because she does." Gracie said. "And then the assistant band director is Sean Mathews. We just call him Sean."
"Yeah and t he Color Guard director is Suzanne Poole. She goes by Suzy. And her assistant is Hope Michaels." Ducky said, "I wonder if she and Gracie are related in anyway…"
"Yes, fine, I'll admit it. Hope is my sister, sadly enough. She's a student at Washington University. So she still lives at home." Gracie replied "I remember in 5th grade, when I came home and told my mother that I wanted to play the trombone. Hope had a fit! She said (and I quote) 'Girls don't play the trombone! Girls play something dainty like the flute or the clarinet. I mean at most, if you really want to play something tomboy, you play the saxophone. But the trombone! Please, Gracie, live up to your name and learn something graceful!' And from that day one, I vowed that I'd find the most boyish instrument out there. That's how I picked the sousaphone when I got to high school."
"Really? I got tricked into playing the sousaphone. When I was in 5th grade, the instrumental music teacher had everyone who wanted to play something come down to the cafeteria. When you got there you went to the table where she sat. I knew that everyone 'cool' was going to play the saxophone. I just couldn't remember the name, except for the phone part. I sent up to the teacher and said "I want to play an instrument that has the word phone at the end of it.' She thought for a second and was about to say something when she got all excited. She said oh, you mean the sousaphone! I said, yeah I guess so. She got really excited then She said that she only had one and that I was the lucky person to get to play it." Carnie said. "Little did I know, what the actual instrument was."
"Hah, I feel bad for you." Ducky laughed. "I just wanted to play because when I was a baby, my dad use to read me a story about a little boy that had to travel all over the world just to pay his sousaphone, because no one wanted to listen to him practice. He ended up living on a boat alone, just o her could play. I vowed to my father, at the ripe old age of four, that I was going to make people want to listen to the sousaphone. My father said sure, but I had to learn how to play the trombone first. I think he just wanted me to fallow in his footsteps."
"So that's how you and Gracie met?" Carnie asked
"Yeah. Me, Gracie and Kelly go back to the 5th grade, where we were three of six trombones, the only three that didn't have any ambitions to keep playing the trombones. The other three are actually still in band. I swore to god that Mickey was going to quit, but he didn't. Mickey Jenison, Vincent Anderson and Andrew Miller."
"Life sucked at the beginning stages of band for me. It stinks to be the only person in your section. And the trombones I sat with were jackasses. I think they still are. I had no friends in that band. Well no one but Jamie." Carnie replied.
Carnie, Ducky and Gracie continued to chat about their time in band, when the red headed man that gave out orders came on the bus and blew his whistle again to get everyone's attention. When everyone stopped talking and looked at him, he dropped the backpack and clipboard he was holding on the seat next to him. The woman in the seat next to his seat looked up at him and smiled before returning to whatever was in her lap. From Carnie view, it looked like she was knitting.
"Okay, I've told this to every bus and you're my last. When we get to camp, you will be spilt into your house via what section you are in. The sections on this bus are trumpets in house 3A. The trombones in 3B. The mellophones and baritones in 3C and sousaphones in 3D." Patty called over the whispering of the bus. The bus had begun to move, fallowing behind the three buses ahead of it.
"Now, everyone will have a director manning each group. Sean is in charge of percussion, Hope in charge of guard and Suzy in charge of woodwinds. So that leaves me in charge of you guys. I don't want no shit, in the houses, on the fields or on this bus now. As you know, we are sharing the Campus of Sander's College. If I find that anyone, and I mean anyone, no one has advantages over anyone," Patty had stopped talking for a second to look at Molly, who blushed from her seat in the back. A couple of her friends laughed at her. "So if I find any reports on you from the other band's director or from anyone the staff, your ass will be on the next bus home, the ticket money coming out of your parents pockets. Everyone got that?"
Everyone nodded their head, like they were afraid to speck anything in front of Patty. From far away, Patty seemed like the nicest person you could meet in Seattle, but he seemed to have a bad side. Carnie remember not to get on that bad side.
"Okay, now that I totally freaked you out, as you know every year each director brings along someone to help them out, whether it's a friend or a sibling. You guys met her the other years I've been here, but for the newbies that don't know her, this is my girlfriend of six years, Frankie Quinn."
Frankie smiled shyly form her seat, like she didn't like the attention to be on her. She was knitting something, something blue that looked like a scarf. Patty was still talking; something about houses and the rooms within the houses or maybe it was about dancing. Carnie didn't know, she wasn't paying attention.
Now Carnie should have been think about how much fun she was going to have over the next two weeks, but in reality, she was more afraid of what she was going to be doing. The director seemed to have a temper and she barely knew anyone. But she vowed to Jamie that she would have a fun time and not be clingy and call her every three hours because she had no friends. And she promised the same thing to herself.
"Okay, earth to Carnie. What is she sleeping with her eyes open, or something?" Carnie blinked, just to find Gracie's hand waving in front of her. Carnie shook her head and looked out the window. They were moving. How long had Carnie blacked out for?
"Whoa, when we start moving?" Carnie asked.
"Like, over an hour and a half ago. We're coming to the first stop in twenty minutes. I'd get your money out." Ducky said. "And after that, it's nonstop straight to Mahoney's Campground. Just a few short miles outside of Dallas. Dallas Oregon, that is. A four hour and ten minute trip."
"I slept thru the whole trip! That sucks. In whatever amount of time, when my friend calls me, she's going to ask how's the trip and I'm going to say "Great! I slept thru the drive, but I wasn't even really sleeping!'" Carnie flipped open her cell phone, which she had just taken out of her pocket. The time read five past seven.
"Can you guys tell me why we had to leave at 5.30?" Carnie asked. "Because, we're going to be there before lunch."
"We always go at 5.30. Patty likes to get there before any other bands get there." Gracie said.
"What other bands are going to be there?" Carnie asked. Stinson was only one of five high schools in Seattle. And they all go to this camp at the same time every year.
"Well, every other band in Seattle." Ducky said, "There's Orrin High, Nikon High, Corey High and Grant High. Plus us, so that makes five, right?"
"Yep. But I thought Winston Private was going to come this year?" Gracie asked. Carnie knew Winston. She was almost going to go there when her and her father moved to Seattle. But then her father's job down sized and he lost a large amount of his paycheck. So he opted for a 2-bedroom apartment instead for the 3-bedroom bedroom. And it also meant she had to go to public school. But she had gone to public school her whole life, so she didn't care. Plus she didn't want to go to private school that much.
"Nah, they spent more money, and went up into Canada to get great training from this world renowned band. Their snobs, the whole lot of them." Gracie said.
The bus came to a jerking stop. Carnie looked out the window. They were at the first rest stop and buses were unloading to go use the bathroom and to get something to eat. Patty yelled a half an hour before leaving the bus, indicating that they had 30 minutes to do their business and get back on the bus. Carnie grabbed her bag and headed of the bus behind Ducky. She looked back to see Gracie and Kelley headed behind them.
The sun was bright outside. Carnie chatted with Gracie and Ducky as they walked along. Kelley walked silently beside them. Carnie looked forward to see Molly and Sheen looking back at them. She had a sort of shocked look on her face when she saw that she was talking to Gracie and Ducky. Carnie gave her a look and Molly turned around quickly.
The sousaphone section entered the place and headed over to the fastly filling counter. They brought their food and eat it quickly, stopping at the bathrooms before heading back to the bus. They had ten minutes before the rest of the band headed back. They climbed on the bus, when Carnie's cell phone started ringing. The screen flashed a goofy picture of Jamie. She flipped open the phone.
"Hello? Jamie? Jamie, wait, wait, let me go find I place where the phone works." Carnie walked back out of the bus. "Hello, Jamie? Can you here me now?"
"Well, duh. Yeah I can." Jamie's voice floated out of the phone.
"So what's up? You just getting up? Isn't it like eleven o'clock in New York?" Carnie asked.
"Again, I say, well duh. I don't get up anytime before eleven during the summer. Though I do have to head to the school around five for practice." Jamie said.
"Well, I hope you have fun, fun, fun! You need to meet some people in that school. I freaking huge!" Carnie spoke into the phone.
"Yes, well, I am not the only one. You need to find some people you like and that like you in that band of yours. And a boyfriend wouldn't hurt either."
"You know what Jamie? I'm not going any where near that topic. It's the last thing I need to think about."
"Well, its true. Find some hot-"
"What's that, Jamie? Jamie! Jamie, I can't hear you! I think you breaking up! Jamie, Jamie Jam-" Carnie smiled as she hung up the phone on her best friend. She shut the phone off for the remainder of the trip, because she didn't want to talk. She just wanted to sleep.
Carnie climbed back onto the bus and sat down next to Ducky. She put her phone away and pulled her pillow out from under the seat. She propped it up against Ducky's shoulder, who was still talking non-stop to Gracie. She drifted off to sleep land with in five minutes of sitting down. She even slept right through the loudness of the rest of the brass getting back on the bus.
Carnie woke up when someone moved her head. She blinked open her eyes and sat up. Ducky was crawling over the back of his seat trying to get Gracie and Kelley to wake up.
"Blah. It's so bright out." Carnie looked back. That voice didn't come from Ducky or Gracie. Carnie looked Kelley who was rubbing his eyes and mumbling to himself. That was the first thing Carnie had heard come out of Kelley's mouth.
Around her, everyone was waking up or waking someone up. They started to back up their things into their backpacks and stretching. Carnie looked out the window. They were no longer on a paved road, but bouncing down a dirt road. A sign passed them that read "Welcome to the Campus of Sanders College." They were there.
The came to a stop behind the three other buses that were with Stinson High. They we're already unloading, some carrying cases and flags, duffel bags and some carrying nothing, standing around the bus drivers, waiting for their bags to show up. Everyone was yelling to people from other buses, shouting hellos and hugging people nearest to them. Carnie sling her bag over her shoulder and head down the stairs behind Patty and Frankie.
Once outside, Carnie saw that since she was the last person on the bus, her bags were the first ones off. She slung her pale blue bag over her shoulder and took her sousaphone case when Frankie handed it to her. Patty was standing on the other side of Frankie and waved Carnie to come over.
"Hi carnie. I'm Kyle Fitzpatrick, but the other students call me Patty." Patty and Carnie shook hands. "Your are only freshman that hasn't marched with us before. I wanted to show you around."
"The other freshmen are George Nixon, a saxophonist, Janie Yonkers, flute, Marla Pollen and Angie Martin, both are clarinets. They all marched with us last year. I saw that you were sitting with the rest of the tuba section. What do you think of them?"
"They're great. Ducky and Gracie are funny. Kelley doesn't seem to talk much. He said about three words during the whole trip." Carnie said.
"Yeah, Kelley's never been a big talker. But he's one hell of a sousaphone player. But you'll be giving him a run for his money." Patty said, "I ask your old band director for a tape of you play and your brilliant!"
"Nah, I'm just okay. I could be better if I tried." Carnie protested.
"Carnie, if you were any better you'd be Sousa himself. Now, so find one of those sousa freaks to show you to the sousa house." Patty patted her on the back as she started to walk away.
Carnie looked around to see if she could find on of the other sousaphone players. Gracie and Ducky were nowhere to be found, but she saw Kelley standing by one of the bus driver, waiting for his case to be found amidst the darkness of the storage container under the bus. Carnie swung her sousaphone case on top her head and headed over to Kelley.
Carnie reached him just as the bus driver found his case. He placed his large green duffel bag on his back and picked his cases up and placed it on his head, just like Carnie had done.
"Hey Kelley. Could you show me the way to they house?" Carnie asked. Kelley just nodded his head. They started to walk silently over to the houses. Carnie didn't like it when it was quiet. She always had some sort of sound playing, whether it was music blaring from her stereo or Jamie was talking, because Jamie never shut up. And if neither of those were available, she talked, even if it was to herself.
"So, not to be rude or anything, but why don't you ever talk?" Carnie asked bravely.
"I don't know. I guess I never had to, I never did and I still don't. I never had any friends when I was younger, probably because I didn't talk. But then I became friends with Gracie and Ducky. I didn't have to talk around them, because they talked enough for three of me." Kelley said quickly.
"I guess your right. If you think about it, sousaphone players are just natural loud. I never met one that hasn't been told to shut up twenty times before they actually do. Including me." Carnie and Kelley both laughed at this. Carnie smiled at Kelley.
They had arrived at a house like structure that held a sign that read, "House 3D. Sousaphones." The green door into the house was propped open with a painted sousaphone case. Inside Carnie could hear yelling coming form Ducky and Gracie. She was about to walk in the door, when a book came flying past her. She turned and gave Kelley a 'Help Me!' Kelley just laughed and shook his head.
'Your on your own.' He mouthed. Carnie took a deep breathe and stepped inside, using her sousaphone case as a shield, incase anything might flying at her again. What she saw made her crack up laughing.
Ducky and Gracie were rolling on the floor yelling at each other. Each of their bags was opened and the contents were spilling out. Whatever they were fighting over, Ducky was able to rip it out of Gracie hands and was running towards an open door on the other side of the room. But Gracie wouldn't give up and she jumped up from the floor and dived across the room and tackled Ducky to the floor again. This was where Kelley came running into the house and pulled the thing from the middle of the two. It turned out to be a sousaphone cover.
"Are you guys fighting over this, again?" Kelley asked.
"What is it?" Carnie asked.
"It's the school's best sousaphone cover. This one doesn't have any rips in it and the elastic isn't broken. Also the words aren't faded." Gracie said, "and I want it!"
She lunged at Kelley, but he stuck out his arm and held her back. Kelley seemed strong, because Gracie was placing all her weight on his arm.
"Okay, okay. Chill out Gracie. We'll figure who gets what cover for the year, after we figure out who's sleeping in what room. Now, Ducky, Gracie, clean up you stuff." Kelley ordered.
Gracie and Ducky huffed off. Standing in front of the doorway, Carnie finally got a good look at what the three of them looked like.
Gracie had a style of her own. Gracie was short, probably only five feet, five one at most. She had a do it your self dye job, making her hair blonde with dark brown roots. And it was stick straight. But Gracie's piercing feature was her bright blue, blue eyes. Today she was wearing a laid back style. She had on a My Chemical Romance tour tee shirt, a pair of ripped jeans and her hair was pulled up into a lose ponytail.
Ducky on the other hand, looked like he had put some work into his outfit. His hair was brown and choppy and he had spiked it into different sized spikes. Unlike Gracie, Ducky was extremely tall, almost six two. But he was stick thin and looked like he would snap in half if her bent over too far. His baby blue polo shirt and store made faded jeans had wrinkles in them from the ride over and he was busy trying to get them out. If Ducky hadn't come out of the closet soon, he should do that soon.
Kelley was nothing like Ducky. Kelley had dark brown hair and dark hazel eyes. He had on a pair of dirt stained jeans and a yellowed tee shirt. His dark hair was cut short, but the bangs had grown a little long and he kept on pushing them back from his forehead.
Carnie compared her look to the look of her roommates. In her old school every sort of dress alike, while Carnie and Jamie always dressed how they pleased, Jamie to stand out and Carnie just dressed comfortably. She had a wide assortment of tee shirts. A large portion of them she had gotten from the town's thrift store and she had not actually been to the places that the tee shirts advertised. Today she was wearing a brown tee shirt that read Coleman's Plumbing (where her father worked) and her favorite ripped jean shorts. Her light brownish red hair was tried back into to ponytails and her bangs where held back with her favorite blue bandana. And her blue eyes were bright as the morning sun. So her father said.
"Okay, how about this?" Ducky asked, "Girls in the right room and boys in the left room?"
"But that'll mean Kelley gets his own room. And that's not fair!" Gracie ducked as one of Ducky's flip-flops came flying at her. "I'm just messing with you, Ducky. You know that. The idea sounds brilliant. Everyone agree?"
Carnie nodded her head as she started to drag her case and duffel bag over to the room on the right. She pushed the door open with her back and walked in backwards. Carnie flipped on the light and turned around. The medium sized room held two twin beds, each bed made with blue and black blankets and pillows, which are Stinson High's colors. Next to each bed were a dresser and a hook. Carnie dragged her bag over to the bag and flung it onto it.
Carnie unzipped her duffel bag and pulled her garment bag off the top of the pile of clothes in the bag. Inside the bag, hung the Stinson High marching band uniform. She was proud of this uniform. The blue and black tuxedo like uniform was like non she had every seen before.
Under the uniform, in her bag, was her hatbox and marching shoes. She laid those on top of the dresser next to the bed and opened on of the drawers. She was laying her tee shirts in the drawer when Gracie dragged her open suitcase (with all the contents spilling out behind her) and started to put her clothes away too. Carnie was placing picture of her and Jamie and her father on the dresser with her shoes, when Gracie burst out laughing. Carnie turned her away and gave her a strange look. Gracie fell on her bed, crying from laughing so hard.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I just can't help but thing about how much fun it's going to be this year playing pranks on the other sections, now that we have four members this year!" Gracie sat up and wiped the tears from her eyes. Seeing Carnie look of confusing was still there, "Oh, you wouldn't know about the pranks, now would you?"
"Yeah, I know everything about it!" Carnie said sarcastically.
"Well, every year, a tons of pranks get pulled on the other sections. Like last year, the first pranks were pulled on the saxophone section. And the saxophone section totally thought it was the flute section. So two days later a prank was pulled on the flute section. And then the drums got pranked on. And they thought it was the trumpet section. So three days later, the trumpet section woke up to fund they had just been pranked." Gracie said.
"But none of the sections actually did the pranking, did they?" Carnie asked. Gracie smiled evilly. "You guys did they pranking."
"Yep, but the sousaphone section is so nice, that they would never do anything so evil. So everyone freaks out at each other." Gracie said, "I think the only person that knows that we do the pranking is Frankie. She saw us one of the nights. But she never said anything."
"Wow, that awesome. So brilliant!" Carnie said.
Gracie was about to reply, when the intercom that was up by the top of the door went off. Gracie and Carnie starred at it like they had never seen an intercom before.
"Will Stinson High School head down to Mess Hall 4 for lunch and orientation." The voice said.
"Well, lets get a going, so the sousaphones can get the best table in the hall. We had hall 4 last year and I know exactly where to go." Gracie jumped from the bed and headed out of the door with Carnie close behind. "Ducky, Kelley! Lets go! I want the best table this year. I will not let the drummers beat us this year!"
"We're coming, we're coming!" Ducky and Kelley emerged from the left bedroom. Ducky had changed into a white wife-beater.
Ducky and Gracie had walked out the door in step with each other. Kelley and Carnie fallowed three steps behind them, also in step. When Carnie noticed a load of guys trailing behind them, fastly speeding up.
"Hey Gracie, you know there is a load of guys, with sticks in hand, trailing behind us." Carnie said.
"Oh they don't." Gracie said. She and Ducky looked at each other, smiling evilly. All of a sudden, Ducky and Gracie took off running, up hill towards a large brown barn like building. Kelley and Carnie took off after them. When Gracie and Ducky reached the steps leading to the building, they took the steps three at a time.
When they reached the top, Gracie hurled the door open and speed inside, with Ducky after her. The door shut before Kelley and Carnie had made it up the stairs. Kelley held the door open for Carnie as she ran in and he ran in after her. Gracie jumped and sat on a table with Ducky fallowing suit. Carnie stopped short and leaned on the table, huffing. Kelley sat down on the table, too. Carnie was about to collapse on the floor, when both Ducky and Gracie grabbed her shirt and dragged her up onto the table.
The drummer banged their way into the mess hall and tripped over each other, when they stopped short seeing the sousaphones on their table. The lead guy shook his head and walked up to the table. He had a tough look on his face in till he reached the table and stared Gracie in her eyes. Carnie wondered what this guy was going to do to them…