The Bandies were acting strange. They act strange anyway (I should know), but they were acting exceptionally strange. Not strange in their normal way, at least, but strange in another way. I looked around the Commons in the high school. I was a Bandie myself so I could pick out all of them. It was strange seeing them walking with their fellow Bandies, but not talking. It was strange seeing them with grim, solemn looks on their faces. I knew I looked like that too. I had too. I felt the same way.

"Chiante?" asked Julie, my non-band friend.

I glanced up. "What?"

"Are you okay?"

"No." With that I got up from the table and made my way to the band room.

The band room was also drowning in the strange Bandie behavior. They were in there, as always, but hardly anyone was talking. Like robots, Bandies were slipping their instrument cases into or out of their lockers. They were taking music out of slots and were sitting on the ground doing homework. The strangest part of it all, though, was most of us were wearing black.

It had only happened yesterday. The rest of the school didn't know yet; at least, not the ones that hadn't been told by a Bandie. By the looks of it, the Bandies weren't saying anything. They were like me. I was afraid if I opened my mouth I might just start crying again. The rest of the school thought we didn't hear them talking. They thought we didn't hear them talking like nothing had happened at all. We could hear them, though. We could hear them loud and clear. We heard what they said about us being weird and dressing randomly in black. How we were bipolar and one day we'd be goofing off and the next ready to cry. But they didn't know.

And I didn't have the energy to care.