CHAPTER I

Coming Home

Her silver mouthpiece was cool against her otherwise warm lips, the sweetest relief from the heat of the ruthless summer. Just one day until band camp; just one day.

"This has been your dream for a while, hasn't it? Get a real one."

"You're such a band geek."

"No, I don't get it, and if you finish this sentence with 'it's a band thing' I might shoot someone."

"I can't read this. What are those circles on lines there for? And what does 'ritardando' mean?"

Her friends just didn't understand. It was her ambition... no, Kai was right. It was her dream to be in the Stevenson High School marching band, and one day be in a university marching band. Just her, her flute, and her music.

Sadi's sister was in the marching band, a year ahead of her and a sophomore this year. She had no interest in band, and only stuck in it because the clarinet was her mother's and refused to let Nathaly quit.

Her mother was definitely a tale. She used to play the clarinet, but quit to persue her dream of being in the choir. Although Sadi resented her for this, it was enough revenge to take up the flute rather than the clarinet. Between flutes and clarinets in District 102, there could be no better rivals, and there could be no better friends.

It was not the relationships of band that Sadie was worried about.

It was not learning the marching styles and memorizing new music that Sadie was worried about.

It was the size of the band.

Last year, it was 374 students, most of which belonged either to the clarinet or flute section.

This year, it was only 333. Apparently, every student there thought that a band under 250 students was the smallest thing they had ever seen.

"Sadi!" Her dad called in. Unlike the rest of the family, her father and his side of the family was tonedeaf. He made a good recorder player, but the only music he focused on was the classic rock he grew up with. "You sound great, sweetie, but it's time to go to bed!"

Sadi cocked her eyebrow up and looked at the clock. Eleven PM.

"Shit!" Sadi said, a little too loudly for her dad's liking. "Er, I mean, okay! Good-night!" she ended it with. Carefully taking apart the three pieces of her intermediate, open-holed, C flute, she cleaned them all out thoroughly and put them into their respective compartments in her case. Putting it down by her makeshift stand, she pulled her cherry blond hair up into a haphazard pony tail, and changed into her pajamas.

She was supposed to be in bed a half an hour ago. In Stevenson's marching band, for the first three days of band camp, only freshmen came for the marching portion, and the second half of the day, which was section rehearsals, was when the upperclassmen arrived. She had to get up by eight, which was annoyingly early over the summer, even if she had spent most of the summer getting up at seven to take World History. There was no way she was taking that class during the year.

"Sadi, can I talk to you for a sec?" Came Sadi's mom before she was about to climb into her bed and turn off her oddly bright light.

Sadi nodded, and then dumbly realized that her mother couldn't see her. Opening the door, she let her mother step in. She was a large woman, but smart. There was seldom anything that Sadi's mother couldn't do.

"Yeah?" asked Sadi, rubbing her green eye. That was probably the most interesting thing about her; her left eye was green and her right was a mix of brown and blue, and it looked heterogenous; there were spots of blue and spots of brown, never mixing together.

The only thing she couldn't stand about that was her being compared to a Husky.

Her mother walked in and closed the door. Sadi couldn't stand that; her room was a filth pit and she knew her mother's eyes would be travelling around the room, surveying every dusty piece of furniture and every glass she never took into the kitchen.

Surprisingly, her eyes stayed focused solely on Sadi. "Now," she started, her voice scratchy and her breath smelling of wine, "I know you're excited for Band Camp, and I know you've been excited since fifth grade when you started the flute."

Sadi nodded eagerly.

"But," her mom continued, "I want you to know how hard it gets out there. You have to tough it out, learn everything perfectly. Mess up one flip-turn and you mess up the band. You've always been an all-for-one person; but this is about teamwork. You have to rough it out with everyone else."

"That's why you quit band?" asked Sadi. She quickly learned this was not the right thing to say. Her mother got quiet and pursed her bright red lips together. She looked away slightly.

"We're not having this conversation."

Typical mother way to get out of talking about something they didn't want to. But whenever Sadi didn't want to talk about anything, like messing up a key on her flute or getting a bad grade in math, she was pummeled with more questions. She would never abuse this power when she got kids of her own.

"You got your water ready? Clothes laid out? Instrument and music? Comfortable shoes?"

"Yes, mom. 'Night." Sadi ended it, and closed the door on her mother.

Not smart.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ADLAI E. STEVENSON HIGH SCHOOL MARCHING PATRIOTS

BAND CAMP 2007

DAY ONE

She wore jean shorts and a t-shirt that was little more than a piece of faded cloth. Dark shoes covered white socks, and she rubbed sunscreen all over herself. She saw her sister the first day from coming back from Band Camp; not pretty. But, she did get something they called a 'band camp tan'. Everything tan except for the shorts line, t-shirt line, and mostly, the sock line.

"Ready to go." Sadi called, slinging her water bottle over her shoulder and carrying her flute and music inside of her newly-ordered flip-folder.

Her mother drove her to Stevenson High School in utter silence. Apparently, she had not forgotten the conversation from the night before. Silently, Sadi thanked God that her mom was still driving her at all.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She was dropped off in front of the Field House, a part of Stevenson's 'New Building'. Stevenson had two buildings, the New Building and the Old Building. Because of the tremendous amount of students, ranging from 4,000 plus to 5,000 plus depending on the year, they needed an extra building. Construction happened in Stevenson practically all the time. There was nothing different about seeing a crane or two in front of the buildings, lifting something that looked questionably like your Spanish room.

Pushing the door open, Sadi immediately found that she was in the right room. Most of the freshmen were unfamiliar to her, which made sense because six schools fed into Stevenson, and she had only come from one.

"Freshman?" came a boy. He was obviously an upperclassman; he had long-ish brown hair and tanned skin. He was wearing odd Hawaiian apparel, which a select few others seemed to be. They must have been the Executive board.

"Y-yeah." Sadi scratched her hair. He seemed rather interested in her eyes; that dumb, 'what are those' look was a standard greeting from most to her.

"In there," he pointed to an open door which led into a gymnasium packed with more crap than imaginable, "drop off your flute and music and anything else you won't need out there." He then moved onto another incoming freshman.

Sadi nodded and trudged into the gym. In a random spot, she put down her flute and music. She decided to keep the sunscreen with her, having a feeling she would need it. She was smiling; finally, a place where people knew what instrument you played simply by looking at the shape of your case.

"Help me!" came an extremely tall person. He could have been an upperclassman if he wasn't wearing just a T-shirt and shorts. He ran behind Sadi, and an unusually short freshman with brown hair pointed her mallet at him. A percussion player; you either loved them or hated them.

The girl smirked up at the tall boy behind Sadi.

"Becky, you can't seriously think that you can hide behind someone shorter than you."

Sadi was silent. "...Becky?" she asked, confused. Wasn't it... a boy?

"It's part of my last name. I'm really Michael." He tried to shake her hand from behind. Somehow, this made Sadi laugh.

"Enough of the small talk!" the short girl shouted, running behind Sadi with her mallet pointed at Becky. They both ran throughout the gym again. Sadi found herself asking what he had done to make the girl so angry.

"Okay, all freshmen out in the parking lot!" came a booming voice from inside of the gym.

Sadi frantically got herself together and entered the large entrance, leaving with the other swarm of freshmen. They entered an empty parking lot, tied off by flagged string. Sadi had heard this from her sister; apparently, they used the parking lot, which was painted with an array of confusing stripes, during Band Camp, and eventually go out into the practice field, but practice in the actual football field during monday night practices.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Okay," came the same voice again as everybody sat in a pile on the ground. The Executive Board was standing in a strange formation on the parking lot.

There were three adults up in the front; one was a very strict looking woman with short, brown hair, the other was a rather santa-claus looking man with a happy disposition, and the last, the one with the microphone and wearing the same Hawaiian clothing as the Executive board, was mostly bald and blank-looking.

"Welcome, freshmen to Stevenson band camp 2007. I hope you all wore sunscreen, or else a lot of you will be getting the 'I Told You So' award." Only the Executive board laughed. This was something Sadi was looking forward to the most; learning the jokes of Band Camp.

"Now, I am Mr. Slepak, one of the three directors here. This is Mrs. Durham," he pointed to the strict looking woman, "and this is Mr. Peters." he motioned to the Santa Claus-looking man. "And these are your three drum majors, Mike Borozonets," he pointed to a tall boy wearing Hawaiian clothing, "Chihiro Kashiwakura," he pointed to a relatively happy looking Asian girl, "and Matt Martini." People snickered at the name as Mr. Slepak motioned to the boy whom had told Sadi where to put everything.

"The Exec Board," Matt started, "Wants to show you a formation we put together to show you what you're in for. By the end of the next two weeks, you should be able to do this kind of formation no problem." He took his spot in the odd formation along with Chihiro and Mike.

Mr. Slepak turned towards the group. There was an odd, cold, anticipating silence in the air as Slepak put his glimmering silver whistle to his lips. He whistled four times, the first time oddly longer than the rest. The Exec board only laughed."

"Attention!" Someone called from the Exec board to Slepak.

Apparently, he had forgotten to call them to Attention.

"Oops." was all Mr. Slepak said. He blew the whistle three more times, a gap between the first whistle and the second.

Everyone shouted with a huge bellow into the air, "Hut!" They got in an odd position with their hands folded in front of them and their feet at a 30 degree angle.

"I can do that..." Sadi said, silently memorizing the position.

Slepak repeated the four-whistle command he had done a second earlier. "Pop, step!" the Exec board called out. Many things, all on time with Slepak's clapping, happened at once, making a rhythm of noises, such as, "Pop step, flip," etc. They were all making a weaving shape.

Nobody paid attention to Mr. Slepak afterwards. They were too enthralled on how they could complete these tasks. Without further ado, Slepak gave everybody their groups.

Sadi walked off with two other freshmen into her group. They had two leaders. "My name is Bay Sclarrie, and this is Bari Sachs."

Sadi began to silently snicker to herself.

"Something funny about our names?" asked the boy. He had red hair and was covered in freckles. The girl had brown hair put up in an unusually high ponytail.

Sadi quickly shook her head.

Without even learning the names of the two others, they gave them all a packet with all of the commands. "You don't lose these." Bari told them, "Slepak'll have your heads. They're like flags; you drop them, you burn them."

Sadi nodded frantically, and stuck it in her pocket.

"First off, we'll learn attention." said Bay.

"That was like this, right?" asked Sadi. She got into the position that she saw everybody in the Exec board as.

Bay and Bari stared at her in amazement. "Have you ever... marched before?" asked Bay.

Sadi shook her head. "I just saw what they did and immitated it." It was quite a strange position she was in, and a little hard on the calves.

"Parrot." the boy to her left mumbled. The girl to her right snickered.

"Well, it's perfect. Now, get on that dot," Bay said, pointing to a black dot on one of the stripes so carefully painted on the parking lot, "And do it on there" She did.

"Great, everyone do what she's doing." Bari laughed, putting his hands behind his head. He laughed. "Maybe this'll be easier."

"Here's the whistle command." Bay said, "All of the whistle commands are in time. This one goes like, Tweet, tweet tweet, and you say, Hut. Okay? Tweet, tweet tweet!"

"Hut!" They all shouted and got into attention.

That day was hard. Sadi had picked up attention fine, but she didn't realize how much there was to marching! After they had learned parade rest, at the ready, and to mark time, they threw out the most random commands at them for hours straight, always catching at least one of the three off-guard. On the bright side, Sadi learned the boy and girl's names without asking; Remmy and Kaytlin. Bay and Bari had taken a liking to calling her Parrot, along with Remmy and Kaytlin, starting on their way inside for lunch. After lunch would be their sectional rehearsals.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They all entered the gymnasium they dropped their instruments and such off in; it was suddenly full of tables. Sitting down with Remmy and Kaytlin, Sadi quickly learned that neither of them had friends in band, either. Kaytlin played the Trumpet, and Remmy played the oboe.

"Parrot, Kaytlin, look," Remmy pointed to the doors. Many upperclassmen were showing up.

"We're here really early." came an awkwardly loud, short, Chinese girl walking in. Next to her was a much taller girl in comparison with black and blond striped hair, wearing a The Used t-shirt and tight jeans, along with striped arm warmers, and various clips in her hair. On the other side of the Chinese girl were two boys, one of them noticeably larger than the other. They both wore simple t-shirts and jeans. Behind them, having a separate conversation but obviously part of the same group, was a freakishly tall boy wearing some kind of a hobo jacket, and a shorter one with dark skin and an out-of-place beard. There was also a couple in the group, both of them short, holding hands. One of them had very curly hair.

"But all the tables are taken." said Laila, scratching her head.

"Hey, can we sit here?" asked the striped-haired girl, obviously a very outspoken girl. Sadi nodded; there were more than enough chairs for everybody.

"I'm Kristi," said the girl, "you guys freshmen? What're your names?"

"I'm Remmy, that's Kaytlin, and that's Parrot." he said.

Sadi groaned; she already had a nickname. Kaytlin, she noticed, was extremely shy, but Remmy was outgoing and happy-go-lucky. It felt rewarding to already know so much about two people with only being in the group for a day. "We met in the groups." Sadi confirmed.

"Oh, that's how Joe and I met." Kristi motioned to the skinnier boy, Joe. "Actually, I pretty much met everyone here in Band Camp. But just Joe in the groups."

They went around and said their names and what they played. Andrew, the enormously tall one, played the saxophone. The short one with the beard, they called PBJ, but for some reason Kristi called him 'Schmelly'. The short, loud one was Caroline who played the clarinet, the bigger boy was Shane who played the flute. Both Joe and Kristi seemed to play the flute, as well. The couple were Laila and Devin; Laila played the clarinet and Devin played the trumpet.

"Sorry I'm late!" came a short girl running up to the table. "Oh, who are you?" she asked to Sadi, Kaytlin, and Remmy. "I'm Michelle, I play the flute."

"Remmy. Oboe."

"I'm Kaytlin, I play the Trumpet."

"Sa--- er, Parrot. I play the Flute." She decided. Remmy and Kaytlin seemed very happy with her decision to use that name. Truthfully, Sadi just didn't want to confuse anybody.

"Laffy, where were you?" asked Kristi.

"Laffy? What?" asked Remmy.

"Kristi has nicknames for everyone." PBJ shook his head.

"Jon is Schmelly, Andrew's Hobo, Caroline's Lalala, Joe is Rawrz, Shane is Currency, Devin is just Devin, and Laila is Lailalaila."

"Wow. I'll stick with your regular names." Remmy laughed.

Kaytlin giggled. "Me too."

"Well, we should be going to our sectionals." PBJ said, standing up. Everyone else followed him, including Sadi, Kaytlin, and Remmy.

Wow.

Sadi thought.

The first day and I already have so many friends.

"This is gonna be awesome." Sadi said to herself.

"Hey, Parrot, we're in the same sectional room!" Kristi said to Sadi. She looked at her folder; they were. Room 12F.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ADLAI E. STEVENSON HIGH SCHOOL MARCHING PATRIOTS

BAND CAMP 2007

ROOM 12F, SECTION REHEARSAL DAY ONE

The whole room was full of girls. Honestly, Sadi had expected a few more boy flute players than this, considering both Joe and Shane, the two upperclassman boys she had met earlier, were both flute players.

Kristi seemed rather enthusiastic. Her and a red-haired senior were going on with a Mexican girl how 'everyone's together again in the same sectoin rehearsal'. A girl with a very... outgoing disposition was drawing on the chalkboard her name, Brooke Grabell. A freshmen named Galina Lipkin joined in the conversation with Kristi and the two others, Jen Stubing and Jordan Garcia.

The two leaders were trying their best to start the section rehearsal, but soon gave up, and began to talk with the others and join in in their conversation.

"Typical flutes, talk, talk, talk." A boy with dark hair and green eyes walked in. He was slender and tall, but muscular. He grinned inside.

"Danney, did you just come in here to harass the girls?" asked one of their leaders, Olivia. She shook her head disapprovingly. "A Tuba player and a sophomore. It doesn't get much worse than that."

"Hey!" Danney said, putting his hands up in mock surrender. "Just saying. Mrs. D's coming around to make sure that everybody's doing what they're doing. How are the freshmen this year?

Sadi sunk in her seat.

"Who's she?" he asked, quite interested, walking farther inside to see the girl.

"That's Parrot." Kristi smiled. "Hey, Danney!"

"Hey, Kittelson." he grinned, and then looked back at Sadi. "Parrot, eh? That a real name?"

Sadi shook her head. She found her voice refusing to come out, and her heart pounding a little faster. This boy was gorgeous. And Kristi knew him... maybe if she became better friends with Kristi, she could get to know Danney.

"Awesome. Parrot."

"Danney, if Mrs. D. is going around seeing if we're all on task, she's probably right around the low brass by now, right?" asked Olivia, raising an eyebrow.

"Shit!" he shouted, and bolted out of the room. "'Bye, Olivia, Kittelson, Parrot!" He dashed down the nearby stairs. The flute rooms were at the very top along with the Clarinet rooms and a select few trumpet rooms. The second floor was full of high brass and lower woodwinds, and the first with low brass. They all used regular classrooms for section rehearsals over the summer, even though the Band Rom was in the Old building.

"Isn't Mrs. D. that really strict one?" asked Sadi.

The room immediately erupted into laughter. "She's hard on the outside," started the second section leader, Jenna, "but she's a softie if you get to know her."

"And maybe suck up a little!" Brooke said, too loud for her own good.

"Try joining Concert band. That's what I did last year." said Kristi. "And then I decided to stay because I loved Mrs. Durham so much."

The room erupted into laughter again.

"What are the bands?" asked Galina, the other freshman out of about five in the room.

"They're in the order Freshmen band, Concert band, Symphonic band, Advanced Symphonic band, and Honor band. By all means, try out for Concert band. It looks good freshman year. Sophomore year it's expected, but Junior and Senior year is pathetic." Brooke said.

"Hey! I'm dropping down into Concert band this year." said Jen.

"Yeah, because your schedule couldn't take Symphonic." Jordan laughed. She was obviously a cheerleader; she had a bag written all over it in green and yellow sharpies different cheers and the cheer squad signatures.

"We all know why I stayed." Kristi started.

"You know what I remember?" asked Jordan, "How weird you were in sectionals last year." she looked at Kristi.

"Weird?" asked Sadi.

Jordan turned to Sadi. "Yeah. The whole reason our friendship started was because she saw a bug on the window. Everyone else was freaked out but she couldn't stop looking at it. And she was loud and was always joking."

"Speaking of which," started Kristi, "Guess what I got over the summer? An expiration date! I'm supposed to die on either January or February of 2073. I forget which."

Brooke stared at her in stupid amazing. "Good God. She's got an expiration date."

"Hello?" came a voice from outside the door.

"Crap! Get your flutes together."

The woman walked in and everybody immediately started greeting Mrs. D. Although she was supposed to be making sure that they all were on task, they quickly began to reminisce and Mrs. D was telling stories. Jen had whispered to her that she was famous for that.

By the end of the day, everybody was putting their flutes together. Apparently, Kristi had named hers. Rusty; and for a very obvious reason.

"Oh, and by the way, we should be tested on memorization for the opener, Estancia tomorrow." said Olivia, as they all left.

"What?!" asked Sadi.

Apparently, they should have been practicing.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By the time Sadi got home, she was aching all over, was probably getting the 'I Told You So' award, despite the large amounts of sunblock she put on, she had a bunch of new friends, a new love interest, and a few new inside jokes. She silently went over the whistle commands to herself, grinning as she stretched out on her bed.

"Tomorrow's another day." she said, and fell asleep.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author's Note: Well, here it is, Chapter one. Honestly, every character on there was real except for Sadi and her family, Remmy, Bari, Bay, Danney, and Kaytlin. This is my school and our marching band, and every fact on there is true. Not much of a plot developed, but I wanted you all to get to learn Sadi a bit more the first chapter. Don't worry, there'll be some issues on the next chapter. Hope you enjoyed it!