Flight 1088 Philadelphia to Akron now boarding.

I collected my carry on bag and headed to the terminal to board my flight. As soon as I got to my seat I closed my eyes and fell asleep, knowing I would need as much energy as possible for my audition this weekend.

I waited for the shuttle to arrive to take me from the airport to the school where they were having auditions. After a few minutes a van with 'Bluecoats Drum and Bugle Corps' painted on the side drove by, I flagged them down. Once the van pulled up to me the driver came out to help me with my bags.

"Hannah Wagner?" I nodded my head. "Hi, I'm Sean. I'll be taking you to the Bluecoats camp. I'll take your bags, go ahead and find a seat. Introduce yourself."

I opening the side door and found 5 others already in the van. I grabbed the seat in the back, the only one left.

"Hey, welcome to our party!" One of the boys who was sitting in the front said.

"Hi, I'm Molly. Colorguard, Tulsa, Oklahoma." One of the girls introduced herself.

"Hannah, euphonium. Um, Allentown, Pennsylvania." I told everyone. One by one, they all introduced themselves. Finally Sean came back around and got into the drivers seat.

"Okay, looks like that's everyone. It'll be about a 30 minute drive there, so get cozy."

"So you're from Allentown? Why not go for The Cadets? They're closer and they'll give you the first place medals." The boy who was next to me, Ryan, asked.

"My parents and brother marched Cadets. I wanted a change, ya know?" He shook his head and looked out the window.

I did the same and took in the Ohio scenery that surrounded us. The next thing I knew we were pulling into a school.

"Okay, you guys are one of the first ones here. I suggest you go see if they still need any help setting up." Sean told us as we parked.

I grabbed my bags and headed inside with everyone else. Sean left for the airport to get more kids for camp.

I walked into the school, there was a sign that said 'Bluecoats Audition Camp 2011-2012'.

I'm finally here. I told myself. First the Bluecoats was a dream, then a goal, and now a reality. I was finally here.

I walked over to the registration table.

"Hi! You're a new face!" A girl at the table said to me. I looked at the corps necklace she was wearing, there were many pennies from around the world on it, she must've been with the Bluecoats for a while.

"Yeah, first time auditioning. I'm Hannah." I told her.

"Caroline. Nice to meet you. I'll fill out these forms for you and get you registered for camp!" She said over excited. "What are you auditioning for?"

"Hornline, euphonium."

"Glad to see another girl on low brass! There are so few out there. I'm a baritone." Caroline told me. "Do you need to borrow a horn?"

"Yeah, flying with an euphonium can be a pain."

"Follow me, we'll get you a horn." Caroline lead me one of the hallways in the school, where all the corps horns were. "We have 12 euphoniums on us right now, I can't guarantee that you'll get a horn the entire weekend. If more than 12 people need euphoniums you'll have to share. But you should be fine, most people go for baritone."

"How many euphoniums are you marching this season?" I asked.

"Depends, we marched 8 last year. Two years ago we marched 12. I heard that we're marching 8 this year though." She told me. "Trust me, if you can hold the horn for more than 15 minutes straight, you got the spot." She smiled at me.

Caroline wrote down a few numbers down on a piece of paper and handed me the case.

"Here you go! It's a corps horn, so make sure to wear gloves at all time. Also we expect it to be polished and cleaned when you return it. I recommend sitting down at breakfast on Sunday to clean it. That way you aren't in a rush to clean it after show and tell."

I took the euphonium case from her and set it down on the ground. "Thank you." I told her.

"No problem, go ahead and find a spot to stash yourself in the gym. I think the girls are actually going to be sleeping in the cafeteria, but just put your stuff in there for now. I need to go check for people in, just holler if you need anything else!" She walked back to the front of the school, leaving me alone.

I placed my euphonium and my bags in a corner of the gym. I decided now was a good time to call my parents, so I walked outside.

The late november Ohio air was chilly, but it wasn't too cold. It felt similar to back home in Allentown.

I pulled out my phone and dialed the home number.

"Hello?" My mom's voice called out from the other end.

"Hi! Mom, it's me. I'm just calling to let you know I got to camp. I already got checked in and now we're waiting for everyone else to show up." I told her.

"That's great honey! I'll put you on speaker so you can talk to your father."

"How's Bluecoat camp?" My dad asked me through the phone.

"It's going good so far, I just got my euph."

"I bet it's not as good as Cadet camp." My dad gave me a hard time, half of him was joking, but the other half was hurt that I didn't want to join the corps he marched.

"Are you guys coming to show and tell?" I asked them. Silence overtook the phone. My brother had Cadets camp that same weekend. I knew they would much rather go to Cadet camp than Bluecoat camp.

"Josh has camp this same weekend. It's his age out year and I wanted to make it special. Honey, we'll see." My mother said.

"But it's my rookie year! Shouldn't mine be just as special?" I asked them, harshly.

"Cut out that attitude or else you're coming straight home." My father sternly told me.

"Sorry, I have to go get ready. Bye, love you guys."

"Bye." They both said at the same time. I ended the call. I headed back inside to see that there were a lot more people. It was about 30 minutes until the camp officially started, but there was already a ton of people.

I walked into the gym and saw that someone was at the microphone about to talk.

"Hi, everyone. I know that not everybody is here yet but I just want to take the time for sections to get to know each other. So why don't we break into sections and do a few little ice breakers? Vets, take your sections to a quiet place in the school. Let's all meet back here at 7."

Once he was done talking I heard a bunch of vets calling out various instrument names. I walked around until I heard someone call out "euphonium".

"Euphoniums!" A vet was calling out, behind him were about 20 other people.

"Euphoniums?" I asked the group.

"As if you hadn't heard already." A boy said, I assumed he was a vet by his corps necklace.

A few more people joined our small little euphonium group.

"Alright, that seems like that's everyone. I'm Noah by the way, 4 year vet." He pulled out his corps necklace, many pennies were stacked on top of each other, all held on my a blue shoestring. We walked into the school's auditorium and sat on the stage.

We all sat in a circle, there was about 30 of us total. A majority of them were male. Probably 6 or 7 other girls.

"Okay, let's all go around and say our name, where we're from, how old we are, if it's how first time here, and one fun fact about us. I'll start. I'm Doug, from Houston, Texas, I'm 21, this will be my 4th and final year here. I have never broken a bone in my body." Doug looked to his right. The person to his right spoke.

"Hi, I'm Amanda. I'm 19. It's my first time auditioning here, but I marched Jersey Surf for two years. One fun fact about me… I actually play clarinet but I switched to euph for drum corps." The girl spoke.

"And where are you from?" Doug asked.

"Oh sorry, right outside of Washington, DC. In Maryland." Amanda finished.

We all sat and listened to each other's backgrounds. Finally it was my turn.

"I'm Hannah, from Allentown, Pennsylvania. I'm 16, it's my first year. Um, one fun fact. Hm… Nothing's really interesting about me…"

"Oh come on, something has to be interesting about you!" Michael, one of the vets said. He was 18, a one year vet from Chicago.

I shook my head no.

Michael looked like he was going to say something, then Doug cut him off.

"Sorry guys, it's 7. We should start heading back. Sorry for all of you who didn't get to share, I'm sure they'll be another time we can finish." Doug got up and started walking back to the gym, everybody followed suit.

"Hey, you never did say anything that was interesting about you." Michael approached me as we were walking.

"Oh, yeah." I said to him.

"Do you play any sports? Have any siblings? Travelled somewhere exotic?" He kept asking.

"I have an older brother, if that counts." I told him.

"Are you two close?"

"Hardly anymore. He's always gone all summer and goes to college in Texas. I never get to see him anymore."

"Gone all summer?"

"Yeah, he marches DCI."

"Which corps?"

"Cadets, on mello."

"So drum corps runs in the family?" Michael asked me.

"Yeah, my dad marched, my grandfather marched. Hopefully I'll march. It's funny though, I "broke the family tradition" by coming here. My whole family has marched The Cadets." I laughed at the end of my phrase.

Michael chuckled. "Hopefully no bad luck comes to you." Michael was cut off by a loud voice over the speakers in the gym.

"Bluecoats! Gather around! Find a space on the floor and sit." A man who I assumed was the corps director said.

"Come sit with me, I'll introduce you to some of my buddies." Michael offered. We walked over to where a bunch of vets were. "Hey guys, this is Hannah. She's new." Everyone in the group gave a "hi" or a "hello".

Michael and I sat down with his group of friends. The corps director stood in the front of the gym with many other older adults, they all looked important.

"Hello, auditionees! My name is Chad Brown and I'm the Corps Director here at the Bluecoats. I just wanted to thank you all for coming out here to beautiful Canton, Ohio. I know you all have been practicing and waiting for this weekend. There are a few logistics we need to take care of before we get started. Girls will be sleeping in the cafeteria while the guys will be in right here in the gym. We will be using the school's locker rooms for showering. We have a nurse on staff with us so if you ever have an emergency please go to her. If you still need to borrow a flag, horn, drum, whatever, you should talk to your caption head about that. I'll introduce the caption heads then off to sectionals."

Chad went down and introduced all of the caption heads and techs. I didn't really pay attention all that much, I was just taking it all in. I was finally here.

"Okay Bluecoats! We will be having sectionals until 10, then snack, then bed time. Percussion in the cafeteria, guard in the gym, and brass in the auditorium. Go!" Chad said.

Everyone stood up and started walking to where their section was.

"I guess back to where we just were." Michael said to me as we all walked back to the auditorium. Out of his original friend group only two others were in the hornline.

One of Michael's friends walked next to me. "I'm Jim, I'm on trumpet. And that's Chris back there. He's a mello. You're a baritone?" Jim asked me.

"Euphonium. But close enough." I told him.

Once in the auditorium we all sat down on the stage once again. The caption head and several other techs towered over us.

"Hey guys, I'm Sean. I drove some of you here from the airport. I'm the brass caption head." Sean introduced us to a few of the other techs with him, all I paid attention to was Patrick, the baritone/euphonium tech.

Sean covered some basics, such as expectations and other horn basics. "Everybody grab your horn and set it up in sectionals. High brass stay here, low brass go in the aux gym."

"Oh, crap. I forgot to check out a horn when I got here. I need to go do that. Hannah I'll see you in the aux gym." Michael walked off to Sean to get a horn.

I walked back to the gym to get my horn and gloves. Then I walked to the aux gym to meet up with the rest of the low brass. There were about 80 of us total. 30 baritones, 30 euphoniums, and about 20 tubas.

"Lets set up an arc, baritones on the left, euphs on the right, and contras in the middle. Let's have vets on the ends." Patrick told us, we all scurried to make an arc. I stood with the rest of the rookies near the center of the arc.

"Let's start out with a nice round, smooth, B flat. Just hold it until I cut you off." Patrick counted off and we all played our B flats.

About halfway through playing the door opened and Michael ran in with a euphonium in his arms. He made eye contact with me and smiled, then he stood on the end with the rest of the vets.

Patrick finally cut us off, which was a good thing since my arms were starting to get tired from holding the euphonium up. I only had a baritone to practice on back home, holding a euphonium adds another few pounds.

"I wanted to wait until tomorrow to look at music, I just want to spend tonight doing long tones and scales." Patrick told us.

After a very long 2 hours we finally ended. My arms were about dead after we finished.

"Great sectional today guys, I hope we can improve even more tomorrow! Head on off to snack, meet a few more people." Patrick told us as he dismissed us from sectionals.

I walked back to the gym to put my euphonium back in it's case. Michael caught up with me.

"How was it? Your first experience as a Bluecoat!" Michael said to me.

"My arms hurt and I want to go to sleep." I told him.

Michael laughed. "Seems about right. Here let me take that for you." He grabbed my euphonium and carried it for me. I felt so relieved.

"Feels much better, thanks."

After we put our horns away we headed to snack. They set up snack in one of the school's main hallways. Snack today was pizza and various cookies, juices, and fruits.

Michael and I stood in line to get our snack. It seemed odd to be eating this much so late at night, but after a long sectional I didn't decline food.

Once we finally reached the food table I grabbed a slice of cheese pizza, an orange, and some Kool Aid.

Michael only grabbed a slice of pizza and some juice. We both walked over to the same group of friends we sat with earlier and sat down.

"Hey." Michael said to them as we sat down.

"How are my euph buds?" Jim asked us.

"Female euphonium? Those are about as rare as female snares." Another boy said, he had a tank top on and a backwards baseball camp. He screamed snare drummer.

"I'm Chase. Snare. You're Hannah, right?" I nodded my head.

For the rest of snack our little group shared stories, jokes, and secrets. For the short amount of time I've been with them I've already developed a pretty strong bond with them. I hardly noticed that I was the only one without a corps necklace, and that I was the only girl in our group.

"It's 11. Lights out is at 12. We better hit the showers and get ready for beddy time." Chase told us, looking at his watch.

"It's been fun meeting you Hannah. See you at breakfast tomorrow?" Jim told us as he started to walk off. The rest of the group followed him and walked to get ready for bed. Except Michael.

"Today was a long day. Rest up for tomorrow. I'll see you at breakfast." Michael smiled at me as he ran to catch up with his friends. I smiled at him as he walked off. It was weird to think that 4 hours ago I knew nobody, and now I have a group of friends.

I got my stuff then walked to the cafeteria to claim a spot.

"Hi, do you mind if I set up my air mattress here?" I asked a girl who already had hers blown up. She looked like another rookie about my age.

"Sure! I'm Megan. I'm auditioning for colorguard." She cheerfully told me.

"I'm Hannah, euphonium."

"I was just about to head down to the showers, if you want to come. At least we won't be alone." Megan asked me.

"Sure, let me grab my shower stuff." I told her.

We walked down to the showers, I couldn't get over the fact that I would be showing with a bunch of other people.

"I'm nervous about showering too, I guess we better get used to it if we want to be a Bluecoat." Megan told me as we walked into the locker rooms.