Author's Note: This chapter is coming to you straight from Pittsburgh. I've had a wonderful weekend here, despite the rain.
From the 50 Yard Line is going to be showing again, this time in Louisville Kentucky on Sunday, September 9th. I highly suggest you go if you can. It is an excellent movie. For more information, head over to their website. The link is in the bandbandx3 profile, along with the link to the facebook group.
I am sad to say that updates are going to be coming even slower than they were now that school is starting. I do have a free period this year and I will try to write during then, but with calc and chem. 2, I'm not exactly sure if that's going to happen. I will try and post whenever I can.
So, enjoy this (by request) very long chapter until next time. You know the drill. And I think I have fixed the problem with my computer, so you should be able to post reviews even if you don't have an account.
My flight to Boston went smoothly and I made it in on time. I meet Uncle Mark at the airport, ate dinner, and went to the high school where practice was being held.
When I walked into the gym, I immediately started looking for Nicole. She had sent me an e-mail saying that she made it, and at the percussion mini-camp she had gotten the quad spot she so desperately wanted. I was excited to see her again.
"Kiwi!" I heard a voice yell above the crowed.
I turned and there was Nicole.
"Hey, how's it going?" She asked.
"Great, now that I'm here."
Nicole laughed.
"Stress of being a second semester senior getting to you?" she asked sarcastically.
"Not quite there yet. I still got to get through exams," I told her.
"Wow that sucks. We had exams before Christmas."
"Rub it in, rub it in."
A metronome began to blare out of nowhere. We all covered our ears.
"That got your attention," Beth, now standing on the podium, said.
We all shook our heads, half in agreement, half in disgust. She had gotten our attention, at the expense of our ear drums.
"Ok, everyone sit down. I promise you'll have time to mingle later."
We all grabbed the nearest seat.
"First off, I want to congratulate all of you on making it this far. Over one thousand girls auditioned, and the 135 of you in this room were the one we chose to take this corp all the way to Pasadena. Be proud of yourselves for that, it's not an easy accomplishment.
"We're not going to get into music at all tonight. We're saving that for tomorrow. Tonight, I want to pass out some paper work and give you girls a chance to get to know each other. You are going to be spending almost four months together; the sooner you learn how to get along with each other, the better."
There was a small snicker from some of the girls.
"The first thing I want to do is pass out the promised paper work."
Stacks of papers began to float around the mass of girls in the room.
"I know you all thought you were done with paperwork. Guess what? It's only just begun."
I quietly groaned. I had not enjoyed the pile of paperwork that had been sent with the acceptance letter.
I took the first paper. It was the same schedule that had been sent with the acceptance packet. However, on the back, there was some more information about the show.
"For those of you who didn't know yet, we changed the show theme. We are no longer doing 'The many moods of jazz'. You're welcome."
There was more than a little snickering from the peanut gallery.
"The theme this year will be 'Standing outside the fire'. Most of the music will be original, but we will be playing a variation of the Garth Brooks song. However, I doubt you'll even recognize it. The visual staff has been having a field day with the concept."
Another packet of paper started to float around the room. I looked at it. Beth said it was some medical release forms and what not that we would have to fill out before practice next month.
I groaned. I hated paper work.
"Are there any questions?" Beth asked when she finished explaining our most recent "bundle of joy" (a.k.a. horrible packet of paperwork).
We looked up. No one had anything to say. .
"You girls look dead."
I looked at Beth. All of this paperwork made me feel dead.
"Or maybe your just nervous and don't know anybody."
That was a possibility, I though. I was just now realizing that I was so messed up from sitting on a plane for two hours that I had lost the capability to think.
"Okay," Beth said, "I'm going to let you talk to each other for a few minutes, and then we are going to do full corp introductions. But first, I'd like to introduce you to your drum majors for this season," Beth said.
"You're head drum major this year will be Sarah Keeler."
Everyone cheered nervously, as if they were scared of being too loud. The red headed girl with bright green eyes, sitting next to Beth, stood up.
"Sarah marched baritone for the Blue Devils for the past three seasons and she was drum major for Fairview High School in Texas before that."
Sarah motioned her hands for a louder applause, letting us know that it was okay to act like the crazy group of girls she thought we were.
The responding screamed proved her correct.
"And your assistant drum major this year marched for the Cadets for two years and was drum major for Connersville High School."
Huh?
"And," Beth said looking at the back of the room, "she's too short to be seen right now so she's going to have to stand on a chair."
This was getting too weird.
I turned around. There, standing on a chair and looking very embarrassed, was Lauren.
I dropped my papers on the floor. Lauren was our drum major? What how had she not told me? I had e-mailed her just this morning. In all our correspondence, how on earth had she failed to mention this?
Even though Lauren had graduated two years ago, we had still managed to keep in touch via the internet. I couldn't believe she hadn't told me about this.
"Okay," Beth said, "You've got 20 minutes to mingle starting… now!"
I ran over to Lauren.
"Oh…"
"My…"
"GOD!"
We both started screaming and ran into a flying hug.
"What," I said, after we were done screaming and jumping up and down, "is this about not telling me you're drum major or that you even left the Cadets?"
"Well," she said, "it's a long story. I'll tell you later. But you so did not tell me you were marching with the Dragons!"
I paused for a moment.
"I didn't?"
"No," Lauren laughed, "you said you were marching corp. You never said which one."
I stood there, bewildered.
"Well Lauren, I'm marching with the Dragons this season."
"And I left the Cadets and am now the drum major for the Dragons."
We both laughed.
"Hey," Lauren said, "I got to go. I need to ask Sarah something. I'll talk to you later tonight."
Lauren left and started walking towards the front of the room. I stood there, stunned. I still couldn't believe that Lauren hadn't told me she left the Cadets. Why would she leave a well established corp that she loved so much for some brand new corp that was pretty much a gamble?
"What was that about?" Nicole asked, coming up behind me. Apparently she had witnessed the whole jumping up and down and screaming scene that has just unfolded.
"Oh nothing," I said, "Lauren was drum major at my high school two years ago."
"Oh, okay," she said. She didn't look real impressed.
"Hey, there are some people I met at mini-camp I think you should meet."
The people that Nicole wanted me to meet were what she referred to as (and I quote) "the few, the proud, the quad line." There were four of them including Nicole. Danielle, the first girl I meet, was a local girl; she was finish up her freshman year at Boston College and had marched for the Jersey Surf (division II) last year. Abby was from Texas and, like us, was finishing out her senior year of high school. The final girl on the quad line, Hannah, was actually a junior in college, and had never marched DCI before.
While I was talking to them, I realized something. The girls loved playing quads. I figured they probably had too, or they would have just quit a long, long time ago. After witnessing how brutal our quad line was to each other back home, I was pretty sure these girls really had to fight to keep playing.
The metronome blared again, and we all covered our ears and quickly found seats. It was only the first day, and we were already proving to be fairly trainable.
"Well, now that you've had a little time to introduce yourselves one on one, I want you to introduce yourself to the entire corp. When it's your turn, you'll stand up, tell us you name, your age, where you're from, and one interesting thing about you. We'll go by section.
"As some of you may have notice when talking to each other, the Dragons actually have a cymbal line. I know that's not exactly the most popular thing to do today, but in my opinion, you're not a real corp unless you have a cymbal line. My apologies to the Blue Devils."
We all started to laugh.
"And since we've already talked about them, let's start our introduction with the cymbal line."
Four nervous looking girls, one in each corner of the room, stood up.
"Lindsey, let's start with you."
"Lindsey" had light brown hair, huge brown eyes, and looked like she was about twelve. Out of the four girls in the line, she was easily the youngest, and by far, the most terrified.
"Well, um, hi," she stammered, "I'm Lindsey. I'm fifteen, and I'm a local girl."
There were a couple cheers through out the crowd.
"Yea, actually my high schools biggest rival is the high school we're in right now."
I laughed. I'm she got hell from her friends for coming here.
"And… um, something interesting…. well, I have a brother."
"Younger or older?" Beth asked.
"Younger," Lindsey said, "He's eleven. He likes putting his pet frogs in my bed in the middle of the night."
There were some various squeals through out the audience. I just laughed. There had been a time where Mark had done that to me.
"Thank you for sharing," Beth said, looking slightly amused, "Anna, you're next."
We finished with the cymbals, and flew through the rest of the percussion section. There were girls from everywhere across the country. One of the snares was from California. A girl on the bass line was from Wyoming. Anna, a cymbal player, was from Idaho. It was crazy.
Next up was the guard. Again, I was amazing at the geographic variety among the girls, and at how many of them looked like girls in our guard at home. One girl in particular, the one with auburn hair, big blue eyes similar to mine, and was sitting a few feet away, looked incredibly familiar. But I didn't know why.
"Hi, my name is Mary-Katherine," she said, "But that's a mouthful, so everyone calls me…"
Duh.
"M-Cat," I mumbled under my breath.
"M-Cat," she echoed.
Nicole turned to me.
"You know her?"
I nodded. How on earth could I forget her?
"How?" Nicole asked.
"I'm from Connersville, Ohio," M-Cat continued, completely oblivious to mine and Nicole's conversation just a few feet away."
"Well, answers that question."
"She was in our guard last year," I said. She was a lot of stuff last year actually, but none of it I was really willing to repeat with her standing only a yard away.
I grimaced. She was one of the people I had not missed seeing on a daily basses after fall had ended. I had only known she was in the corp for a few minutes and I was already dreading spending an entire summer with her. I thought I was supposed to be done with that.
It was only a joke.
I knew that. I knew it wasn't supposed to be malicious or destructive.
The problem was, that's exactly what it had been.
"What's wrong with you?" Nicole asked, "You look like you're about to kill somebody."
"I'm fine," I said, trying to shake off the feeling of loathing that had just come over me.
"Well, while you were off in la la land, your friend M-Cat finished her introduction and now we're on a ten minute break," Nicole said.
"She's not my friend," I said through clenched teeth.
"I noticed," Nicole said, "come on, let's get something to drink."
We meandered around the school until we found a vending machine that had both pop and Gatorade. I was quite happy with my blue Gatorade, and Nicole finally decided on a Sprite after staring at the machine for a good two minutes. I couldn't help but laugh.
"What's so funny?" Nicole asked.
"You spent the entire walk here telling me that you wanted a coke."
"Yes?" Nicole said perplexed.
"You got a Sprite. I thought you wanted a Coke." Now, I was confused.
"Yes, and I got one." Nicole was looking at me like I was crazy.
"That's a Sprite," I said, pointing at the label.
"Yes. It's a coke, more specifically a Sprite."
Finally, it clicked.
"Oh, a coke isn't a specific brand; it's just pop,"
"What?"
"Pop," I said, "You know, carbonated stuff that contains enough sugar to run a small village. What you're drinking."
"Oh, you mean coke?" Nicole said, taking a sip of her Sprite.
"Same thing," I said, trying to open my Gatorade.
"Yea, but who calls it that?"
"The entire… Midwest," I said, really struggling, "why won't this thing open!?!"
"Here let me do it," she said.
She took the blue bottle out of my hands, wiped off the top, and opened it before I even had a chance to protest.
I was stunned.
"How'd you do that?" I asked.
Nicole simply shrugged.
"Do people really call it that?"
"Call what, what?"
"Do people call coke pop?"
"Oh yea," I said, "if you walked into a restaurant where I live and you said you wanted a coke, they'd bring you a Coca-Cola. They wouldn't ask you what type."
Nicole seemed slightly amused by this.
"Out here, in Boston, and on most of the east coast for that matter, they call it soda."
"Wow," Nicole said, finishing off her drink, "I've only ever called it coke."
"Learn something new everyday," I said, looking back towards the band room, "I think we need to head back."
The halls were pretty much empty.
"You're probably right," Nicole said, breaking into a half walk, half jog.
We made it into the back into the gym not a moment too soon. Beth was just beginning the brass introductions. We were starting with the tubas, then on to the baritones, the mellophones, and finally, the trumpets. I tried hard to pay attention to each of the girls (like Beth said, we were going to spend an entire summer together), but it was proving to be very challenging. By now, it was almost eleven at night, and I had been up since five that morning finishing homework. I was very sleepy. Even the sugar from the Gatorade couldn't keep my eyes from drooping.
"Hey, wake up," Nicole said after poking me in the side.
"What?" I asked, looking around the room.
"You fell asleep," she said with a sympathetic look, "the trumpets are up now."
I groggily got to my feet. I surveyed the room. There were about twenty-five of us, all standing up with perfect band posture and looking more confident than we probably felt.
Beth looked around.
"Catlin," she said, looking right at me, "why don't you go first?"
Crap.
"Well," I said, trying not to sound like I had woken up less than thirty seconds ago, "I'm Catlin Peterson, but most people call Kiwi."
Most of the corp wore the same confused expression.
"Yes, there is a story," I said, "and no, I'm not going to tell it now. Ask me later."
There were couple snickers, but most of the girls still looked befuddled.
"I'm from Connersville, Ohio," I said, eager to change the subject. As much as I like the story of how I acquired my nickname, I was in no mood to tell it right then.
"I'm seventeen, and I not only am I a trumpet player, I'm a cymbal player as well."
The cymbal section (all four of them) cheered very loudly. I smiled at sat down.
I tried to stay awake and listen to the rest of my section, but I guess I wasn't successful because I felt someone poking me in the back a half an hour later.
"Kiwi, wake up," Nicole said sleepily, "I think we're almost done."
One look at Nicole told me she had fallen asleep too.
"Now that all of you have gone, I think it's time I introduced myself," Beth said.
I looked up at her. I was in no mood to listen to anyone else tonight, but I figured it would be a good idea to feign interest in my director, even though I couldn't manage to pull it off for my own section.
"As you all known, my name is Beth Browning," Beth started, "And I am too old to admit my age."
There were a couple of snickers from the couple girls that were still awake.
"I am originally from the Boston area, but I just recently moved back here from California. As many of you know, I was the brass director for the Blue Devils. I was also the band director at one of the high schools in Southern California. However, two years ago, I had a baby and decided that I wanted to be closer my family so I moved back here. This year, I realized that I missed DCI a little too much and thought it was about time the girls had a corp of their own. So, I started making phone calls, getting people together, and after fast forwarding through a lot of boring details, we wind up here.
"And," Beth said, "my interesting fact is that I'm a terrible speller."
Most of us were awake by then and laugh hysterically at Beth's last comment.
"Wow, you guys really are tired," Beth said, "that wasn't all that funny."
I nodded. I couldn't have said it better myself.
"That will be all for tonight," Beth said, "I will see you back here at 8 o'clock tomorrow. You're done for tonight."
I looked at my watch. It was almost midnight. I woke the sleeping Nicole behind me, bid her good night (she, along with a lot of the other girls were spending the night at the school), and headed outside to wait for Uncle Mark to come get me (since I had flown there, I didn't have a car. Uncle Mark had volunteered to provide transportation.) I was hoping that he would show up soon. I was about to fall asleep.
While I was outside waiting for, I saw M-Cat walk outside talking to some other guard girls. She looked completely different than the last time I had seen her, which was only two months ago. She had dyed her platinum blonde hair an auburn color, and she had either gotten, or gotten rid of, colored contacts. That night, forever ingrained in my memory, she had had brown eyes.
You need to let it go. It was just a mistake. A miscommunication.
I knew that. I told myself that every time. But even months later, I was still pissed.
M-Cat walked passed me while I was sitting on the curb. She saw me, but completely ignored me.
"Well it's an improvement," I mumbled under my breath.
It was an improvement. For the past six months, I had gotten the evil eye and a couple words that were usually used to describe female dogs. Being ignored was quite an improvement.
Still, if anybody has right to be angry, I felt it was me.
"Hey, Kiwi, are you coming?" Uncle Mark was sitting right in front of me.
"Yea, I'm coming."
I climbed into the car, grateful to be going to bed.