A/n- Sorry for the delay. School is almost out, and there are many more chapters on the way. :)
"Are you ok?" she asked in a low voice. I nodded. She nodded back to me, and turned to go get her stuff out of her office. I went back to the corner I had dumped my backpack and water jug in, and grabbed them both. As I turned around, I bumped into the girl I had been standing by before. She grinned at me again, and stuck out the hand that didn't have a trombone case in it.
"I'm Emily," she said. Her hazel eyes were very pretty, even if her face was a bit on the chubby side. I shook her hand, smiling back at her for reals this time.
"Hope," I said. I looked over my shoulder, searching for MacFlellan. Emily laughed.
"Let's go, before he catches you again." I nodded and pushed for the door.
"So where's your instrument?" Emily asked curiously as we trotted down the hill to the deserted practice field. All I had with me was my backpack and water jug. I smiled.
"Teacher said drummers just had to carry sticks. I guess we just lucked out today." It felt weird referring to her as "teacher," but whatev. I looked at Emily, but she wasn't smiling anymore.
"You play drums?" she said skeptically. Now I was confused.
"Snare, actually," I said, trying to keep my voice light. "Why? What's the big deal?"
"It's just, we, uh, don't have girls on the drum line."
"So?" I asked. "You do now. One anyway." She just shook her head and kept walking.
"What's the big deal?" I asked again. "You play trombone."
"I'm the only girl that plays trombone. The only other girl that plays brass is Chelsea, and she plays French horn."
"Oh." I said. I smiled. "Well, a three to thirty girl to boy ratio… at least those are good odds." I was my mother's daughter, at heart. By this point we reached the field. Out of habit, I put all my stuff on side two outside the thirty five yard lines. Emily followed me, setting her stuff with mine. She watched as I pulled a bottle of sunscreen out of my backpack and squeezed a great dollop of it into my hand. I was smearing it into my face when she asked, "Why are you putting sun-block on?" I looked at her, confused again.
"Because we are going to be out here for a four-hour practice block and I burn in the sun?" I answered. I tied all my hair back and dug around in my back pack for a battered hat and sunglasses.
"Four hours?" Emily scoffed. "Yeah. I don't think so." I shrugged, and started glopping the thick lotion on my legs. We weren't on Astroturf, so the reflected glare wouldn't be too bad, but still, better safe than sorry.
"Whatever floats your boat," I said. She bit her lip, looking worried.
"Can I use some of that, just in case?" she asked. I nodded and tossed it to her. I leaned over, stretching out the backs of my legs. I hadn't done a whole lot of physical activity over the summer, and I didn't want to get beat up the first day. Through the triangle window of my legs, I saw the rest of the band crawling up the hill. I spotted my mom coming round the bend, ushering the laggers up. I chuckled to myself. These kids had no clue what they were in for. I straightened up and stretched out my arms, starting with the shoulders and working my way down to my forearms and wrists.
I spied Jack over on the field itself, surrounded by six or so other guys. They all had their sticks out and were twirling them, or had them shoved in their back pockets. I didn't particularly like the looks of any of them, but that could have just been my dislike for MacFlellan.
I took a drink out of my water jug, trying to hydrate before I was going to sweat it all out. I was nodding at something Emily babbled on about, watching as my mom got to the top of the hill. I checked my phone one last time before throwing it in my back pack. 8:14. Time to party. I think I startled Emily as I leapt up from the ground and wandered casually over to the middle of the fifty yard line. She didn't argue but followed me.
I was nodding at something she said, but really was wondering how hard-core my mom wanted to be today. If she wanted to play drum corps, we would end up running a mile or two before starting basics. If not, we would just stretch and go right into the positions of attention, parade rest, etc. I weighed my options. Given my severe hatred of basics, I was ready to volunteer us all to run first. That probably wouldn't have earned me any friends. I was saved from having to make the decision when I heard my mom calling over the hubbub.
"Everyone run down and touch the fence at the bottom of the hill, then come back up. Ready go!" she barked as some people stared at her in disbelief. "The longer you stand there staring at me, the longer this block goes, so hurry up!" she said, traces of a grin on her face. I grinned back and turned to start jogging down the hill. I heard Emily puffing behind me. It wasn't very far away, but a lot of kids got to the bottom and stopped, and started walking back. I kept jogging, trying to avoid the holes in the uneven ground as best I could.
I had thought I was out of shape, but I was among the first back up to the field. Mom winked at me as I made my way to my water jug. I sat down and stretched out my calves while watching the rest of the band stagger back up the hill. I knew without looking that my mom was growing more and more irritated the longer it took. Finally, the last couple of people made their way up the hill, not meeting my mother's eyes as they grabbed their little water bottles. She was expressionless as she waited three seconds after they opened their waters before blowing the whistle and going over the fifty again.
"Everyone form a block. Seven across the top, please. If you're a rookie, get in line behind someone else." People started running around, not wanting to be in the front rank. That lasted about a second before my mom's voice cut through the crowd again.
"I want seven people across this yard line, with their hands raised up." I sighed, finding myself moving up to be the right corner of the block. I raised my right hand in a fist, and watched Emily scoot in behind me.
Mom stood next to the center file, waiting for quiet. It came almost instantaneously. She looked around, smiling. I'm sure she was picking out the vets by their attention stance and the rookies by their fear and misplaced limbs. She quickly paced out the block. Even though I was a good four steps away from the boy who was on my left, I still had to move over a few paces to accommodate those who had no spatial sense in the middle of the block. I was careful not to let my mother see my eyes roll back at the lack of spacing. The block fidgeted as a whole. My mom wandered back through the block, adjusting a hand here, pushing a chin up there. She turned back around as she came to the front of the block.
"Welcome to band camp. We have a lot to do, and three days to do it in. By the time camp is over, we should be ready to start putting your competitive show for the season together when school starts." She stopped pacing at the front of the block. "You're going to be through a lot in the next three days, physically and mentally. So to start, we're going to stretch out now that your muscles are nice and warm." She released us from the attention position, and she taught the group most of the stretches I had already done, working out kinks in the legs and the arms, loosening up muscles that would be screaming by then end of the day.
As we went through the stretches, the sixty or so people began to wake up. Laughter and jokes started moving along with the blood through the block. Mom was doing the stretches too at the front of the block, on the far side from mine. She was laughing and talking with the kids who were within talking distance, which might have been the first three rows. I looked over and saw the kids were laughing and smiling back, and the tension level of the whole group had lowered at least three notches. We finished all the basic stretches and my mom's grin widened. I knew what was coming next.
"Everyone on their butts," she called. She plopped down on the ground next to the top rank, still smiling. "We're going to start our ab exercise series. For the first one, you guys keep your legs, arms and head raised, with your hands keeping time until we get to one hundred." I felt the protest of my stomach muscles as my hands kept time with my mom's. I heard some people panting around me.
"Don't speed up!" Mom called out. "You all need to keep the same time, even when your energy is running out! Otherwise, you'll blow the end of your show. Stick together!" A few more moments passed and the panting got heavier. "And down!" Mom said. She led us through the rest of the abdominal work series, finishing with the Spinning Bicycle of Doom. Death. Herpes. Whatever.
"And here we go!" I have yet to figure out how being a teacher makes one hyper. My mom has it down pat, though. She was positively giddy as she bounced back up, ready to define Attention and start marching. And she didn't even have coffee this morning. I checked.
"I want you to fall into the position of attention. Keep your heels together, and your toes about a fist length apart. It should be about a 90 degree angle." Most of the block was looking down at their feet. I wondered if they were all rookies. A fifty percent rookie rate wasn't unheard of, but it wasn't going to be a cake season, either. My mother continued to give instructions in the front of the block.
"Keep your weight over the balls of your feet; it should feel like you're leaning forward. You will have a straight line between your ankles, your knees and your shoulders. Don't lock your knees or you'll pass out. And then we'll laugh at you. First I'll make sure you're ok, and then I'll laugh at you. Shoulders should be back and down so there is no tension in the neck and chest. Arms are slightly bent at your side. Your chin is up and your eyes are with pride. Pride, Mr. Taylor. That means no twitching…" And this went on. And on. Maybe for twenty minutes. Which was probably record time or something close for getting a group of kids to stand together at attention, but it was twenty minutes of just standing there for me.
I wished I had my drum and could practice the music. I wasn't overly worried about auditions. I had been playing drums with the best since I was born. If I didn't make it, I didn't deserve to. The sun beat down on us, and I felt a bead of sweat roll from my hat down my nose. Twitching my face helped a little and after that I tried to ignore it. I was glad that I could stand at attention for hours. I could probably sleep at attention, if I had to.
Eventually we moved on to Parade Rest, which wasn't very restful, but was usually important. The block seemed to drag on and on. It sucked, because I knew my mom didn't like teaching like this either. Her usual method of delegation wasn't going to work because there was no one to delegate to. She had no other staff to depend on, no student leadership to step up to the responsibility. Breaking the band up into smaller groups to be taught by the section leaders was out of the question. I still had no clue who the drum major was. If we even had a drum major. So I stood in the block, helping the people around me when I could during the relaxed time, and stood there when we were supposed to stand there. She finally did catch me rolling my eyes, though. She rolled her eyes back at me, and called for a water break.
"And now, we're going to take everything you just learned," she said as kids quickly drained their little water bottles, "and we're going to change it. Everyone break out your instruments, and get in the block. Don't worry about standing in sections. Move!"
A/n- thank you for continuing to follow the story. :) Share with your friends, and the more reviews I get make me feel guilty enough to update often. ;)