Road Trip!
(I'm still using names from A Year in Hades, so go read it!)
"Dad, we've got to leave at five twenty, okay?"
My father looked up from his mashed potatoes. "Tomorrow morning?"
"Yes, Dad, we have to meet at Santa Rita at a quarter to six, because the bus leaves at six."
"Fine, no problem. There's not much traffic that early. Are you packed?"
"Yeah, but I still need money."
"How much?"
"Forty."
I held open my wallet across the table and watched as it was magically filled with cash. Then I excused myself from the dinner table and went to my room. I put on my Hedwig soundtrack and took my duffel bag out of the closet. Of course I wasn't packed yet.
Let's see, I thought to myself, clothes for Saturday morning, my concert wear, two pairs of dress shoes, pajamas, pillow, stuffed cow, red fishnets with black knee-highs, toothbrush, makeup, contact lens stuff, shampoo, socks, underwear, CDs, gummi worms - all the essentials. I threw it all into a laundry basket, then went about folding stuff and packing it into my duffel. As an afterthought, I added my camera. Then I took out my gorgeous silver Cleveland King baritone out of her case and polished her bell. I did the body a bit, too, but mostly just the bell (The interior of the bell is shiny silver, the rest of it is brushed satin silver plate). I gathered all my mouthpieces - the 6 1/2 AL, the 6 1/2 AL-E, and my Schilke 51B - and placed them in the little accessory box along with Blue Juice and my polishing cloth. Then, with a last glance at my music stand, I grabbed the manila folder of music and a pencil and tossed them in the bottom of the case. In the morning, all I would need was my hairbrush.
My alarm was set for four AM. I take, as you've probably noticed, an obscenely long time to get ready. But the important thing is, I was ready at five twenty. My dad wasn't ready until five thirty-five. The bus was scheduled to leave at six and we got to the high school it was leaving from at five fifty-five. No problem - the buses hadn't arrived yet. I checked in with the choir teacher from our school - our band director had left earlier since he had to be there earlier (he's the regional band chair). By the time I found Doug and he got checked in, the buses had arrived. We climbed onto the second one and got settled. Now, before this gets more complicated, I should tell you a few things about Doug (a fictional name but not a fictional character). He's a freshman. He doesn't look it. I could have easily mistaken him for at least a junior had he not been under my power at freshman band camp. Doug is a good four or five inches taller than I am, and I'm 5'9". His sister is a senior and is also tall. And, well, mature. Yeah. She's the one mentioned as the tenor sax player's girlfriend in my story Red Fishnets. Go read it. She's in orchestra. Doug plays clarinet really well - as a recap, he's a freshman and got eighth out of thirty in regional band. And I'm first out of four. But anyway. He's a freshman and he has a girlfriend. That's the important part.
He's cute. That's about all there is to it. Well, no, there's a lot more to it than that. There's definite sexual tension between us. There was before he had a girlfriend, too. She's a freshman trumpet who's pretty good - she had a solo for our marching show and missed regionals by five points, literally. We're very flirty and I get the vibe from the girlfriend, whom we'll call Jamie, that she doesn't like that very much. Or me, for that matter. When we were outside during class one day with Mr. P and he said that we had to tell him who we were rooming with by Wednesday night rehearsal, Doug came up behind my, put an arm around my shoulder, and said "Oh yeah, baby. Me and Kanoi, Mr. P." We received dirty looks from Melanie, teases from Chris, the drumline section leader, and confusion from Sara. Mr. P looked at us with a raised eyebrow and told us to go inside and warm up.
Also on bus two, and my roommate for the hotel that night, was an extremely talented freshman percussionist, Iris. She got second chair. She also has a boyfriend, a freshman trombone (Kirk, from A Year In Hades) player. He didn't try out for regionals and consequently wasn't there. Duh. So Iris was in front of me and Doug was across the aisle on the bus. A good set-up - if we all sat on the aisle seats we had a talking triangle going. However, besides us, the only other people from our school on the bus were Melanie and her unlucky roommate, Carla. Carla also hated Melanie but got stuck with her when I roomed with Iris. They were seated right behind Doug. I noticed this too late for me to leave the bus without both looking stupid and having to explain to the froshes why exactly I hated Melanie and didn't want to be on a bus with her for two hours. I rolled my eyes and pulled my two-pound bag of gummi worms out of my duffel bag. I dangled them in the aisle where they were pounced upon by Doug. After he picked out ten green and orange ones, I offered the bag around. Melanie looked at me hesitantly and took a few.
"Thanks, Kanoi."
My mental jaw dropped. Melanie said thank you?!
"No problem. Sugar good!"
And that just about sums up the part of the bus trip (and, for that matter, the entire weekend) that has nothing to do with sexy freshmen - the bitchy drum major was incredibly nice to me! (for those of you who are confused, no, originally Melanie didn't get into regionals, but the last chair dropped out. Damn.) My guess for the reason was that she knew drum major auditions were coming up and wanted to get on my good side so I didn't bad-mouth her during the interview. But I saw right through her, of course. She's always been a bitch.
A/N - so far, to my knowledge, she's not re-trying out for DM this year. yay! and i've been recruited for our traveling jazz band - four-zero! The next chapter will get a bit spicy, so be warned. R/R please!
(I'm still using names from A Year in Hades, so go read it!)
"Dad, we've got to leave at five twenty, okay?"
My father looked up from his mashed potatoes. "Tomorrow morning?"
"Yes, Dad, we have to meet at Santa Rita at a quarter to six, because the bus leaves at six."
"Fine, no problem. There's not much traffic that early. Are you packed?"
"Yeah, but I still need money."
"How much?"
"Forty."
I held open my wallet across the table and watched as it was magically filled with cash. Then I excused myself from the dinner table and went to my room. I put on my Hedwig soundtrack and took my duffel bag out of the closet. Of course I wasn't packed yet.
Let's see, I thought to myself, clothes for Saturday morning, my concert wear, two pairs of dress shoes, pajamas, pillow, stuffed cow, red fishnets with black knee-highs, toothbrush, makeup, contact lens stuff, shampoo, socks, underwear, CDs, gummi worms - all the essentials. I threw it all into a laundry basket, then went about folding stuff and packing it into my duffel. As an afterthought, I added my camera. Then I took out my gorgeous silver Cleveland King baritone out of her case and polished her bell. I did the body a bit, too, but mostly just the bell (The interior of the bell is shiny silver, the rest of it is brushed satin silver plate). I gathered all my mouthpieces - the 6 1/2 AL, the 6 1/2 AL-E, and my Schilke 51B - and placed them in the little accessory box along with Blue Juice and my polishing cloth. Then, with a last glance at my music stand, I grabbed the manila folder of music and a pencil and tossed them in the bottom of the case. In the morning, all I would need was my hairbrush.
My alarm was set for four AM. I take, as you've probably noticed, an obscenely long time to get ready. But the important thing is, I was ready at five twenty. My dad wasn't ready until five thirty-five. The bus was scheduled to leave at six and we got to the high school it was leaving from at five fifty-five. No problem - the buses hadn't arrived yet. I checked in with the choir teacher from our school - our band director had left earlier since he had to be there earlier (he's the regional band chair). By the time I found Doug and he got checked in, the buses had arrived. We climbed onto the second one and got settled. Now, before this gets more complicated, I should tell you a few things about Doug (a fictional name but not a fictional character). He's a freshman. He doesn't look it. I could have easily mistaken him for at least a junior had he not been under my power at freshman band camp. Doug is a good four or five inches taller than I am, and I'm 5'9". His sister is a senior and is also tall. And, well, mature. Yeah. She's the one mentioned as the tenor sax player's girlfriend in my story Red Fishnets. Go read it. She's in orchestra. Doug plays clarinet really well - as a recap, he's a freshman and got eighth out of thirty in regional band. And I'm first out of four. But anyway. He's a freshman and he has a girlfriend. That's the important part.
He's cute. That's about all there is to it. Well, no, there's a lot more to it than that. There's definite sexual tension between us. There was before he had a girlfriend, too. She's a freshman trumpet who's pretty good - she had a solo for our marching show and missed regionals by five points, literally. We're very flirty and I get the vibe from the girlfriend, whom we'll call Jamie, that she doesn't like that very much. Or me, for that matter. When we were outside during class one day with Mr. P and he said that we had to tell him who we were rooming with by Wednesday night rehearsal, Doug came up behind my, put an arm around my shoulder, and said "Oh yeah, baby. Me and Kanoi, Mr. P." We received dirty looks from Melanie, teases from Chris, the drumline section leader, and confusion from Sara. Mr. P looked at us with a raised eyebrow and told us to go inside and warm up.
Also on bus two, and my roommate for the hotel that night, was an extremely talented freshman percussionist, Iris. She got second chair. She also has a boyfriend, a freshman trombone (Kirk, from A Year In Hades) player. He didn't try out for regionals and consequently wasn't there. Duh. So Iris was in front of me and Doug was across the aisle on the bus. A good set-up - if we all sat on the aisle seats we had a talking triangle going. However, besides us, the only other people from our school on the bus were Melanie and her unlucky roommate, Carla. Carla also hated Melanie but got stuck with her when I roomed with Iris. They were seated right behind Doug. I noticed this too late for me to leave the bus without both looking stupid and having to explain to the froshes why exactly I hated Melanie and didn't want to be on a bus with her for two hours. I rolled my eyes and pulled my two-pound bag of gummi worms out of my duffel bag. I dangled them in the aisle where they were pounced upon by Doug. After he picked out ten green and orange ones, I offered the bag around. Melanie looked at me hesitantly and took a few.
"Thanks, Kanoi."
My mental jaw dropped. Melanie said thank you?!
"No problem. Sugar good!"
And that just about sums up the part of the bus trip (and, for that matter, the entire weekend) that has nothing to do with sexy freshmen - the bitchy drum major was incredibly nice to me! (for those of you who are confused, no, originally Melanie didn't get into regionals, but the last chair dropped out. Damn.) My guess for the reason was that she knew drum major auditions were coming up and wanted to get on my good side so I didn't bad-mouth her during the interview. But I saw right through her, of course. She's always been a bitch.
A/N - so far, to my knowledge, she's not re-trying out for DM this year. yay! and i've been recruited for our traveling jazz band - four-zero! The next chapter will get a bit spicy, so be warned. R/R please!