A/n: BP: This is a little (not really) story about an entirely fictional marching band, based on some (ok, many) of our experiences, in hopes of finding some peace between the trumpets and saxes, to make people laugh, and to maybe have something other than rip-offs and lists in this section. And frankly I'm tired of hearing everyone pick on the trumpets, so instead of having a fic where the trumpets are great and everyone else sucks (which we all know can't be true), here we have a fic where everyone has a LITTLE dignity... I think. And this is because, well, I'm a trumpeter and dreamsarebad is a saxist (err... saxophonist), so the people we bash are... evil drum majors! HAHAHA!! ... And so, without further sensefulness:

Disclaimer: WE OWN ALL!! Except the Phoenix family; we're just using their names to be stupid.

Note: Anything enclosed in [ ] is based on real events. We did this to show the readers that all these crazy ideas may not have actually come from our own heads, and just how weird things can get in our marching band.

For your convenience, we have provided a list of the members of each section. Whoever can catch any of the million references in the names gets a cookie (these people ARE entirely fictional):

Saxes: Chuck (1st), D'arcy (2nd), Johnny (3rd), Emily (4th), Nissa (5th), Mitch (6th), River (7th), Guy (8th)

Trumpets: Mat (1st), Bix (2nd), Diz (3rd), Sky (4th), (none), Rain (6th), Joaquin (7th), Timber (8th), Heshy (9th)

Drum Majors: Xan (trumpet), Carly (clarinet), Danny (trombone)

NOT YOUR STORY

--or--

NOT JUST ANOTHER SAX/TRUMPET FIC!

BY BLACK PEGASUS AND DREAMSAREBAD

PART ONE: How It All Began...

Mat slowly and boredly opened his trumpet case at the beginning of band. He didn't feel like going outside, so he was taking his time. He gasped in horror at what he saw inside his case – his trumpet was covered in a clear, slimy substance.

"What the..." He wiped a bit off with his finger and sniffed it. Cork grease!

Hearing some giggling, he looked across the room to see a couple of saxophonists pointing and laughing at him.

That's it, he thought. "This means WAR!"

SOME UNESTIMABLE TIME AGO...

"What's up with trumpets anyway?!" D'arcy asked after Diz emptied his spit valve on the band room floor.

"They can't help it; they're just trumpet players," answered Chuck, first chair alto sax player. Bix overheard this and mumbled under her breath, "At least spit doesn't leak out of random places onto our hands..."

"Yeah really!" Diz agreed. "And what's up with reeds...?"

"Chill out, you guys," Mat said. Diz and Bix gaped.

"Chill out??"

Diz shook his head. "One day you'll see what's wrong with the saxes."

Mat shrugged. They just didn't get it. "Why waste energy hating each other?" he said. "Just look at them!"

The trumpets looked over -- the saxes were laughing, poking each other, stealing various items and instruments, and a few were punching each other.

"Exactly!" Diz and Bix exclaimed. Mat shook his head. Maybe he was the one who didn't get it.

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

"Poke." Johnny poked Mitch.

"Stop," Mitch said. Johnny continued to laugh and poke Mitch until Mitch finally punched him.

"Ow!" Johnny said, rubbing his shoulder. He looked around the band room and caught sight of Mat's beautiful and relatively new turquoise trumpet. Johnny grinned and proceeded to assemble his saxamophone.

Xan, one of their DMs (and a trumpet player) walked up to Johnny. "Get outside... NOW!" he said in an unnecessarily loud voice. Johnny stared at him and blinked. He then slowly started putting together his saxamophone, making sure everything was just right and perfectly aligned. Five minutes later, he trudged outside.

Outside, Danny, Xan, and Carly were trying to bring everyone to order.

"Hey, look what I can do!" River said to Nissa. He played a horribly off-key version of what Nissa could only perceive to be "How's It Going to Be." Chuck overheard River's attempt and began to play the song beautifully with lots of embellishments. River poked him.

"NO PLAYING!" Xan yelled and stared at the group of saxophonists.

"Go to set zero!!" Carly yelled.

"Yay." Johnny said unenthusiastically.

"Let's go!" Xan yelled while banging the cowbell.

"I HATE that thing!" about twenty people said simultaneously.

Diz stood at zero, staring into space, unconsciously hugging his trumpet.

"Diz, move back a bit," the person at the end of the line called, trying to make him fit the form. "Diz? DIZZY!"

Johnny poked Diz in the back. "Yo, doofus!"

Diz jumped. "Huh?"

"MOVE, FOO'!"

He turned around and glared at Johnny. "WHAT did you say?!"

"I said--"

"Shut up, Johnny!" Xan yelled from the vicinity of the drum majors' stand. Diz smirked at the appalled sax player and went back to his spot.

The rest of the practice went on uneventfully, except for a few bad jokes by the band director and Xan's pants falling down in the middle of "Nirvana, A Musical Portrait."

"Run-through! Back to zero!" Danny yelled. You could see the joy in his eyes, for drum majors truly love run-throughs...

"Run-throughs SUCK!" exclaimed Trista, a freshman flute player.

"Yes, yes they do," Someone said.

"Run-throughs should go to hell!" Someone Else said. They lined up to march onto the field. Their doofy band director pretended to be an announcer.

"David J. McIntire High School's Marching Clams are getting ready to take the field. They will perform their show, "An Evening With Nirvana," which includes "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Nirvana, A Musical Portrait," and "Come As You Are." Clams, are you ready to take the field in practice?"

"Shut up!" a trombonist yelled. He did.

The show was going fine until somewhere at the end of "Smells Like Teen Spirit," when a disoriented flaggot collided into Johnny and knocked off the neck of his saxamophone onto the field.

"Shit," he mumbled as he bent down and picked it up. Fortunately, it was unharmed. They finished the show and were called in for announcements when Xan approached Johnny.

"What were you doing out there?!" Xan said angrily.

"I was rolling around in a vat of cheese with a giant monkey... what the hell do you think I was doing?!"

"I saw you pick up your saxophone type thing."

"... So?"

"*blink* You can't do that! What would you do if it was a competition?"

"... I would pick it up."

"I'm keeping an eye on you, Johnny." Johnny just stood there with a dumb look on his face as Xan walked away.

"What was that about?" D'arcy asked as she approached Johnny.

"Huh? ... Oh, that... I don't know, I was just thinking about last night's episode of 'Friends'... Chandler is a hoot!"

"... Poke."

---At Some Other Earlier Time During Rehearsal---

Timber and Joaquin carefully put their trumpets on the ground and picked up their drillbooks, just as Danny announced it was time for the most dreaded thing ever -- DRILL BOX!

"Pst!" Joaquin hissed to Heshy and Sky. When they turned, he motioned with his drillbook; they got the picture and followed. "One... two... three!" The four of them ran at Danny yelling and hit him several times with their drillbooks as the poor drum major tried to bash them with a mallet. After a moment they stopped and walked sulkily to their drillbox spots, where they saw Rain staring at them incredulously.

["She thinks we're weird!" Sky announced.

"Thinks? She knows," Bix amended.

"Knows-schmoes," Joaquin said. "I have a nose."]

After the drill box they cleaned some sets and did a run-through. Afterward they gathered around the DM stand for announcements.

[Xan stood up. "Good work today, guys! Just one thing -- there will be a trumpet sexual after school Thursday--" He was cut off by the entire band laughing at him. He got really angry, turning bright red. "What's so funny?!"

"So THAT'S what goes on at trumpet sexuals!" Johnny yelled, sending the band into more bouts of laughter, Xan turning still redder. He stormed off.]

"... Go away now," said their director, Mr. K, after a moment. They walked inside.

"That was the highlight of my week," Emily mused.

"Yeah, that should be funny for at least another month," Guy replied.

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

"So Joaquin, do you like those trumpet sexuals?" Johnny asked him. They were in Biology class.

"Shut up, man!"

"So... how exactly do those sexuals work?"

"SHUT UP!"

"Do you all blow at the same time, or separately?"

"AAHH! SHUT UP!!"

The whole class was staring at him. Joaquin turned bright red.

"S-sorry..."

Johnny stifled laughter, and the teacher continued.

"So if you have a build-up of bacteria in your large intestine, they can give you a colonoscopy to clean it. They stick a tube up your rectum and..."

"Do you do THAT at trumpet sexuals? Kinky." Johnny couldn't help himself. Joaquin narrowed his eyes. He packed up his books and started to leave the room.

"... And then they flush the-- where are you going?" the teacher asked.

"Band room." He left.

Once he stepped into the band room, Joaquin threw his backpack across the room. It hit some clarinetist he didn't recognize, but he didn't care. He saw Xan sitting at the table studying his score, and he ran over and shook him.

"You've ruined my life!" Joaquin shouted. Xan pushed him away, looking rather scared. Joaquin stormed off into the back practice room and slammed the door. Approximately eighteen minutes and thirty-six seconds later, the bell rang, signaling the end of the period. Joaquin, who had been writing hate messages against Xan on the chalkboard, wiped off his hands and went to open the door.

["Wha... what the f*ck?!" He started violently turning the knob and pushing the door. "NOOOO!"

People sitting around the band room looked around when they heard the noise.

"What's that?" Someone wondered.

"It's probably rats," Someone Else replied, and they went back to what they were doing... playing strip poker.

"LET ME OUT OF HERE! I think the floor is starting to move!"

And it DID look like the floor was moving -- bugs covered the floor, crawling and squirming.... Joaquin jumped up on the only chair in the room and continued screaming.

"HEEEEELLLLPPP!!!"]

~~Two Periods Later~~

"Where's Joaquin?" Rain asked Heshy as they jogged around the track.

"I dunno... could be cutting."

"But Joaquin loves gym!"

"Yeah... he always WAS a weirdo."

"I guess we'll find out after school. Stupid football..." Heshy looked over to the parking lot where a bunch of football players were laughing and smashing soda cans against their heads. He sighed.

---After School, Everyone Heads to the Band Room to Practice for the Football Game---

"Sky's here, Timber's here, Bix, Rain..." Mat mumbled to himself as he made sure everyone in his section was present. "Joaquin is... not here. That's weird, he was at band this morning..."

---In the Band Room, Joaquin is Still Pounding on the Practice Room Door and Screaming---

"HELP! The bugs are reproducing at an astounding rate! HELP!! DAMN SOUND-PROOF DOORS!"

---At Rehearsal---

Mat shrugged. "Oh well."

"I bet he's out somewhere having fun while we're stuck here doing drillbox," Timber stated bitterly.

---In the Practice Room---

Joaquin swung a handy flugelhorn at the oncoming insects. "STAY AWAAAAY!" He had a maniacal look in his eyes.

---At Rehearsal---

"Yeah, I bet he's at Dairy Queen or something," Bix added.

---In the Practice Room---

Joaquin curled up into a fetal position on the chair, crying. "So... many... bugs!"

---At Rehearsal---

"Oh well," Mat said. "Get in line for drillbox." They did, mumbling and cursing the drillboxness of drillbox.

"Make lines of SIX!" Carly announced, clearly pronouncing "six" so that everyone could hear and (hopefully) understand. "NOT five, NOT seven; SIX!"

The saxes neatly formed a line of six, and the three other people that did not fit started a new line with two extra clarinetists. The trumpets, however, had some problems; there were seven of them.

["I'll just go in the sax line," Heshy said, seeing he was an extra.

"No, stay with the trumpets!" Xan bellowed.

"But she said lines of six. That's seven," Heshy insisted.

"Too bad, you need to stay with your section." With that, he walked off, leaving Heshy standing between the two lines, torn between doing the logical thing and doing what the drum major said.

"Don't be an idiot!" River exclaimed, dragging Heshy into the sax/clarinet line.]

"You guys are so intelligent," the band director said into the microphone. "It only took you ten minutes to make a box this time!"

"Shut up!" a trombonist yelled. He did.

They did drillbox, rehearsed a lot, and then were called in for announcements and stuff.

"Come in for announcements and stuff," the band director yelled. "Okay, first order of business... I HATE YOU! MY LIFE IS A LIVING HELL! DO YOU THINK I WANT TO BE HERE? DO YOU THINK I WENT TO COLLEGE PLANNING ON WASTING MY LIFE BEING A FRIGGIN HIGH SCHOOL BAND DIRECTOR?! I'M A MUSICIAN!" He took a folding chair and proceeded to close it over his head repeatedly. He finally stopped, put the chair down, and walked away mumbling something about Julia Roberts...

The whole band blinked.

"Um... has anyone seen Joaquin?" Mat asked.

"I did!" Surely (a clarinetist) said. "He threw his backpack at me seventh period, and then attacked Xan. I think he's a psychopath."

"Where did he go after that?" Danny asked.

"He went into the back practice room in a fit of rage."

"Oh. Okay."

"Um... can we go eat dinner now?" a euphonium player asked.

"Oh, um, yeah go ahead... you're dismissed," Carly said. The band cheered and ran inside.