She looked at him from the sidelines. His orange Florida Gators cap
covered his dirty blonde hair and seemed to make his blue-green eyes dance.
She bit her lip and smiled as he waved. "Ladies and gentlemen, introducing
the 2002 East Limestone Marching Indians! With drum majors Krystle Johnson
and Christina Myers. And band director Jennifer Sampieri!" The crowd
roared as she took one last look at him.
"Band-tin-hut!" Krystle and Christina shouted and then shouted again,
"Guard-tin-hut!"
The band responded by standing perfectly still and screaming "EAST!!!"
I couldn't see him, but I knew his eyes were upon me, I could feel it.
The music started up and the crowd cheered. I gripped my flagpole tighter,
the metal felt hot and sticky under my hand. I can't believe it's finally
here! It's the first game of the season, this is what we've worked so hard
for! The hard part is over, I told myself as I remembered those two weeks
of band camp. We were there from 7:30 in the morning to 9:00 at night,
every night, even Saturday!
I suddenly snapped out of my trance. Jackie smacked me in the head with
her flag. "We're supposed to be marking time!" she whispered through the
clenched teeth of her smile. I winked at her as I started to count. "One,
two, three, four." I was counting in my head of course; the judges won't
tolerate us counting out loud. "Nine, ten, eleven, twelve." I started to
walk off of the sideline and onto the field. This was only the drum
feature; the first thing that we do! And the new girls are already into the
routine, on step and still on count!" I glanced over at Andrea; she was
like the co-captain although she had only been on the team for a single
year. Andrea looked at me also, she was smiling and looked happy.but her
eyes told me that she was worried. "What if we make fools of ourselves," I
asked myself, "What if-" "Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen,
twenty." *pop* Well that went smoothly, I thought.
Krystle climbed onto the podium and counted us off, which began our
second song and so on and so forth. Finally that final toss and band's high
note came. And after that came the applause. I had never felt so good in my
entire life! The feeling was incredible! And then I saw him, standing with
10 or more people, all of them standing on top of the blenchers screaming
and clapping. And as we marched off the field I thought I saw Mrs. McKinney
with that 'tear of happiness' in her eye.
