Murder in Band Camp X
Chapter Two: Buscapades
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Two hours came and went, and there still weren't any busses to be seen. Blaze started pacing the small area in between rows of terminal seats and tried not to think about how many people were shoved into such a small bus station.
"Dude! Blaze! Chill!" Mike exploded, fed up with Blaze's impatience. "Pacing back and forth isn't going to make the busses come any faster!"
"About the only thing it is doing is making me dizzy," Scary Jerry muttered, closing his eyes. One hand tapped out a rhythm against the side of his bass trombone case. "Quit the walking or I'll have to pound you." That was no small threat from Scary, he was six-foot-five and often gave off a burly athletic air. Truth was, Scary was more passionate about music than he was about physical sports like football – much to the chagrin of the varsity football coach, who tried to badger Scary into joining every year – and would rather practice his bass than pummel a guy. That wasn't to say he wouldn't pummel Blaze in a heartbeat if he felt the inclination, so Blaze parked himself in an uncomfortable plastic chair and tried to think happy thoughts.
"Wait, wait, wait, hold up here," Lee Harper, a junior baritone, said and stood up and began craning his neck to peer across the crowd of band students. "Who's the chick?"
"What chick?" Mike asked, immediately interested. Lee pointed her out to Mike and they both nodded appreciatively.
"Sweet," Mike said, already beginning to formulate a plan. "I bet I could accidentally bump into her somewhere…"
"Someone better warn that girl," Blaze joked, turning to see who they were referring to. "Which one?"
"The chick with the green tank top and short brown hair," Lee said. "You see her? I wonder where she came from? Maybe she's a froshie… she don' look that young, though…" he trailed off.
"That's Charlie!" Blaze burst out. "I just met her outside… she's really good at the clarinet." He lapsed into silence as he recalled her talented music. "Stay offa her, Mike. I think I like this one."
"Who says you get dibs?" Mike scowled, but shrugged. "Doesn't matter. I know for a fact there's a sophie flute who's got it bad for me…" A pleased expression crossed his face. "Maybe I oughtta make something out of that…" He wandered off in search of his sophomore flute, and Blaze continued to watch Charlie from across the room… she was really pretty, he thought. I wonder if she's got a boyfriend…
"ALL RIGHT! A FUCKIN' BUS!" One of the french horns bellowed. He abruptly ducked behind a large sousaphone case as one of the band directors gave him an evil look. He was spared a lecture, though, as the mass of band geeks hastily grabbed their belongings and formed a massive rush for the door. Harried bus attendants tried to slow the crush of students, but they were generally ignored as the long awaited for busses beckoned.
"The Brassholes claim the back of Bus 3!" Scary yelled, and the line for Bus 3 abruptly disintegrated as people made for another vehicle. Blaze grinned; it was sometimes a great advantage to have Scary on your side.
-
Melody heard Scary call Bus 3 and quickly made her way to where he and a group of other people stood.
"What's the Brassholes?" she asked him, shouting over the din of loud, hyper band students. Scary grinned down at her.
"Who are the Brassholes? Only the best upperclassmen brass players," he told he. "But you can come along, anyway." Mellie slapped him a high-five and picked up her stuff, trailing behind a crowd of brass people as they boarded Bus 3.
As it turned out, the Brassholes were pretty much the upper tier of brass players. Mike stayed in because he was an original founder, "back in the day", as he referred to his froshie – and Scary, Blaze, and Merry's sophie – year. Aside from those four founding brass players was the baritone Lee; a french horn player named Scott Winter (the same one who had announced the busses arrival); two other sophie trumpets named Penny Christopher and Utah Kenmore ("Yeah," Utah had said when he was introduced, "Like the state and the dishwasher."); and another baritone by the name of Donald Kensington, who was also a freshman like her.
They were also all crazy out of their minds, Mellie soon found out.
"Let's get this show on the road!" Utah yelled. "Let's blow this popsicle stand! Band Camp X! Band Camp X!" He attempted to start a chant, but nobody joined him, so he shrugged and turned around to drape himself over the seat and chat with Penny.
"Ow ow ow OW OW OW!" Mike cried in rising volume as his seatmate, Lee, tried to pinch him to death. "You punk! Enough! UNCLE! DAMMIT!"
"Hahahahaha!" Lee cackled. "Death by pinching! The ultimate sentence!"
"So," Scary asked Mellie, where she sat huddled into her seat in the very back of the bus, "Ready to leave yet?"
"Is there actually a way out of this asylum?" she retorted. "Or is that a trick question?" But she grinned anyway and stuck her hand through the seat to pinch Mike, who had finally gotten Lee to stop. He let out a loud bellow and attempted to smother the baritone player with a complimentary pillow.
"What – I didn't – " Lee tried to say, but was muffled as Mike bashed the pillow against his face. Mellie grinned with delight and Scary let out a loud, reverberating guffaw.
"You'll fit right in, froshie." He told her, clapping her on the back and nearly toppling her off the seat. "You'll fit right in."
-
Charlie tried to ignore the huge fray that was taking place behind her seat. She wished she had heard when Bus 3 was called… she would have chosen another one.
Then Blaze got on the bus, and she suddenly didn't regret choosing this certain bus as much anymore. She tried to act like she hadn't seen him get on and made herself look busy until he stopped by her seat.
"Hey, Charlie." He grinned down at her. "Looking forward to the ride?"
"With this crowd behind me?" she said, grinning shyly. "I think I'm going to be vastly entertained." Blaze let out a loud laugh.
"What, the Brassholes? Aww, they're as meek as kittens. Milder than– " he was cut off as a flying pillow caught him in the face. "Hold that thought," he told her, grabbing the pillow and pouncing on Mike, intent upon cutting off his airflow. After a few minutes he returned to Charlie's seat, while behind him, Mike yelled hoarsely for vengeance.
"So, Charlie. You new here?" Blaze said, settling down comfortably into the seat beside her. "I don't remember you last year, and you certainly don't look like a froshie."
"A froshie?" Charlie asked, wrinkling her nose. "That sounds like a 7-11 slush drink."
"A froshie is what we call a freshman," Utah stuck in, hanging over the back of Blaze's seat. "Then we have the sophies for sophomores, and some idiots think it's amusing to label juniors as junies, but it hasn't caught on so far." Then he let out a loud squawk as Penny found ample excuse to tickle the back of his knees, and he fell backwards onto his fellow trumpet and attempted to squish her.
"You heard the man," Blaze continued cheerfully. He didn't seem at all surprised at what had just taken place, and Charlie concluded that it must be normal behavior for this bunch. "So what year are you?"
"I'm a senior," she said. "I just transferred here from out in west Texas, and the band directors said Band Camp X was mandatory." She shrugged and patted her clarinet case possessively. "So here we are."
"Welcome to Knightsbridge Maroon Band," Blaze uttered solemnly.
"Mess with us," Merry yelled across the aisle,
"And we'll Marooooon you!" The entire bus shouted in unison. They followed the cry with a chant, which Charlie caught on to quickly. "Goooooo M'ROON! Gooooo WHITE! Gooooo M'ROONIES! Fight fight fight! M'roonies fight, M'roonies fight, M'roon M'roonies, FIGHT FIGHT!" Then the entire bus was filled with a loud, low-pitched MOO-ing. Drumline members air-drumming and shouting out the beats punctuated the chant, and the entire thing followed by hearty backslapping and loud, raucous yelling.
"We have spirit." Blaze told her. Charlie nodded, eyes wide, as she took in what seemed to be the most psychotic group of people she had ever met.
"My old high school was nothing like this," she managed to say before a saxophone somehow achieved getting his instrument stuck in the overhead compartment, and the rest of the bus leapt to laugh at him and help make his situation worse.
-
Things had finally settled down, Blaze noted as the charter Greyhound made its way through the night. As the sun had set, the band members has grown even more hyper and disruptive, and they had continued to drive the bus the driver crazy until Mr. Defton, one of the band directors, lost his head and screamed bloody murder at them until they shut up. Lack of sleep finally set in and the students draped themselves across each other in a big mess and fell asleep as a group. Blaze was sitting in his seat with his eyes half-shut, drowsily contemplating the next day.
Charlie slept on his left. Blaze had decided to sit next to her and though he had migrated all over the bus, switching seats and sitting on people in order to chat with others as band members were apt to do on long bus trips, he had always returned back to Charlie's seat. Now she was nestled against his shoulder, pillow across her lap and one slim hand clutching his arm in her sleep. Blaze grinned sleepily and shifted a little, so she fell more against his chest, and he surreptitiously snaked one arm around her shoulder.
The clarinet player sighed and burrowed closer into his arms, and Blaze tried not to smile too wide. His eyes drifted shut, and he fell asleep to dream about clarinets and band camp.
-
Charlie was jarred awake as Bus 3 began swerving wildly. Around her, band students were being risen from their slumber, and sleepy cries of, "What the hell?" and worse versions arose from the tired mass. One poor freshman trombone, still more asleep than awake, yelled "Stop the merry-go-round, I wanna get off…!" His seatmate punched him in the shoulder and there was a few second worth of laughter, but all of it was cut off and turned into a huge, unanimous scream as the bus jerked to the side and teetered dangerously on its left wheels.
"What's going on here?!" Mr. Defton yelled, lurching up the aisle to the frightened bus driver. "What's the problem?"
"My steering wheel is locked up!" the bus driver yelled, working himself into a panic. "I can't turn this thing at all! And we're in Texas Hill Country, sir, this road is one giant swerve!" He jerked the wheel forcefully, but it only move a fraction, and the bus was getting dangerously close to the steep road edge on the right.
"Move!" Scary yelled the bus' population. "Everyone to the left of the bus! Just pretend like we're trying to tip it like we do at every away game! NOW MOVE!"
As a collective, the band members threw themselves across the aisle. Charlie was slammed against the bus wall as Blaze tried to shield her from Merry and her boyfriend Oscar's weight. She tried hold in the scream bubbling up inside of her as the charter bus rested on all its left wheels, the right side of the vehicle losing contact with the road. The bus let out a groan as the wheels protested the sudden weight, and Mr. Defton was screaming "Put on the brakes, put on the brakes!"
She heard the bus driver bellowing, "I AM!", and then the huge Greyhound collapsed on its left side. Her last thought before her head struck the glass window and rendered her unconsciousness was the fact that Blaze had his arms around her waist, holding her close to him as she slipped into darkness.