Murder in Band Camp X

Chapter Four: Water Wars

-

After the initial party, Band Camp had shaken down into regular camp routine. People returned to their cabins and the students, Melody soon found out, were separated by instruments and not by gender.

Which meant she was stuck in a cabin full of raucous, annoying, loud, and most of all, dumb trombone guys. Even worse, they were horny.

All the time.

"Hey, gorgeous," one of them leered at her the day after she returned to camp. "You never know if today could be your last day in this life. Why don't you make the most of it in my bunk tonight?" Mark Wegner's taunts had been needling her all day and she finally lost it and snapped back.

"Go to hell, Mark." She retorted. "If you can't get a girl in your bunk bed at home, why would you be able to get one in a bunk bed at camp?"

"Ohhhh," the trombone cabin voiced appreciatively. Mark flushed angrily as many of his fellow brass players snickered at him.

"Hey," he growled at her, grabbing her wrist and squeezing as hard as he could. Asshole he might be, but he was a junior and he was a lot bigger than she was. Melody winced and tried to pull away but he only tightened his grip. "You don't make fun of me, froshie."

"She'll make fun of you if she wants, Mark." Scary rumbled as he stepped into the cabin. One big hand settled threateningly on his shoulder and tightened his hold just enough to be barely painful. "If you or anyone of your scummy friends lays a hand on her, I'm holding you personally responsible." Mark struggled to contain his anger and finally scowled at Melody.

"Lucky you have a bodyguard, froshie," he said angrily, and shook off Scary's hold on his shoulder. He then stalked out of the cabin and down the winding forest path, followed by one of his nameless underclassman groupies.

"I'd like to apologize for him," the trombone section leader, a senior named Chris, spoke up. "Whatever he does, don't think he represents our section. He's just an overall ass with a superiority complex.

"Yeah," a sophie added. "We won't let him get near you." He gave her a grin, and then lapsed into a friendly leer. "But anytime you get lonely at night, our bunk beds are really quite roomy…" He ducked as Melody chucked a pillow at him, and the cabin erupted into laughter.

But that night before they went to bed, Scary moved his bed closer to hers so that anyone looking for her during the night would be right beside him, as well. Melody waited until the room was asleep until she finally let herself relax, and when Scary stuck his arm across the empty space and put his hand in hers, she clutched it gratefully and drifted to sleep.

-

The morning was beautiful; Charlie thought dreamily, as she watched the sun climb over the horizon and struggled through the trees until it broke free of the green branches and fairly leapt into the sky. The sunrise took all of thirty minutes, but they weren't due at breakfast until eight, so she let herself lie lazily in bed and watch the gold, purple and scarlet fade to a bright, sunshine yellow.

Then she forced herself to leave her warm, comfortable sleeping bag and wandered to the girls showers, where she washed her hair and as an afterthought, used some of her good shampoo that made her hair smell like warm vanilla.

Of course, she wasn't doing it for Blaze. She was doing it because she felt like smelling good, that was all. Of course it is, she told herself mentally. You know you're hoping… well, she didn't quite know what she was hoping, but she was definitely hoping it would happen.

She decided to change and head for the pavilion before she could confuse her already romance-addled mind further.

-Later…

The pavilion was already half-full by the time she got down there, and the warm, inviting smell of cinnamon coffeecake made her stomach rumble hungrily for food. Across the pavilion sat Blaze, his red hair standing out even in the crowd of band members, and she wove her way through the picnic table to sit down next to him. He gave her a grin and entwined his fingers through her own.

"There's the illustrious Concussion Girl!" Utah said loudly, even though he was sitting directly across the table from her. "She's return from fighting crime in Hospital Land and will now grace the hopeless confusion of Band Camp X with her unconscious efforts to keep Blaze-man and Utah-boy from removing her from a wrecked cabin! Watch out – she'll bash her head against the picnic table if you're not careful!"

"Utah!" Penny exclaimed. "That's not funny at all!" But she was fighting back a grin and the table burst into laughter as Charlie began to giggle uncontrollably.

"Utah, I couldn't help being unconscious," Charlie tried to defend herself, but Utah held one hand up to silence her.

"No need, Concussion Girl," he said gravely. "I quite understand the immense pressures of your job. You don't have to explain to Utah-boy the details of your daily battles against consciousness."

Mike, Scary and Melody were approaching, and Utah shifted his attention to waving wildly, drawing the three brass players over to the table. "Thanks," drawled Scary as they were sitting down. "I never would have found you without the energetic waving."

"No problem," Utah said easily, and commenced waving frantically as he spotted Merry and Oscar, who were closely followed by Lee and Donald. The Brasshole table was filled as Scott came down from the french horn cabin, and soon they were chatting about the drill they were about to learn when they hit the field for March Time.

All talk was banished as soon as the kitchen staff began filing out with plates piled with coffeecake, and the pavilion quieted as the band commenced shoving food into their mouths.

"So we're starting this year's drill today," Donald mumbled around a large mouthful, which he chased down with a glass of milk. "I hear its pretty good, too."

"Anything's better than last year's," Lee muttered, but stuck a forkful of food in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "What's the contest music?"

"We're doing excerpts from Dvorak's New World Symphony!" Melody said happily. "I love that stuff."

"Dvorak's good," said Merry, rather surprised. "I didn't think Mr. Defton had that much good taste left in him after he went through the eighties." The table laughed appreciatively, although Charlie wasn't sure about the reference.

"It's because Westhouse retired," Blaze said, referring to the old, crotchety band director in charge of show music. "Now that he's gone, we can play fun stuff."

"God, that man was a beast," Mike recalled. "Always obsessing over the low brass. He fretted over us twenty-four seven, like some paranoid froshie mom at the first football game. He didn't retire willingly, did he? I think they forced him out…"

"Yeah, they had to browbeat him into announcing his retirement," Scott said. "He threw an absolute fit and refused to rehearse us that day."

"Which wasn't a bad deal, if I do say so myself," Blaze grinned. "If I recall correctly, we had wheelie-chair races down the hallway. And I won."

"You did not!" Merry protested. "I won! Remember that you found a way to smash into the instrument lockers and nearly broke your neck when a tuba fell on you."

"Fine, ruin my fun." Blaze sulked. "I demand a rematch when we get back to school."

"You're on, trumpet boy!" Merry laughed. Before she could open her mouth to taunt Blaze any longer, the big brass bell that signaled March Time rang overhead. Moaning and grumbling filled they air as the group of Brass and their single woodwind member vacated the picnic table and the Pavilion, stopping by their respective cabins to put on sneakers and gather up sunscreen and water bottles.

Then they headed for the practice field, a large expanse of green pavement, to learn drill.

-

Lee and Donald were lying on the practice field during the twenty-minute water break, fanning themselves with their hats and complaining to each other about the heat.

"I hate Texas weather!" Lee moaned. "It's always so damn hot, humid, and muggy… you think by now the technology to alter the weather would have been invented. We could be marching on a nice, cool fall day, but the idiots graduating at MIT are majoring in things like aeronautics and calculus. Psh. Losers."

"We should build an indoor marching hall," Donald suggested. "Air-condition, so students won't pass out like they do every year." Today was the first day for March Time and no one had passed out as of yet, but they still had a good two weeks left. That left plenty of time for a froshie to black out because they couldn't listen to common sense and had locked their knees back.

"Comfortable there?" a voice asked mischievously, and Lee squinted up into the sun to see the dim outline of Utah standing above him.

"You could say that-" he began, but was cut off in mid-sentence as a cooler full of water was dumped on his face.

"Utah!" Lee bellowed, leaping to his feet and giving chase to the already fleeing sophomore clown. He called back to his fellow baritone Donald for help, and the rest of the band, seeing the chase, was quick to join sides. Hidden water guns were pulled from backpacks and smaller ones from pockets, and ice cubes were lobbed across the field as ammo.

"Section war!" a senior saxophone player named Fabian Hernandez bellowed, and yelling band students quickly isolated themselves even further.

"Brassholes, ho!" Scary yelled, and they gathered around him excitedly, clutching bottles, coolers, water guns, and even a package of balloon already being filled up. Together, they had the biggest arsenal in the band, and they quickly staked out their base, positioned behind a small grove of scraggly Texas trees on the edge of the practice field.

"We hit the Saxes first, they're the smallest section, Lee said, laying down the plan. "Merry, Donald, and Utah will attack on the front, making a whole lot of noise and waving around a couple of balloons. You keep their attention and Penny and Mike will go around back, spray them down with the hose that's connected to the shed." The Saxes had failed to find the hose behind their base, and the Brassholes needed that to supply themselves with water for balloons and bottles. "The rest of you, stand back beyond their range and batter them with the rest of the filled balloons. Now move, move, move!"

"This is like a bad Disney movie," Charlie whispered to Blaze as they gathered water balloons in their arms and made for the Sax base. Around them, the sounds of a water war being fought raged with characteristic band humor.

"Your momma played the 'bone!" One ruthless clarinet yelled as she flung a bucket full of water at an offending flute. "And your daddy played the violin!" The last comment was particularly sadistic – the Knightsbridge String Orchestra was an object of frequent amusement for the band.

"Hey, Blaze," Charlie said, grabbing the trumpet's arm and gesturing with her elbow at the woods. "There's a stash out there." She squinted and tried to make out whatever goodies had been left lying on the ground. "Super-soaker stash!"

"Abandon the balloons!" Blaze cried, and flung his entire armful at a passing flutist, who screeched unhappily and doubled her pace for the sidelines. Charlie handed her balloons over to her section leader, and Megan thanked her before distributing them out in order to pound the flutes more thoroughly.

"What kin of moron leaves two super-soakers chilling in the middle of the woods?" Blaze asked in amazement as he hefted one to his shoulder. Obviously, a band member had brought them for a specific purpose, but only someone as dumb as a drumline member would forget them in the woods. Charlie knelt down beside him and pulled the other into her arms.

"We should get back to the base," she grinned. "We're going to beat some instrument tail with these!"

For a moment Blaze grinned back at her, and then he suddenly leaned in and gave her a quick kiss on the mouth. Surprised, Charlie stared back at him with wide eyes. Then, a little more slowly, he leaned forward once more and kissed her again, deeper this time. Then he drew back and slipped his hand into hers.

"Let's go," he whispered, and they took off for Brasshole territory.