Murder in Band Camp X
Chapter Six: Of Chair Results and Stolen Flutes
~
It was a bit of an anticlimax, after pounding up to the flute cabin in a stampede, to find a rather frightened, but mostly confused, section leader.
"I'm not missing anybody!" Diana bellowed above the numerous, half-shouted questions. "I did a full head count and all my flutes are here!"
"Well, somebody had to have played it! Is anybody missing a flute?" Utah said, throwing his hands up in the air. Again, Diana shook her head emphatically.
"No," she insisted, "Every flute – instrument or otherwise – is accounted for."
"We all heard the same thing," Charlie interjected. "Somebody was playing a flute in the woods, and then they screamed. We should at least take a look."
Search parties of three were organized in short order, and soon band students were combing the scraggly but surprisingly dense Texas forest. After thirty minutes, however, nothing had turned up.
"This is ridiculous," Blaze muttered. "It's got to be a prank."
"A prank?" Diana echoed. Then, more angrily, "A prank?"
"Well, what else?" Donald cut in. "All the flutes are accounted for, like you said, and the woods are empty. You know how much of a kick any one of the trombones would get out of pulling a stupid stunt like this." He glanced to Scary and Melody for support.
"Well-" they began in unison, and both shrugged. "Yeah, it does kind of make sense," Scary admitted. "We've got some real jerks in our cabin." His hands tightened angrily as he recalled the repeated jibes from a certain Mark Wegner. Even Scary's implied threats weren't getting through the guy's thick skull.
"We can check it out," Lee said. "Scope the sections, see who knows what during breakfast."
"This is beginning to sound like a bad Bobsey Twins book," Charlie commented, eliciting half a snort from Utah and blank stares from the rest of the group. "What, didn't any of you read Bobsey Twins mysteries when you were little?" She asked indignantly.
"Uh, no." Merry said, effectively ending the conversation. "It's getting late. Tomorrow, chair results are being posted and the colorguard are arriving after lunch. Let's get to bed."
Penny immediately stifled a huge yawn. Grabbing a hold of Utah's arm, she nodded and pulled her fellow trumpet off in the direction of the trumpet cabin. Blaze, after hugging Charlie goodbye and giving her a small kiss on the cheek, soon followed. The remainder of the group found their own respective beds as the flutes returned to their shaken-up cabin until the forests were empty but for a warm night breeze.
~
The next day at breakfast wasn't quite the usual mass of joking, teasing students. Even more unusually, the pending chair results hadn't stirred up the morning conversation as it should have. Instead, whispers stalked the band and more than a few wary, uncertain glances were being cast at the more disparaging instrument sections.
"What's the deal?" Lee asked uneasily after receiving a few heated glares as he sat down at the Brasshole table. He was immediately shushed by several nearby flutists, to whom he gave a menacing look. "Seriously. What's going on here?"
"What I've heard so far," Scary said, laying one big hand on the picnic table. "Is that Diana's brand new thousands-of-dollars flute has been stolen."
"But it wasn't missing last night," Blaze said from the end of the table. "It had to have been stolen during the night, while they were all asleep. After we left."
"Oh, boy. Here she comes." Somebody the next table over said above the whispering Pavilion. Dead silence settled in and every head in the room swiveled to meet Diana as she stalked to her table.
"Whoever has my flute," she announced without preamble, "had better give it back soon or they are going to be in a world of hurt." With that she sat down heavily at a flute table, crossing her arms and glaring at anyone who happened to meet her gaze that wasn't a fellow flutist.
Strangely enough, the band directors lining the side of the pavilion did nothing. Mr. Defton shifted feet anxiously and gave a nervous glance to the band director on his left, Mrs. Bartlett. Both of them exchanged meaningful glances, utterly incomprehensible to the students.
"What's the deal?" Lee asked again, shaking his head. "Call me paranoid, but something is up."
"You're paranoid," Blaze replied, "but something is up. What on earth is going on with the directors? Normally they'd be all over this as a matter of course. 'Instrumental Injustice' and all that."
Scary snorted derisively. "I know what you mean. But did anybody find out who pranked last night?"
Around the table, heads shook in dissent.
"Well, this is more fun than a barrel of freaking rabid monkeys!" Mike exploded, startling several tables around them. "Everybody is tiptoeing around like there's Bigfoot in the Hill Country, and he's thieving flutes! Come on, it's obviously a prank. Someone here is ganking things and trying to weird us all out and it's working. Get over it!"
"You don't even know!" one flutist began in a hostile tone, but Diana grabbed her arm and shushed her.
"Mike's right," she said. "I'm still gonna murder whoever has my flute, but none of us are acting normally."
"Here's you're first incentive," Mr. Defton interjected. "I assure you, whoever has Diana's flute will come by severe repercussions, but until then, I'd like to announce that chair results are posted." Ever pair of eyes in the Pavilion suddenly shifted to the far wall, where several unassuming sheets of paper, laden with names, hung innocently.
"RESULTS!" Utah bellowed, and vaulted out of his chair. As one mass move, the student body leapt up and stampeded for the wall.
"First chair! Yes!" Charlie yelled, turning around and grabbing Blaze in and ecstatic hug.
"Looks like we're two of a kind," he grinned as he found his name at the top of the trumpet list. "We'll have a duet!"
"Oh, look." Scary drawled to their right. "I made first chair bass trombone. What a surprise!" Scary was the only bass trombone Knightsbridge had that year. Penny and Utah scanned the trumpet results and found themselves side-by-side at third and fourth chair.
"Third chair! Sweet!" Mellie called from farther behind in the crowd. Right behind her was Mike, jumping up and down impatiently.
"What about me? What about me?" he called, narrowly avoiding stomping one girl's foot. Utah glanced quickly at the sheets, and his eyes widened as he found the trombone player's name
"DUDE! Mike! You made last chair Wind Ensemble!" Utah bellowed, causing a junior clarinetist beside him to wince in pain as his shout resonated in her ear. "Sorry, girl." He offered good-naturedly, then pushed his way outside the band mob to where his fellow Brassholes had congregated on a picnic table.
"To us!" Lee yelled, raising a juice box he had stolen from the kitchen a few minutes before. "The Brassholes!" he gulped down half the box before sputtering and coughing. Blaze laughed and smacked him on the back.
"We all made WE – every one of us." Scary announced. "That means wreaking havoc on Mr. Defton's sanity!" Lee raised his juice box up in response.
"Hear, hear!" he gasped, still wheezing, and then nearly toppled over onto the floor as Merry smacked him on the back.
"Choking on a juice box," she muttered, grinning anyway. "Where's my juice box, huh?" Lee coughed once and reached behind him, pulling another juice box off the table and handing it to her with exaggerated care. Merry raised a hand in a threatening gesture and Lee immediately tried to block, but only succeeded in losing his balance and sprawling out on the floor.
"Rehearsal in thirty minutes!" Mrs. Bartlett shouted over the din of the Pavilion. In response, the mass of students shifted and began herding themselves towards their respective cabins and instruments. Lee picked himself up off the floor and staggered towards the path that led back to Baritone country.
"To arms!" he shouted, waving the juice box around in a threatening manner and receiving several strange looks from a few froshie saxophones. He was caught up in the swarm, however, hidden from sight except for the waving juice box, and eventually that too was lost as the Brassholes left to fetch their pride and joy from beneath beds and beside suitcases.
It was music time, and damned if they weren't band nerds.
~
Author's Note:
Sorry this has taken so long! My creative juices just dried up with the dawning of different ideas, and I have vowed to finish this story before I begin posting anything else multi-chapter, so this will be continued! I have the plot worked out for a another few chapters and the ending clear in my head, so hopefully this will result in some better (more often!) posting and some twists and turns through-out the story. Enjoy and thanks for the reviews!
~adulaith~