Murder in Band Camp X
Chapter Seven: Color Guard and Clarinets
~
Morning rehearsal passed without a hitch, and Lunch on the pavilion had gone by almost as peacefully. The day was continuing as uneventfully as any other, so Charlie was surprised to find a complement of about twenty girls already on the practice field before March Time, bedecked in spandex and sports bras as they traipsed across the cement with rifles, sabres, and flags. The male band members were already starting to gawk.
"Guard's here." Utah commented, eyes locked on the captain, Elizabeth Johnson.
"Observant," Charlie muttered darkly. She slipped her hand into Blaze's grasp and tugged firmly. "Also immature."
"Of course," Blaze agreed immediately. Scary began nodding in agreement after an inspecting glance from Mellie. Similarly, all over the practice field female band members were distracting boyfriends and hopeful prospects from the hard working colorguard.
"They're like a plague," Penny muttered darkly as she glowered at one dark-haired saxophone, who was preoccupied with gaping. "I'm sure they're very nice people, but they wreak havoc!"
"TO YOUR PLACES!" Mr. Defton bellowed before the conversation could continue further, and the colorguard retreated to the back of the field as the Knightsbridge Band assumed Set 1 and settled in for another classic Defton speech. "Important news today, folks!" The middle-aged director announced. "We've got NEW UNIFORMS!"
A moment of stunned silence ensued.
Then the field erupted into wild, insane cheering – students began standing up and dancing, some screamed at the top of their lungs – unchecked enthusiasm rampaged for a good five minutes,
"In addition," he added once the cheering had died down, "We are no longer wearing shakos."
Murmuring spread like wildfire. No familiar half-dead feather thing to shed white shreds of plastic stuff during half-time shows? No unsightly white hatbox to tote around the track?
"In the spirit of Texas," Defton continued, pulling something plastic and white from a brown cardboard box, "We are issuing cowboy hats!" Wild laughter broke out. The cowboy hat was an instant classic – nobody miles around had hats like that!
Mr. Defton proceeded to explain that the uniforms would be slightly different – instead of maroon bibbers with gold and white piping, the bibbers would be white with maroon piping. The jacket would remain the same. White dinkles and the new white cowboy hats would finish the ensemble. Contest uniform would entail a different white jacket with maroon and hold detail.
"Wow," Blaze murmured half in awe. "They're going all out this year."
"Well, they haven't gotten new uniforms in about fifteen years." Utah replied from two spaces down the trumpet diagonal. "We were due."
"True," agreed Penny, who stood right beside him. "But who cares? We get brand new uniforms – nobody else has ever worn them before!"
"Totally!" Julie Brazil, the second chair trumpet (but much too social – and normal – to opt for Brasshole status) nodded enthusiastically. "Unworn uniforms are a marcher's fondest dream!"
"They go to the cleaners every year!" Blaze said, but Julie and Penny shrugged him off.
"Up to fifteen other people have worn that uniform before some of use even stuck out leg in it," Julie countered disdainfully. "I happen to think that's kind of gross."
"Grow up!" Utah exclaimed. "It's not like they're carrying anthrax or something!"
Julie sniffed. "Whatever," she declared. Then Defton called Parade Rest and the conversation was abruptly terminated as instruments snapped to their sides, each student's left hand clenched into a fist at the small of their back.
"Band, Atten HUT!" Yelled the head drum major, Jeff Carmicheal, who also played the French horn.
"HUT!" The band resonated back, instant silence following the reverberating shout. Instruments were held straight up and down, eyes stared straight ahead, shoulders were back, spines were straight, feet together, and Jeff motioned to one of his assistant drum majors at the back of the field, clarinetist Rachel Brown. She turned on the Long Ranger and the metronome filled the field with a steady pulse.
Jeff conducted the first four beats, followed in rhythm by his other assistant, Jonah Gretelson, and dark-haired saxophone who had incidentally caught Penny's eye. "Five, six!" The students yelled, and on the upbeat of eight, they shouted, "Te-ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE, SIX, SEV, EIGHT!" and the Knightsbridge band commenced counting out the first quarter of their halftime show.
Today they were joined by the colorguard, and the graceful, flag-spinning females cavorted about the field while executing perfect speed spins, windmills, and picture-perfect tosses.
Up in the band tower, Mr. Defton slowly lowered his headset but forgot to turn it off. "Wow," he said softly, but his voice echoed over the field of determined young musicians. "If this continued, nothing can stand in our way."
As soon as the last set was reached and the band paused for eight beats to let Mr. Defton study their form, the aforementioned musicians burst into wild applause.
"Watch out, District – Region – STATE!" bellowed Lee. "Here come the Knightsbridge Marching Maroons!"
~
Charlie collapsed on her bed with an exhausted grunt. They had spent five hours out there on that field. Five! From three o'clock on, taking ten-minute water breaks every hour, they had pounded across the green cement, learning and setting and resetting until the first thirty-eight sets were branded firmly into their brains. At the very end, they had condensed into the field rehearsal arc and attempted to play through the opener.
The clarinetist grinned ruefully at the ceiling as she recalled how well that had worked out. The trumpets had been marched to the point of no return, their lips spend within the first minute of playing because they simply couldn't summon the energy to maintain their embouchure.
The low brass – particularly the sousaphones – didn't even have the air to force through their horns, and after the first few, strangled discordant notes, Defton had dismissed them for dinner. Amazingly – well, less amazingly considering the grueling March Time they had just endured – the meal was eaten in almost totally silence before students wandered in a tired stupor back to their cabins and welcoming bunk beds.
Which is where Charlie was, too tired even to change into her pajamas. It's only eight-thirty, she thought drowsily before she slipped into slumber.
~
"Charlie!" somebody was hissing. "Charlie, wake up!"
"Wha?" Charlie asked sleepily, rubbing her eyes and groaning as she realized she had fallen asleep with her contacts still in. "Hold up a sec." Her companion – whoever it was kneeling beside her bunk, Charlie couldn't tell in the near-dark and blurry situation of her contacts – waited impatiently, nearly bouncing up and down on her knees as Charlie removed her contacts and settled a pair of old-fashioned tortoiseshell glasses on her nose. "All right, what is it?"
"There's someone outside our cabin," her friend hissed. Charlie recognized the voice as belonging to Megan and her eyes were beginning to acclimate to the darkness, giving Charlie a vague impression of Megan's face.
"What?" Charlie asked loudly, then grimaced as what sounded like the entire cabin shushed her.
"There's a silhouette not too far away from the cabin," Megan whispered nervously. "We can't tell, but we think it's a guy."
"How long has he been there?" Charlie asked, about to swing her legs off of the bunk and stand up. Megan quickly pushed her shoulders back down onto the bed.
"Don't get up!" Megan hissed, glancing apprehensively at the shadow figure standing off in the woods. "He might see." The section leader hesitated for a second, then asked, "Can I get in the bed? My knees hurt."
"Uh… yeah…" Charlie said, moving over so Megan could fit.
"So what are we gonna do?" A voice asked softly from a few bunks away. Charlie identified the voice as belonging to a junior named April DeLeon. "He's just standing there!"
"No he's not!" a panicked male voice broke in. There were only two male clarinetists, so it was either Ricky Moreno or Dave Kisling – and Ricky, a freshman, was more likely to panic as the shadow man picked something long and thin off the ground, flaring slightly outward at the very bottom.
"It's a gun!" somebody half-sobbed and muffled thumps were suddenly heard as the students against the screen wall nearest to the mysterious silhouette tumbled off their beds and hid.
"No – it's a clarinet!" somebody else whispered, and the cabin paused.
A sweet clarinet melody filled the air, laden with dancing triplets, sweet trills, and cascades of eighth and sixteenth notes.
"Wow," Charlie breathed. The shadow began to move as it played, slipping in and out of darkness but still keeping the same distance from the cabin. It slipped behind a small clump of black trees and held a long fermata, singing earnestly above the forest. Every single clarinetist in the cabin held their breath.
Then the reed shrieked in protest as the musician blew much too hard through the mouthpiece, the sound wailing through the dark with such abruptness that the entire section jumped as one.
Then came the scream – high, intense, and laced with utter terror. As the eerie cry echoed through the trees the clarinet cabin immediately leapt into frenzied action.
"It's like what happened yesterday!" a bodiless voice yelled. Someone else was voicing their panic through curses and yet another called out to turn on the lights.
Finally, the light switch was hit and the group of woodwinds stared at each other with total, disheveled shock.
Then, being primarily female and all clarinetists, they launched into gossip. "Omigod!" one girl yelled from her top bunk. "I totally thought we were going to die, or something!"
"I know, right?" a group of other girls chorused, using the most overused phrase in human history.
"Don't be ridiculous!" Megan tried to say, but the teenaged musicians were preoccupied with chattering away about how terrified they were and how scary it had been.
"They're almost as bad as the flutes," Dave mentioned as he walked over to where Charlie was sitting on her bunk bed. Charlie nodded fervently. As she tried to tune out the sound of high-pitched giggling and loud-voiced gossiping, she could hear the sound of footsteps crunching twigs and leaves and dislodging gravel as they ran towards the cabin. The noise was faint, but somebody noticed it and glimpsed a figure heading towards the door.
"Someone's coming!" a freshman shrieked in absolute horror, and the cabin disintegrated into a flurry of wailing, screaming girls trying to hide behind suitcases of dive under their covers.
"Is everyone all right?" a bewildered male voice asked as they paused right outside the door, confused by the mad shrieking. "Oh my God, is someone hurt?!"
"NO!" a girl yelled, and the person paused. "GO AWAY!"
"OH! Oh, good Lord, someone's naked! Oh, shit, I'm sorry, dammit, I'm gonna leave now…"
It was at that point Charlie that recognized Blaze's voice, full of acute embarrassment, and she burst out laughing at how red she knew Blaze must have been turning. "No, Blaze, no-one's naked!" she called, darting for the screen door. "You just scared us – well, them – half to death."
"It's Blaze?" April asked, and the cabin heaved a sigh of relief. "We thought you were the crazy dude playing the clarinet!"
"I heard that, that's why I cam over." Blaze explained, stepping cautiously into the cabin and slipping an arm around Charlie's waist. "It was the same as the flute."
"I know, right?" the same group of girls said again, and Charlie hid a grimace. Whoever started that ridiculous phrase needed a kick to the shins for every time somebody used it.
Other people were heard making their way to the Clarinet cabin. Soon Mr. Defton arrived and inspected the now-hyper woodwind section in discomfort.
"Well, everything seems to be in order," he pronounced awkwardly after a head- and instrument-count. "I think we should all return to out respective beds and go to sleep."
"That's it?" Ricky squawked. "What about the guy in the forest?"
"Nothing happened to the flutes, did it?" Defton replied. "You'll be fine." Charlie suffered an awful thought – she was first chair now, officially a section leader, and her clarinet was in danger. "That's all," Defton pronounced firmly, then left the cabin in a hurry, leaving behind a distinctly uneasy feeling.
"Well, of all the oddest…" Penny muttered from behind Blaze, whom she and Utah had arrived just minutes after. Utah nodded in agreement, but there was nothing they could do. The small group of investigators began to dissolve, and Charlie followed Blaze outside for a minute.
"I'm worried," she said, wrapping her arms around his waist and leaning her head against his chest. "I think my clarinet might bet stolen."
"I'll bring it to my cabin," Blaze said. "That'll throw whoever it is off track."
"You're the best!" Charlie said happily, leaning back and giving the trumpet a brilliant smile.
"It's in the genes," he said, and kissed her.
Five minutes later, he was on his way back to his cabin, a loopy grin on his face and a $2000 wooden Buffet clarinet named James the Second clutched in his hand.
Consequently, he missed the dark figured that silently prowled the forest behind him, following the teenager back to his bed.
~
A/N: Wow! Brilliance! I wrote this entire chapter in a notebook and it came to almost six pages, front and back! Cool!
Note: The author had to guess at the appearance of shakos and hatboxes from what she has seen from other bands, for the author has worn nifty-spiff cowboy hats for the entirety of her marching band career. So if there are any glaring mistakes, blame the author, not me.
Also, the author cannot remember how to spell Buffet the clarinet name brand correctly, for sadly, she owns only a Normandy. However, the author's clarinet does happen to be named James the Second, for those of you who are even still reading this.
Well, that's it. As always, review, review, pleeaaasssee! I'll send you pocky!
~adulaith