Chamber Group

Chapter 13

It was beginning to snow in late December. Purely for business, the school was going to close down for the next two weeks for Christmas. The group ventured down the hall heading towards where all the commotion was taking place.

" I heard Yoshihara's orchestra was even better this year." Sakura was saying. " Ever since the new guys came. Terada was telling us about it. He says they are playing this piece by Copland..."

The group turned around. " What happened?" Syaoran asked Marie.
" They just found a bunch of rats."

Sakura and Eriol fell over and Tomoyo and Syaoran just grimaced.
" EWW! Are you serious?" Sakura cried. Marie shook her head.
" I couldn't believe it myself. But then I saw them. They're all dead. This school's infested with rats."

Syaoran paled. " I left my lunch downstairs."

Sakura paled too. " So did I."
" You think they'll get them?" Eriol asked, doubtful. " We never had that problem before."
" Relax guys!" Someone yelled. " They're fake!"

The whole group of people gathered in that area collapsed.



" Who would be so evil to play a prank like that?" Sakura gagged. " Leaving plastic and furry rats in the main hall? That's just gross!"
" The director's going to look for whoever did this. Let's just pray it's not one of the parents."
" Or teachers."
" Or the director."
" Syaoran!"

The group laughed.

" How's your brother doing in Tokyo?" Syaoran asked.
" He's doing well." Sakura answered. " He said that once you get to college you can just cruise around. After all, whatever you do, all the businesses would be crawling to get to you. Wish I was that lucky."
" Hey, we're only thirteen." Syaoran answered. " We still have a chance. We didn't even take the high school entrance exam yet."
" Hai. Did you start preparing for it?"
" Are you kidding? I'm going to prepare in several months during the summer."
" Hai." Sakura shuddered. " Wish I would get into the best one."
" Me too. Hey, and then we can go to school together! That'll be fun!" Syaoran laughed. " What about you, Tomoyo-chan? Are you preparing yet?"
" Iie." Tomoyor rolled her eyes. " Who prepares this early?"
" Eriol-san." Syaoran laughed, and Eriol punched him playfully.
" I'm telling you, Hiriingaziwa Eriol is the nerd of our school." Syaoran laughed as Eriol began glaring daggers at him. " He could always be found with some book in his hand. He'll have no problem getting into Tokyo University."
" Oh come on Syaoran." Eriol laughed.



" So the building went on fire, and Oni-chan went running out in his underwear." Sakura giggled. " He was like, crazy and hysterical. The whole building collapsed and the college was half tempted to suspend him. Oni-chan was like, ' that's not my fault!'"
" So wait, did Touya get suspended then?" Eriol asked.
" Iie. They decided to fire the janitor." Sakura laughed.
" Aw, poor guy, but you have to admit, he's really stupid." Yamazaki grinned.
" So what time is the concert?" Syaoran asked.
" Seven thirty."
" Gee, that's later than usual. It use to be at seven." Syaoran stared at Yamazaki.
" Who cares, it's only a half an hour difference." Chiharu scowled.
" Half an hour difference! The traffic will be horrible! I'll get home by around twelve or something!"
" Stop whining." Eriol muttered.

Shiefa came downstairs and dropped her bag.
" I am going to get a snack before I go to orchestra." She told Syaoran. " Have any yen?"
" Nope. You know me."
" Useless brother."
" Hey!"

" Say, what are you going to do over the break?" Syaoran asked Sakura.
" I'm just staying at home." Sakura answered. " What about you?"
" I'm going back to Hong Kong. To see my relatives, and to practice my Cantonese." Syaoran blushed. " Luckily that's all I'll be doing."
" Oh. Have fun." Sakura smiled.



Terada's losing his hair. Sakura thought. Terada's losing his hair. He's starting to become bald. Is he really that old?

" Alright, you geniuses let's get started." Terada sat on his famous stool. " Oboe, could you please give us an A?"

The oboe was really squeaky.
" Aw come on, don't tell me that thing broke! You, you give us an A, You over there, give me that oboe, let me see what's wrong with it."

After some tuning, Terada looked up at the boy and said something to him. The boy blushed, and then went to clean his oboe.
" Saliva?" Sakura guessed. Tomoyo giggled.

After the woodwinds and the brass finished their tuning, Sakura's A string broke.

" Well, that's just great. Do you have a spare string?" Terada asked.
" Iie." Sakura answered sheepishly. Stupid weather. Would have thought winter would be more humid.
" Any one of you violinists have an extra A string?" Terada called.
" I have an extra bow but..." One girl frowned.
" I have an extra violin I was carrying for my brother." Said a boy. He went to fetch it. Sakura put her own violin in its case unhappily.

I like my violin just fine, arigatou.



" Ooh, what are you going to do during chamber?" Chiharu asked Sakura as they packed their things.
" I have no idea." Sakura was annoyed. " How come my violin always does these things?"
" You're not the only one." Tomoyo answered.
" I wish I played the cello sometimes." Sakura answered. " I mean, Oni-san's strings only pop once every two years. Generally."
" Really? Those cellists are lucky. But then, if you want a really stable instrument, you should go for the basses." Noako laughed.
" You know, I always thought the double basses should be the concert masters and mistresses." Sakura began.
" Why?" Rika asked, not understanding as a pianist. " They just pluck whole notes on their strings. I don't even think they know how to play scales, judging from what they play in orchestra."
" Exactly." Noako answered. " That's the point."
" Oh, you know the best people for masters?" Chiharu suddenly got excited. " Drummers."
" Drummers? I don't think they're even considered musicians."
" Well for our purposes they are." Noako also got excited. " I have just the picture. You have this drummer, and he rolls a base drum up in front of the stage before the conductor arrives. Of course, he might accidentally hit the podium so it goes rolling to the side, but who cares? And he might damage the cellos and violins, but anyway. The oboe gives an A, and all that nonsense, right? Well, the concert whatever hits his bass drum like fifteen times or so. Then he rolls the bass drum to the back where he belongs. He might kill the harpists and a few other people but hey, what's a little murder?"

The rest of the girls were laughing by then at the picture of the idiotic concertmaster.

" I really like that one." Tomoyo giggled.
" Yeah." Sakura agreed.



" SYAORAN!!!!"
" Eriol!" Syaoran yelled, quickly ducking behind the other boy. " Save me! Save me!"
" Huh?" Meiling blinked. Syaoran continued to hide behind Eriol.
" Please please please don't jump on me again!" Syaoran yelled. " Every time you do it you choke the life out of me!"
" Poor kid finally snapped." Eriol answered with a smug smile. " Where have you been, Meiling?"
" I was upstairs. They were having that Music Hour Concert." Meiling answered, for once being rather quiet. " I thought I would check out who's playing there."
" Find anything remarkable?"
" Not really."

Syaoran still hid behind Eriol.

" Uh, you can come out now?" Meiling was confused. Syaoran stepped out sheepishly.
" Say, do you think I can make it for the concerto competition for strings?" Meiling asked.
" But you just got in," Syaoran blinked, looking rather doubtful. " For violin or viola?"
" Violin, of course. There aren't many good pieces for viola."
" Not true." Syaoran answered dully, " Although there are a lot of violin pieces. You'll stand fierce competition, Meiling. And besides, why are you so interested? You have two more years."
" Well, I thought since my cousin already had a chance to play with the orchestra-"
" Believe me." Syaoran said hurriedly, and this time his face held a look of caring. " Playing with the orchestra is nothing remarkable-" And by this time Sakura and Tomoyo had come up, " At first I was so pleased when I won that I could get to play with the orchestra, but then on the first day Terada began yelling at the people in the back and I had to sit and play the same thing over and over again. By the time of the concert, you'll be already too bored and fed up with the stuff to care."
" So that explains why you were so calm and reassured that day." Sakura answered good humoredly. " But you were always so enthusiastic."
" Until the concert day." Syaoran admitted. " Believe me, it's nothing special. The drums in the background knock your ears out."
" I'm fine with that." Meiling was looking at Syaoran in an odd way. Sakura giggled at Syaoran's expression.

" Stop scaring Meiling!" Sakura punched Syaoran's arm. " Besides, she's going to try out anyway, so you might as well give up."

Syaoran sighed. " The problem is," He muttered so only Sakura could hear, " She'll want me to play the orchestra part for her on the day of the competition."
" Oh," Sakura mouthed, suddenly understanding. " But what's wrong with that?"
" She thinks I'm Mozart." Syaoran hissed. " And when you're trying to play the entire orchestra-not pretty."

Sakura had to agree. She had seen the orchestra parts they wrote for the poor pianist. Thousands of octaves, it's amazing how stupid the editors are. Obviously the pianist can't play all that.

" And the dumb thing is," Syaoran voiced her thoughts, " The editors, even those of Henle, try to include every single instrument into the piano. What's up with that? And then Meiling expects me to play everything fluently. I'm thirteen years old for Kami's sake!"
" Hey!" Meiling noticed Syaoran whispering to Sakura and was getting annoyed. " What are you gossiping about?"
" Nothing." Sakura and Syaoran said simultaneously. Meiling narrowed her eyes at Sakura, who gulped.



" That went well." Sakura sighed as she sat down in her chair in chamber class. " That went so well."
" What's wrong?" Syaoran asked, coming in. " I heard a sarcastic ' That went so well'. Something wrong?"
" My lesson went poof! Because my violin went poof!" Sakura muttered. " And to think I practiced so long. Mizuki-sensei thought I poofed! My violin on purpose."
" Glad I play the piano." Syaoran muttered, setting his books down. " On second thought, not glad." He stared at the piano for a while. " Why can't this school get decent pianos? With all the money we pay them, the cash goes to the people at the front desk to fatten up with chocolate and other nonsense."
" Raising swine." Sakura laughed. " Poor pianists."
" Where is everyone?" Syaoran asked.



" Just our luck." Eriol muttered. " The four of us, stuck between the fifth and sixth floor."

The teacher and the girls sighed.

" Wonder how Sakura-chan and Syaoran are doing." Tomoyo blinked. " Do you think they're stuck too?"
" They're not here. I don't think the other elevator's stuck." Meiling muttered. " When I get my hands on her..."
" Looks like we'll be here for a while." Yoshihara cocked an eyebrow. " This school is an embarrassment."



" Even the teacher's late." Syaoran glanced at the clock in the hall before withdrawing his head from the door and shutting it.
" Say, maybe we can run off." He suddenly suggested to Sakura. " Just pretend that we couldn't find them."
" Nah." Sakura shook her head. " Let's go down to the office. Maybe Sensei told us to go somewhere instead and we didn't get a chance to know."

Syaoran shrugged. " Whatever."
" Let's leave our stuff here." He suggested after a moment. " No one wants a broken violin."
" Hey! My violin's not broken!" Sakura protested. Syaoran laughed as they went out of the room.



" Your friends are probably in the elevator." Said the director, a little sheepish. " It got stuck fifteen minutes ago."

Syaoran glanced at Sakura, looking like he'll laugh his head off. Sakura looked at him, delighted.
" How long will they take to fix this?" Sakura asked.
" About an hour." The director answered. " Quite some time."

With that, the two children rushed out.

" Mama! I can go home now!" Syaoran yelled.
" Otou-san!" Sakura shouted. " I don't have chamber today! Let's be off!"



" Just how long are we going to be stuck in this elevator?" Eriol asked.
" About an hour." The custodian was climbing on a rope. " Need to find out what the problem is without breaking one of the ropes...

Gulp.



After the break

" I can't believe you left me there!" Eriol cried. " Why were you in such a hurry to get away? And I thought you were going to listen to the concert!"

Syaoran snickered.

" I heard there's another elevator that got stuck today." Sakura piped in.
" Let's hope Terada's in there." Tomoyo said hurriedly.
" Gosh, you guys are so evil." Meiling observed.

There was a silence.

" Terada getting stuck in that elevator would be a good idea." Chiharu agreed.
" I'm hoping every single teacher we know is stuck in that elevator." Syaoran closed his eyes.
" Well, arigatou!"

Syaoran whirled around. Yoshihara was looking at him with an amused expression.

Oops.

" Well, you have to admit," Syaoran tried to save himself, " It would be rather interesting."

Eriol slapped his forehead. His glasses fell off.

" I understand." Yoshihara was apparently in a good mood that day. " I got stuck last time, so I guess I'll be an exception."
" Yoshihara-san!"
" Hai?" Yoshihara turned around.

The conductor left.

Eriol suddenly started laughing-while searching for his glasses. Syaoran heaved a sigh of relief.
" You're lucky Yoshihara's not as bad as he use to be, otherwise I think he'll give you an F." Eriol snickered.
" I can't believe he snuck up on us like that!" Syaoran wailed.
" He was right there." Sakura answered. " We were just waiting for you to make a fool of yourself."
" Oh, you are so wicked!" Syaoran yelled.
" You actually pulled it off pretty well." In truth, Meiling didn't know who Yoshihara was.
" A ha..." Syaoran looked unhappy. " I have to get to class now..."



" How was Hong Kong?" Sakura asked Syaoran as they nearly crashed into each other on the stairs. " I never had a chance to ask."
" Tiresome. I'm glad to be back." Syaoran answered absentmindedly. " How's your break?"
" Uneventful." Sakura answered.




" Did they get the elevator fixed yet?"
" Nope."
" After three hours?!"
" The elevator was heavy. The strings nearly broke."
" Strings?"
" Ropes, I mean."

Eriol shuddered and secretly thanked whatever god there was that he hadn't been stuck in that elevator last week.

Yoshihara entered the room. " Alright, listen, get things ready. I'm not in a good mood today. Two people were absent from my string quartet and I had to grab my own violin for that-you won't find me carrying my violin all the time today you're lucky, and why is it taking so long for you to set things up we already wasted five minutes of our class!"

Eriol cursed whatever god there was that didn't put Yoshihara in that elevator.

" There's still a chance that..." Sakura whispered, " Terada's in that elevator."
" Hai. Let's just hope that the elevator can stay stuck for another two hours," Eriol crossed his fingers.
" You two are so mean." Yamazaki laughed quietly as he moved the chairs into various neat rows. " If you two were stuck in that elevator you wouldn't be talking."
" Obviously," Sakura began, " If we were stuck in that elevator, the worse that could happen is we'll die of starvation. We wouldn't have to go to class."
" This came from the winner of the string competition?" Yamazaki blinked, amazed. " Sakura!"
" Alright, quit chatting, we have work to do. I have to hand these tests out now, you have twenty minutes to fill in the instruments and to do the transpositions. And as I said before, ' if you look like you look like you're looking, I take your paper away'. And give you a zero, but we won't talk about that. I want you to use pen for the fill-ins and pencil for the transpositions. You may begin."

I didn't know we had a test! Eriol thought, panicking.

I didn't study! I can't believe I forgot we're having a test! Yamazaki thought, and he silently cursed Kami for not dumping Yoshihara in that elevator.



" How's your violin?" Tomoyo asked.
" Better." Sakura stuck her tongue at her friend. " It doesn't break all the time."
" Looks like Terada's late." Tomoyo looked at the entrance. " Do you think he's in the...?"
" I hope so." Sakura grinned. " We can skip the two hours of orchestra in that case."
" Did they fix that thing yet?" Chiharu asked. " It's been four hours already!"

Eriol slumped down with his cello. " I failed that test."
" Don't worry!" Sakura called. " I did too! I think I got a one on that test, and there are no zeros behind it...only before it."
" Arigatou." Eriol sent her a flat glare before sitting down and tuning his cello.

Sakura shrugged. She sat down on the concertmistress seat and began tuning her own violin. There was a loud crash of cymbals, but everyone ignored it.

Half an hour passed. Sakura looked up.

" Hey!" She called, and all of the sudden the whole orchestra was silent.

" Half an hour has passed already. It's obvious Terada's not coming. Why don't we just go?" She asked.

There was a heavy silence.

Then everyone left their chairs and carried their instruments to the cases-except for the harpists and the percussionists, who just left the instruments where they were and left.



" You would think that after they invented the elevator that it would take them less than five hours to fix an elevator that's stuck between two floors." Syaoran sighed.
" Actually, this time," It was Liang who was talking. " It appeared on the fourth floor, I think, but the doors wouldn't open."

Nearly everyone fell over-literally.

" Exactly how hard is it to get two doors open?" Syaoran asked.
" Apparently very hard, judging from how long they took so far." Rika answered.
" It's already two." Syaoran glanced at the clock. " I feel sorry for the people in there now."
" I wish I listened to that concert." Sakura muttered. " But ditching school was worth it."
" I heard it wasn't that good." Rika comforted her. " Somewhere when the violinist was playing, one of the harps crashed into the brass section.

There was a moment of silence.

" These kinds of things don't usually happen do they?" Syaoran wanted to make sure.
" You're in this school." Noako pointed out quite flatly. " What couldn't happen?"



" How did they free those people?" Syaoran asked as he dropped his books in chamber class.
" Did the only thing their brains could come up with. They melted the doors."

Syaoran choked and stared at Eriol. " They what?!"
" After what...seven hours of trying to get those cursed doors open they still didn't get it to open?!"
" They melted the doors."
" You're serious."
" I'm serious."
" They melted the doors of the elevator?"
" Hai."
" You mean they still didn't find a way to open the doors."
" Hai."
" What's wrong with these people?"
" Hey, don't ask me." Eriol shrugged. " If they plan to waste money on replacing doors, let them. We already paid our tuition."



" I'm telling you, this situation's no longer funny." Syaoran shook his head at Meiling. " Working and hacking at that elevator for seven hours! Those people didn't even have any lunch!"

The sensei entered, looking rather tired, and scanned the room.
" Sakura, Tomoyo, and Meiling are late."
" Hai sensei."
" Boy, I am going to fear the elevators in this building from now on." The teacher sat down. " Getting stuck like that? And what kind of fools would spend seven hours trying to open the doors of an elevator only to melt it in the end?"
" The custodian?"

Eriol snorted.


" Ah well," Syaoran sighed, " Too bad we won't be able to skip classes like this every Saturday."
" It's quite unruly." Sakura admitted, " But only retards wouldn't take this chance."
" Now we have to deal with one elevator since the other has no door."

" This isn't funny anymore." Meiling agred with Syaoran as they headed out of the building to end their day.