Praise God for the rain. It began that week and rained all rehearsal. By the time we got to our last run, my hands were pretty much frozen to my horn. But our run was awesome.

Other non-band accomplishments that week included getting my license and a very old but nonetheless working car. Of course, the only thing that meant to me at the moment was, "Ooh, now I can drive to band!" Gotta love life during marching season.

Saturday was our biggest show (but not last) before championships, the Emerald Regime Invitational. Hosted by our main rivals (Live Oak, where Mr. Wilson was from), it was held in downtown San Jose, close for us. It was the most popular show for both bands and spectators because it was a huge college stadium. It was also the only venue in which bands were allowed to sit frontfield to watch other bands, because the stands were so high.

In the morning we arrived at school a little earlier than normal. The sky was gray with rainclouds that teased us with on-and-off sprinkles all morning as we worked. After a slightly early lunch we loaded, something we were good at by now, and left for San Jose City College. The show was normally held at Spartan Stadium, but someone way up in administration didn't want the field getting messed up with the rain and the 20 or so bands that would be performing that night, so it was moved.

For some reason we only had one bus that week, so we also got the use of a couple school vans. Laura, Sandra, and I climbed into Mrs. Wiens' van with a bunch of other people. Mike called Shelby, who was his girlfriend, and asked her to bring him Starbucks'. That inspired us, and soon our whole van was on the phone with family and friends who were going to the show, asking them to bring us coffee and hot chocolate. Josh's mom offered to get Laura and me some, and we decided to share.

It had stopped sprinking when we got off the bus and vans, so we quickly got into uniform, plumes included, and got instruments. Laura and I quickly drank our small hot chocolate. All I can say is, it's a good thing we got a small. We had almost no time.

After a quick basics block, we "arked it up" and did music warm-ups. Then we marched over to the stadium, passing Los Gatos on the way. A couple of my friends from church were in the Los Gatos band, so I made a mental note to say hi later.

Minutes later we got out and did our show. It was a good show, clean in general. We all felt good marching off. As we were marching the long distance back to our trailer, our drumline got bored and decided to play the 6/8 cadence—LOUD. We all cracked up silently, but discovered that it was a mistake when Mr. Gunter turned around with a furious look on his face and yelled, "SHUT IT OFF!" Once it was quiet and back to a simple tap, we heard a car alarm wailing. My tuba friends and I, who were in the front of the double file, snickered.

When we finally reached our trailer, we gathered around Mr. Gunter and Mr. Wilson. Everyone was anticipating some sort of explosion in the direction of the drumline. But all Mr. Gunter said was, "Drumline, Mr. Wilson will deal with you," and proceeded to discuss our show.

It was so cold I don't really remember what Mr. Gunter said. After our talk we changed out of uniform and the Boosters fed us dinner, Chinese food in Styrofoam take-home boxes. We took our food back into the stadium to eat. I saw my friend Katie from Wilcox sitting with her band, and when Los Gatos marched on we got up to cheer for Hoi, Cassie, and Shana.

Once Laura and I were done eating, we took a trip across the stadium to the bathroom. On our way back to the back stands it began to sprinkle. Then it began to rain. Pretty soon there was a downpour that reminded me of the Logan show my freshman year. But nonetheless, bands continued to come on and off the field. It was like they were immune to the rain and the cold.

As for those of us up in the stands, we were wet. Very wet. Neither Laura nor I had an umbrella, so we were pretty miserable until Daniel came and stood behind us with his own umbrella. Hooray for chivalrous guys. But by then it was too late. We were soaked.

We watched band after band after band until Valley people started trickling out. Nic wrote down my cell phone number so he could call me to find out about awards, since I planned on staying. But when almost our entire band was gone, Laura and I were about to get up and leave too. But then Mr. Gunter showed up with a huge umbrella and offered to take us to find our parents. We were just leaving when Laura's mom came running up to us. "I was just about to come find you!" she said. "Kelly, your parents left a long time ago, so I offered to take you home."

I accepted of course, since I was wet and cold. On the way out John, our keyboard player, asked if he could borrow my cell phone to call his mom. Being the nice, unable-to-say-no person that I am, I let him. She didn't answer. "If she calls back, can you tell her where I am?" he asked. I promised to, and I left with Laura and her family.

We stopped at Starbucks' on the way to my house. As we were turning onto my street, my cell phone rang. "Nic's cell" flashed across the screen. I answered it. "Hey Nic, I left before awards, but the scores are gonna be on the website tomorrow." I gave him the address of the website and hung up.

By the time I got home every single layer of clothing I was wearing—whites, jeans, T-shirt, sweatshirt, socks—was soaked through. My feet were wrinkled from water going through my sneakers. I was freezing. I walked in and greeted my parents and some friends that had gone to the show, told them I was getting in the shower, and proceeded upstairs to peel off my wet clothes. Jeans are really heavy when they're wet.

I got in the shower, grateful to be under some warm water for a change. As I was drying off, I heard my cell phone ring downstairs, and then my mom answered it. I ignored it and kept drying. When I came out of the bathroom, I went onto the landing.

"Did you let a guy named John use your phone?" my mom asked.

"Yeah," I replied, shaking some water out of my ear. "Why?"

"His mom just called," she said. "You guys won sweepstakes!"

I blinked and then realized what she'd said. "Are you serious?" I asked in disbelief. "We won E.R.I.??"

"You got captions for visual, percussion, and general effect," my mom said. I squealed in excitement and took my phone from my mom. I found Nic's number and hit the dial button. It rang once and he picked up.

"Hey, it's Kelly," I said.

"Hey Kelly, what's up?"

"Someone just called us, and we got sweepstakes!"

Nic had already heard this from someone, so we talked about it for a couple minutes. When we hung up, I dialed Laura. She had just walked in the door and was still in all her wet clothes. "Hello?"

"I just found out how we did," I informed her.

"And..." she prompted me.

"And, we got sweepstakes!"

She screamed. "We got sweepstakes?!"

I went on to tell her about our captions and our score, which was 87.0. After we hung up, I headed back downstairs in my nice DRY clothes and had cookies and recapped the competition with my family and our friends. I went to bed that night very happy. We'd won E.R.I.! This was a big step for us. It was an important show, and we'd come through. If we kept up the intensity, we might be on our way to finals in two weeks.