Missed me? Sorry for the 3-month interval, but I've been too busy to write, but I'm back and eager to begin the long awaited Chapter 4 of Operation: GCM. In order to save my time and yours, I won't be answering reviews or putting songs in the story anymore. If you want me to answer your review, just supply your email address and I'll be happy to tell you what I think.
Operation: GCM
Chapter 4: Competition Hell
After many long, annoying, painful, sweaty, and downright frustrating marching band practices, a month passed. It was time for our first ever marching band competition at a high school much bigger than my own. The school was about a half-hour from our own in a town called Blueberry Valley, which I never heard of before in my life. First marching band competition meant first time in uniforms. If you ever looked up the word "tacky", you'd find a humongous of our uniforms. They were blue and black and had a hat that looked like a helmet with a Mohawk that looked a lot like Wally's, except it was blue and a lot frizzier. Mr. Wolfe called them "plumes". We had to go to school in our uniforms to be picked up by the buses later on. I didn't even want to be seen out of the house with it on. My dad drove me to Kuki's house to pick her up and then we were on our way to the school. When I got inside, I saw everyone else in their marching band uniforms. Max did look cute in his, despite how bad the uniform looked on me. Everyone was on a long line to go get their hats and plumes. At the front of the line, the two color guard captains would ask for your name, find a sticker with your name on it, and slap it on the inside of the next hat. After that, they'd put it in a box along with the plume. Once we got the box, Kuki and I sat down to talk about what we'd do today.
"Ok, so I brought Meteora with me. What did you bring?" I asked Kuki. "I burnt a CD of cool songs. The first one is that funny senior junior song," Kuki said. "Yay!" I said, being a lot more hyper than usual. Wally soon came by and said, "Hey! We should listen to Disturbed!" "That's nice, you listen to it," I said. I had things against Disturbed that I didn't like very much, and I didn't really know why. "Don't have a CD player," Wally said, "Know what that means?" I sighed and said, "What?" "We're sharing!" Wally said with a big smile. "Uh, no," I responded to Wally's dumber than dumb idea. "Uh, yes," Wally said, "Or else I'll tell you-know-who about you-know-what." "Kuki!? You told him?" I asked in an angry tone. "Sorry," she said, "he made me tell." I rolled my eyes and said, "Ok, just don't tell anyone else, please." "Okies!" Kuki said. "I hope you like Disturbed," Wally said in a way that made me want to strangle him. I mumbled some curses about how I felt about listening to Disturbed. "Ok, time now to go outside and wait for the buses," Mr. Wolfe said as all the kids flew out of the band room like an unruly bunch of animals.
It was a pretty nice day out, only in early September. Kuki, Wally and I all sat around near the school entrance. Kuki was smart and brought her rainbow monkies backpack with some food in it. Since I got up too late to eat breakfast, she gave me a breakfast bar to eat. It turns out Kuki didn't have a CD player either, so everyone had to listen to mine.
"Can we listen to my CD first? Please, please, please, puh-leeeeeeeeeeeeeease?" Kuki said in her hyper-active, cute tone that got on my nerves when I was agitated, like now for instance. "Fine, as long as it's ok with Mr. Trunger King over there," I said, referring to Wally. "I'd love to listen to your CD, Kuki dear," Wally said, trying to sound somewhat mature. "Thank you, Wallabee dear," Kuki responded in the same tone. I, once again, rolled my eyes saying, "Dear God, help me." "But we listen to Disturbed right after Kuki's CD," Wally said. "Whatever," I replied, "but next time, you better bring your own CD player 'cause there's no way in hell you're using mine again." "Ok, ok," Wally said as the buses pulled up, finally. "YAY! They're here!" Kuki said as she grabbed Wally's arm and ran to the buses. I just re-hooked my saxophone onto the strap, picked up my hat with the CD player in it, and walked to the bus, awaiting my doom.
We all sat together in the middle of the bus. I sat next to Wally and Kuki sat across from us. Once the isles were clear, Kuki and I shared the headset and listened to her CD. It was a mix of some songs we all liked and some songs we liked to make fun of. We even sang along softly with some of the songs we really liked. But then, the dreaded last song finished and Kuki said, "Ok, time for Wally's CD."
"Damn," I said as Kuki took the CD out of my player and Wally put his in. "Come on, you'll love it," Wally said. "Yeah, and a flying rainbow monkey is going to fly out of my butt," I said. "Well, get ready for King Kong, cause Disturbed is the best band ever, next to Linkin Park, of course," Wally said. "Ok," I said, pressing the play button as the dreaded songs began.
This was probably the most hellish part of the day. I hated the CD. Well, I knew I would, but still. While Wally was head banging to some stupid song, I wanted to take my saxophone reed and slowly cut his head banging head off. By the time we got to Blueberry Valley, the CD was finally over.
"We should do that again sometime," Wally said as he took the CD out and put it back in its case. "I'm sorry, but I really just don't like Disturbed," I said, "But you still have to give me credit for giving them a chance." "As you have said many times before, 'Whatever,'" Wally said, trying to imitate me, badly. "How the hell can you date this guy?" I asked Kuki, who was half asleep. "Love is blind of all annoying things like that," Kuki responded in a dreamy tone. "You got that right," I said, looking at Max as he walked out of his bus with his base drum. "We're here, doesn't that mean we should leave the bus!" Wally said in an annoyed tone. "Thanks for pointing that out, Captain Obvious," I said. "Can't you guys just get along?" Kuki asked. "Fine, whatever…" Wally and I mumbled. "Ok, well, lets get going before they go march without us," Kuki said as we all got up and walked off the bus.
So we all lugged our stuff over from the parking lot to the front of the high school. We had to play some scales before we began our performance. We did the concert B-flat scale, chromatic, and the drums did their little solo thing about three times. It began to drizzle a bit, so we thought we'd have to perform inside, which made us less nervous, but, of course, it stopped, so we walked over to the football field. The school was about three or four times the size of ours, but the football field was about the same. It was really windy out and since no one had memorized their music yet, we had to bring the sheet music with us on the folios. By the time we got onto the field, I lost almost all my quordinate sheets. We first played "Train in Vain." I only had trouble marching to the right because of the damn wind. Then we played "London Calling," which turned out pretty good. When we marched "Rock the Casaba," we could only march half of the set, due to the lack of practicing time. When it was all over, we marched off the field and I found Wally and Kuki.
"WE SUCKED OUT LOUD!" Wally said the second we got off the field as he took off his helmet, reveling his messed-up blonde Mohawk. "Oh come on, we weren't that bad," Kuki said. "Actually, I think he's right," I said truthfully. "Whatever," Kuki said. "We should have done Disturbed songs," Wally said. I would have said something mean, but I just saw Max. He and his other drummer friend, Mike, were talking about bringing the base drums back to the bus.
"Abby, hello?" Wally said, noticing that I wasn't dissing Disturbed, "want me to just buy you guys a room or something?" "Wally!" Kuki said. "Huh, what?" I said, completely ignoring Wally's rude comment. "Wow, you really do like GCM," Kuki said. "Who's GCM?" Wally asked. "It's our nickname for you-know-who," Kuki explained. "Ohhhh. Stupid girls," Wally said. Kuki and I gave him dirty looks as he said, "sorry. Hey, why don't we go get some food?" "We have to go put our stuff away first, duh," Kuki said to her boyfriend. "Oh, I forgot. Don't want Mr. Trumpet to get dirty," Wally said, referring to his gold trumpet. "You're crazy," I said, back to my senses. "I know, isn't it freaking awesome?" Wally said.
Soon we got into our bus and put our instruments back were we were sitting. I took off the heavy jacket, which was making me sweat since it was really hot now, revealing a Linkin Park t-shirt. That is after I did take of the frills and cumber bund. After Kuki and Wally were done, we left the bus and went over to get some food. There was a big crowd over by the food tent, so we had to wait about ten minutes just to buy tickets. I got about ten with the money my dad gave me before. With the tickets, I got a cheeseburger, Pepsi, and a milky-way bar. Even though I just ate an hour ago, I still was a bit hungry, and that was going to be my dinner anyway. After Kuki and Wally bought their lunch/dinners, we all sat down on an empty patch of grass. Surprisingly, Max and Mike sat down almost next to us.
"Ewies! This cheeseburger is so gross!" Kuki said after taking one bite out of the poorly cooked cheeseburger. Out of curiosity, I took a bit of mine to discover she was as right as rain. "Next time, I'm bringing my own lunch," I said. "Me too," Kuki and Wally agreed. "Oh my god! Did you see last night's episode of 'Teen Titans'?"Kuki asked me. "Yes! That was so good!" I said, remembering how Beast boy and Raven looked so cute together. "Yuck, I can't believe you guys actually like that show," Wally said. "Well, it's a lot better than 'Your Friend, Andrew W.K.'," Kuki said. "I love that show," Max said, barging into our conversation, which I didn't mind at all. "Really, me too," I said in an infatuated tone, but not in a way were it sounded obvious that I liked him. "Cool," he simply said. Not wanting this chance of a great conversation with a dude I was crazy about to melt away, I said, "Didn't you love the one when he went over that weird dudes' house and cut his hair?" "Yeah, my favorite part was when he slapped the box of brownies out of the guys' hand," Max said. Everyone began to laugh. "I loved the motivation signs," Wally said, ruining my moment. "I think I'm glad I never saw this show," Kuki said under her breath. All of a sudden, I saw two familiar figures walking towards us. I soon came to realize it was our good old friends, Nigel Uno and Hoagie P. Gillian Jr., even though Nigel did hate me.
"Hi guys," Hoagie said. He was a bit thinner now; he had some crazy girlfriend that I only heard about through instant messages who goes to some private school near Niagara Falls. I hope never to meet her, it'll remind me too much of how the kids next door will never be one again. "Hey," Nigel said softly. His eyes were still covered by the shiny black sunglasses, but I could tell that they were probably cold and hard, since he did hate my guts. Yes, he was still dating Lizzie, not like I'd care, I just talked to Max. "Hey," Wally said, being his usual self, "What are you guys doing here?" "Oh, we just came because my dad wanted to compare the tuba players in our state marching bands," Nigel said. "SOUSAPHONES!" Nigel's dad yelled from the stands. "You guys were pretty good," Hoagie said. "Thanks," I replied. "Nigel, time to get going. I want to teach you and Hoagie over there how to play some songs on the Sousaphone once we get home. I love a duet, yes yes," Nigel's dad said in a thick British accent. "Well, better get going. See you in school," Nigel said. "Bye!" Hoagie said as he followed Nigel to the stands. "Bye," the three freshmen said. Before they knew it, it was time to announce the placements for the bands.
"For the small schools division, third place goes to…THE CLASHING BLACK CATS!" the announcer guy said. Everyone in our band cheered over such a surprising victory, even though there were only four schools in our division, it was an honor. Soon, we all filed back into the buses and got ready to leave. This time, I had my CD player to myself and finally got to listen to Meteora. Kuki and Wally sat together. They began
kissing about half the way home. It made me jealous in some ways, but happy in others because things were looking better for my chances with Max. One conversation may lead to another and one day he might ask me out. Maybe my hopes are too high, but what can I say…I'm a teen in love.
Well, that's finally over. Hope you enjoyed it. Review, flames are accepted and will be used to burn complaining customers at my aunts' restaurant, which is where I typed this whole fanfics chapter. I promise to be back soon! numbuh4lpluva