Disclaimer: (fingers hover over keyboard) I wonder...(yells) HEY RACETRACK!!
Racetrack: (pops head into room. He's in the middle of chewing of a red licorice Twizzler since no cigars are allowed in Daydream's house) Dat's me name! Whatcha want, kid?
I'm the same age as you, stupid, so don't call me kid. Anyways, did you wanna do the disclaimer? You said you wanted to do it last time...
Racetrack: (flings self onto bed) Yeah! Gimme...
Heya readas. Day ere said dat I could type da disclaimer so I am. Hold on, Day's naggin at me. Of course I gotta type like dis, it's da way I talk. If I didn't type like dis dey'd think it was youse and I don't want youse getting da credit for my creative talents. Hehe, she's mad now. Hey, Snipeshoota just walked in da room. He annoys da hell outta me, always stealin' my Twizzlas. I bet Daydream's gonna trow im out. Ha, I win, fork ova da dough. Oh, dat's right, youse can't. I guess ya could email me da money. Yeah dat'd wogsahhf#4klgragar$652gfl;'afJKSGSF!&?jy, lfh
Daydream here. Race was being too long-winded and he was annoying me. So HA, Racetrack, take THAT! He's giving me the evil look. Bleh. I guess the only thing left to say is that I don't own the Newsies or Mount Olive College. Perks if anyone goes there! Oh, and I'm never letting Race type the disclaimer again. Hehe, now he looks annoyed. Here's the next chapter!
With everything packed and roll call taken, the buses were ready to go. They pulled out of the school with four student vehicles following them, all headed to Mount Olive College. The upperclassmen immediately pulled out their CD-players while the freshmen delved into multi-colored Gameboys. On the first bus, Kid Blink and Mush were sitting across the aisle from each other, their legs thrown across into the other's seat so they would block the way for anyone trying to get by. A sudden electronic crackle made both of them sit up. They gave each other questioning looks as a static voice ripped into the air.
"Hey Kevin, can you hear me? Anybody there? YO KEVIN!" A current of complaint went through the bus. Blink turned around and peered into the seat behind him. A fuzzy-haired boy was frantically turning the volume down on a dark gray walkie-talkie. Blink's eyes lit up with mischief.
"Hey kid, can I see that?" he asked, smiling while he held out his hand for the walk-talkie. No one could resist the charismatic smile of Blink and he knew it. The boy looked up at him and frowned.
"Why?" Blink rolled his eyes. Suspicious little dork. He was about to reply when the static voice cut in again.
"Kevin, are you there or not? Hello? Hello? HELLO?! IS THIS THING WORKING?" The walkie-talkie vibrated violently until it almost fell out of poor Kevin's hands.
"I'm not going to steal it, that's Snitch's job." Blink said and then sighed at the freshman's confusion. "Don't worry about it; I just want to talk to one of my friends on the other bus." That seemed to be a good enough reason.
"Alright..." Kevin slowly handed Blink the walkie-talkie. Blink snatched it with childish excitement and retreated back to his seat with a little laugh. Kevin basically flung himself across the back of the bus seat, his face the picture of panic. He almost began to hyperventilate. "Don't break it, it's my Dad's! He'd kill me if anything happened to it!" Mush had sensed the promise of trouble and had left his seat to sit beside Blink. The trombone section leader looked up at the freshman and smiled.
"Chill, dude. Blink's careful with stuff that isn't his, aren't you Blink?" he reassured Kevin. Not getting a reply, Mush elbowed Blink in the ribs.
"Hmm? Oh, yeah, I'm wonderful...how do you call the other one?" He was pushing all the buttons he could find. Kevin pointed towards the white button that clearly stated 'talk' in black letters. "I knew that." Blink pressed it. "Hello? Anybody there?"
"You're not Kevin! Where is he?" The static voice sounded irritable. Blink grinned with triumph.
"He's right here but I'm borrowing the walkie-talkie right now. Could you give yours to a guy named Itey? He'll give it back in a little while," Blink said. There was a pause before the voice came back on.
"Who is this anyway?"
"Kid Blink, and you would be?"
"Fiona Wallace." The girl sounded pleased with herself. "Who's Itey?"
"He's um...got black hair, uh, I dunno, the girls say that he's adorable in his Iteyness but I have no idea what that's supposed to mean. He's probably wearing a bucket hat and singing that stupid Dr. Demento's Funny Farm song..."
"Oh him! Yeah, he's in the back. Hold on." There was silence for a while and then Itey's voice came on in its usual cheerfulness.
"Hiya Blink!"
"Hey Itey! It's Mush!" Mush had forcefully ripped the walkie-talkie out of Blink's hand. Blink hit him upside the head. "Blinkers is still here though."
"Unfortunately," Itey said with a laugh. Blink grumbled and tried to grab the walkie-talkie back from Mush but his friend was faster, easily ducking and leaning closer to the window. "Who's walkie-talkie is this?" asked Itey.
"Some kid named Kevin." Mush looked at Kevin who was staring at his walkie-talkie with fright. "Hey Kevin, what instrument do you play?"
"Bells." Kevin answered nervously.
"Hey, he's yours!"
"Awesome! Hi, my mini-minion of the pit!" Itey yelled joyfully. Kevin raised his eyebrows.
"What does he mean by 'minion'?" he asked. Mush grinned but didn't answer him.
"He says hi back...now what?" There was a moment of silence.
"I dunno. Hey, what if I sing Dr. Demento? Wouldn't that be cool?" Mush and Blink stared at each other in horror.
"NOOO!" They shouted in unison. The rest of the bus cried out against the disruption and some angry person tossed a cheese cracker at them. It bounced off Kevin's head and fell into the seat.
"Alright then, if you don't want to hear my wonderful singing skills then I'm not talking any more. Bye!" Itey ended and cut off his walkie-talkie.
"Yeah, sure. Oh, wait, I mean 10-4, good buddy!" Mush beamed, proud of his radio lingo.
"This is sweet!" Blink exclaimed as he took back the walkie-talkie. He started to switch around the stations and listen in on the truck drivers. Kevin leaned back in his seat, satisfied that Blink and Mush weren't going to destroy his dad's electronics.
"Yeah, but a freshman thought of it."
"Well, we would have thought about it if they hadn't thought of it already." Kid Blink said in his own twisted logic. Mush nodded slowly.
"Whatever you say, Blink."
On the other bus, a fourteen-year-old named Kelly Pagulong was ruffling through her bag, searching in vain for new batteries. A little hesitant, she leaned over the seat in front of her. Fox was sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest. Her attention was focused on the tattered book she was reading.
"Excuse me, but do you have any extra batteries? I forgot mine," Kelly said politely. Fox looked up at the freshman with a cheerful smile on her face.
"I think so, hold on a minute." Fox grabbed her back bag and began to ruffle through it. Kelly watched as she came up empty-handed. "One second." Fox leaned across the aisle and tapped Zodiac on the shoulder. Zodiac blinked rapidly before turning off her CD-player. The musical soundings of RENT slowly faded as the girl turned to regard her friend. "Hey, Zo, you have any batteries?"
"Yeah, what kind?" she replied as she opened her crimson and black backpack. Fox gave a generous smirk.
"You brought more than one kind?"
"To be with only one kind of battery is to be at loss." Zodiac replied flatly.
"You brought your stereo, didn't you?" Fox asked, laughter in her voice. Zodiac lifted her eyebrows with an imperious nature.
"If you say so."
"Ugh..." Fox groaned and popped a hand to her forehead. She turned back to Kelly. "What kind do you need?" Kelly scrambled to look at her CD-player.
"Uh, double A's." Zodiac nodded and dug through her bag. Soon enough, the elusive batteries popped up in her hand. A half-smile on her face, she handed them to Kelly.
"Here you go. By the way, what's your name?" Kelly smiled as Zodiac gave her the batteries.
"Thank you. It's Kelly Pagulong."
"How do you say that again? Tagalong? Pacalung?" Fox queried, trying to fit her tongue around the name. Kelly stifled a laugh.
"Um, no, it's Pag-U-long." She corrected, stressing the 'u'. Fox shrugged indifferently.
"Oh well, I'm Fox and this," Fox motioned across the aisle with a flippant swish, "is Zodiac, the resident freak of nature."
"Learn to love." Zodiac exclaimed in her usual fashion. Fox rolled her green eyes.
"You are so odd." She declared, shaking her head. "So, who do you belong to, Kelly?"
"Uh, the band?" Kelly answered nervously. She had never been very good when it came to meeting new people. Kelly was surprised when a couple laughs came back at her.
"Ha, good answer!" Racetrack exclaimed with a chuckle. He had been listening in on the conversation since he was already bored with electronic solitaire. Kelly gave him a weak smile.
"No, I mean which section are you in? Who's your section leader?" Fox asked in simpler phrasing. Kelly grinned with a little blush to her cheeks.
"Oh, Skittery. He told me that was his real name but it isn't, is it?" Fox laughed, her bright smile lighting up her face.
"Skittery's an arse. His real name is Thomas but don't tell him who told you that."
"What's with all the nicknames anyway?" A dark-haired boy appeared over the top of the seat in front of Zodiac. Zo scowled and sunk farther down in her seat. Freshmen...pff.
"Just a time-honored band tradition. And you are?" Fox questioned, narrowing her green eyes. She had a suspicious feeling that he was a brass player. They almost all had that certain boldness about them that trumpet players were the poster boys for.
"Allen Takers. I play trumpet." He smiled brightly at his prestigious instrument. The nearby upperclassmen inwardly groaned. Not another mini-Blink.
"Ah, your Blink's. Anyways, everyone gets a nickname. Without a nick, you aren't anything." Fox's answer had an edge to it. Allen put his chin on the back of the seat and looked pointedly at her.
"I asked my friend when we would get nicknames and he said that you wouldn't nickname us 'til band camp. Why's that?" Fox smirked as she laid her book down on the seat. She obviously would be getting any reading done anytime soon since there was so much informing to be done.
"Nicknames have to be agreed upon by the section leaders and it's a lot of fun to nickname you for something stupid you did at camp." She told him, a grin playing on her lips. Racetrack decided that he might as well join the conversation too.
"Yeah, for example there's this flute player, Meggara, who stuck a fork into an electrical socket on ice cream night her ninth grade year."
"What happened?" Kelly asked. Her innocent brown eyes were wide. Racetrack smirked, glad to have an appreciative audience.
"Duh, she got electrocuted. It was hilarious after we figured out she wasn't hurt. Or, at least, wasn't in need of medical assistance." Across the aisle from Racetrack, Swinger snickered.
"You should've seen her hair! She was nicknamed Sparks as a commemoration to it."
"So nicknames are always bad?" Kelly questioned tentatively. Racetrack snorted. At this rate, the kid was going to be stuck with some name like Timid or Blush. Fox beat him to the answer.
"Not bad, just ironically funny."
"I think that means yes, Kelly," Allen told the girl. Kelly frowned.
"But if you did something good, could you be nicknamed after that?" Race laughed at her.
"You're delusional." As he said this, a silent agreement went out between the four upperclassmen sitting around. Fox winked at Zodiac who smiled wryly at Racetrack who nodded at Swinger who grinned at the back of Kelly's head. Delusional it would be then.
"So how'd you get the name Fox, Fox?" Allen asked with a grin.
"I wasn't interesting as a freshman, so they named me after my hair color." She shrugged as she ran her fingers through her reddish-brown hair. "It could've been worse."
"Fox isn't that bad of a nickname," Kelly said with a hopeful touch to her voice. Fox smiled gratefully.
"It's better than some of the others I've heard of," she said. Zodiac let a slim smirk strike out across her lips. She was in a very contrary mood today.
"So you're saying that your nickname is superior to others?"
"Zodiac! Don't twist my words!" Fox demanded playfully.
"I am not twisting, I am simply asking a loaded question."
"Where'd you get Zodiac from?" Allen burst in before their swiftly growing argument could escalate. Zodiac gave him an irritated look.
"I stole it from the nickname store," She replied darkly. Racetrack raised an eyebrow into one of his favorite expressions.
"Wow, Zo, what put you in such a bad mood?" he asked. Zodiac could be strange at times, but she was rarely this snappy. She slowly turned her head to glare at him.
"I am riding in a bus filled with freshmen on the way to freshmen marching camp early in the morning. There is no reason to happy, Race!" Racetrack grinned as he realized what was wrong.
"You ran out of coffee, didn't you?"
"YES!" Race, Fox, and Swinger laughed. They all knew Zodiac had to have her morning coffee or she didn't function very well. Usually she just refused to function. Zodiac grumbled and shoved her headphones on. Soon enough RENT was heard throughout the bus as Zodiac tried to drown out her anger with her CD-player. Swinger looked over at Allen who was sporting an annoyed expression.
"Her nickname's way more interesting than Fox's." Swinger swiped at the wad of paper Fox threw at her head. "Zo's a lover of the paranormal. She used the megaphone to read out everyone's horoscopes from the newspaper every morning at camp her freshman year. Everyone was ready to wring her neck by the end of the week." Zodiac frowned. She had turned down the volume of her CD-player so she could hear what Swinger was saying about her.
"They were unappreciative barbarians," she snapped before twirling the volume back up to the max. The freshmen both nodded their blind agreement. Allen seemed to be satisfied with all this new information and drew back into his seat to succumb to the awesome power of Donkey Kong. Kelly smiled at Fox.
"I hope I get a good nickname," she said wistfully. Fox winked knowingly.
"I wouldn't worry about it, Kelly, we've got you covered." She picked her book up off the seat and went back to reading. Kelly returned to her CD-player, the root of that lengthy conversation.
A half a state and a couple hours later, a girl suddenly burst out of her seat with a brilliant smile on her face. She was clutching a walkie-talkie in her hand while waving her arms around. "Hey everybody, Kevin says that Blink says that Emotions says that Mr. Talington says we're here!" The bus let out a simultaneous roar of relief that would have busted out the windows if it was possible. Everyone erupted into motion to grab their carry-ons and stow away their CD-players and games. The bus driver began yell at the chaperones and the chaperones yelled at the section leaders who were too busy trying to get ready to do anything about the situation. So, as a result, chaos reigned. The Mount Olive college sign rolled into view and Itey launched into the "Pickle Song" that he had created his freshman year. It had become a tradition that would be passed down through the ages of the band.
"Mount Olive, Mount Olive, pickle capital of the world! How you make my mouth water with the pickletyness of your meals! Pickled picklety pickles is all we get at our Mount Olive college camp!" Itey's voice was joined by the other upperclassmen on the bus, followed by the freshmen as they picked up the quirky little tune. Fiona, the freshman girl with the walkie-talkie, turned it on so the other bus could hear their racket. Pretty soon both buses were bursting with Itey's "Pickle Song" as they rounded the olive-treed driveway of Mount Olive College. Behind the buses in her little Chevy, Irish looked over at Bookworm who had burst out laughing.
"Is that what I think it is?" Irish asked with a half-cocked eyebrow. Bookworm nodded, still grinning.
"The "Pickle Song"!" she answered. Both girls threw away all the senior restrictions and joined the band camp theme song. As the procession of buses, cars, and trucks rolled into the parking lot, Itey was left with a solo ending note.
"AMMMPPPPPPP!" he sang out as he hopped out of the bus through the back door. Swinger, who was right behind him, reached forward and grabbed his bucket hat. Itey's hands flew to his head before he turned to gawk in fake horror at Swinger.
"Hey!"
"Hey yourself," Swinger said as she jumped out of the bus and situated the hat on her head. Itey lunged at her, trying to grab his beloved hat. Swinger was faster; she had one hand on the hat as she darted away from Itey, a smug look on her face. She yanked the bucket hat down further on her head before sashaying proudly over to the growing group of band students. The freshmen and their section leaders had gathered around their band director in the middle of the parking lot. The more curious of the lot kept shooting looks over at the relatively small campus. The campus was quaint and very rural in its setting. Across the road was a long stretch of cotton fields with a silo in the middle. Directly beside and almost touching the parking lot was the barren-looking soccer field where they would march. There were no bleachers or anything, just the field out in the middle of nowhere. Mr. Talington and his army of chaperones soon had the band students under a minimal degree of control.
"So, did everyone have a good trip?" Mr. Talington asked though he already knew the answer. The band students grumbled their disagreements.
"There're no bathrooms on those buses!" someone complained rather loudly.
"Give us our keys already!"
"Yeah!" the others demanded in an angry unison.
"Fine, but I would like everyone to remember that dinner is at 6 o'clock sharp and the meeting is at eight." The director reminded them before he started to call out roommates and room numbers. Mob and Spoon were already at the trailer, throwing bags and backpacks out onto the ground. A freshman girl suddenly screamed as a purple backpack flew through the air, "My glasses!" Needless to say, Mob and Spoon were more careful with the baggage after that. Spot had rounded up his percussionists and was dictating the careful unloading of his truck, including his own bags. Soon enough there was a steady line of band students running from the trailer to the campus dorm buildings, all of them dragging their luggage behind them.
A/N: I'm changing the summary because I didn't like the first one. I'll figure out something else that's along the same lines, but I decided that I can't really do that exact storyline. It's too far-fetched. And I'm sorry I didn't update sooner, I had a bunch of homework and band and what-not! We came in first at our last competition! YAY!! I hope to update sooner! And if you character hasn't been mentioned much or at all, I wouldn't worry about. Just keep reading! Please review since you've already read!
A/N2: For Hope Diamonde, Erin Go Bragh/Lyra, and Spaz: I could still use some characters if y'all really wanna be in the fic! Just email me and tell me you want in and I'll send you the CC. Brass would be appreciated though I'll take the others too. (grins)