Ryan looked around her, taking in all the new faces of the freshmen marchers. She sat in her seat, quietly putting her E flat clarinet together. She was still warming up to her surroundings. She glanced down her row of neatly arranged straight backed chairs into the faces of the rookies, some looking excited, others anxious. Truth was she was probably just as nervous as some of them were. She had no idea how she was going to be able to teach all there was to know about marching to these people that she didn't know, wasn't comfortable with. Despite her anxieties, Ryan had to admit that there was some form of anticipation bubbling inside of her.
Her eyes slid from her section to the clock on the wall. It ticked away the seconds and showed about ten minutes before the first day of Rookie Camp was supposed to begin.
She got up and went into the uniform room where her friend, Laura, was thumbing through drill charts. Ryan plopped down beside her and rested her head against a filing cabinet. Laura glanced over at her then retuned to her feverish search. "Lose your drill chart?" Ryan asked, a smirk playing across her face. Laura was notorious for not being able to keep up with her things and this is what Ryan guessed to have happened. "How did Ms.Jones expect me to be able to keep up with that stupid thing since leadership camp?" Ryan sighed "Laura, leadership camp was only a few days ago." But Laura didn't hear her, she had jumped to her feet and held a drill chart triumphantly over her head.
Before Ryan could say anything else, the band director, Ms.Jones, had called them to attention. Ryan slowly pulled herself off the floor and made her way towards her seat. Ms.Jones did her usual speech on how she was excited to see everyone and was looking forward to a great season.
Ryan let he mind wonder off until she was snapped back to reality by the people filling past her. She picked up her clarinet and was about halfway to the door when a blur of a person whizzed by her sending her papers to the floor. The person that had rushed past skid to a halt, doing a sort of half spin. Despite her temporary loss of balance, Ryan managed to regain her poise and found the situation humorous.
In front of her stood the percussion captain, and lead snare, who had obviously over slept. His hair looked tousled and he had a dazed look in his eyes, like he wasn't all there. "Ugh, I'm so sorry!" He bent down and picked up her papers. Ryan laughed and took them from him. "It's ok, Brett," she told him as she walked to the back of the room with him. Brett groaned as he hoisted his snare up and strapped it on. "It's way too early to have to be up, and at school no less," he groaned as he waddled towards the door. "I thought that the percussion had already started practicing," Ryan said to him as they both walked down to the marching band's practice field, which is a nice way to put the parking lot. "Yeah," he said, "but that was in the afternoons."
Ryan smiled as they finished the walk in silence. She had never known Brett to actually be on time for something unless it was to be first in line at lunch. "See you at break," Brett called as they both parted to be with their sections. Ryan smiled, still a bit anxious about the day to come, and introduced herself to her new section. "Hi! I'm Ryan and I'm you section leader this season."