"The Space That's In-between Insane And Insecure
Oh Therapy, Can You Please Fill The Void?"
Green Day, Dearly Beloved
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While Faja was preaching to the band about who-knows-what, Clara and I were off from the group doing our own style of "interpretive marching". It was a mix between high-step marching and the Macarena. I dubbed it "The Cool Dance". You had to put an emphasize on cool because if you didn't it just wasn't The Cool Dance.
"Girls, what are you doing?!" We stopped in mid-groove and turned around to see Ms.Dillard and her glutinous self of lard-ness coming towards us. I could almost feel the vibrations from her waddle-clomping. I imagined somewhere at this very moment in some scientific place where there's a Richter scale, some guys in lab coats going crazy about to alert the President that there's an Earthquake coming.
"Sorry Ms.Dillard. We were just going over our drills. We forgot them over the summer." I nodded my head to agree with Clara.
"I don't call this-" Ms.Dillard did some kind of ghetto booty shake that wasn't in The Cool Dance and me and Clara stared at her with pitied eyes. "-marching. You girls better straighten up. I remember how you were in middle school, always the class clowns. Grow up." She turned and as she was walking away we held our fingers in front of our faces measuring how big her butt was.
"My fingers don't stretch that far." Clara whined, straining to stretch her thumb and forefinger as far as they would go without snapping a tendon or something.
Faja ordered everyone to go get some water. We officially had fifteen glorious precious minutes to goof off. I grabbed Clara's hand ( again she complained about running giving her rashes ) and we sprinted about looking for the rest of The Secret Society of The Flute Key.
Clara, Erin, Tiffany and I started the society when we were in the sixth grade. No one was allowed in after the ninth grade so it remained us four. We held meetings at Erin's house every Tuesday and Thursday after marching band practice. Today happened to be a Tuesday and I couldn't wait to go. We each had our own club names. No one was allowed to call each other by their first names when the meetings were in session. The Society had rules for everything and a disproportionate amount of infinite inside jokes.
"I see them I see them!" I bounced on my toes as I ran, which was a hard thing to do now that I think about it. Clara was dragged behind me, scratching at her arms with her remaining hand at her rashes. I don't know why running gave Clara rashes, but it always had for as long as I remember.
Erin and Tiffany were in The Secret Society of The Flute Key unofficial water-break spot. They spotted us frolicking towards them. I had Murphy held above my head triumphantly as I bounded across the grass. Clara didn't look too triumphant, she looked more like she wanted to rip a cow's udder off and beat me senseless with it.
I skidded to a halt, released Clara's hand ( she went soaring into the bushes ) and sat down in the grass with Tiffany and Erin. "Clara, quit goofing around and get over here." Tiffany said in the bushes' direction. We heard a little bark and decided to leave her alone.
"What do you guys think about the first day of band camp?" I questioned, crossing my legs and making myself comfortable on the Astroturf. Tiffany held up a hand.
"First before The Secret Society of The Flute Key goes in session, we must do the club chant. I'm sorry, Shea but you're going to have to put Murphy down for a minute."
"Never!" I went into fetal position around him to protect him from the grabby hands of my fellow Society-ers. "He's too young! He'll get lost by himself!"
"Shea..give..me…the water bottle!" Tiffany said through gritted teeth as she tried to pry my fingers away. So I did what my instincts told me to and bit her.
"Auuuhh!" Tiffany released me and stuck her in in her mouth. "She bih meh. She bih meh!" Her eyes filled with tears.
"Oh my gosh you two. I'll say the chant for us." Erin prattled it out in ten seconds. "The Secret Society of The Flute Key so solemnly swears to stay in the club forever until we kick the bucket as old ladies who live with a lot of cats. This does not include comas and/or ruptured spleens. This offer expires March ninth three-thousand and ninty but we should be dead by then. Shea?"
"Here."
"Tiffany?"
"Here."
"Clara?"
The bush rattled. We figured that meant 'present'.
"And myself, Erin. Here and clear as day. SSotFK chant closed." We all clapped three times and said the word 'brick'. I don't know why we chose the word brick that day in sixth grade; no one can remember. I like to think one of us got hit in the head that day or something. It would explain some of our eccentricity. For at least one of us anyway: the other three are just plain bizarre. I liked to think I was one of the three.
I sat there putting little tufts of grass on Murphy out of boredom. Erin cleared her throat.
"The meeting is in session. Who would like to tell about their first day of band camp? Clara, I suggest you get over here and quit playing around. I saw a giraffe go in that bush before you went in it. It was before you and Shea got here."
Clara shot out of the bush like she was running for her life. Clara was scared to death of giraffes. She had had a childhood incident. I'm not going to go into it right now.
She stopped running, panted, and sat down beside me. She glared at Erin. "Hey. You tricked me! There wasn't a giraffe in that bush! There was a squirrel though, and I was playing with him." We all stared at Clara and there was an awkward silence. Suddenly I noticed something poking its head out of the bushes.
"Um..Clara, I don't think that was a squirrel you befriended." We all turned around to see a skunk standing three feet away. It was looking at Clara.
"Oh..my god. Clara, only you could befriend a skunk. No body move." Tiffany warned us. The skunk sniffed the air, then started making it was towards me.
"Help me! I'm dead! It's killed me!" I squirmed and thrashed about. It walked right past me and stopped at Clara. I stopped thrashing and stared open-mouthed as Clara started petting it.
"Look, he knows who his mummy is. Aww. What a good…." action censored "….boy." Clara picked him up and sat him in her lap.
"I cannot believe you just looked at a skunk's privates." I shivered.
"I want to name him Bush, because that's where I found him." Clara scratched him behind the ears and his leg kicked like a dog. "Aww lookie!"
Erin hit the ground with her fist. "We are not naming our skunk Bush. I think John suits him better." Erin had democrat blood running through her veins through and through. She was obsessed with politics.
"Does he look like a John to you? What kind of a name is John anyway?" Clara picked him up and held him up to her face so she could look into his eyes. "You're not a John, are you?" He sneezed. "See it upsets his sinuses. His name is Bush."
"Should we initiate him into the Society?" Tiffany asked, sticking out her jaw. She did that lot; it was her biggest habit besides the occasional eye twitching. Her club named used to be "Twitchy Jaw" but she made us change it.
"I guess so. He has as much right to be in the Secret Society as anybody else."
"Wait a second though, Clara. No one has the right, remember? We decided no one gets in. We decided that when we were all freshmen." I felt proud that I had remembered.
"Oh well. Sir Bush/John, we officially .." Tiffany got cut off.
"Wait! We need something to knight him with. Shea, give me your water bottle." Erin grabbed for Murphy but I was too fast.
"Why don't you just use a sword?" I asked, cradling Murphy to my chest. Erin growled.
"Because we're on a football field. Do you see any swords?" We all agreed the field was sword-deprived. I was not going to give up without a fight, so I took off my shoe ( it was a red converse, the we all had signed with a marker ) and handed it to Erin. Erin shrugged.
"This will have to do. Okay Tiffany, you may continue."
"Ahem. Sir Bush/John, we officially knight you a Secret Society of the Flute Key..-er. Hey you guys why didn't we ever make up a name for what someone in the society is called? I'm tired of putting 'er' on the end of everything." She said this as Erin knighted Bush/John with the shoe. He didn't seem to like being prodded with a shoe too much because he made a sound that sounded like a lawnmower.
"I don't know why we never thought of it. You have a good point." I commented, scooting a little bit away from Bush/John. "Why don't we just call ourselves Sky Scrapers?"
"Why?" Everyone asked at once.
"I dunno." That day Bush/John became a Sky Scraper of the Secret Society of the Flute Key.