The day had finally come. The day of our marching band championships. This year is our most exciting yet. We are currently placed in third. Our school, Littleton High, has never placed this high before. So naturally, everyone is thrilled. We even have a chance at winning. Winning! Two years ago we would've been lucky to just be able to perform at championships. As a junior, I was especially looking forward to this big night. I had come a long way from the struggling new band that we were.

I wake up at 6:30 am to get ready to go to the school. It is so early! We are going to a high school closer to the stadium where we are competing. All 150 members of our marching unit are chattering excitedly as I walk into the band room. I spy my friends and we go to the uniform room together.

"I can't believe it's championships already!" says Lizzie Mag. "It seems like just yesterday was our first day of band camp."

"I know! I don't want this season to end!" Rachel exclaims.

We grab our uniforms and check to make sure that they are the right numbers. Then we turn around and look at the neatly organized shelves to find our hat boxes. The three of us manage to maneuver out of the now packed uniform room. As we head back to the band room, we see the drum captain giving the drummers a speech.

"I don't know how they can take that guy seriously," I say noticing his extremely crazy hair. It was what had given him the nickname, "Shaggy" in our band. Every time I look at that guy, I can't help but laugh. His light brown hair is just so shaggy.

I head back into the band room to join the rest of the mellophone section. As the section leader, I have to round up everyone so we can do our section cheer and dance for good luck. Personally, I think we are the most unified section. The five of us are all girls and we always hang out. We all are friends. We have the best section parties which are mostly spent terrorizing our rival section, the saxophones. The whole section is in there waiting for me except Melanie, who I find in the bathroom doing her makeup.

"Why on earth are you putting makeup on? It's 7:00 in the morning and we are about to get on a band bus for 3 hours!" I tell her as she puts on her brown shimmer eye shadow.

"I know, I know," she replies, "I just feel so weird without it."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. Well hurry up. We have to get the cheer in before Mr. Reed decides to show up."

The two of us head back into the band room together and head over to our section. I look around to make sure that the section is all there. It's now 7:20 and we'll be boarding buses soon so we can't waste anymore time.

"Alright girls," I say enthusiastically," I guess it's time to start our cheer." But of course, just as we start our chorus of "M-e-l-l-o, it's alive!" Mr. Reed walks over to the podium.

"Crap," I whisper to Ellie, a freshman, "we've never had a competition where we didn't do out cheer. We're doomed!"

"I want everyone to check their bags and make sure we have everything. Shoes, gloves, hatboxes with hats inside, white pants, jacket, and garment bad. And most importantly, your instrument. We don't want anyone forgetting anything like last year." Mr. Reed reminds us. All heads turn to Kylie, the unfortunate piccolo player who forgot her uniform.

"I told you! It wasn't my fault! My mom forgot to pick them up from the drycleaners. She told me they were in there! You know, at least I remember to get my pants dry-cleaned." The whole band starts laughing. Well at least the juniors and seniors who remember the incident when one of the tubas forgot to clean his white pants and had to march a show with a big mud stain on his pants.

"Well anyway, check your bags, please! This is our big day. I know you guys can do it. We've worked so hard for this. Now go out their and kick some ass!" Some random band members snickered and Mr. Reed's choice of language

"Um, kick some butt," he quickly added, "Alright, time to load the buses. Seniors, go ahead. Juniors, you can go now."

I gather up my many band trip essentials and trod slowly out to the buses. It pays to have a boyfriend who is a senior. I'm guaranteed a good seat to I don't have to keep up with the seat competition. Lizzie Mag and Rachel spot me while I am walking over. They wave and I jump in line with them.

"Ug, don't tell me they are checking bags again." I groan.

"You guessed it." Rachel replies. "They aren't going to let anyone forget anything today. I just don't get why they don't bring extra stuff just in case."

"That would be a smart idea," I agree. "I don't want to have to dig through all of these bags. Plus Natalie watched me take everything out and put everything back in. They can use her as a witness."

After waiting for 10 minutes in line, I finally get up to the stairs to get on the bus.

"Hi, Mrs. G!" I say to one of the chaperones. "Do I really need to show you everything? I double checked like 5 times. And look at all this junk I have."

"I'm sure you have everything. You usually are the one reminding everyone else."

"Thanks! I really wasn't looking forward to going through all of this." I said as I climbed up the stairs of the Wolf's charter bus. I looked around, trying to find Joel, my boyfriend. I spy him waving at me so I go over and sit down.

"Hey, what's up?" Hey asks.

"Well, not too much. Jeeze I am so excited! We are doing so good this year! Oh and guess what I brought."

"What?"

"DCI tapes from last year! I should probably go give these to the chaperones now."

"Sweet! Are they of championships?"

"Yeah. I absolutely loved the Cavalier's show. They are by far my favorite drum corp."

"Jeeze, what would we do without you? Do you want to go to sleep?"

"Sounds like a good idea. I'm so tired and I should rest up before we perform." I agreed as I leaned up against Joel and used his shoulder as a pillow. After about what seemed like an hour, I was woken up by one of the chaperones.

"That is inappropriate behavior." She told me.

"Oh sorry," I said as I quickly sat up. The chaperone left and I turn to my best friend, Rachel, and her boyfriend, John.

"You have got to be kidding me," I complain under my breath so none of the chaperones will hear me, "there was nothing inappropriate going on there. Absolutely nothing."

"Yeah, of all the couples on this bus, you guys are the ones getting yelled at. I mean look at everyone else. They are all over each other and you two, you guys haven't even kissed yet have you?" said John in an annoyed tone. He hated the way chaperones were biased against couples on our bus.

"No, we haven't," I said, slightly embarrassed as I felt my face get hot, I knew for sure that I was blushing. But it was pretty sad. We've been together for five months and we haven't kissed. Pretty much everyone in the band knew that and gave Joel crap about it. I feel bad, but come on!

About two hours later, we neared Jackson Stadium. I shook Joel awake as we drove by.

"Wow," I breathed, "it seems every time I come here, no matter how often it is, I get that feeling of breathlessness that the freshmen get."

"It's hard to imagine that this will be my last time playing here." Joel sighed. "I just can't believe I'm a senior."

"It's so sad. I'm going to miss you so much next year. Well I guess we should get changed."

The whole bus became chaotic as we all scrambled to find our garment bags. It is near impossible to try and put a band uniform on while you are on a bus packed with band members. People are standing on the seats, in the isles, everywhere. It's the craziest sight. I tried to find a little corner out of the way. I start to put on my uniform. People kept crashing into me as they were trying to make their way to the front of the bus. Finally, we all made it out into the parking lot of a nearby bank where we would be warming up. The woodwinds went with Mr. Reed to warm up. I had to say goodbye to Joel who went off with his fellow clarinets. The brass players left with our drum major to stretch.

"Alright everyone," our drum major said after we had finished stretching, "this is my last year in this band and we are currently in third place. Don't screw up today. I know you all can do it. So do it!"

We then get back into our marching block and march over to where the woodwinds just were to begin our musical warm up. Mr. Reed had us play through all of our lip slurs to strengthen our lips. Lip slurs are the most boring things to play. I can't stand them. He also had us run through our long tones. They are actually the most boring. What fun is there in going chromatically up and down and holding each note for four beats? After a while, the woodwinds, pit, and drum line came over to run through our show. Our show this year consists of music from Pirates of the Caribbean; "The Medallion Calls", "The Black Pearl", and "Barbossa is Hungry."

Finally, our moment has come. It was time to perform our show. We all scramble to get into our on the field block. I look around for Joel to give him our traditional good luck hug but he is already in the front of the block and I need to get in my spot. It seems too much like a bad omen to me. First missing our section cheer and secondly missing my hug. Things better go well.

We take our first steps onto the turf field. It feels great under your feet when you are marching. It kind of bounces underneath of you giving you this awesome sensation you just can't get from grass. It's the best way to march. Unfortunately, this turf was icy. You've got to use the best marching technique to begin with on turf, now with icy turf; it'll be even harder to stay upright.

"Band attend-hut!" cries the drum major.

We all snap into attention. The snare drums start out "The Medallion Calls." Everything seems to be going pretty well. At least for my section. We have a lot of cool mellophone features in this show. It's really fun to play. Suddenly, a timing problem occurs that we have never had before. I don't know what happened or who caused it but it was horrible. One of the sections who had just come in sped up the part. Thankfully, we managed to recover in a few bars. The rest of the number went smoothly with even our normal trouble section at measure 52 going well. "The Black Pearl" went well too.

We began the closer, "Barbossa is Hungry." This is my personal favorite of the three. I started out playing my best, really loud and aggressive, just like our band director likes. Unfortunately for me, there was a mellophone feature in the front of the field where the shadow was leaving it very icy. Around measure 30, I got to the icy part. I slipped and was on the ground.

"What am I doing on the ground?" I though to myself, "Where am I?"

Then I realized that I was on the field at Jackson Stadium in front of hundreds of people. I tried to get up, when all of the sudden I was on the ground again. This time it was more difficult to try and get up since I landed in a weird position. I had to take my hand off my mello in order to push myself up. I felt my cheeks flush. It was the most embarrassing moment for me. All of those people, hoping our band would do great, had to watch me fall. Worst of all, our band was hoping to do so well. Now it was all my fault that we wouldn't. The tears came streaming down my face. I became so confused of what I was supposed to be doing. I missed my next set, putting myself in the next file instead of the one where I was supposed to be. After that I tried to get back on track, but usually I just go on autopilot and that was disrupted by my fall. The weirdest feeling is when you fall during a show. You don't remember much of anything until after the fall and you loose track of what you are supposed to be doing.

Since we were the last band to perform, we went right off of the field into the stands for awards. I sat with my fellow section members Ellie and Lisa. They were both trying to comfort me about my fall.

"You know, Joel fell too in the opener," Ellie told me, "it's kind of freaky that of all the two people who could fall, it would be you two."

"Yeah, and at least you weren't the only one who fell," Lisa added, "plus I heard a lot of people in other bands fell. I mean, look at the field! It's covered in ice for crying out loud!"

"Thanks girls, I feel a lot better now," I said as I hugged them both.

The awards ceremony started. I barely paid attention until they started announcing the top ten. Jackson High School made tenth place which was very good for them. They haven't been good in many years so it was nice to see them place high. Ninth place was Northern High School. They've been in ninth place for the past eleven years so that was no surprise. Great Valley came in eighth. Then they announced seventh place. It was Littleton. We had scored a 93.03. It was horrible. We were so disappointed, no one clapped. The only cheering for our band came from those polite audience members who clap for everyone and of course the band parents. But they always cheer. Deep down, they felt the same disappointment that we felt. The seniors were especially upset. Most of them were crying. It was horrible, and even though I knew this was wrong, I couldn't help but think it was my fault. I tried to put on a happy face and just comfort everyone, but it was so fake. I'm sure they could all see right through it to my crying inside. I don't even remember what schools were awarded sixth through second places. I tuned back in just to hear them announce first and I now wish I hadn't. Our rival band, Washington School District, had won. It was devastating to all members of our band. We had beaten them last year for the first time and now, they've won the whole championship. It just didn't seem right.

I had to find Joel. I needed someone to comfort me. I searched through the crowds. Then I just decided to wait and talk to him on the bus. I saw my friend, George, who plays the trombone and decided to walk with him.

"Hey," he said as he put his arm around me, "I saw you fall. It looked like it must have hurt."

"Not really," I answered, happy to have someone to talk to, "I think I just bruised my butt."

"Well that's good. Jeeze, Joel fell flat on his back. At least you didn't get hurt."

"Yeah. That would have sucked."

We made our way back to the buses. George left to go on his bus, bus one while I went onto bus four. I made my way through the crowded isles greeted by many, "hey, were you the one who fell"s. I tried to smile as I said, yes that was me, but it was hard to do. Finally, I got back to my seat where Joel was waiting for me.

"Hey, I'm so glad you fell." I said as I hugged him.