I had a burst of writing inspiration. After adding the new person (Dave)it gave me new ideas and everything so yea. Hopefully I will be writing more. Thanks for reading, if anyone is. Please review and tell me how you like it!

Ch.11-Northwood

Monday morning rolled around and I saw band people here and there. We didn't have a good weekend at all. Our morale was low, our confidence was low. This coming Saturday was the Northwood competition. They were our archrivals, ever since the 70's when Northwood stole a couple of our stuffed tigers from school and painted an eagle on the front of our school. We rivaled them in everything down to tennis. The last time we went to Northwood it was four years ago. We didn't get a fair judging, so J said he would never go there again, but this year he said we were going. I just hoped we got a fair judging here as well. Our band couldn't take another lose like 73rd.

At practice we all stayed in the band room. Our tape started from the competition and people crowded around the four televisions. We watched it like hawks, pointing out every mistake and how bad the formations looked. The tape stopped abruptly and J walked out into the middle of the room.

"Do you see this formation?" He asked loudly "it looks like shit! Watch this." We turned our attention to the televisions.

"The whole band moved left and one person went right. Look how bad that looks. That one mistake may have caused us more points than you think. Watch this. Again the whole band moves left, and this time two, TWO, people moved right and one was a captain! I know this is the first competition guys, but there is no excuse. We have worked for 4 months on these drills, and we mess it up this bad. This week we will continue to have an extra hour on practice, and every section will have sectionals every night as well. I will personally take each group and run their drill and fix what's wrong. OUTSIDE." his voice bellowed.

J is a very intimidating guy. I was scared of him when I first started. At tryouts he looks so mean. He just stared at every one of us at a time and watched every move to a point. He wasn't that bad though. He wanted to win, and that was that. He would win, and he would work us until we understood what he wanted, and I think we all wanted the same, just not quite as much as he did. We worked our asses off that day.

Tuesday came and went. Practice was hot. We went over the whole show around ten times stopping at every slightest thing to go wrong.

"Ronald!" J yelled.

"Yes" Ronald yelled back.

"Is that where you're supposed to be?"

"I'm pretty sure of it sure."

"Well your wrong..."

It went like that all afternoon. Him fixing every problem known to man. He closed in all gaps. Even changed some of the moves we did in our routine. In one part a Statue of Liberty became a Drop Spin toss, and another Drop Spin toss became an Extension. The whole band took a ten-minute break and then separated into our small groups. The guard as a whole worked on the whole show. We stopped every time someone messed up and then started over again. The guard was there the longest. We stayed two extra hours instead of one. To this day I am still not sure why people in band don't respect the guard like they should.

The whole week went by like that until we got to Friday. The board read "Stay inside." We all talked, and slept, while we waited for J. He finally came in and looked rather relaxed.

"Today I am giving you a break." A sigh of relief came over us "I realize I have been pushing you all a lot. But now Northwood has no reason not to name you Grand Champion. Today we will play stand music. Guard, I have no idea what you will be doing." The Guard groaned. "I think Bonnie is going to be working with you all."

With that we walked outside and collapsed on the ground. We all were so drained. Bonnie came outside, and as soon as she stepped around the corner, "Guard Attent Hut!"

"HUT!" We yelled back as half of us we sitting down and the other half up without flags.

"At ease everyone up, up, up. We have a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it in. I know it's Friday game day, so it's only an hour-long practice, but we are going to get our hours worth. Here we go, grab your flag and lets get moving. Tup, tup, tup, tup, tup, tup."

The music rang loudly in our ears as it started. We ran through the whole show and when we were done Mrs. B clapped, "That was excellent." We started to smile in what seemed like forever and actually had fun the rest of the practice. During my hour break I took a nap. Then I got right back up, jumped in the shower, and then went to the Football game. We preformed our show in what seemed like an awesome way. We had thousands of claps, even though we always did at home. We won the game. After the game, J sat us down on the bleachers and talked to us.

"Tonight mûù÷õóñTTonight mûù÷õóñïíëéçåãáßÝÛÙ×ÕÓÑÏÍËÉÇÅÃÁ¿½»¹·µ³±¯«©§¥£¡Ÿﾝ›™-•"'ﾏ-•"'ﾏ-•"'ﾏ

"You did great Dave. I am so proud of you."

"Thank you Maria." He said as he hugged me back. Then he kissed me on the cheek and said "you did great tonight too."

I was somewhat stunned when he walked away. Dave and I had never even come close to kissing on the cheek when we were dating. Dave was a good friend of mine, but we hadn't even talked much since we broke up. I was not sure what to think about it. I walked back to Parker and leaned back in his strong arms until I had to leave. I'm not quite sure what I should think. This couldn't at all be good for where am I at now.

I woke up the next morning and went to the school. I was tired and kind of grouchy. I went and sat on my starting spot on the football field. We started ten minutes later. Practice was long, two hours. Then we boarded the busses and headed off to Northwood. We were in the AA class. It was twelve and we preformed at 5:00. When we got their, our guide was nice. They walked us to our dressing rooms and we all changed. It was a really hot day to be wearing our poodle skirts, but you gotta do what you gotta do. After changing we went straight to warming up. The guard practice separate for a while and then we joined with the band. We went over key parts of the show. Then we all kneeled down together and said The Lord's Prayer."

We got in our lines and settled down. We marched out to the field and waited for the school in front of us to finish. I started to get those butterflies again. There show ended and once there last person was off the field we moved forward and then stopped. We waited for J's cue.

"BAND ATTENT HUT!" J yelled.

"Hut!" We all yelled back.

"Mark time mark and one, two ready move!" With that we all started on our left feet and marched onto the green stage.

This time the Guard stood with the band. Our runners planted our flags. We stood behind our prop. It was of the High School in the movie Grease.

"Knoxville High School" the announcer started "you may now take the field for competition."

We all ran out on to the field. The music started and we all put every ounce of energy we had into our performance that night. When it was over, everyone was raving. J said it was the best he had seen us perform yet. Mrs. B said that she only saw 3 or 4 drops through the whole performance. We all were so happy with our performance. We knew that we would have a much better time that night than the last competition. We were release on break and we all hit the snack bar. Parker and I shared a pizza. It was at least 3 hours before the awards were to be announced. There had been a break between Class AA and AAA. When the band captains and directors began going out to the field we all waited anxiously.

Of course they started with Class A. It seemed like forever until they got to Class AA. They started with the ratings.

"Knoxville High School" the announcer started "Excellent"

We all jumped up and yelled. We hadn't yet improved from 73rd, but I knew we would. Then they went on to Drumline.

"1st place Drumline...Knoxville High School." The Screams erupted from us all again.

Colorguard

"1st Place Colorguard...Knoxville High School." We all screamed again. The whole guard hugged, and we watched proud as our Captains brought back the trophy.

We went on to sweep the category, so we won the Class AA 1st place trophy. We didn't win Grand Champion, but came in third out of every band there. I think that's all our band needed. We needed to feel what it was like to win, and boy did we know it. We marched out of Northwood last night. Every band member with a smile on there face. If it felt this good just win in our class, then Grand Champion must feel great. The band huddled together when we got back to the busses.

"We did it. We won Tigers!" J said. Yeas and yay's and even some hell yeas came from the crowd.

"We came here with a mission, and we completed. We didn't get Grand Champion, but sure did get what we worked for! There were two bands better then us, I can accept that. But we swept our class guys. We beat every band in our category by 5 points. Our guard even beat the Grand Champions guard by almost ten, TEN points!" We screamed, "you guys just don't know how I feel right now. Every one of you did an awesome job tonight. Thank you!" We all grouped in for a group hug. I felt Parker kiss me on the back of my head.

We all boarded the bus and it felt like it should. We were all talking and everyone was laughing. We even started singing on the bus. Parker laid on my lap and fell asleep. I started talking to Dave who was sitting in from of me.

"How was your first competition?" I asked. It felt weird to ask that, It was only my second.

"It was great. Better than yours." He laugh.

"That's true," I chuckled "I'm glad you had fun."

"Me too," he said as he touched me hand "I'm really glad I get to spend more time with you Maria."

I pulled my hand away, "Uh..Dave I'm with Parker."

"I know you still like me Maria."

"So what if I do, I Love Parker, Dave."

"Yes, I know, but for some reason I can't accept it."

I sat back in my seat and rubbed Parkers head. I stared out the window and just thought. It was about a 30-minute drive so I had some time to think. I loved Parker. I liked Dave. Parker means so much more to me than Dave does. I don't know why Dave is trying so hard though. I would never leave Parker for Dave but I don't know what I was going to do about Dave.