Well....since several people have told me to continue with this story, I decided I'd go ahead with another chapter. And....one of the ideas in this story came from a close friend of mine, so....I'm giving credit to him on that idea. So....here goes it.

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEsmash, I reach over and slam the off button on my alarm clock, quickly glancing at the time. 6:00Am. Yay....as if I don't already get up this early during the REST of the school year, I do during the summer as well. But anyways, there's a good reason I get up this early during the summer. Two words: Band Camp.

Yes...the all fabled band camp. No, it's not like American Pie in any way, shape, or form, so lay off, k? Anyways, I pull myself out of bed, take a shower, and put on shorts and a t-shirt, plus tennis shoes. Tennis shoes are ESSENTIAL at band camp. That is, unless you want to try and march properly in flip flops. Some people can. I...can't.

After getting my stuff together (you know, trumpet, water bottle, money, car keys, purse with driver's license), I pack it all in my car, and take off for Charity's house. Ok....not necessarily take off....more like, drive kind of slowly down the street towards Charity's house. Ok....so it's exactly like drive kind of slowly so as to avoid getting pulled over towards Charity's house. Any who, I pick up Charity, and we then drive the mile or so to the school.

At the school, I pull into a parking spot and get out. Looking around I inhale deeply.....HACK.....ok, perhaps not SO deeply, and then smile. It feels good to be back at good old HBHS. Considering it's my last year and all, I feel like I kind of have to treat everything as though I'll never see or do it again. Cause....I won't. Duh.

Voakes pulls into the spot next to us, amazing considering the fact it's 7:20am during the SUMMER, and we begin our walk to the band room. Voakes then unlocks the doors, complains how the light is on in the band room (stupid drummers....grumble grumble). And then, after throwing stuff every which a way, we sit. And wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And wait some more. Finally, Ricky shows up. I say hi, he grabs a guitar and tries to be funny by "serenading" me, I tell him to knock it off, and he goes and does the same thing to Gilberto. Gilberto then grabs the guitar, and plays something completely different. Ricky grabs it back. Great....I've been here maybe 10 minutes tops and already there's a battle of the acoustics going on, WHICH doesn't even sound that good.

Finally the door opens, and Dillan walks in. Great that means Matt's here too. Yep, there's Matt. And not far behind them is Evan. Makes sense considering Matt is Evan's flunky, whether or not he chooses to admit it. After them come a huge stream of people, making you wonder whether they don't all just plan this intentionally. Especially since I KNOW Evan and his crew are waaaay too annoying to have stalkers. Unless they do. In which case, I feel sorry for the poor retched souls who have yet to learn any different.

Finally Alli, who did come in not long after me but I just chose not to mention it, and Charity go to the front of the room. Looking around, I sigh. The group is dwindling to nothing. Goodie. Today we have enough people to fill one timpani box. Maybe tomorrow we'll have enough to fill one and a half timpani boxes. Or at least enough to make a block that's bigger than like...three by three. Moving on, however, Alli and Charity tell everyone to go outside. There's a surprise.

After nearly two hours of marching practice, in which nothing really got done because most of the time was spent at ATTENTION, since some people cough Evan and company cough apparently don't understand the meaning of the words "stand still and DON'T MOVE!", we went inside to practice music. Ah...some of the old pieces, and some of the new from last year. Wonderful. It won't make much of a difference either way, the freshman aren't able to read even the very easy pieces all that well. Not their fault, it's more like...bad teaching.

While I'm looking through the music, Justin walks in. I wave hi and Evan, with his huge ego, just stares. Justin, with HIS huge ego, stares back. You can almost see the thoughts running through their heads. Ok, perhaps just A thought a piece, somewhere along the lines of "my ego is bigger than your ego" (Thanks Chris!). The fun part of this is the fact that they're BOTH in my section. Great. What did I do to deserve this? Never mind...I'll just let them have their ego war. Besides, it'll be fun to watch.

So, after settling down and playing through a few tunes, we break for lunch. Krystal then comes up and asks if I'd take her to McDonald's. "No...I'm not driving you to McDonald's, Krystal. I told you earlier, I'm not going anywhere." Thus, poor Alli gets stuck with the task. Ok, so perhaps it's mean to say she's stuck with the task. It's more like Voakes gave her the task. Meanwhile, I'm chatting with several of the freshman clarinets (who are probably some of the coolest freshman I've met, even though I haven't met that many), and somehow the topic of girls and how to....say.....cut off important parts, came up. God bless you Mr. Moore...only you could talk about that in class.

Finally, lunch ends, and we begin to play a game, known as Zip Zap Zorp. Evan, of course, is not playing. Matt is not playing because Evan is not playing. Dillan is not playing because neither of the other two is and because he's more interested in the bass guitar. Sean is not playing because he's too enveloped in drawing the communist symbol on the board. Justin is not playing because Evan isn't playing, not because he's a follower but because he's out to prove something. What, I don't know. But have fun anyway. So we play, and I get knocked out a little towards the end, partially because I wasn't paying attention to who said what, and partially because it wasn't really a fun game. Oh well...I at least participated, right?

After the game we go back outside for more marching, and after a little while we have a drill down. Basically, for those of you who don't know, a drill down is where the drum majors call off a series of commands and we, the marching platoon, have to follow them. Haces are very popular, especially in rapid succession, and combined with tempo changes and horns up commands. Usually I kick butt at these, but today I just don't care. Thus, I falter a little on one of the rapid succession hace commands, and willingly step out. Not because I suck (because I will tell you that with the exception of a couple of people, I will kick anyone's butt at drill downs), but because I don't want to show off. It's just not right. Ok ok....so that's MY ego talking, but oh well. Eventually it gets down to just freshman, which doesn't exactly seem fitting since I saw ALL of them do something wrong at some point. They just didn't get caught. Grr. Jessica D., James Devena's sister, wins it. Then, we go back in the band room and put away chairs and stands. Ok...so Charity, Alli and I put away chairs and stands. And a few other people as well, pardon me. Then, Charity and I walk back to my car, and drive back towards her house. I drop her off, and with a "see you tomorrow", start towards home. Hmm...I wonder what Evan and Justin are doing? (Thought sequence)

Evan: stares at Justin

Justin: stares at Evan

Evan: My horn angle's just fine the way it is.

Justin: No, it's got to be at 10 degrees above parallel.

Evan: No it doesn't.

Justin: Yes it does.

Evan: No.

Justin: Yes.

Evan: stares at Justin

Justin: doesn't stare back

Evan: Ha! My ego's bigger than your ego.

Justin: No it's not, cause I came from Evergreen.

Evan: Well...I don't care, mine's still bigger cause I have flunkies.

Justin: Well...I can play trumpet better than you.

Evan: Nope.

Justin: Yep.

conversation continues like this for weeks

(end thought sequence)

Ok...I hope that it isn't that extreme yet....

Well....what do you think? I know it's kind of awkward in a way, but that's pretty much how things are going. Please review!!!