Not long after band banquet, Steven did a disappearing act. We didn't think much about him until my friend Nikita received a disturbing call from him. In the call he threatened to kill himself because of a lot of junk that nobody knew about. Weeks later, he returned on 'happy pills' which caused his perverted mind to work extra hard on thinking those perverted thoughts. Although this didn't last long, fore Steven disappeared againand hasn't returned yet. Several rumors are going around school saying that he killed himself, or got banned until next year, or even that he moved, but either way, Steven more then likely won't be back this year. It's a small loss, I assume, because I was about ready to strangle him if he brought up one more perverted idea. He did, though, ask me to dance one slow song at band banquet but I couldn't trust him enough, if you know what I mean.

Roughly about a week after band banquet, the school hoisted a dance off, for intermission when the counted the votes, they had two garage bands play. Little did I know, one of the bands, Selkin, had a pair of twins that I would learn about the rest of the semester. After head banging to 'Hideaway' – a song that they thought up, I was high on energy and excitement, ready for more. My ten year old neighbor, Courtney, fell in love with the lead singer, Matt Howerton, and eventually pushed me up to him to get Matt and the rest of the band to sign the program for anautograph. As I stood in line, I noticed two of the band members nearly identical. After my idiotical gawking at them I realized they were twins, cute ones at that. Now seemingly frozen where I stood, a wave of embarrassment hit me and sent me into my quiet, shy self as I stumbled up to the table. Fumbling with the paper I dropped it in front of Matt as my hand seemed to quiver.

"Hi," Matt started broadly, evidently blind to my shock, "Who should this be signed to?"

I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out as I dumbly pointed to my neighbor next to me.

"Oh, ok, and who is that?" He asked, still blind to my embarrassment.

"Courtney!" My neighbor popped off with, also not noticing my mass embarrassment.

Matt scribbled his name before passing it along to the other band members. When the twins got it, I nearly froze; thankful that they didn't look at me gawking at them, sending another wave of embarrassment over me.

After they signed it, I took it gently, trying to deceiver the loops and scribbles into names with little luck before passing it to my neighbor.

---

The next morning, I was still in awe as I leaned against the band hall door. Colleen approached me with a quizzical look, her green eyes slightly confused.

"Why are you so happy?" She asked, completely unaware to the night before.

"'Cause I can be…" I grinned, still in a dream-like manner.

"Well, let's hope you're still happy when you find out your chair today." She shrugged before walking into the band hall.

"Huh?" I popped out of my dream as I followed her, "That's today?"

"Yep. I hope I made top band…. If I'm stuck with Shoop……" She shook her head, "One of uswon't live much longer…." Colleen grinned evilly, "Shoop, of course."

The band hall was rather crowded, as kids swarmed in to learn of the chairs for the rest of the semester. Divided into two bands, the band directors grouped each kid out by instrument before singeling them by chair. Majority of the freshman made Shoop's band sending groans through out the class. Standing nervously, you could here the groans of the other students who received low chairs as Shoop came down the row. Stopping at me, he eyed me silently as if looking into my mind and reading my thoughts. I stared back at him, almost afraid of my chair – through my whole clarinet career (since 6th grade), I've received second from last chair, no higher, no lower -. He raised a bony finger and pointed to – my heart seemed to stop with agony from the slowness- , well, he seemed hesitant – or he saw me panicking and wanted to make it just that more painful – as his finger moved up and down the section, landing on the………………………………………………