"What's going on?"

"Oh my God!"

"But what about the concert?"

"Let me through!" Crispy shouted as she squeezed between two whispering students to reach Stephanie and Ebony. "Well?"

"Just look." Stephanie pointed through he pane glass door of the music room and between several police officers who were attempting unsuccessfully to hide the crime scene within. Crispy cought glances of the director's body being carried out a back door and more officers taking pictures of the wall, though she couldn't see why.

Her mind raced. Why Mr. Moreau?

Ebony chuckled, "The Phantom of the Band Room though? How unoriginal..."

"What?" Crispy was brought out of deep thought.

"The Phantom of the Band Room. That's what they call themselves. They wrote it on the wall, didn't you see?"

"No..." She trailed off as she noticed several of the officers by the door had moved to carry someone who had somehow gotten inside back outside. She heard Brandon shouting at the top of his lungs as they muscled him towards the door,

"I WANT MY CAMERA! MY CAMERA! AND MY TRUMPET!" It was like a scene from a movie with some punk being thrown out of a restaraunt and his stuff after him. "That's police brutality, you know!" He noticed the girls' questioning faces. "I went in to get my trumpet."

"With a camera?" Ebony asked knowingly.

"Great footage I got too, unless..." he opened up his camera to check for film... it wasn't there. "Damn, they took it."

Crispy thought her friends were taking this way too lightly. Everyone was taking this way too lightly. Someone had been murdered in the band room and all people worried about was next week's concert or how they would get their instruments out of the instrument room. They should be wondering why this happened, who did it, and are any of us in any danger here. At the very least have some respect for the dead Mr. Moreau.

"How'd you get in there anyhow?" asked Stephanie.

"The super-mega-secret-french-horns-only-entrance." he replied proudly.

"You know about that?" Ebony asked, while Crispy looked mildly shocked but more focused on the crime scene in the band room, both of them being horn players. It had been a french horn player who found the entrance behind the air conditioning unit when the building was first built. Though they were sure that the maintenance people knew about it, there was serious doubt as to whether anyone else did, so the secret was passed down, Senior to Junior, Junior to Sophmore and so on. No one other than a french horn player was ever told about the secret entrance, so it was no wonder why Crispy and Ebony were so surprised.

"How do you know?" Ebony asked in a lower tone.

"Well you know, I always wondered why french horn players always managed to retrieve their instruments, even when the doors were locked... so I followed one."

"Maybe that's how the killer got in. We should tell the police about it." Stephanie suggested.

"Probably not," said Crispy matter of factly. "The director was already in there, the doors would have been open. This... Phantom wouldn't have needed our secret entrance."

"Not secret anymore..." Ebony corrected grumpily.

Crispy thought for a moment and then said, "Brandon, you were in there. What exactly does it say on the wall?

"It says 'The Phantom of the Band Room is Here'... something like that." Ebony snorted at the previously stated lack of originality of the killer's title. Crispy ignored her.

"Was there anything else going on in there that we couldn't see from out here?"

"Yeah. Really interesting. There aren't any fingerprints... anywhere. Not even on the instruments. Completely wiped clean."

"That place is huge! How could anyone pull that off?"

"I know... I've never seen Josh's tuba so clean... ever."

Ebony broke in. "I guess practice is cancelled for a while,eh? Anyone want to go for pizza?" Crispy shot her a look that showed that she was clearly being insensitive to the situation.

"At a time like this all you guys seem to care about is the revealing of the stupid air duct. Think about it. Someone is dead. Does this not bother you at all?" Everyone looked guilty for a moment... except for Stephanie.

"I'm not sure exactly what you want us to do, Crispy. I mean, I know it's certainly not a good thing that's happened here, but there's nothing we can do about it. We can't bring him back to life, and it's not our job to burry him either."

"I just thought a little more reverance was in order."

Crispy was amazed by the swiftness with which the board of directors found a new music teacher, a rather obese man named Michael Gaylord. If Crispy was upset at her fellow students' reaction to Mr. Moreau's death it was nothing compared to her feelings about how they treated the new teacher. Sure she didn't like everything about him, but she and Mr. Moreau had never exactly gotten along either. If she heard one more slur on his name...

"Did you see his highlights? He looks even gayer now than he did before!" Ebony said gleefully one afternoon. Mr. Gaylord had sent everyone out for sectional practice. In the entire french horn section, Crispy seemed to be the only one to remember this. Everyone was discussing their objections to the new director's ways. Ebony was seated atop a picnic table with two others. A girl named Mallory was sprawled out in the grass. Nick, their section leader, was leaning angainst a nearby tree chatting with the only baritone player, Chris. Crispy was hidden behind several music stands writing a note in her music to remind herself not to play straight through Nick's solo. It didn't look any different from the rest of the piece, and she often missed the word 'solo' typed in tiny letters above it.

"Did you know he has a MySpace?" Mallory asked.

"No way? What does he have on it?"

"He says that every day since he started work here has been the worst day of his life."

Crispy looked up. "Small wonder, the way you all treat him." She picked up her horn and began to play Nick's solo, just to drown out the conversation. She thought it was one of the prettiest pieces she had heard in a long while and was immediately enveloped in her own sound. She had joined band because she needed another elective, but she stayed because she had lost her soul in music.

She suddenly found herself gripping only air. She looked up from her music to see Nick holding her horn and scowling.

"You really think you deserve to play that, Crispy?" he asked menacingly.

"Why shouldn't I?"

"You can't play it. You remember what happened last time you had the solo. Wouldn't you hate to be embarrassed again?" Crispy glared back. Two years ago, she had been a junior in high school and Nick had been a senior. Mr. Green passed out a new piece and without saying a word, gave Crispy the first part and Nick the second. Seeing his mistake, they switched music. The director turned back to them and said, "What did you do that for? I choose who plays which parts, not you." If that hadn't made Nick angry enough, he then saw that Crispy had a solo. At the concert several months later, Crispy found that she wasn't ready for a solo. She flubbed the entire thing. She was never given a first part again. How ironic that her enemy from so long ago had just so happened to attend her top choice college. If she'd have known it might not have been her top choice.

"Give me back my horn, Nick"

"Gollum want's his Precious? Fine." He tossed it back to her. She scrambled to catch it before it hit her music stands. "Freshmen horn anyhow. Don't know why you're so possessive of a piece of crap like that."

"Come on. He's just telling those old stories to make himself feel better. He probably feels threatened with you being new here and already being second chair. You've obviously improved a lot from then." Brandon was willing to try anything to make Crispy feel better. Crispy never really cried or got angry, she just became silent and hard and to him, that was infinitely worse.

"Actually I haven't." she said, almost monotone.

"You have though! I heard you play that solo he was talking about just yesterday. You sounded great."

"You don't understand. Stop please." How could he understand? He didn't know anything about this. They had only met this year.

"Make me understand then." he said stubbornly.

"I was able to play that solo back then too. No problem. My problem wasn't my skills. I was always better than Nick. I just get nervous..."

"That just takes practice, you know. One day you'll be used to it and you'll be like Valery Polekh or someone like that." Brandon hoped the mention of one of her favorite horn players might give her a little encouragement, but not so.

"Not if Nick has anything to say about it."