Tyler and I hurried towards the school. "So where do you keep your bari?" He asked, glancing over at me.

"I put it right in that hallway as soon as you walk in the main doors. So I will have to circle around that way. So if your alto is somewhere else…"

"Nah, it's right beside the main doors." He gave me a small smile as we walked past the back of the red brick building, circling around to the front. "This school is way too big. I'm going to get lost on the first day of school, and I am probably just going to go to the band room to hide out."

"I might be joining you then." I gave a small chuckle. "I want my old school back. It was smaller, but not too small. You know what I mean?"

"Yeah." Tyler's eyes glazed over for a brief moment. "My old school was like half this size. The biggest graduating class we ever had was ninety-three kids, but that was a huge year. Usually the classes have about sixty-five kids, on average."

I felt my jaw pop open. "My school was smaller than this, by about half. But we had around a hundred kids in every grade, and I thought we were a small school! But about a sixth of the entire school was in marching band, and there were about a hundred and fifty kids in concert band."

Tyler scratched the back of his neck, a blush spreading up to his face. "Yeah, our marching band had around… a tenth of the school. And concert band had around sixty kids in it. All the sports teams seemed more important at my old school, even the baseball team that sucked and the track team that never went to any meets."

I gave a small smile of pity, trying to imagine a place where marching band fell behind everything else. Even behind things as mundane as baseball or track. The thought couldn't rise to my mind. Our band programs were always well-provided for, and almost any time our old director asked for new equipment, we were granted it. The best time had been when our Jazz Band had traveled to New York City to play. I had loved hanging out with my older friends on that trip. Plus we had gotten to see two shows on Broadway, which almost gave me a heart attack.

"Melody?" I saw a hand wave around in front of my face, and then a light chuckle. "Somebody's being a tad bit spacey today."

I gave a light laugh, shaking my head to myself minutely. "I'm always that spacey. My old section leader used to tease me for it and let it slide, but the old drum major would give me laps for it. He hated me."

"Awe, don't say that." Tyler put his arm around my shoulder, walking in step with me. "How could anybody hate you?"

I grimaced at the thought of the old drum major, the hateful senior he was. My face gave a twitch as I let the horrible memory surface.

It was the first day of band camp, eighth grade, and my last year at Valley-Center, though I didn't know it at the time. I felt the small beads of sweat blooming on my forehead, feeling the weight of the bari pulling down my entire left arm, almost allowing the case to drag along the concrete outside the steps into the music wing.

I gave a huff of a sigh as I mounted the steps, finally reaching the top. I opened one of the large double doors, almost to smack into somebody, not being able to tell who it was but still able to see the shine and keys of a saxophone. I was rebounded, and looked up into the smiling eyes of Calvin. I couldn't prevent the huge grin from spreading across my face. I set down my sax case and wrapped my arms around his torso in a huge hug. "I missed you, bro." I felt my smile widening past the breaking point.

"I missed you too, little sis." I could feel him smiling into the top of my hair. "Guess who got head section leader this year?"

"Yay!" I began jumping up and down. "What happened to Ste-"

"He got head drum major." A grimace passed over Calvin's child-like features.

I stopped, mid-jump, and I felt my eyes widen. "Steve is replacing my brother as head drum major? What the hell is wrong with Mr. Camden?"

Calvin looked down at me, seeing the rage spreading across my face. "I know you hate Steve. It's okay, since almost everyone does. But at least you don't have to deal with him as much as you did last year. Oops." He had shifted his feet and accidentally bumped his toe against my sax case. "Oh my God! Is that a bari?"

I let out a tad bit of a girly shriek and clapped my hands together. "Yes, yes, yes! My dad let me pick out the bari for my Bat Mitzvah! I was so excited! It plays great."

"Name it yet?" There was a hopeful light behind Calvin's blue eyes.

"Nah, not yet." I gave him a tiny smile. "I wanted to wait until camp to have a christening ceremony."

"We must name it Carl!" He cried, throwing both his hands in the air, letting his tenor sax dangle from his neck strap. He placed his right hand, fingers facing towards me, on his upper lip. He began to wiggle his fingers around, and in a high-pitched voice, he said, "I have a moustache! And my moustache's name is Carl!"

I picked up my sax case, and we both turned around to walk into the music wing, but were stopped by a towering figure. He had his arms crossed over his chest, whistle dangling directly above his arms. His pale blonde hair was hidden under his marching band cap, puny arms sticking out from the sleeves of his white band t-shirt like two twigs, his legs white as his shirt from under his blue jean shorts.

"Calvin. Good job getting section leader. You have a lot to live up to. I hope the saxes don't suffer under your skills." The older boy said icily.

"Steve, we'll do just fine and you know it." Calvin gave a huff of a sigh as he put his right hand on his hip.

"That's what they all say, Calvin. And I don't want the saxes to be sub-par. You are going to win Section of the Year, like you have for the past two years, under my leadership. You better hold up to the traditions." He gave my best friend a once-over, his nose wrinkling in disgust. He then looked at me, and his unforgiving gray eyes widened. His voice boomed out and echoed around us, "Put that saxophone away. Now. Why did you take it?"

"It's mine!" I couldn't help the accusing tone from seeping into my voice.

"No, it's not. Bari isn't for weak little girls. Why would you have one?"

I felt Calvin's hand on my shoulder, tightening his grip, begging silently for me to not lose my temper. "I'm not weak, Steve. You know that for a fact. I'm way stronger than I look. I've been playing the bari all summer. I'm going to play it, and there's nothing you can do to stop me."

"Is that what you say, Williamson?" His voice rose in volume, louder than I was used to. "Well, for that attitude… Five laps around the school!"

"We never give anyone more than three laps, Steve." Calvin said in a pleading voice. "You know that. It was you that made that rule."

"I made the rules, so I can change them." His face broke into a sneer. "And you better keep quiet, Calvin, or you know for a fact your section leadership can be taken away faster than you can play the B flat concert scale. Now, Williamson, go, or I'll up you laps. Leave your sax for Calvin to take inside."

I felt the heat reach my face, and I vowed myself that I wouldn't start screaming. So I calmly set down the bari case, took a few deep breaths, and took off a slow jog. "Faster, Williamson!" Steve's voice carried through the dry air. "Don't make me up your laps!"

The tears were ready to pour out of my eyes as I turned my head and saw Steve stride the whole way back into the music wing, Calvin following dejectedly behind him like some horrible lackey. I didn't even feel like wiping the tears away from my cheeks, feeling my rage built up, knowing I had to let it out somehow.

That was the first day I knew for certain I hated Steve Carleey, junior, alto saxophone player turned drum major, and a general pain in my ass.

"Melody?" I heard an already-familiar voice say through a chuckle, "Are Mondays your days to space out superbly or something? You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." I wiped the back of my hand under my eyes, making sure all the trace amounts of salty tears were gone. "I was just remembering something painful."

As soon as the words slipped out of my mouth, I cringed to myself. How could something painful to me compare to the pain Tyler had gone through? He was quiet as he pulled open the door into the hallway where there were dozen of instrument cases piled. As he opened his mouth to speak, I thought he was going to make a comment about pain, but instead he said, "I wonder where all the other sections went. I see a ton of different kinds of cases in here."

I let out a breath of relief, glad that he had avoided his own painful topic. "I don't know, actually. They are probably hanging out around this school somewhere. You could probably wander around here for over an hour and never set foot in the same hallway."

"Yeah, I have to agree with you on that one." Tyler muttered, walking over to a group of sax cases.

I tagged behind him, watching as he went down on one knee to examine the tags sticking off from the cases. I walked a bit further down the hallway and saw my bari case sandwiched in between a huge pile of trombone cases and what appeared to be a tower of clarinet cases. I grasped the handle for the case and carefully maneuvered my way out from between the precariously placed instruments.

I walked back over and kneeled beside Tyler as he opened the latches on a case with peeling edges. He took out the alto, sitting down on the ground, sax in his lap. I pulled up the Velcro on the side of my case, and I took a deep breath as I let the case fall open, revealing my sax.

Tyler glanced over as I inhaled, and his eyes lit up as they saw my sax. "Dude, it's times like this I wish I had learned how to play the bari. That's freakin' amazing. How did your dad find one of those?"

"He owned the music shop back in my old town. He gave woodwind lessons, too. He's my hero. I love him a lot." I said, taking out the neck and shining it on the hem of my shirt. "What about your dad?"

Tyler swallowed and glanced over at me. "My dad…" He stopped, and blinked for a moment. "My dad isn't around anymore. My mother isn't with us anymore either. Our entire family was coming home from a trip to the beach three summers ago. My dad and my mother were in the front seat. Joey and I were in the middle row, the one with the gap in between the seats. Evan was in the back, right behind me, and Brie was in the middle of the back seat, but she wasn't buckled in because it made her feels nauseous."

"Brie? Who's Brie?" Confusion pierced my voice.

Tyler looked over at me with a hard, pained look on his face. "Brie was our younger sister. She would have been going into eighth grade this year."

"Oh." I felt my face drop as I got my reed out of the case.

"Something happened… To this day, none of us know exactly what happened. But one minute, we were driving along down the freeway. The next thing we know, our van is at the bottom of a ravine, and it seems like the entire world is on fire around us. The last thing I remember was Brie flying past me and I heard the windshield shatter. Then… Everything was gone."

He paused in his recollection to rub his clenched fist under his right eye. "When I woke up, my dad's parents were standing there, bawling. That was the worst time of my life. We went to live with them up until this past year, when Gram died and Gramps didn't think he could take care of us anymore. So we had to come live with our other grandparents here. I really wish-"

But he cut himself off when the door opened, and we both busied ourselves around our cases. "Hurry up, you two. You should have been ready by now." Jesse boomed as I pulled on my neck strap and put my reed on my mouthpiece.

Reaching into the case, I pulled out the bari with my right hand under the thumb rest, bringing it up and allowing it to click on my neck strap. I stood up quickly, letting my case shut itself behind me.

"Go back outside to warm up." Jesse sneered at me from beneath his sunglasses, the right side of his lips curling up to near his nose.

I brushed right past him, carefully pushing my mouthpiece to the position where I knew it would be tuned.

As I walked back towards the tree, I began playing part of the song I had played to get into District Jazz back at Valley-Center, the song I had played so much I had memorized it. I felt the sax thrum under my fingers, since it had only been picked it up once since we had moved into the new house a month ago. I hadn't realized the withdrawal I had been having until that very instant.

Jesse's eyes were boring holes into my back, I could tell that even from this distance. But who cared? The smile playing at the corners of my mouth widened.

Take that one, Jesse McGowan.

A/N: Reviews and constructive criticism are really appreciated. I will give you metaphorical cookies! Plus, I finally discovered I am not the only bandie at my school who is on here. *Cough*Tab*Cough* ;D