Note: Thank you to Pengin-Alchemist for your review, I greatly appreciate it. As for anyone else who has stumbled upon my story and happened to read it, I would be ever so pleased if you could leave a reply, just so I can at least have some feed back on my work. Even if it's to just say that my work sucks and I should discontinue writing because I'm so awful, I'd like to hear it. And now that I'm done with my psuedo-ranting, I'll get on to the actual story. ("Get on with it!")

Another Note: Just for the sake of information, so you are not confused, the story at the moment is set at about the end of July, beginning of August, and Band camp starts the second week of August, from the seventh to the eleventh. (Being the dork that I am, I'm following my own school's band camp schedule, to save myself any complecations on how the schedule works later. Also, it works out wince this story is comprised of events from my own band and my own strange imagination. Go figure. :P )

Chapter Two: The Result A.K.A. Laughing Stock

There are moments. Every person who has one can agree with me when I say this. In life, there are many moments...

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha! You dork! You stupid idiot, this is priceless! Friggin' priceless! Ah ha ha ha ha ha!"

...When you want to kill your older sibling in slowest, most painful way possible.

I was having one of these moments.

"Can you please just shut up..." I grumbled, clenching my drumsticks even tighter while my asshole of a brother, Leo, just kept laughing his head off. I swear to god, I was just sitting there, hoping that it was true that you could laugh yourself to death, and that his death came soon. Either that, or that he ran out of air soon, because his laughing was pissing me off even more.

"My brother...ha ha ha!...My drum-obsessed younger...ha ha!...brother...ha ha ha ha!...is going to be a marching band cheerleader!" This apparently made it even funnier, because his laughs started to come out even harder, making her bend over holding his stomach, bending over so far I thought her was going to tumble out of the chair and land on his head on the linoleoum(sp?) floor of our kitchen. I was close to pushing him.

"God, what am I going to do..." I groaned, putting my drumsticks on the back of my head and pulling on them, a hand on each end, which kept my head bent forward. "How am I going to explain this to the band director? How do you explain accidentally joining the color guard?"

But my brother wasn't listening. He was still laughing his twenty-four-year-old head off, leaning back in his chair with his head thrown back, so that the laughs were echoing throughout the whole house.

At this point, though, I couldn't blame him. Sure, his laughing pissed me off, but if it had happened to him-or, to anyone else for that matter-I'd be doing the same thing. This situations would pretty much be the equivelant of a pro football player joining the cheerleading squad. Actually, screw the "pretty much". It's the same situation with different sports.

And I had done nothing to help my situation. In fact, I didn't even do anything to make it worse either. No, instead, I just...

Ran away.

Yup. I didn't say anything to clear my name. Didn't do anything to clear up the mistake. I didn't even make the situation worse by saying something to dig my hole deeper. I just turned around and walked out of the room, then ran down the hall and drove away as fast as I possibly could. It wasn't until I spotted a police car did I remember the speed limit. Good job, pat myself on the back.

All that running away stuff is pretty much a blur to me now. I know what I did, but I can't remember actually doing it. The whole stretch of time between me accidentally agreeing to be a cheerleader-well, that is what color guard girls are, aren't they?-and then seeing the police car after speeding away was a great big blur. It's kind of like when you wake up in the middle of the night to get something to eat, then just go back and fall asleep; You know what you did, but can't actually remember the details.

Actually, I'm still hoping that this is a bad dream. I know it's a steryotypic response and all, but it would make my life just so much easier, and I could just have a good laugh at it and go on with life as it should be, joining the marching band as I should, in the drumline. But it's been two days and I still haven't woken up, so hope for that is starting to diminish.

"But, no, seriously, I need to know...how exactly did this happen?" My brother had actually composed himself to stop laughing and actually ask a question, which broke me out of my own reverie. "I mean, you're obsessed with that stupid drum. I'm surprised you didn't just bring it with you so you could walk in and show off to everyone before you even signed up. What, were you stoned or something?"

I sighed, letting go of my drumsticks with one hand, letting them drop to my lap as I ran my free hand through my hair. "I dunno. I was just about to tell the band director to sign me up for the drumline, when this girl walked in with all these poles-"

"Wait, wait, WAIT!" Leo suddenly interupted, holding his hands up, making me freeze in place for a moment. "I swear to god, if you tell me that you signed up to be a cheerleader for a skirt-"

"Hell no!" I exclaimed, slamming my drumsticks on the kitchen table as I stood up, before composing myself with a breath, sitting down again. "Come on! You know I'd never give up my drum for some girl. And I would never sacrifice my pride and join color guard for one! Jeez, I'm not you..." I muttered, rolling my eyes a bit.

My brother was a certified playboy. It makes me sick to think of, even to this day. He has been known to go to extreme lengths to get a pretty girl, which was actually the reason he started playing football in the first place; He apparently thought it was a great way to impress girls. When he was in high school, I don't believe I ever saw the same girl come home with him for longer than a month. And the girls he went out with...jeez, I think he went out with at least one girl from every clique in the school, from every grade. It doesn't help that his looks are great, either. He's tall, about six-foot-four, with a good crop of light brown hair, and dark green eyes that seem to be made for having girls fall in love with them. While I'm not bad looking, next to him, I just look even more childish, with my messy dark brown hair, plain green eyes, and a slightly crooked smile. It's not like I'm girl-crazy like him or anything, but it is a bit irritating when you're constantly approached by girls who would never give you a second glance otherwise who just want to get information on your brother. It didn't happen often, since he was in college by the time I got to high school, but it's still a bit annoying when senior girls start trying to be friends with you so they can see him when he comes home on weekends.

"Ok, fine, maybe it wasn't for the girl. But then how does she come into the picture exactly?" Leo asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Well, I was about to tell the teacher that I wanted to join the drumline, when this girl dropped all these metal poles on the ground behind me. I got kind of distracted by it and before I realized it, I had signed up for the color guard," I explained, realizing how ridiculous it sounded, even to myself. Apparently moreso for my brother, because it just brought along another round of booming laughs.

It was then that the doorbell wrang. It was a bit of a surprise since we were still pretty new to the area and we weren't expecting anyone.

"Who the hell could that be...hey, cheerleader, you answer it!" Leo said, chuckling to himself at his own little personal joke. I glared at him, but got up anyways, walking to the door. By the time I got to the door, the bell wrang again. Whoever it was, they certainly were impatient.

"Calm down, already, I'm coming..." I muttered a bit sourly as I unlocked the door and opened it. "Yes, can I help-" But I stopped speaking the moment I saw who it was.

Her hair was different, and she wasn't scowling or holding any poles, but it was her-the girl who had distracted me enough to join the color guard. Anna something or another. Her hair was tied back this time into a ponytail, exposing her whole face, which was stuck in a surprised expression. I had been right in guessing that she was pretty small, because even though she seemed to be about my age, she couldn't have been more that five foot, possibly five foot one. She was dressed in knee-lengthed baggy jean shorts and a black tank top with a tan skull and cross-bones on it, surrounded by a white circle, along with black flip-flops with blue crossing straps.

There was a paused moment of silence between us both, both of us probably too surprised to speak. Just as I was about to break the silence, a weird, muffled sound came from her, like she was trying to keep from laughing, which took me aback a little.

"Well well..." She said, biting her lip a little to keep from laughing as a slow, sly smile spread across her lips. "If it isn't the color guard boy...I wasn't expecting to see you for another two weeks, at least, but look at my luck!" It was then that she let out a low chuckle, shaking her head a little. Great. More people laughing in my face. It kind of made me afraid to actually go to band camp, because then I'd have to face all those other people who were bound to laugh at me. Hey, that would be my reaction if I wasn't the one in this certain situation. Sneering, teasing, laughing...Call me cruel, but that's just how it is. And just what I'm expecting.

"Can I help you with something?" I ground out, trying to keep from telling her to just shut up and buzz off.

"Eh?" She said, her chuckling stopped, a thoughtful look appearing on her face. "Oh yeah, I came here for a reason, didn't I...What was it again..."

All I could do was stare at her. What kind of girl was she?

It was then she seemed to remember that she was holding something, and looked down at it. It was a paper plate with what looked to be brownies on it, wrapped in plastic wrap. "Oh yeah...I was bringing these over, wasn't I?" She then laughed, rubbing the back of her neck.

'What in the world...?' I thought to myself as I just kept staring at her, when I then felt a hand on my shoulder.

"Now, Mark, don't you know that it's rude to stare?" Leo said smugly as I looked up at him sharply. "You'll frighten the poor girl away."

"Leo, shut-!"

"It's alright," She said, shrugging, smiling a little. "I was just going to drop these off and go home."

"Sorry for Mark's rudeness. He's such a dunce when it comes to talking to girls, I have no idea who he gets it from," Leo said, turning his charm on like a light switch. My urge to strangle him just kept getting stronger and stronger.

"It's no problem," She said, shoving the plate into my hands before starting to turn around, waving a little as she did. "Well, it was nice to meet you. Oh yeah, and before I forget..." She then reached into her back pocket, pulling out a folded up packet of white paper, tossing it to me. "That's practice and band camp schedules. Copy it and then give it back. I live right across the street." She then half smiled, chuckling a little before turning around, walking down the steps and across the front yard. "See you there..."

I was still kind of frozen as she kept walking, and was only snapped out when Leo closed the door in my face, making me stumble back. "Hey!"

"Don't tell me that's the skirt that made you woozy enough to sign up for color guard? Jeez..." He let out a mock sigh as he turned around, walking away before I could even say anything in response, leaving me standing in the front hall with a plate of brownies in one hand and a folded up schedule in another.

Well, that's the second chapter! I hope you all enjoyed it, so now, R&R!

This was dreadfully painful for me to write TT