"Stay in step....stay in STEP!!!" Tyler yelled out as we marched along on the field outside the band hall. The drumline was playing their parts in the feature, marching along with it as we sweat. I never have been pushed like this before. I was sweating, my back aching, but I continued to play along with Dale as we crab stepped all the way to the 20 yard line from the 50.

Obviously, Tyler was not yelling at Dale and I. He was quite impressed with us, since we both knew our parts and could stay in step. Mostly with me, because I was new and could already do most of the things others couldn't do. He was yelling at Storm, who was playing amazing but always got out of step.

"Ok, stop, stop. FUCKING STOP!" Tyler yelled, throwing his sticks to the ground. I could tell Tyler was one hell of a angry person. We all stopped, Dale and I stopping a few feet away from them. We quickly removed our quads, sitting them on the ground.

Tyler was glaring at the bass drums, as the flat drums sat on the ground. I took a huge swish of water from my water bottle I had in my stick bag, Dale doing the same. Tyler started to belittle the bass drums as Dale grinned.

"To think that I'm actually gonna miss that guy." Dale said, as he laid back on the ground. I looked at Dale.

"He seems pretty nice." I said, laughing a little as I took another drink of water. I noticed Storm's face, which was filled with anger. He had the look of:

He doesn't know how hard it is.

Dale noticed too, and sighed. "I use to be like Storm, but once you see Tyler actually play, you'd be amazed."

"You told me he went to college for seven years just to play drums." I said, and Dale shook his head.

"He marched bass drum his first two years in high school, then switched to snare. He made center snare his senior year. He marched with the Bluecoats in between his sophomore and junior year. From his junior year until he reached the age out age, he marched with the Blue Devils for three years, being center snare for two. That's a pretty big accomplishment, if you ask me."

"Oh yea, he did do drum corp didn't he?"

"Yep..1985 to 1989. He's really talented with drums, it's a good thing he's our instructor. The only people he really can't fully attack is us. Mainly cause he's never played quints." Dale explained, taking a drink of his water.

"I can't believe he did that....did they win?"

"Eh, sometimes. He was disappointed in his age-out year mainly cause Santa Clara OWNED them in the World Championship. They earned the highest score in DCI history till Cavies took it in 2002." Dale explained, taking another drink of his water.

"I see. What about L? Did he march corp at all?" Dale smiled at that, a douchebag smile, but nodded.

"Yea. He marched with the Cadets around the same time Tyler marched with the Blue Devils. He became the Brass Caption head before he came here." He explained, and took another drink of his water bottle.

"Why is he so hostile against us though?" I asked, taking a drink of my water, and Dale laughed.

"Mainly cause we get all the attention away from the brass. You go to a band competition, ask a average Joe why they are there, and they'll say, 'for the drums of course!', you never hear anything about the brass unless the person has played a brass instrument or a woodwind. Atleast, thats what we know. You see Zane, we are the pulse of the band. The beat, we keep them alive. Without us, they wouldn't know what to do."

I was pretty shocked to see how important the drumline was to the band, especially to hear we were the pulse. In 8th grade, first year I joined, everyone said the drums were looked down upon, that no one liked them cause they sucked.

"What about that nub of his?"

Dale sat there and took a drink of his water, emptying the bottle. He then shrugged.

"No one knows, only the seniors he trust most do. They all graduated. He hates us, remember?" He said, and threw the bottle across the ground, and I then remembered what L brought up, and I decided to ask the simple question.

"What happened your sophomore year?"

"Nothing you need to know at the moment. Maybe some other time." He quickly answered, not even glancing at me. I, however, decided not to go on with my questioning, I didn't want to make Dale mad at me.

"Quints, get the hell up off the ground!" Tyler yelled at us, and I sighed deeply as I stood up. Today is going to be a long day.

"So..."

Dale, Richie, David, and I were sitting at a four person table in the cafeteria. It was dinner time, and the band was all conversating while the four of us sat there in silence.

You see, the three of them had a bet. They would see who could hold their breath the longest, then whoever holds it the longest gets to choose what my first stage of freshmen inclusion in the drumline.

There are three basic stages for being included in the drumline for a freshman, which, in this line, doesn't happen very often. Here is how it goes.

1. Embarrass the freshmen

2. Beat the freshmen

3 Test the freshmen

I never expected what kind of things they were gonna do. I was just sitting there, watching in utter silence. I then shrugged, got up, and started to walk away. The three didn't seem to mind, since they were to focused on beating each other.

I sighed deeply as I walked out of the bustling room to see a bunch of other freshmen outside. I blinked as they all stared at me. Some glaring, others just looking.

"Uh, hi guys." I said, waving a little bit, while some of them scoffed.

"So just because you are the newest quint player, you think you can talk down to us?" said a skinny boy with light brown hair, freckles on his face.

"What the hell? I never said anything descending. I just said hi. If you want to be a prick then screw you then." I said, defending myself from the strange outburst.

The boy came up and got up in my face, and I just sat there, staring at him. "You wanna say that to my face?" He asked, and I just blinked.

"What the hell is your problem?"

"Jason, back off." I heard a voice say, and I looked over to see a girl with long, curly brown hair, and holding a clarinet. She had emerald green eyes, and had a angry look on her face. The boy, Jason, just kept staring at me.

"No, this kid is such a dick! I'm not-"

"Jason, you're only doing this because you're jealous." The curly hair girl said, and I just looked at her.

"Jealous of what?" I said, walking past Jason, who just turned and glared at me behind my back, I could feel it. I just ignored him.

"How you're so popular with the seniors already." The girl said, smiling a bit. "All our section leaders did after rehearsing was ask about you."

"Why? I'm not that special." I said, pretty confused.

"You got that right..." Jason muttered. I heard him, as did most of the other freshmen. There were a solid fifteen of us. Not a huge freshmen class.

"I don't know, Langely said he heard you play and that you are good. We don't know, we haven't seen you yet." The girl said, but then gasped. "Oh I'm sorry, I'm being so rude. My name is Raquel, I'm a freshmen clarinet. Nice to meet you!" She said, smiling, and I smiled back.

"Nice to meet you."

"Now, let me introduce you to our group!" I sighed, hoping she didn't mean the whole freshmen group, but a group of people stepped out from the others, while the other freshmen returned to their business. "That jerk right there is Jason, freshmen trumpet player." Jason just scoffed, crossing his arms.

"Thats Brittany, she's really cool! She's a really good trumpet player." Brittany smiled at me and waved. She had long, straightened blonde hair, and a wonderful smile.

"That's Rose, she's our little flute and her partner in crime Nil!" Rose was a small girl, tan, and had the prettiest light green eyes. She smiled at me, saying hello. Nil was a tad bigger, and had short black hair, she waved.

"That's Anna, she's in the pit section." I looked at the dirty blonde, tan girl wearing shorts. She had big, brown eyes, and her body was slender. She was cute, and she winked at me. I just blushed.

"That's Jessica, she's a clarinet, like me!" A short, plump girl with long curly hair waved at me, and I smiled.

"That's Alex, our tenor sax! He's really cool." A boy with short brown hair smiled at me, holding his hand out. I took it and shook it. He had freckles all over his face, and big lips.

"Nice to meet you dude!" Alex said, and I nodded back.

"So that's our group. Oh and Storm would be with us but he's hanging with TJ. He got held back with us so he's not really close to us when he's around TJ." Raquel explained, and I was pretty surprised.

"He was held back?"

"Yea, and if I recalled, before he got held back he went for quints with Dale. But Dale didn't like his playing and plus Storm got held back." Raquel explained, and she sighed. "He wouldn't stop whining about it."

Jason laughed a little bit. "Yea, and now you got them. Mr. Perfect."

"Jason, dude, just, shut the hell up." Alex said, and crossed his arms. "Zane is only being talked about cause no one met him before hand, you need to calm down."

"So why are you guys out here? Shouldn't you be hanging out in there?" I asked, and Raquel laughed.

"No, because we'll be attacked. I thought you came out of here because of that?" She asked, and I shook my head.

"Nah, I came out because Dale, Richie, and David are being stupid." I said, and that made Brittany gasp.

"You're hanging out with them?"

"Yea, whats the big deal?" I asked, and Rose just stared at me in shock.

"They are the three coolest guys in band, with Langely and Nick coming in afterwards."

"Oh. There just guys to me." I said, and Raquel shook her head.

"Let's stop talking about that! Let's talk about something else, something-"

She was cut off when the door open, David came out, smiling evilly and holding a snare stick. "So, I won. And I decided to skip step one and go to step two. So I'll give you five seconds."

I gulped and started to run quickly, and David chased after me. You see, the snare stick we had is a Vic Firth Corpsmaster, and its huge. Alot bigger than a normal stick, and it would be hurt to be beaten with it.

All the other freshmen were yelling for me, telling me to go faster. Of course, I easily out ran David, and I smiled at victory, however, was caught by Dale, who hold me back.

"Come on now, we only have to do this once! We all have to go through it, accept it!' Dale said, laughing, while I struggled to get free from his grip. However, it was useless, and David walked up, breathing heavily.

"All...that...running is gonna...cost....you extra...." David said, smacking the stick in his hand. I let out a yell.

David swung the stick.

"Ow. OW!" I yelled out as Raquel picked the splinter out of my arm, and she sighed.

"You atleast took it, didn't scream once. I'm impressed. We all are." Raquel said, smiling at me, trying to make the situation better. I laughed a little.

"Thanks for trying, but I'm still pissed." I said, laughing a while Raquel laughed along with me. She was such a kind person, and I was shocked to find she was my first friend outside of drumline in this band. She smiled at me, her very sweet smile.

"So are you all working on the drum feature?" Raquel asked, and I nodded.

"Yea, it's a pretty rough feature. I can't really release details, but it's gonna be pretty cool to perform it for you guys." I said, and her smile widened.

"Yea, we get to hear you guys play with us tomorrow! Have you guys learned the opener? We are setting it tomorrow and playing it standing still." She said, and I shook my head.

"Tyler has mainly got us looking at the feature. Because in difficultly, it's worse than the opener. What about you guys?"

"We got up to measure 52, then stopped because he wanted to talk to us about the importance of our role in the band. He says you guys are really full of yourselves, but I don't see that in you." She said, and I laughed.

"Yea, I can see Dale thinking he's better than everyone."

"Hey, Zane!" Raquel and I looked up to see Storm, who was running towards us. He stopped, and he crossed his arms. "We were wondering where you were, it's almost curfew. Dale says that we get the bottom bunks."

"Bottom bunks?"

"Yea, we get bunk beds. Dale already picked it out for us. We need to get going." I nodded, and I looked at Raquel, smiling.

"Thank you for helping me." Raquel just nodded, smiling, but then quickly grabbed her phone and gave it to me.

"Put your number in, I'll text you mine." She said, and I did so. I then handed it to her, and she smiled.

"Thank you, I'll see you tomorrow! Bye Zane!"

"Bye Raquel."

She smiled at me and ran off, while Storm and I stood there. He then looked at me, shook his head, and walked off. "What?" I asked, following him, and he laughed.

"Nothing, just picking at ya. We've never been introduced, have we? Name's Storm, Storm Green, nice to meet you Zane." He said, and I nodded a greeting to him.

"Nice meeting you too."

"So how long have you been playing drums?" He asked, and I sighed.

"A year."

"Oh, I've been playing for about eight. I'm a trap set player, see? I love set, it's the best. I joined drumline cause....of drums." He said, laughing his strange loud 'ha ha ha', while I laughed along with him.

"That's cool dude. I play guitar and drums, I'm really enjoying playing quints, though." I said, and he nodded.

"Yea man, I love bass. It's the shit. By the way, if you hear this crap about me hating you for play quints, I don't. I don't want to put up with Dale's shit, anyway. He's a real asshole, so is all the other seniors. You'll learn that, soon enough."

I just blinked as we walked to a dorm out in the middle of the woods. We walked past various trees, and I looked at Storm.

"Why are we going out here?"

"This is the famous drumline dorm room. Only five drummers can be picked from there. We're lucky to be there."

We kept walking until we reached a big building. The door was white, a very bright white. All the other doors were completely green. But this door, it was odd. The door was close, but had one of those, what do you call them, sliding eye things? I didn't know. When we got up to the white door, and Storm knocked, and a pair of eyes popped out. It was David.

"What's the password?" He asked in a creepy, throaty voice.

"You never told me there was a password!!!" Storm yelled, banging on the door.

"Ah, little freshmen, there is always a password for this door, come now, take a guess..." He repeated, and Storm just sighed.

"Taco?"

"Why the FUCK would it be taco?" David asked in his normal voice.

"I don't know!!!" Storm yelled, and then David slammed open the door, hitting Storm in the face. I just sat there and watched, chuckling a bit, as Storm glared at David.

"Fuck you!"

"No, fuck you!!"

"Both of you, shut up." Richie said, walking out. He then saw me. "Hey Zane," he looked down on the ground to see Storm holding his now bloody nose. "hey Storm."

"Hey Storm? I have a bloody nose asshole!"

"Storm! Shut up!" I heard Dale yell, and I shrugged, helping Storm up. David let use through, and we walked into the dorm.

It had four bunk beds, one bed pressed up against the wall at the end of the room. It said: "Zane's bed." And the one on the far left of the room said: "Storm's bed."

"So, Zane, have a crush on Raquel?" David asked, laying on his bed, bringing out a Maxim magazine, as I walked over to my bed, checking for my clothes.

"No, we just met today. She's a nice girl." I said, and Richie laughed.

"Yea, to Christian for me though. Can't tap that." Richie said, laughing, as Dale just shrugged.

"Who knows, preacher's daughters are usually the easiest." Dale said, and David held up his finger.

"Song leader." He corrected, and Dale just looked at him while David didn't take his eye off his magazine.

"What?"

"He's a song leader. Not a preacher."

"Same difference." Dale said, while David snickered.

"A preacher preaches. A song leader singes." He said, trying to make a rhyming joke, while Dale just threw a random magazine at the snare, who's magazine was hit out of his hand.

"Asshole I was looking at friken Heidi Klum!!"

"Anyway, how was your first day guys? Zane seemed to have made alot of friends, seeing all those freshmen stalk him." Richie said, smirking, while I just shrugged.

"I guess. One got all up in my face though." I said, unpacking my stuff, while the four others just laid back.

"Who?" Dale asked, and I shrugged.

"Some trumpet player named Jason."

"Oh, that little prick. He's so disrespectful." Richie said, and Dale nodded in agreement.

"Yea, he thinks hes the shit for playing a solo at middle school Ratings. Sounded like complete shit to me." Dale said, and I shrugged.

"Who cares. I just ignore him."

All of a sudden, the door opened, and Tyler walked in.

"Ladies, you all should be getting some shut eye! You realize you wake up at 5 am?"

"Yea Tyler, we know." Dale said, and Tyler laughed.

"Good! Zane, Storm, you two are doing good. Keep it up. Talk to you all tomorrow! I have to go write." He said, walking out, while Dale sighed, getting up as soon as the door closed.

I laid in my bed as Dale turned off the lights. "Now we have a tradition. Weird, but heres how it goes. You have to do it." Dale said, the two of us freshmen listened. "Whoever name gets said last, you have to say night to the others. I'll begin."

"Night Zane, Richie, David, and Storm." Dale said, yawning as he got into his bunk.

"Night Dale, Zane, David, and Richie." Storm said, then I heard him ruffle around, probably to get in a more comfortable position. These bunks weren't that comfortable. Better than the floor, I guess.

"Night Dale, David, Storm, and Zane." Richie said, and I sighed.

"Good night Dale, Richie, Storm, and David."

Silence.

"David?"

Still silence.

"David why the hell won't you say good night?" Dale asked, and all of a sudden we heard David yell.

"Dammit can't a guy masterbate in peace!?!"

"DUDE!" We all yelled, then adding numerous insults to him, while David laughed.

"Jeez I was joking. Night dudes!"

We all sighed, and I laid back, staring at the darkness. First day went by pretty well...hopefully tomorrow will be alot better.

Then again, I have been wrong before.