Chapter 6
"Listen up!" Brad said as we walked into the classroom. I think the glee kids had club earlier today because all the seats were empty. Still though, we huddled into the corner. "This week the glee club is having little duet competition and I figured we could do the same. You'll still be helping them with accompaniment but I figured it's about time that we do something fun. You can all form up into groups or go solo, your choice, but the groups can only be a max of four people in a group."
Jonathan, one of the brass players, rose his hand. "Will there be a prize?" You could see the glimmer of hope in his eyes.
Brad smiles. "The winner, or winners, gets a solo at regional."
This caught all of our attention. All the bands at McKinley High did really well in competitions, it was just that they all went unnoticed by the school because band wasn't a sport. We still had some amount of respect, we weren't considered cool but no one was gonna go slushie us over it.
Ben, Autumn, Thaddeus, and I all looked at each other. All the jazz band kids were good but we all knew we were better and most likely gonna win. I mean we would never admit that we thought that way but… I don't know we've just been doing this from a very young age and practice almost every night. We don't practice because we need to but because we love it that much, playing is almost like second nature for us.
Ugh, now I feel self centered.
"I'll leave you all to discuss." Brad says and walks over to his piano.
We all gather. "What song are we gonna do?" Autumn asks.
"We should do Broadway." Ben suggests.
"YAS!" I second.
Thaddeus scrunches up his face. "What? No. We should do just a normal song. Why not one from All Time Low, or something like that?"
I sigh. "I guess Broadway would be sort of hard to do. You know, with all the singing and stuff."
"That and no one would probably recognize any of the ones you and Ben pick out." Thaddeus adds.
"Wow Thaddeus. Harsh." Ben says, dramatically gripping his heart.
"So what are we gonna do? We've got a guitarist, a trumpet, a drummer, and a flute. that's not exactly a traditional band." Autumn says, laughing.
"Well, let's see. Autumn plays guitar, harp, and tambourine; Ben plays trumpet and piano; Thaddeus can play anything percussion; and I play flute, violin, and cello. I think that if we want to do a bandish song it should be something involving these." I say.
"Oh my God!" Thaddeus cries out.
"What?" Ben, Autumn, and I say all at once.
"We can do the Game of Thrones theme song thing!" He exclaims and quickly pulls it up on his phone for us to listen.
This time Ben, Autumn, and I say, "Oh my God."
"We have to do that." says Ben.
"It was so epic!" Autumn adds.
"We'll need to find other people though. Maybe change some of the violin parts to guitar and piano." I explain.
"Yeah!" Ben says. "I don't even care about the solo anymore. We just need to make this happen."
I just high-five him, Ben is my spirit animal.
We all quickly walk over to the other groups. Thaddeus calls out to one of his drummer friends, I think his name was Arnold Lenz. "Hey Arnold!"
"Oh sup." Arnold turns back.
"I've got an idea." He says as we walk off to go talk to other groups.
Ben then goes to walk over to Tyler Sandvan. "Hey Ty!"
Then Autumn quickly ran off to go talk to Katherine Currier. "Kat."
As they're talking to the other groups I walk over to Mitchell Keough and his group. "Hey Mitch." I say while walking up to him.
He turns around. "Oh Ella! How are you?"
"Good. How about you?"
"Great." This is so awkward. "Anyways my group and I came up with an idea to go and play the Game of Thrones theme song with all the other groups. What do you say?"
"What about the solos?" One of Mitch's groupmates, Shermone Holmes, says.
"I guess we could always audition for them like we normally would." I shrug. "It's only if you guys want to. No pressure or anything."
"We'll think about it." Mitch smiles.
"Sounds good." I say while walking back to my friends. Mitch was pretty attractive. Not gonna lie. He was pretty pale and lacked muscle but was still very tall and had an amazing jaw line. Like damn. He has these green eyes that just make you want to swoon. Ok I need to control myself. But his brown hair. Ugh! Ella! Calm down!
Ben looks over at me and winks as I walk up to him. "Shut up." Ben knows I like Mitch. But I only like him a bit. Definitely not enough to want to go out with him, but enough to be like, you have a nice face. … I hate myself right now.
"So? Are they in?' He asks.
"They're thinking about it." I answer.
"Who all did you talk to?"
"Mitch, Shermone Holmes, and Jonathan Watson."
"Oh! Shermone is amazing at the violin!" Autumn adds in.
"And John is a pretty decent trumpet player." Ben continues.
"Who did you guys all talk to?" I ask.
"I spoke to Arnold, Ashlynn Pound, Natalie Longbottom, and Alec Witterock." Thaddeus says.
"And I talked to Katherine Currier and Edmund Collins." Autumn chimes.
"And then I talked to Ty, Steven Rogers, and Meredith Grice." Ben finishes.
"Sounds like we're gonna have a pretty good group if everyone joins in." I say.
"Well Kathrine and Edmund are in." Autumn informs us.
"So is Arnold and his group."
"Are we just waiting for Ty and Mitchell's group then?" Ben asks.
"I guess." I say.
"Well by the way Mitch keeps looking over here I have a feeling he's in." Ben smirks.
I go red. "Shut up!"
"I heard he's quite the cello player. He really knows how to strum those strings." Thaddeus wiggles eyebrows.
"What does that even mean?" I whisper yell.
"Whatever you want it to." Autumn says, wrapping her arm around me.
"Not you too Autumn!" I look at her desperately.
"What about Autumn?" Mitch asks from behind me.
I jump. "Nothing!" I say, a bit too quickly.
He looks confused but doesn't say anything.
FML.
"So, are you in?" Ben asks, trying to draw the attention away from me.
"Oh!" Mitch says as if he forgot. "Yeah, we're all in."
I smile. "Great!"
"So are we!" Tyler says from across the room. Tyler, like Mitch, is really tall so he's easy to spot from across the room.
Ben gives him a thumbs up. Soon after that all four groups come over to talk. "Who wants to be in charge of getting the music?" Katherine asks. She was pretty short so we all had to bend down to look at her a bit.
"I will!" Mitch, Tyler, and I all say. This causes Mitch and I to awkwardly look at each other but Tyler simply laughs.
"Oh cool," Arnold says "that way you all can split up sections and look for the music quicker."
"Sounds good." Tyler says, running a hand through his hair.
"Do you guys want to meet after school in the library then to get started?" Mitch asks.
"Sounds good." I reply while Tyler just shrugs. Then the bell rings and we all make our way out.
As we walk down the halls Ben comes up to me. "Ty is a boss."
"Yeah," I agree "he seems pretty chill."
"I heard he writes poetry." Ben informs.
"No way!" I laugh.
"Yep."
"That's great!"
"I know right?"
"Well we better get going. I don't wanna be late for history." And with that we made our way over to class.
Once school was done I made my way over to the library to meet up with Mitch and Tyler.
"Hey." I say as I walk over to them. They were over by the computers.
"Hey."Mitch replies.
"Sup." Tyler says as he sits down.
"So, how do you guys want to do this?" I ask.
"I don't know." Mitch says.
"Well, we'd have to start with changing some of the cello and violin parts to piano, seeing as we don't have enough of each." Tyler concludes.
Mitch and I both nod. "Do either of you play piano?" Mitch asks.
We shake our heads no. "Well I'm sure I could talk Kathrine into doing it." Tyler shrugs.
"Ok," I say and I can work on finding some brass and percussion parts."
"I guess that leaves me with strings and winds." Mitch laughs.
"Well that was easy." Tyler laughs, brushing back his black, purple streaked hair with his hands.
"Well what now?" I ask awkwardly, making them laugh.
"Well," Tyler suggests, "I know a place we could go that sells really nice marijuana."
I freeze up and laugh awkwardly, "I'm good, thanks."
He cracks up. "Like I would know anyone who sells drugs."
Mitch chuckles while wiping his glasses. "Way to freak her out Tyler."
OMG that chuckle was sexy deep. Shit Ella, control yourself. Damn hormones. Ugh now I'm swearing. "Well I should probably get going, Ben is probably waiting for me."
"Oh yeah," Mitch says. "Arnold and Katherine are probably waiting for us too Ty."
"Well I guess we'll all be on our way then. Nice talking to you Ella." Tyler says as he waves goodbye.
"Bye guys." I say, leaving to go find Ben."
