"Honest to God, people! You realize that if we play like crap now, we'll play like crap later and sound like even worse crap because we're on a freaking football field with a hundred people watching us!" Piper yelled, throwing her arms up into the air. The entire band was out on the marching band field after school before the first home game. Piper had never seen her clarinetists work so crappy, all eight of them were playing horribly. "This is a very important game! This is the first home game! Not the fifth, not the last, the first!"

"We'll get better throughout the season, Piper!" complained Emily. "We just have to keep trying."

"Why not start the season amazing and then turn out spectacular by the time the whole thing's freaking over?" Piper snapped. "Did you think of that, Emily, instead of trying to be a psychologist all the time and raise these sucky players' self esteem?"

"Piper is right, everybody. You need to listen to her and go out there and play your asses off!" Faith stood up beside Piper and nodded her head furiously.

"So I see it's just Faith and I that actually care about our section? Apparently so. Emily's too busy playing the role of guidance counselor," she pointed at the irritated girl. "And Adrianne and Tiffany are too busy checking their fingernails to see if they chipped them on a freaking key, and-"

"Piper, stop being such a bitch," muttered the lowest person in Piper's section, Adrianne. Piper rounded on her with a glare in her eye that would make any person tremble, 6 inches tall or 6 feet.

Making Piper angry had never been the smartest of pathways. There was the irritated why-can't-you-play-your-damn-music-yet angry, and then there was the anger that occurred when someone talked back to her. They both happened about the same amount, which was one of the reasons why Mr. Fisher was always nearby Piper's section when they were out on the field. He knew the dangers.

He'd seen Piper tear someone's clarinet out of their hands, getting one of the track and field geeks, and having her player chase the runner until she got to him to earn her instrument back. The girl had broken down in tears and Piper had the clarinet for a good hour. Then she'd once made her entire section run three miles because one of them tripped over their shoe and almost rammed a clarinet through a flutist's shako, resulting in the whole section breaking down into tears.

Then she'd ordered someone to organize all the uniforms and concert clothes because they got in an argument with her over whether the note was a C-sharp or a D-flat, which didn't matter because they were the same thing- Piper was trying to tell the young clarinetist that they were exactly the same, but the clarinet called her a 'complete blundering idiot because everyone knows that C-sharps are not the same as D-flats!'

Oh, and the multiple times Piper would yank a trumpet's mouthpiece out if they got too rowdy near her or her section- they'd once caused a clarinet to drop her instrument and break it- and dangle it above their head, before threatening to throw it under the bleachers unless they promised to never do it again.

And then there was the numerous threats to not let any various instrument- her section, Audrey's, Amberly's, and Isabelle's were the only four she had complete control over, but it didn't stop her from threatening all of them- march in the next game or competition, which brought forth a lot of fear in their eyes.

And then there were her glares. Her glares were so scary looking, they made people shake, quiver, fall over in a dead faint. There was no telling what you'd done to deserve one of her glares, they were quite common. Her eyes narrowed, her teeth were clenched, her fists were balled up at her sides; she was quite beautiful, even when she was angry, but she was more of an evil princess beautiful then.

Oh, and all the times she'd attacked Sticks, ever since freshmen year. Before freshmen year, she'd completely tortured him as well. The story went that he had his nickname from an excited drummer breaking a stick and it flying through the air to hit him in the back of the head, but it was Piper who had positioned the drummer- who she knew had a habit of breaking his sticks a little too often- where they'd be sure to hit Sticks. She wasn't even sure of why Sticks deserved such torture half the time; she just preyed on him because Isabelle would keep him from completely murdering her.

And what she did to even her best friends when they made her mad. Piper wasn't afraid to do whatever she could to get her friends to focus on band, so during practice, games, and competitions Piper wasn't much of a friend. She was more of a drill sergeant. Audrey's mouthpiece spent more time in Piper's Dooney & Bourke handbag than in Audrey's instrument during the summer before junior year, when she was broken up with Michael; Piper claimed that she couldn't take Audrey's bitchy attitude and that whenever she decided to get back with her boyfriend, she could have her mouthpiece back. Audrey had quite a fun band camp, not being allowed to play her instrument.

Piper was somewhat of a bully at times, but she had reasoning. Everyone loved Piper, it was only during marching band season that they wanted to hate her. She did things to help her band, and if it happened to be a little mean, so be it. She loved band, it was her passion; it was her everything, and if it meant scaring everybody into working their asses of, so be that, too.

And, as usual, Adrianne called her a bitch. It happened almost every day, every practice. Piper was quite used to it by now and it didn't really even make her mad, it was just fun to scare the crap out of Adrianne.

She hovered over Adrianne, and the brave sophomore looked at her straight in the eye. She was prepared for push ups, or running laps, or polishing the drum major's shoes- whatever Piper gave her, she always did. But instead of ordering something out, Piper smirked. The others in the band gasped slightly; that was different. "Did you just call me a bitch?" she asked. Faith looked at Piper strangely; she didn't seriously need confirmation, did she?

"Yeah," Adrianne replied meekly.

Piper's smirk grew wider, and the close-by Audrey knew exactly what was going on.

"Well, a bitch is a dog. Dogs bark, bark is on trees, trees are a part of nature, and nature is beautiful. So yeah, thanks for the compliment, Adrianne."