I Heart Band

by Michelle Schusterman

  Chapter Three

  I forgot about the new band director until I got to the band hall and saw him leaning against his office door, watching everyone. It was obvious he was a lot younger than Mrs. Wendell, but she was so nice, and he looked . . . not mean, exactly. But maybe a little intimidating.

  The message on the chalkboard from this morning had been replaced:

  Backpacks in your cubby, instruments out. Please sit in your section.

  Underneath that was a seating chart with each of the sections labeled. Organization. I approved.

  The cases that lined the wall this morning were gone, too. I headed to the cubby room, mumbling a few hellos. Julia and I weren’t the only seventh-graders in advanced band, but there weren’t too many of us. Gabby waved at me as she hooked the neck strap to her saxophone. Next to her, Sophie Wheeler was putting her oboe together and talking a mile a minute. I recognized Trevor Wells opening his trombone case and talking to Owen Reynolds, who’d been in my beginner French horn class. Owen’s really nice, although honestly, I was kind of surprised he’d been placed in this band. He was an okay horn player, but not great or anything.

  No Julia yet.

  I found the horn cubbies and noticed they were all newly labeled with everyone’s name. So clearly this Mr. Dante was a perfectionist, too. Score one point for the new guy. I slid my case out of its cubby and crouched down on the floor to open it. More kids were filing in—most of them eighth-graders—and I kept my eyes fixed on my horn as a sudden wave of nervousness hit me. This was a whole lot more intimidating than beginner French horn class.

  I straightened up to put my case away, horn in hand, and someone’s elbow collided with my head. I rubbed my temple and turned to find myself looking into the most insanely dark brown eyes I’d ever seen.

  Well, hello there.

  That’s not what I said, though. What I said was something more like, “Mermph?” Because I’m cool like that.

  “Sorry!” Aaron Cook gave me an apologetic smile. I couldn’t move. It wasn’t my fault—he had pretty much the most amazing smile ever. It was paralyzing.

  “Um, it’s okay.” Seriously, Julia, where are you?! I watched Aaron open his trumpet case and tried to come up with something at least a little bit not lame to say. But all I could think about was the pep rally last year when Julia and I sat huddled on the bleachers together and discussed the wonder that is Aaron Cook in a football uniform.

  Football—maybe I could ask him about that! Was he on the eighth-grade football team this year? Probably. What position? Running back. Wow. How cool. Yup, I was having an imaginary conversation in my head with the guy standing right next to me.

  He put his case away and glanced at the floor. “Is that yours, Holly?”

  I recognized my blue polishing cloth lying next to my backpack. Bat-Signal facing up. Of. Course.

  “Yeah, thanks.” I ducked down, grabbed the cloth, then moved to block the backpack from him. Like he hadn’t already noticed it. Tucking the cloth back into my case, I realized something. “How did you know my name?”

  It just kind of blurted out of my mouth without permission, and I blushed. Aaron grinned and tapped the label on my cubby.

  HOLLY MEAD

  Oh, for the love . . .

  “Right.” I wondered exactly what shade of red my face was now. Any hope of me saying more than two words that weren’t completely idiotic was dashed when Aaron spotted a few of his friends. “See you!” He smiled at me again—help!—and walked off. I watched him go, because let’s face it, at that point I already looked like a total loser. I figured I might as well embrace it.

  “Excuse me.”

  I stepped aside as someone reached into the cubby under mine and pulled out a French horn case. The label over the cubby caught my eye.

  NATASHA PRYNNE.

  No.

  No way.

  I stood there dumbly as she straightened up and gave me that fake smile. “Hi, Holly!”

  “Hey.” I tried to smile back, then picked up my backpack and crammed it into my cubby before she could say anything rude about it (again). “So . . . you play French horn, too?”

  I tried not to sound as annoyed as I felt. How had I not seen this coming? Natasha and Julia were at band camp together—duh, of course she’s in band. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, did she have to play the same instrument as me? Really?

  “Yeah. Julia told me you’re really good,” Natasha added. I shrugged, but in my head I was, like, You got that right.

  Something occurred to me as we headed into the band hall. “So how’d you get into advanced band?” I asked casually. “We all had to audition at the end of last year.”

  “I auditioned at my old school, too,” she replied. “They put me in the top band there, so . . .”

  “That’s great,” I said. Not really.

  Julia was already seated, clarinet pieces in her lap and reed in her mouth. She waved at me. (Okay, at us.)

  I waved back, then slipped past Natasha down the third row and grabbed the first chair in the horn section, right next to the saxes. The bell rang, and everyone hurried to their seats. Brooke Dennis sat down on my left—she’d been the only seventh-grade horn player in advanced band last year, I remembered. Owen sat next to her, so Natasha was stuck with the last chair in our section, farthest from me. Good.

  Gabby sat down on my right. “Hey again, Holly!”

  “Hi! Have a good summer?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Kind of boring. Want one?” She rattled an open box of Red Hots at me, and I shook my head.

  “No, thanks.”

  “I’ve got the last lunch period,” Gabby complained, shoving a few into her mouth. “Still have PE after this, and I’m already starving.”

  Before I could reply, the new guy stepped onto the podium. Everyone stopped talking.

  “Hello, everyone,” he said. “I’m Mr. Dante. Welcome to advanced band.”

  Silence. (Except for Gabby chewing.)

  “I’d like to go over a few rules. Several of you were in this band last year, some of you were in symphonic band as seventh-graders, and a few of you were just beginners. No matter what class you were in, this year might be a little bit different than what you’re used to.”

  Gabby popped a few more Red Hots into her mouth. Mr. Dante smiled at her.

  “Let’s make this rule number one, Ms. Flores,” he said. “No food or drinks during rehearsal.”

  “Even if I have to wait till last lunch?” she asked. A few kids laughed.

  Mr. Dante nodded. “Afraid so.” Gabby closed the box and tucked it under her chair with a sigh.

  He went over a few more rules, none of them any different than Mrs. Wendell’s—no playing without permission, no playing each other’s instruments, have your instrument out and be in your seat by the time the bell rings, blah-blah-blah. I glanced down the row and saw Natasha sitting up perfectly straight, hanging on every word he said. What a shock, she was a total kiss-up. Ugh.

  “Now, let’s talk about chair tests.”

  I faced the podium again, quietly tapping the bell of my horn.

  “I expect a lot from each of you,” Mr. Dante said. “And I expect each of you to demand a lot from yourselves. We’re going to have regular chair tests during class. You’ll know ahead of time what I want you to play so you can prepare. After each test, you’ll sit according to chair order.”

  He looked around. “The reason the tests will be frequent is because I want those who put in the extra effort and improve to be rewarded. Each time we have a test, the chair order in your section can potentially change. You might start out sixth chair and be first chair by the end of this semester. It all depends on you.”

  Interesting. Maybe the new guy wasn’t going to be so bad.

  “And one more important rule before we warm up.” M
r. Dante paused a moment. “It’s called no pass, no play. If you fail one of your classes, you won’t be eligible to participate in band activities—concerts, football games, contests—until your next progress report or report card is out. We’re performing at the football game the Friday after your first six weeks’ report card, so make sure you keep up in your classes. Your first progress report is in three weeks, which brings me to the fun part.” He smiled again.

  “On the last Friday of this month, we’ll be having a band party. I’ll have more information for you in a few weeks, but for now just remember—you must be passing on your progress report to attend.”

  There were a few murmurs about that, some excited, some nervous. Julia and I grinned at each other. A band party! I went through my closet in my head, the whole no-pass-no-play thing forgotten. I’d never had a problem with my grades.

  Mr. Dante started talking about the warm-ups in our folders, but I was daydreaming about the party and Aaron Cook. I wondered if there’d be dancing. Probably not, but the party in my head definitely involved dancing.

  I focused when we started to play, though. Maybe I hadn’t spent two weeks at Lake Lindon, but I did practice all summer, almost every day. (I even made a rehearsal schedule kind of like the one in the Lake Lindon brochure and taped it above my desk. Geeky? For sure. Totally worth it, though.)

  As Mr. Dante had us play one at a time to tune, it was easy to tell who hadn’t opened their case since May by all the squeaks, wobbly tones, and nervous coughs. Gabby sounded a lot better than the eighth-grader next to her.

  I sounded good. Really good.

  Brooke sounded okay. So did Owen. I fidgeted in my chair as Natasha lifted her horn.

  Ugh. She sounded good, too.

  I tapped my fingers softly on the bell of my horn again, waiting as everyone else tuned. Aaron Cook sounded amazing, of course. I remembered at the spring concert last year, he’d had a big solo in one of the songs. And Mrs. Wendell had given him the “Outstanding Seventh-Grade Musician” award. He’d probably been first chair, I realized.

  I glanced at Brooke. My chances of being first chair were actually really good. First-chair French horn in the advanced band, as a seventh-grader! Thinking about it made me kind of giddy.

  A few chairs down, Natasha coughed lightly. She was looking in her folder, already checking out the music Mr. Dante had given us. I grabbed my own folder and started flipping through the sheets. My eyes widened—tons of notes on the first page, the tempo on the next one was crazy fast, the third was in a time signature I’d never seen before . . .

  Whoa. As much as I practiced this summer, maybe it wasn’t enough.

  Chapter Four

  Julia and I had lunch right after band. So did Natasha. Apparently, I was doomed to getting zero quality time with my best friend.

  We grabbed a table in the corner of the cafeteria and I started pulling stuff out of my bag. (I’d made my lunch the night before—turkey sandwich on wheat bread, cut diagonally; plastic bag with apple slices to avoid the inevitable peel-in-the-teeth scenario that comes with eating it whole; bag of plain potato chips, the least breath-offensive flavor; stick of gum for afterward, just in case. I’d fired Mom from lunch-making duty after the Great Pepperoni Lunchables Catastrophe of last spring.)

  “Mr. Dante seems nice,” Julia said, breaking off a chunk of cookie. (She was one of those dessert-first people—so weird.) “Maybe a little strict.”

  I swallowed a bite of sandwich. “Yeah, but I like him. I think the whole frequent-chair-test thing freaked some people out, though.”

  “I’m going to be dead last in my section.” Julia sighed. “I wish Rory or Claire had made advanced band so I wasn’t the only seventh-grader. We had so much fun in clarinet class last year.” She pulled a banana out of her lunch bag. “You guys are lucky to be in the same section.”

  Natasha and I smiled at each other uncomfortably. Julia was acting like we were friends already. Because she expected us to be, I realized.

  I decided to give it a shot.

  “So do you miss your old school?” I asked Natasha, picking at my crust.

  She shrugged. “It was okay. I mean, I miss my friends, of course. But they’re all on IM, so we still chat a lot. Oh, and we had a really good debate team.”

  She started talking about some debate contest she won and how she’d been captain of the sixth-grade team. I smiled and nodded, bored out of my mind. How could Julia not hear how full of herself her new friend was?

  Stop it, I told myself. Julia liked Natasha, and she wanted me to like her, too. I needed to at least give her a chance. Even though she talked about herself a lot. And had my backpack. And her nails were professionally manicured and matched her shirt. I stared at her hands, blinking.

  This girl was cutting her sandwich with a plastic knife and fork.

  She could not be serious.

  “So I came in early this morning, and they fixed my schedule.” Natasha put down the knife and reached for a bag of M&M’s. I had a quick mental image of her daintily cutting each one in half and tried not to laugh.

  “Is debate fifth period?” Julia asked.

  Natasha shook her head, pulling out her schedule. “No, seventh. I’ve got math fifth.”

  “Me too!” Julia squealed, and I grimaced. She glanced at me. “You and I have seventh together, right? Computer lab?”

  “Yup.”

  The three of us spread our schedules on the table (the red and purple map stayed in my bag), and I did a quick assessment. Other than band, Julia and I only had computer lab together. She and Natasha had math and history. Natasha and I were in the same Spanish class during sixth.

  Something to look forward to. Stellar.

  “Look look look,” Natasha hissed suddenly, grabbing Julia’s arm and pointing. We all looked up as Seth Anderson passed our table. Julia’s face turned bright pink.

  “She likes him,” Natasha told me with a confidential smile.

  I raised my eyebrows at Julia. “Really? We had a few classes with him last year, and she never mentioned it.”

  Julia rolled her eyes, clearly trying not to smile. “I don’t like him. He’s in our history class, and I told Natasha he kind of looks like Garrett.”

  “Who’s Garrett?” I was getting annoyed, fast.

  Julia and Natasha both sighed, then giggled. I picked up my bag of chips, attempting to arrange my face into an expression that didn’t suggest this was the worst lunch period of my life.

  “Garrett was this guy at Lake Lindon.” Julia watched me struggle to open the stupid bag. “Another clarinet player. We went to the dance together.”

  “She kissed him!” Natasha exclaimed, and the bag exploded in my hands. They both leaned back as chips scattered across the table. I stared at Julia.

  “What?”

  She ducked her head, grinning and sweeping the crumbs into a pile. “I didn’t want to tell you on the phone. But yeah. It happened at the dance.” Natasha was doing a little happy dance in her seat. I wanted to puke.

  This girl knew about Julia’s first kiss before I did.

  If there isn’t already an actual handbook on best-friendship out there somewhere, there should be. I’d be happy to make it, actually (think of all the potential charts). And I already had a working table of contents in my head. In the chapter called “First Kisses,” section one, paragraph one, would say:

  Your best friend is the first person you tell. No exceptions.

  I tried to smile and nod along as Julia told me all the details (too late). Then Natasha was off about some other stupid boy at the stupid dance at stupid Lake Lindon, and I tuned out completely.

  Staring across the cafeteria, I spotted a familiar smile. Aaron Cook was sitting with a group of guys a few tables away. I didn’t really know the rest of them, but some were wearing football jerseys. One of them said so
mething, and Aaron laughed. His eyes kind of squinted when he laughed. And he had creases on both sides of his mouth, like smile parentheses.

  For a second, I felt a lot better. Then he glanced up and saw me, and I stared down at my apple slices, horrified. (Horrified and maybe a little excited. I mean, he looked at me! That was a good sign, right?)

  Natasha and Julia were standing, crumpling up their bags. Apparently I’d missed the bell ringing.

  “So you’ve got science next, right?” Julia asked. She was looking at me funny. I couldn’t blame her—I probably looked pretty strange.

  “Yeah.” I tried to turn so that my back was to Aaron when he left the cafeteria. Julia hugged me.

  “We need to catch up,” she whispered in my ear. “Seventh period?”

  I nodded. “See you then.”

  I watched her and Natasha walk off to their math class. Then I strapped on the Beacon of Nerdiness and headed the other way. The halls were swarming again. Weird that I felt so alone.

  The science lab smelled funny. There were several rows of desks in the middle of the room, and small workstations with two stools each lined both walls. I slumped into the nearest desk without looking around and put my head on my arms.

  I’d passed apoplectic. Now I really just wanted to go to bed.

  When the bell rang, Mrs. Driscoll introduced herself and started the whole first-day spiel all teachers were required to do. I probably should’ve paid closer attention because this one included lab-safety stuff—what to do in case of broken glass, how to use the fountain in the back in case of burns—but my eyelids were drooping.

  Can’t. Fall. Asleep. I stared at the huge, brightly colored periodic table of elements on the wall and let my eyes cross so that the colored sections started to move and blur. It kind of looked like Tetris.

  “Bring your Safety Rules handout and a pencil—everything else can stay at your desk.”

  My head snapped up. The whole class was moving, heading to the workstations. I grabbed my handout and pencil and stood up. Everyone was pairing up—Mrs. Driscoll must have told us to pick a lab partner. Uh-oh.