A hot flush spread across my cheeks, and I bent down to repack the box. Then came the clapping, slow at first, then faster:
Clap. Clap. Clap-clap-clap!
Awesome. I was the spectacle of check-in. A fresh flame of anger at Dad and his poorly timed trip to Austria (so he could play with the Vienna Symphony, of course) flared in me.
“Cluck! Cluck! Cluck!” Dimple Chin chanted, playing the role of maestro. After a second, everyone else in the room joined him.
“Cluck! Cluck! Cluck!”
I stood there like an idiot, stuff scattered at my feet. Was I supposed to do something?
“Cluck! Cluck! Cluck! ” They chanted louder and faster.
“What the . . . ?” Angry and embarrassed, I kept my eyes on the floor and hoped the noise would miraculously stop, ’cause, you know, telepathy totally works.
“You have to cluck like a chicken.” The guy whispering in my ear did not belong in marching band—or any orchestral band. A snapshot: streaky green hair. Brown eyes. Lots of metal bits stuck in his face. Skinny. Orange T-shirt and faded basketball shorts. “Then they’ll stop.”
I had to what?
“Cluck! Cluck! Cluck!”
I didn’t move, I didn’t cluck. The anger evaporated. Fear scuttled through me like a spider. Lime Head nudged me.
“Do it!”
“No way!” I snapped.
This
was high school? This was marching band?! This was horrifying and non-musical.
“C’mon, it’s okay. I’ll do it with you,” he said. I wanted to throw up. “Seriously, they won’t stop unless someone clucks.”
I nodded, fear in the pit of my stomach, and he whispered, “On three. One . . . two . . . three!”
“Buck-buck.” Mine came out as more of a croak than a cluck, but next to me Mr. Green Hair was going for the chicken imitation hall of fame.
“Buck-buck-buck-ba-gawk!” He tucked his hands up by his armpits, flapped his “wings,” and bobbed his head.
“Aww, we’ve got a chicken chicken!” someone called, pointing at me. I scowled, but inside, I wanted to fall through the floor.
Then, as a group, the returning kids clapped a rhythm and sang as I started collecting my stuff:
“Someone dropped a chicken.
Someone ditched the bird.
Screaming Hellcats to the rescue!
The best marching band ya’ve heard!”
Clap-clap-clapclap. Clap-clap-clapclap. Clap-clap-clapclap.
“Gooooo, Hellcats!” There was some whooping, and then they finally went back to what they were doing before my social disaster unfolded.
“Punk,” the facially decorated green-haired chicken imitator said.
“Huh?” My head buzzed. Was there something wrong with this kid?
“Punk. That’s my name,” he responded, as if my cheeks weren’t still on fire and my hands weren’t sweating. As if I’d asked.
Of course. How original.
“Welcome to the Screaming Hellcats Marching Band,” he said.
I wished my father had never heard of Austria.
2
I hoisted my stuff and stepped away from embarrassment ground zero. After giving me his cheery welcome, Punk had drifted away.
Good riddance.
I surveyed the room and caught a glimpse of an alcove behind a set of lockers that jutted from the wall. I beelined for it, hoping to hide there until everyone forgot what I looked like or until practice began.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one intent on hiding out. I turned the corner and stopped short, nearly tripping over a clarinet case. Three kids sat in a clump at my feet. They were surrounded by piles of stuff like my own.
Other freshmen.
“Sorry,” the one with the clarinet said. He slid his case off to the side, making room for me. “Want to sit?”
Out of options, I just plopped down with them—the clarinet kid, a trumpet player, and . . . oh. Sarah Tracer, who played in the Howard Hoffer Junior High symphonic band with me, was there too. Sarah played trombone and seemed nice, but we hadn’t been friends. Her articulation was sloppy. One day, sick of listening to her mushy quarter notes at practice, I told her to pay more attention to the quality of her playing. Her face turned bright pink and she never spoke to me again. Her quarter notes got a little better, though.
“That was rough,” the boy with the clarinet case said to me. He was wearing a T-shirt with a picture of Darth Vader on it, captioned “Who’s your daddy?” Sarah had a chunky bracelet wrapped around one arm and picked at a spot on the carpet. The trumpet player had on a faded Portland Sea Dogs baseball cap. All of them wore an expression that was a mix of relief and terror—glad that they weren’t the one who’d been humiliated publicly, but fearful that it would be them next time.
I had hoped that they hadn’t seen what happened.
“Eh,” I said. I kept my voice light, like it was no big deal, but sat on my still-shaking hands. In wind ensemble and symphonic band, I always know what to expect. Since I’m a year younger than the kids in my grade, band is usually the place where I feel most comfortable. Not today.
“I heard they do all kinds of stuff like that.” Sarah leaned over and spoke up from behind a curtain of straight blond hair. She didn’t have a trombone case with her. Actually, I didn’t see
any
instrument near her. Bright red splotches appeared on her cheeks. “My brother was in the pit, and he told me they do that stuff to make the freshmen learn the rules quicker.”
What was a pit?
“Not a great teaching method,” I muttered, still wounded.
“I learned a lesson from it,” the clarinet kid said helpfully. “I’ll never drop my hat-chicken.” He had a high-pitched, crackly voice—kind of like the way his instrument sounded when played poorly.
“Totally,” Sarah agreed. “Not that I have a chicken to drop,” she added, then eyed me.
“I thought you played trombone?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Not this year. I’m on color guard.” She must have seen the confused expression on my face as well as the clarinet kid’s. “We’re auxiliary to the band. We spin flags in time to the music to add visual interest to the parade and field shows.”
I was surprised that she wasn’t playing. I mean, what’s the point of being in band if you didn’t play an instrument ? And why did a band need “visual interest” anyway? Wasn’t the point of going to see a band to listen to music? Then again, I’d be spared her inarticulate quarter notes . . .
“Oh. That’s cool,” was all I could think of to say.
Was having a high school ensemble on my application really worth this ? Besides, according to check-in girl, I wasn’t even going to play
my
instrument. As if he knew what I was thinking, the Sea Dogs guy, who hadn’t said anything yet, spoke. He had a wide, easy smile.
“What do you guys play?” As if it wasn’t obvious?
“Clarinet. I’m Hector.”
“Elsie. French horn. But they gave me a mellophone. Whatever that is.”
“Jake, trumpet,” said the kid who started the questioning. I caught a flash of hazel eyes under the bill of his cap. “I recognize you from All-State last year,” he directed at me. “You played an awesome solo in ‘The Great Locomotive Chase.’ ”
“Really?” I blurted, excited. “You remember that?”
He nodded. “Totally. You nailed it. I was on second trumpet.”
I got a rush as I remembered the solo, which I’d played in front of an audience made up of people from all over the state. “Measures forty-five through fifty had this tough run, and I really worked hard on getting it right.”
“It showed,” Jake said. His smile made my toes tingle.
We talked for a minute about All-State—a symphonic band that was made up of the best players from each junior high in Massachusetts—and then everyone said what junior high they’d attended. Hector and his family had just moved to Auburnville from a town north of Boston, so he didn’t know anyone. Jake went to middle school on the opposite side of town from Sarah and me. They were nice enough, but clearly not as serious about their playing as I was. Few people are.
I never get tired of playing my instrument, and I can express how I feel through my horn way better than I can using words. Music is going to be my life. Like my dad and grandfather, I’ll go to Shining Birches in high school, the New England Conservatory for college, and then audition for a symphony. I’ll get to see the country—and the world—and play my horn while I do it. It’s the most amazing job ever. But in order to achieve those goals, I know I need to work really hard, starting as a freshman. It’ll be like musical boot camp!
Playing an instrument professionally is like playing a sport professionally: There’s lots of talented competition for a small number of spots. My dad reminds me of that all the time. “If you fall short, there’s always someone else ready to take your chair,” he says. “If you want to be successful in this field, you can’t forget that.” I wouldn’t.
“Hey,” Hector said, “I was thinking . . . since I don’t know anyone at all here, can I hang out with you guys ? I mean, after today?”
Jake, Sarah, and I all exchanged glances. It’s not like any of us knew one another or were friends or anything, but I guess Hector wanted people to talk to before practice. I’m usually so focused on warming up that I don’t socialize before ensemble.
Or outside of ensemble either.
Basically, I go to my classes, do my work, and play my horn—and that’s the way I like it. Sitting around, gossiping about boys, checking out nail polish colors . . . all the stuff that the girls in my junior high did just didn’t interest me. Any time I spent with other kids was time away from my horn—and someone else, somewhere else, was using that time to get better than me.
“Of course,” Jake answered for all of us, sealing our little group.
It’s funny, but after we established that, I relaxed. Even though I didn’t
intend
on hanging out with anyone, it was nice to know that I could if I wanted. By the time we graduated junior high, I think most of the kids in my grade kind of forgot I existed unless I was holding my horn.
The whole time we were talking, other kids were checking in and the returning students’ conversations buzzed in the background.
A sharp whistle sounded over the din.
“Report to sectionals!” the guy who started the whole clucking fiasco called. “Section leaders, take your groups for warm-ups. Ensemble begins in forty minutes!”
We stood, papers rustling and hatboxes bumping our knees (I double-checked the latch on mine).
“High brass!” a guy with a mess of dreadlocks pulled back in a ponytail shouted from the opposite corner of the room. “Outside!”
Five freshmen, including Jake and me, were in the section. All of them carried trumpet cases. Also present? Punk. He carried a horn. Excuse me, a
mellophone
. Maybe I could finally get some answers about this stupid instrument.
Our section leader guided us across the roasting blacktop.
“Excuse me, Steve?” I left Jake and walked at the section leader’s elbow, juggling all of my marching gear.
“Hey,” he said.
“I play the French horn,” I explained patiently. “And I’m quite good at it. Why was I assigned a mellophone?”
Steve cocked his head and grinned at me the way some people grin at small children or tiny dogs—all indulgent and patronizing. “Because French horn bells face the wrong way when you’re marching—so all your sound would be lost—and are awkward to carry. Mellos are loud. Think of them as the horn’s close cousin.” We stopped at the far end of the school parking lot, under the shade of a large oak tree.
“But—” I tried.
“Just try it out,” he said to me. Then, to the rest of the group, “Semicircle up, people. Trumpets to my right, mellos on the left.” Frustrated, I dropped my stuff at the foot of the tree with the other freshmen, and opened the mysterious mellophone case.
Instead of the graceful curves of my French horn, what I saw was a trumpet on steroids: a dinged and dull forward-facing bell, trumpet-like valves that I’d need to play with my right hand, not left, and a lead pipe that would quite obviously not fit my horn mouthpiece. A “close cousin”? Try
ugly
cousin.
Well, that did it. I couldn’t be in marching band. Forget Shining Birches’ “ensemble diversity”—this would be career-ending musical suicide.
“Sorry,” I said. “But I can’t play this instrument.” I gestured with it.
“What do you mean?” Steve came over. Everyone else just stared at me.
“Um, I just can’t,” I said. “My mouthpiece won’t work.”
Now, if you know anything about brass instruments, you know that a player’s mouthpiece is nearly part of their body. I can play any horn that you hand to me, as long as I have my own mouthpiece. And I could probably adjust to this crazy steroid-trumpet-mellophone, even playing right-handed, if I had my own mouthpiece. But having to change the shape of my face—my embouchure—to blow into a new instrument? No way. It’d be like learning all over again. And, scarily, it might mess up the sound I get from my own instrument. Kiss Shining Birches and a life of travel good-bye.
“You need an adaptor,” the section leader said. “Didn’t they give you one at check-in?” I shook my head. Steve rolled his eyes. “Of course not.” Then, to one of the trumpet players, “Yo, Shaka—run in and get a lead pipe adaptor for her horn so we can get going, okay?”
The trumpet player rolled
his
eyes.
“Steve, c’mon—we’re all the way across the parking lot. Let the chicken get it herself.”
“Five laps if you don’t go now,” Steve barked. Shaka handed his trumpet to the kid next to him and went.
I took my place at the end of the line and waited for his return, heart sinking. Next to me, Punk smirked.
Chicken
.
Great.
3
That first rehearsal? Easily the worst one in my entire life. Even though my section leader, Steve, and the other mellophone players tried to help, the fingerings for every note were different from those on my horn—and I was playing with my opposite hand. So even though I could blow into it once I had the mouthpiece adapter (and make a pretty kickin’ sound, I might add), actually
playing
? Forget it.