I Heart Band (2 page)

I
stopped dead in the middle of the hall. A sixth-grader bumped into me and I gave him a look that probably made him want to run screaming back to elementary school.

“Julia.”

She looked up (uh,
finally
), and her eyes widened.
“Holly!”

We squealed and ran toward each other and hugged and made a big stupid scene because that is exactly what you're supposed do when you haven't seen your
real
best friend in a month. I glanced at the new girl over Julia's shoulder. She was smiling, but giving me the Eye. The same one I'd been giving her a minute ago.

Good. All was right with the universe again.

“You're
late
! I can't believe Holly Mead was actually
not
at school half an hour before the bell on the first day!” Julia shook my arm, beaming. “I'm so sorry I didn't call you back yesterday, but—”

“I called you
three times
!” I exclaimed. “What on earth were you doing?”

“We got home so late Saturday night, there was a lot of back-to-school stuff to do—you know how my dad is—and last night I was—”

“She was setting a world record for most pieces of pizza ever eaten in one sitting,” the new girl interrupted with a grin, and Julia cracked up. I kept a smile pasted on my face, but my stomach dropped. Hang on—she was hanging out with
this girl
last night?

“Sorry, what am I doing?” Julia said, still giggling. She pulled the girl forward. “Holly, this is Natasha. We met at Lake Lindon.”

Oh.

“Oh,” I said. “Um . . . hi.”

“
So
good to finally meet you,” she said. “Julia told me so much about you!”

Oh my God, this girl was such a phony. I could already tell.

But I just smiled and hoped it looked more genuine then hers. “So, um . . . where are you from?”

“Georgetown. My mom got transferred, so we moved here in June,” Natasha replied, flipping her hair over her shoulder. Again. “I was
so
excited when I found out Julia goes here, too! We practically lived together at band camp. Cabin sisters!”

Oh.

“That's why I was hanging out with Natasha last night,” Julia said quickly. “She called because they screwed up her schedule, and she—”

The warning bell rang. I forced another grin.

“Don't worry about it. So . . . history, right?” I had Julia's schedule memorized.

“Yeah,” she said, adjusting the barrette holding her curly black hair out of her eyes. “See you fourth period?”

“Yup. Nice to meet you,” I lied to Natasha, unzipping my backpack and groping for my schedule to double-check the room number.

“You too. And that's a, um . . . really cool bag, by the way.” Natasha giggled, and I felt my face burn.

Ugh—Batman. I'd totally forgotten.

“Yeah, it's a long story,” I said lightly, and Julia grinned at me. “Anyway. Have fun in history.” Wow, I could not have said anything more lame.

“We will!” Natasha linked arms with Julia again, and with a wave, they headed down the hall.

So they had first period together. That figured.

If the orange-juice disaster hadn't been enough, this Natasha girl showing up completely threw me off my game. My English teacher called my name at least three times before Gabby Flores poked me in the back and I finally raised my hand. Then in third period, the PE coach said, “Carrie Leed?” and I was all, “Here!” like an idiot.

I was a little distracted.

Understandable, considering what a mess the day had turned into.

I could not believe Julia spent the last day of summer break with some girl she barely knew and didn't even
call
me. Two weeks of camp together was maybe enough to become pretty good friends, but Julia and I went back to second-grade music class. I mean, we rocked the Owl Creek Elementary talent show with a recorder duet of “Nobody Likes Me.” It ended with us tossing gummy worms into the crowd. We got third place.

How could anyone not be best friends for life after that?

And the other thing that was bugging me: I really,
really
wanted to go to Lake Lindon. I'd been okay with waiting a few summers, but that was before Julia got to go. I should have been there, too. We should have been in a cabin together, going to rehearsals together, the dance, the concert, everything.

But instead, she'd done all of that with Natasha.

Plus, Julia and I had both been placed in the advanced band for this year! That was kind of a big deal, since that band was mostly eighth-graders. Keeping up was going to be hard enough—band camp probably would have helped me a lot.

It wasn't like I'd been doing anything better stuck at home—mostly just practicing, watching movies, and trying to avoid my brother's idiot friends. And if I'd been at band camp, Julia wouldn't have had to resort to hanging out with that stuck-up Natasha girl. Who had my backpack.

I kicked the Beacon of Nerdiness under my desk and sighed.

It was a long wait until fourth period band. I mostly spent it imagining forcing Natasha and Chad to eat actual worms.

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.” Mr. 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.