Revenge Of A Band Geek Gone Bad (2 page)

For the most part, he likes me since I practice and get the notes right.  Still, the last thing I wanted to do was get on his bad side.  None of us did.  So without hesitating we lifted our instruments, getting ready to play.

It was then that one of the trumpet players raised his hand.  "Mr. Francis, I hope you're really not planning to make us audition today," the person said.  "These competitions inhibit our creativity and individuality."  Mr. Francis's eyes bulged, while the rest of us groaned.  Joshua Kowalski was at it again.

###

Josh is a junior and is pretty cute with his shaggy, light-brown hair and deep blue eyes.  But the feature that stands out -— at least to his many female admirers —- is the lopsided grin he flashes whenever something amuses him.

When it comes to Josh, though, he thinks
everything
is a joke.  He's a musical prodigy and plays trumpet even better than Mr. Francis does, but insists on sitting last chair.  If our conductor forces him to audition, Josh will purposely make mistakes.  He claims that it's because he doesn't believe in the auditioning process,
but I think he just enjoys getting a rise out of Mr. Francis.

Meantime, Josh shows about the same amount of respect in the rest of his classes.  Though he aced his PSATs and gets straight A's without studying, he often skips classes.  When he is there, he's always pulling pranks on his teachers.  One time he brought a lawn chair to math,
then
plopped down in it holding a beer as if he were at the beach (he got a week's suspension for that).  Another time he locked his English sub out of the room when she was clueless enough to step outside (that only got him a week's detention).  Last year, he even got us a day off from school.  When workers began fixing the roof, several students complained about the fumes but the school refused to let us go home.  So what did Josh do?  He alerted the media about our "plight."  Not wanting to look bad, Principal Muller was forced to let us stay home until the roof was fixed.  Needless to say, Josh became the school's hero.  Now he's never without a girl on his arm and gets invited to the jocks' parties, even though he's not on any sports teams.

Anyway, we all collectively sighed as Josh went on about the unfairness of auditions.  "Music's supposed to be something that we can all enjoy, right?" he was saying.  "I mean, we deal with enough of 'The Man' keeping us down.  You don't want to be 'The Man' now, do you Mr. Francis?  It's anti-American."  Josh stood up and hopped onto his chair, which is in the back of the room with the other trumpets, and began to loudly play
The Star-Spangled Banner
.  I cringed as I waited for Mr. Francis to react.

The inevitable explosion took place in about two seconds.  "Kowalski,
must
you always interrupt my class?" 
shouted
Mr. Francis.

Josh stopped playing for a moment.  "I'm just being patriotic, sir," he said, giving Mr. Francis a little salute.  "They always start with the National Anthem before ball games, right?  I figured you'd want us to show the same respect in your class since music seems to be nothing but a game to you."

Mr. Francis clenched his baton so hard, it snapped.  He reached for another from his black briefcase.  "You will play what I ask you to play and
when
I ask you to play!" 
he
declared.  Only the way he said it, he sounded as if he were growling.

Josh wasn't fazed.  He knew that Mr. Francis wanted to keep him around because he's the best trumpet player.  "Fine, suit yourself.  But I think I have a good idea here.  Don't blame me if the students don't have any respect for this country."

"The only thing I want them showing respect for is ME!" 
our
conductor hollered.  He slammed his fist against his podium. "This is MY class and I'm sick and tired of your interruptions.  I don't know why I allow you to come back here
since you obviously don't want to be here in the first place.  Get out, get out, GET OUT!"  As he finished his tirade, another baton was snapped in half.

"Okay, I'm going," Josh said.  He slowly began to pack up his trumpet.  "But don't miss me too much."

A chair was thrown on the floor.  "I SAID GET OUT!"

Josh didn't argue with him this time.  But as he sauntered out of the band room, I could’ve sworn that I caught Josh looking right at me.

###

“Was I imagining things?” I wondered, feeling a blush creep over my face.  “Why would a good-looking upperclassman like Josh even give me the time of day?  He was probably just looking at the rest of the band to gauge our reactions, I told myself, and returned to the music.  By now, Mr. Francis was so riled up he could barely get out any words.  Instead, he grunted and muttered as he pointed his baton at various students and choked out things like, "YOU! First measure!" or "First clarinet —- D scale!"  Each player he picked would widen his or her eyes in horror and do what he asked, no questions.  Yet Mr. Francis was never satisfied.

"Mr. Samuels, is that a trumpet or a dying frog?" he asked Ken, who's first chair since Josh won't challenge him for it.  Lana's ex, Ken, is a football player and towers over our conductor, but he slumped down as Mr. Francis's words hit him.

"Greenhouse!
  What's that noise coming out of your French horn?  Are those supposed to be notes or do you have a bad case of gas?" 
he
bellowed to Amy Greenhouse, a sophomore.  She turned an alarming shade of crimson and her eyes filled with tears.

As he made the rounds, I prayed that he wouldn't pick me for a while so I could study the music.  The pieces we're playing aren't too difficult.  Our fall concert's theme is Broadway so we're performing selections from a bunch of musicals.  Mr. Francis mostly had everyone play excerpts from the medley,
Broadway
For The
Band
, which includes tunes from
Annie, Sweeney Todd
and
Les
Miserables
. I'm not sure what orphans, murderers and the French Revolution have in common, but the music itself isn't too hard, definitely a lot easier than the Hindemith Sonata, which is the piece I played for the last recital.  Even though I hadn't been expecting to audition, I was sure that I could pull it off and keep my chair.

Toward the end of the period, Mr. Francis finally turned to me.  "Miss Rhodes," he said in a voice that was slightly
more gentle
than earlier.  "Why don't you serenade us with the sweet sounds of 'On My
Own.
' "

I nodded and turned to the
Les
Mis
section of the piece, then picked up my flute and planned to blow him away.

A bunch of squeaks escaped from the instrument.

Mr. Francis looked at me and raised an eyebrow.  He wasn't expecting me to be the one to screw up.

"Um, I'm-I'm sorry," I stammered. "Let me try that again."  I blew through my flute exactly how I had a gazillion times before.  It produced more squeals.  "I think something's wrong with my instrument," I said quietly.  This wouldn’t be too surprising considering its age and the amount of time that I put into playing it, but of all the days for it to crap out on me!  As Mr. Francis waited and tapped his foot, I turned it over to see if there was a leak or torn pad.  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Kathy stifling a laugh.

"Know what, we don't have time for this," Mr. Francis said.  "Miss Rhodes, I'm very disappointed with you.  I thought you were a role model in this band, but I guess I was mistaken."

"But my flute..."  I protested.

He raised a hand and cut me off.  "I want to hear Miss Meadows play the section," he ordered, waving his baton at Kathy. 
             
"Yes, sir."
  She quit laughing and sat up as straight as possible.  She then went on to nail
Les
Mis
, hitting every
freakin
' note correctly.  I knew I was doomed.

"I don't k-know what happened," I again choked out when she’d finished.  I knew it was probably no use pleading my case, but I at least wanted to try.

"Well, I do know what happened," Mr. Francis boomed.  "Miss Meadows was prepared ....
and
you were not.  And that's why she's now our section leader."

What?  This couldn't be happening.  This was a nightmare, right?  But there was Kathy, smiling from ear to ear.  I felt as if I were having an out-of-body experience and were being sucked into a vortex.

"But that's not fair!"  I blurted out.  "I did practice!  Take a look at my flute; I’ll bet you’ll see that something’s wrong with it."

Mr. Francis was already packing up his briefcase.  "Miss Rhodes, I expect you to be more gracious about this," he said.  He shoved the rest of his batons into his bag.  "This isn't kindergarten.  Like I said, I don’t want any crybabies here."

"Yeah, Mel," Kathy chimed in.  "You gave it your best shot."  She held out her hand.  "Aren't you
gonna
congratulate me?  It would mean
so much
coming from
the
former
first chair flute.

"But-but..."  I was beginning to think I'd forgotten how to speak.  I knew he'd understand if I could find the right words.

"No butts," said Mr. Francis, peering down at me.  "Since you usually do such a great job, I'll be fair and will let you keep second chair.  But not if you keep bugging me, okay?  That's a warning.  Got it?"

"Got it," I muttered, but what I really wanted to do was scream.  I was better than Kathy!  She didn't deserve to have
my
seat.

As everyone packed up their instruments, I noticed that one of the springs on my flute had indeed popped out of place.  I snapped it back into position,
then
slammed my instrument case shut.  I knew that there was no point in showing it to Mr. Francis.  He'd probably just accuse me of undoing the spring to save face or something.

Kathy watched me the entire time, a glint in her eyes.  "Congratulations, Mel," she cooed in a sickly sweet voice.  "Looks like you got exactly what you deserved."

"No,
you
got what I deserve," I spat back. 
"Happy now?”

"Very, in fact," she replied.  She swung her Gucci purse over her shoulder and headed to the band locker room.  "Oh and Mel," she said, before stepping out the door.  "Don't go home and
binge eat
to fix your stress over this.  That's the last thing your thighs need."  She giggled as she left.

By now, I was all alone —- or so I thought.  I glanced around the empty band room, fighting the urge to throw a few chairs myself.  "I hate her," I grumbled, crumpling up my music and tossing it on the floor.  "I hate
her,
I hate her, I HATE HER!"  I took a few deep breaths to calm myself, but still wanted to kick something.

I heard a noise behind me and jumped.  It was Josh.  He was looking at me with his blue eyes, that lopsided grin spreading across his face.  I guess I was right; he
had
been staring at me before.  I shyly turned away, but he didn’t seem to notice.

"Bad day, huh?"
 
he
asked, sliding into the seat next to me.  "Well, I know just how to make things better."

CHAPTER 2

"Here, Melinda," Josh said, handing me a jacket as we entered the now-empty band locker room.  The jacket was orange and blue and had the Islanders hockey team logo on it.  I stared at his outstretched hand, not quite believing that he meant to talk to
me
.  But he kept holding the jacket toward me. 
"For your pants?"
 
he
said, nodding at my ripped jeans.  "I figured you'd want to cover them up with something."

"Oh, thanks," I replied, feeling my face turn warm.  With everything that happened during auditions, I'd almost forgotten about my stupid jeans.  As I tied the jacket around my waist, Josh kept watching me.  "What?"  I snapped.

He laughed.  "This is how you thank the guy who saved your ass  ... rather literally in this case?"  He took a seat on one of the tuba cases stacked in the corner.  "I just wanted to say I'm sorry that Kathy beat you today.  That sucks."

Though his tone was sincere, I was suspicious.  It's not like he and I had ever talked before.  Still, I was amazed that he even knew my name and wasn't sure how I was supposed to react to this cute guy
wanting
to talk to me.  I took a deep breath and tried not to sound as nervous as I felt.  "Why do you care?" I asked.  "I thought you're against auditions."  I regretted the words as soon as they tumbled out of my mouth.  I didn't want him to think I’m a total bitch.

Josh shrugged, not seeming to be put off by me.  "I do think auditions are pointless.  But I'm also against punishing people for things that aren't their fault, like your flute not working."  He slid a hand through his hair, pushing away a lock that had fallen onto his forehead.  His square jaw was set and determined.

"My flute's never done that before," I said.  "It figures it had to happen today of all days.  It's pretty old, though, so I guess... I guess I shouldn't be too surprised."  I’ve been asking my parents to get me a new flute for a while but they never seem to have time to take me to the music store.