The Band Geeks Strike Back Part One
By Shadow Dragon
"Every year they care less and less," Jack remarked as we all sat down on the metal bleachers after the pre-game show. He was talking about the audience, who had barely responded to our gusty version of the school song "On Wisconsin". His green eyes trailed along the ground of the bleachers, which were a very bright metal that blinded anybody who sat on them during the day. The whole band was ranged around our little group. Jack's girlfriend, Megan, was down on the lowest level of the bleachers, talking to our friends, Stef and Sera.
"That's the way it works," Tony, Stef's boyfriend, agreed glumly.
"Yeah, soon they're just going to play music and put a big screen on the football field with blue dots for the band members and red dots for the flag people," Cori added.
It was a Friday night and we were sacrificing what small lives we had to get dressed up in six layers of wool, carry heavy instruments, and provide some entertainment for a school that turned us into outcasts and picked on us for the very pleasure of seeing the �band geeks' squirm. If we didn't show up for that entertainment, they would call with nasty comments, demanding to know where we were. And if we did, they paid us no attention. Being in band sucked when you were in the hallways at Goshen Academy.
Jack was a drum major, so he got picked on more than the rest of us put together. It's not really his fault that O'Malley, the band director, makes him wear a sequined vest. We all get stuck in the band pants that are meant for guys, so the crotches of the pants are too low for us girls, and the sweat-stained dickies that made us look like French waiters and waitresses (if you don't know what a dickie is, it's the white dress shirt that a lot of guys wear under their tuxes. It's only a dress-front though, it connects around the neck and waist with elastic straps and goes over the gray band T-shirt). The wraparound yellow cummerbunds that continually fall off, the heavy wool jackets, and smelly caps that we had to stuff all of our hair under complete our terrible outfit. I think they make everybody in band look like penguins.
"I wonder how they'd all react to us not showing up one night and doing that screen idea," Erryne mused aloud.
"They'd probably sue us left and right, are you kidding?" Gregg looked shocked that somebody could propose that. "They'd find some way to get me kicked out of hockey or something! The cymbal-player is desperately needed!" He pretended to look helpless.
We all laughed at his joke. Gregg had just joined band (so that he could hang out with us, actually, with Lily, mostly), so he got the instrument that was pretty much easiest to play. He played Varsity Goalie for the hockey team, and he was going to take trombone lessons from O'Malley. He and his girlfriend Lily were trying to set me up with his twin brother, Addam. Addam and Gregg were not identical twins, but very few people could tell them apart. Addam played trumpet and was one of the top three in the school.
"I wonder how they would react if we did something different," I muttered to myself. Unfortunately, I couldn't think of anything.
"Look," I said after my last class the next Monday, "you have my word that I will say yes to Addam if he asks me to Homecoming. If."
Lily looked absolutely thrilled. Although I'm a year higher advanced in school than her, we're best friends. Honestly, I don't know how she puts up with me. My comments can get pretty unbearable at times. Especially lately, since I've been commenting on Lily's relationship with Gregg and how they're almost never apart.
"Lily! Ash!"
We both turned to see Cori bounce up, her red hair flying behind her. She and Lily were both wearing the skirt-and-blouse uniform, while I had on slacks despite the humid heat. Cori had a very nice yellow bonnet in her hair, though, which complemented her red hair astonishingly. Cori, Lily, and I are all exact opposites. Cori is very flirtatious, short, redheaded, and freckled, Lily is quiet, shy, slightly freckled, with burnished light brown hair, and I'm sort of shy, a tomboy, and very curious, with annoyingly long brown hair and brown eyes. I say I'm rather plain-looking, but nobody else agrees.
"What are your plans for tonight?" Cori asked, reshouldering her bag as she gave Lily a hug. Until I had gone to GA (Goshen Academy), I had never been a huggy person. Then I met Cori, who insists on getting a hug hello and good-bye, or whenever she finds out good news.
"Eat, sleep, be an idiot," I ticked off on my fingers.
"Murderous test in History tomorrow and Gregg and I had plans," Lily recited. I bit my lower lip, fighting the urge to laugh. I don't know why, but I just find that stuff funny, for some strange reason. Call me immature, but the opportunity to pick on Lily about Gregg is ALWAYS present.
"I think I'll study for that test, too," Cori agreed, ignoring me. I grinned broadly at both of them and turned to put in the combination for my locker. "Mr. Frank doesn't like me very much, so I might as well do good in his class."
"History. Ugh," was all I said. My locker door jammed, but I kicked it and it swung open easily. I pulled out the hernia book, my third English book, a couple of notebooks, and a folded square of paper.
"What's that?" Cori asked, pointing.
"Note," I replied, not bothering to say who it was from I loved pulling Cori and Lily down the way with my games, deceiving them to think it was somebody else who'd given me the note.
"Who's it from?" Lily asked, mildly interested. I slammed my locker door shut, pretending not to hear her. She repeated her question.
"Oh, um, he told me not to tell," I muttered hastily, stammering a little. Lily and Cori exchanged excited looks.
"Is it from anybody we know?" Cori asked slyly.
They did know the boy who had given it to me, so I just nodded, slightly jerkily. Cori's eyes flicked from me down the hallway, but I didn't catch what she was implying.
"Did a certain boy give it you? A special boy?" Lily was in her element now. I hid the rolling of my eyes with a cough.
"Well..."
Oh, I was torturing them. I could see it in their eager eyes. They suspected the note was from Addam. Boy, were they in for a shock!
"Ashlie? Was it from Addam or not?" Lily said, seeing my hesitation.
"Why would Addam send me a note?" I asked scornfully. "It's from Jerald De Gama. He needed to borrow my science notes. He was sick Friday." At the disappointed looks on the faces of my friends, I burst out laughing.
"That was such an Ash trick!" I complemented myself, throwing a fist into the air. "Hah! You should have seen the looks on your faces!"
I stopped laughing abruptly as a group of heavily make-upped girls went by. They didn't march, they trot-walked, giggling and laughing, their eyes distant from their expressions. I shut my eyes, rolling them at the same time, but Lily and Cori made no reaction. We were used to the preps, jocks, stoners, hicks, and idiots that populated the school. I didn't get along with that particular crew of preps � they were soccer-preps, which, in my opinion, happened to be the worst kind. They took extreme joy in pestering me with their petty attempts to alienate me. Petty or not, their attempts worked.
"Probably going off to smoke," I muttered to myself when Cori and Lily turned to walk to the girls' dorms. It was obvious that I hated the soccer team.
And it's bold, independent Ash to fend for herself on yet another boring Monday night, I thought. I was the only one in my dorm at the moment, because my two dorm-mates, Winnie and Kim, were out doing something or other for choir. I sat on the edge of the cot I generally slept on (unless, on certain nights in December, the floor was a lot softer), a pencil in one hand and a notebook in the other. I had an English paper due soon on the Puritans, but I didn't feel like writing at the moment. So I stood up and paced to the window.
Whatever shall she do, alone in the dorm room for two hours?
Alas, a knock at the door.
I strode towards the door as the knock, urgent and sharp with staccato beats, resounded throughout the slightly messy dorm room.
Who could it be?
To my utter disgust, Kristy De Gama stood, surrounded by her cronies, at my door. "Yes?" I asked, opening the door just wide enough to talk. Kristy took this as an insult.
"Coach told me to tell everybody that first fall practice is tomorrow," she told me airily, pointedly looking anywhere but me and smacking her gum loudly. I felt a terribly strong urge to slam my door in her fake-nose, but I decided against it.
"Kristy, you know I don't do fall soccer. I'm too busy with fall drama. Plus, Coach usually sends somebody out to alert the members of the team two weeks before. Did he just tell you or something?"
"Oh, she just neglected to tell you," one of Kristy's cronies sneered.
Whoa, and I thought �neglected' was too big for their vocabulary.
"Well, thank you and good night," I replied, smiling falsely. I shut the door and headed back to my cot, flopping down loudly. I was frustrated at my mom's insistence that I be on the soccer team and my inability to fight back. I wanted to do the Spring Musical, but I couldn't because I didn't have enough time what with the Spring Soccer Snobs that I had to put up with.
"I love Mondays," I remarked aloud, not bothering to add the needed sarcasm into my voice. Nearby, Winnie's computer bleeped, pointing out to me that Brett, her boyfriend, was online. I was about to go over to the computer and send a message to him saying that Winnie wasn't present, but a strange noise whispered in my ear.
It reminded me of a sound halfway between a groan and a sigh, like somebody pushing air out of something just a little too hard. It was coming from the door of my apartment. I listened intensely for a moment, then decided to find out what it was. Squaring my shoulders, I opened the door...
SPLAT!!!
Something shattered against my forehead and slimy egg dribbled down my face, soaking my eyebrows, sliming my eyelids, dripping off my chin. I heard a giggle and just stood there, rage and shock radiating out of me.
Luckily for me, I was wearing an old Camp T-shirt that had been too big in the third grade and still was. I decided that I needed to get rid of it anyway, so I used the bottom hem, hanging somewhere between my hips and knees, to wipe egg out of my eyes and mouth.
As I turned to go back into my dorm, I heard, "Ash! What happened to..."
Cori, Lily, Sera, Stef, and Megan all stood there, looking at me in bewilderment.
"The soccer team was nice enough to pay me a visit," I forced out as I wiped flecks of eggshell from my eyebrows. "I'm gonna wash up and go to bed. I'm tired." On the last word, I forced a yawn, making my story believable.
Twenty minutes later, I stood at the sink, still scrubbing the sliminess off of my face. I stopped, dried my face off with a towel, and looked at my reflection. I was nothing like those soccer snobs. And I knew one thing.
I wanted vengeance.
And I wanted it bad.
Home
Part Two
This page hosted by 
Get your own Free Home Page