Amy dragged a chair over and set a can of soda on the table. “So did you see House 2? I keep getting scheduled to work weekends, so I haven’t seen it yet.”
“I saw it a few weeks ago,” I told her. “I went with your brother and some other friends from band. I think you’ve met Gabby,” I added.
“Oh yeah!” Amy grinned. “That girl is freaking awesome. She drives Trevor nuts, I love it.” We giggled as she took a sip of soda. “I remember him griping his head off to Owen when he found out she was going to that movie, too. But then when he got home he couldn’t stop laughing about how she threw candy all over the place.” Suddenly, her eyes widened and she set the can down with a thunk. “Oh, hang on—you’re that Holly!”
“What?”
Amy’s eyes sparkled like she was about to laugh. “Owen’s . . . friend.”
“Oh. Yeah.” My stomach started fluttering.
“He’s been Trevor’s best friend since, like, forever,” Amy said, smiling. “I love Owen.” She paused, pressing her lips together. “He talks about you all the time.”
I almost dropped my cone. “Really?”
“What does he say?” cried Natasha, then closed her mouth when Julia elbowed her in the side. My face was probably reaching a nuclear level of red.
Amy reached for her soda again. “Lots of stuff. All good,” she added quickly, winking at me. “Are you two . . . ?”
“Just friends,” Julia said, giving me an innocent smile. “Right?”
I focused on my ice cream. “Right.”
“Gotcha.” Glancing up when a group of teenagers walked in, Amy sighed and got to her feet. “Back to work. I’m so glad you stopped by!” She grinned at me. “Can’t wait to tell Chad I met you.”
I laughed. “I don’t think he’s going to be too excited. But it was great to meet you, too.”
When Julia and Natasha headed to the trash cans, Amy leaned in a little closer. “You know, I was friends with Chad for a long time before I asked him out.”
“You asked him out?” I blurted, stopping just short of adding “why?”
“Yup. Got impatient,” she said with a grin. “Anyway, I’m just saying—I’ve known Owen forever, and he’s always been shy. But I can tell he thinks you’re pretty great. So . . .” She shrugged. “Just letting you know, I guess.”
Amy gave me a quick, one-armed hug, then ducked back behind the counter. I followed Julia and Natasha back into the mall, feeling more nervous about the dance than ever.
But a little more excited, too.
“We should do another fund-raiser.”
Mr. Dante glanced up from his computer. I stood in the doorway of his office, wearing my band-concert uniform—a dress with ridiculously puffy sleeves topped with velvet bows that had probably been worn by several generations of reluctant band girls before me.
“A fund-raiser?” Mr. Dante asked.
I nodded emphatically. “For uniforms. You said we have to fake confidence even if we’re not really confident, right?” Spreading my arms, I looked down at the scratchy black fabric. “How am I supposed to feel confident in this?”
Laughing, Mr. Dante turned back to his monitor. “I see. New uniforms for next year . . . I’ll talk to the boosters about it. I think I’ve got a catalog here somewhere, actually.”
My eyes widened. “A catalog for band uniforms, really? Can I see it?”
“We’re loading the bus in five minutes,” he replied, glancing at the clock. I tried to ignore the twist of nerves in my stomach. Our rehearsals this week had been great, but now that the Thursday morning of UIL had arrived, I was back to freaking out.
“Can I take it on the bus?” I asked. “I swear I’ll be careful with it. Please?”
Mr. Dante smiled. “Sure. Nervous?” he added, opening a drawer.
“Um . . .” I fidgeted a little. “Is it okay if I say yes?”
“Of course.” Mr. Dante handed me the catalog. “I know UIL is intimidating. But try to have fun, too.”
“I will.” I glanced at the cover. “Are all of the boys’ uniforms tuxes? You should know that not a single guy in this band actually knows how to tie a bow tie. I’m thinking their parents must have helped them before the winter concert or something, because it’s kind of catastrophic out there.”
Mr. Dante chuckled. “Well, they’d better figure it out. Actually . . .” Squinting, he pointed behind me. “It looks like Gabby’s on the case.”
I turned to see Gabby attempting to retie Trevor’s bow tie, despite his efforts to bat her hands away.
“I know what I’m doing!” she yelled, grabbing his collar. Trevor made a gagging noise. “I do this for my cousins all the time when they—would you hold still?”
“Help me!” Trevor choked when he saw me giggling. Behind him, Owen was trying to fix his own bow tie, which stayed resolutely crooked.
Gabby glanced over Trevor’s shoulder. “You’re next,” she told Owen sternly.
Still laughing, I headed to my cubby to get my horn and music. When I came back out into the band hall, a line of boys had formed in front of Gabby. And by the time we loaded the bus, every single bow tie was perfectly straight.
I spent the short bus ride to Ridgewood High School huddled over the catalog with Natasha. “Some of these are almost pretty,” I said, tapping my pencil on a picture of a girl in a dark blue satin dress with completely normal, non-puffy sleeves.
“Does that one come in red?” Natasha wrinkled her nose. “Oh, it doesn’t. We should probably only recommend ones in school colors. Or black, like these.” We were writing down a list of our favorite uniforms’ item numbers to give Mr. Dante later.
Julia peered over the back of the seat in front of us. “I like the neckline on that one,” she said, pointing. “Oh look, the tuxes have red vests to match!”
I added it to the list. “Pretty much all of these are way better than what we’ve got. I bet our uniforms are the oldest out of the whole district.”
But as the bus pulled into the Ridgewood parking lot, I saw that wasn’t true. A bunch of kids carrying instruments stood in neat rows on a set of risers set up just outside the main entrance for photos, all wearing dresses and tuxes that looked about as outdated as ours. As they streamed down the riser steps and headed toward a bus, I noticed with a jolt that their director was holding a trophy. Sweepstakes, I thought, my stomach knotting up again.
Mrs. Park, one of our booster chaperones, stood up at the front of the bus. “Leave your cases here!” she called. “Make sure you have everything you need—mouthpiece, music, all of that.”
Once we parked, I slipped the catalog into my horn case, triple-checked to make sure all my music was in my folder, and followed Natasha off the bus.
We filed across the parking lot and waited outside a side entrance while Mr. Dante went in. Turning, I realized Aaron was right behind me.
“Got your music?” I couldn’t help asking teasingly. A few months ago, Aaron had lost his sheet music for a trio we both were in for Solo and Ensemble Competition. He’d only realized it a few minutes before we were supposed to play.
Aaron laughed. “Pretty sure. I checked about five times before we left.” He opened his folder, and Natasha leaned past me to look.
“Hey, the pages aren’t even wrinkled!” she joked. Aaron grinned at her.
“Shocking, right?”
I smiled. It looked like things were finally getting less awkward between them.
The doors opened, and Mr. Dante waved us inside. Once we were in the hallway, he and Mrs. Park helped us get into a single-file line by section, and warned us about a hundred times not to talk or make noise, since we’d be walking past the sight-reading room on the way to the warm-up room. When we turned the corner, I noticed a huge dry-erase board hanging on the wall with RATINGS written along the top. A list of middle-school bands wer
e in a column on the left. Someone had already added the ratings for the first several bands that had performed.
The band I’d seen with the Sweepstakes trophy must have been Jacksonville, I realized. Because as of right now, they were literally the only band with Superior ratings from all of the judges on the stage and in sight-reading. Craning my neck, I scanned the rest of the ratings before we rounded the next corner. My stomach plummeted.
Most of the bands so far had Excellent ratings in sight-reading, and there were already two that only had Good ratings. The sight-reading piece had to be really hard.
I tried to push that thought out of my mind as we entered the choir room for warm-ups. We took our seats and adjusted the music stands as Mr. Dante pulled the folder with his scores out of his shoulder bag. Owen leaned a little closer to me.
“Did you see those ratings?” he whispered, and my stomach flipped in a way that had nothing to do with UIL nerves.
“Yup,” I whispered back. “Barf.”
Mr. Dante didn’t look worried at all as he led us through our warm-ups. I wondered if he was faking confidence, or if he really was confident. Either way, I felt slightly more relaxed by the time we left the choir room and filed onto the stage. I could see the three judges in the mostly empty auditorium—one in the second row, one around the middle, and one in the very back, each with a clipboard and pencil. The guy in the second row was already scribbling away.
A girl in a Ridgewood Band T-shirt stepped in front of the microphone on the side of the stage. After she introduced us and told the judges which songs we’d be playing, she hurried offstage, and Mr. Dante smiled at us.
Try to have fun, too. I sat up straight and lifted my horn.
The march sounded great, but it was also our easiest piece. I realized that was probably the reason we played it first—a confidence booster. It must have worked, too, because the ballad we played next sounded just as good.
“Labyrinthine Dances” was last. I remembered that rehearsal a few weeks ago, when Mr. Dante had reminded us how painfully slow we’d started playing it back in September, and how far we’d come.
We’d been practicing this song for a year. It was the most challenging music I’d ever worked on. And that just made it more fun.
As soon as we played the first measure, all my nervousness disappeared. We flew through the music, or at least, that’s what it felt like. All those fast rhythms and key changes that used to be so difficult just sounded . . . effortless. By the end, Mr. Dante was beaming. Natasha bounced a little in her chair.
“That was awesome!” she whispered. I nodded, unable to stop smiling.
As we left the stage, I squinted at the judges, wondering what they were writing about our performance and if getting lots of comments was a good sign or a bad sign. The butterflies returned full force when I realized all three of them were writing down our rating right now. If two of them gave us a Superior rating, and one gave us an Excellent rating, we’d still have an overall Superior rating for the stage performance. But we wouldn’t get that Sweepstakes trophy.
Plus we still had sight-reading. And based on the ratings the bands before us had received, getting three Superior ratings in the sight-reading room would be next to impossible.
By the time we’d lined up in the hall, my hands were sweating so badly I thought for sure I was going to drop my horn.
We followed Mr. Dante into the band hall for sight-reading and quietly took our seats. Each music stand already held a piece of sheet music, turned facedown. At the front of the room, three judges sat at a long table, facing us. Weird how this felt more intimidating than being on a stage in front of a huge crowd. Maybe because onstage, you can’t actually see people’s faces, I thought. But these judges were right there behind Mr. Dante, staring at us. I glanced at the judge on the right, a woman with dark gray-streaked hair. She looked familiar, but it wasn’t until she looked up that I recognized her.
My all-region band director—Mrs. Collier! I almost waved, then realized that would probably be unprofessional or something. So I just drummed my fingers nervously on the bell of my horn while Mr. Dante spoke quietly with the judges. Mrs. Collier was a college music professor, I remembered. And she was a lot of fun. It helped me feel slightly less nervous to realize that the judges were actual band directors, not evil robots who just wanted to give low ratings.
I almost laughed out loud. Evil Robot Band Directors—that would be a pretty funny cartoon. I’d have to tell Owen about it later.
When the judge on the left stood, I forced myself to focus. He explained the whole sight-reading procedure, and reminded us not to play during Mr. Dante’s instruction time. Then Mr. Dante stepped onto the podium and told us to turn our music over.
We did, and I almost fell out of my chair.
They had to be kidding. This music was even worse than “Triumphant Fanfare,” the song we’d tried to sight-read a few weeks ago. And Mr. Dante said that was as difficult as it was supposed to get.
I glanced from Natasha to Owen—both of them looked as freaked out as I felt. But Mr. Dante appeared completely relaxed, as always.
Fake it, I told myself firmly, and sat up straighter.
“So we start off in the key of concert E flat, with a 3/4 time signature,” Mr. Dante began. “If that looks familiar, you’re probably thinking of ‘Labyrinthine Dances.’ In fact, French horns and low brass, take a closer look at that rhythm in measure three—recognize it?”
Squinting at the measure, I smiled. He was right—it was a tricky rhythm, but one we saw a lot in “Labyrinthine Dances.” Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Mr. Dante talked through the music until the first timer went off. Then he started conducting from the beginning, singing some of our parts while we pressed our keys (or, in the percussionists’ case, air-drummed). Suddenly, Mr. Dante stopped.
“Alright, everyone touch measure sixty-four!” he exclaimed. Confused, I put my finger on my music, along with everyone else. Then I saw the coda sign and grinned.
“The curse of the coda,” Mr. Dante said solemnly, and several of us giggled. Behind him, I saw Mrs. Collier smile. “Not today. Let’s start back at measure fifty-six, first time. So take the repeat, then we’ll go through to the end.”
He started conducting again, still pointing out things like dynamics and reminding us to look up at him every few measures. When the coda sign came up, he bellowed: “Coda!” and everyone, including the judges, laughed. But after the last measure, not a single one of us was still pressing valves or air-drumming. Before Mr. Dante could comment, the timer went off.
“Well,” he said with a grin. “All we have to do now is play it.”
And we did. Maybe everyone was faking confidence like me, or maybe we really were confident after all. Either way, the beginning sounded great—even the tricky rhythm in measure three. And while there were a few mistakes or wrong notes here and there, we stayed together and played in tune. When the coda came up, Mr. Dante gave us a giant, almost comical cue. After the final note, we all froze, including Mr. Dante. There were a few seconds of dead silence. Then Mr. Dante lowered his hands and gave us a thumbs-up.
No one spoke until we were out in the hall, when everyone started chattering at once.
“That was good, right?” I asked Natasha and Owen. “I mean, it wasn’t perfect, but . . .”
“It was better than a lot of our rehearsals,” Owen said. “And the music was really hard.”
Making a face, I pointed at the ratings board as we passed it. “Yeah, but the judges don’t seem to care about that.” Jacksonville was still the only band with Sweepstakes. None of our ratings were posted yet, but two more bands had been added. Both of them had Superior ratings on stage, but only Excellent ratings in sight-reading.
Outside the main entrance, a few teachers in Ridgewood High School T-shirts were waiting to organize us on t
he risers for our group picture. By the time I’d squeezed between Natasha and Owen on the third row, I realized Mr. Dante was gone.
“He’s getting our ratings,” said Brooke, who stood next to Owen. I remembered how the Jacksonville band director had been carrying a Sweepstakes trophy when they’d taken their picture. Natasha let out a little squeak that was half-excited, half-terrified.
“Don’t worry,” Brooke told us. “We sounded great.” But I noticed her eyes kept flicking to the entrance.
The Ridgewood teachers tried to help the photographer organize us for the picture, which turned out to be kind of a challenge. Trevor forgot to lock his trombone slide, and the whole thing slid off and fell between the steps and under the risers. In the front row, Leah Collins kept nervously flipping her drumsticks and accidentally bashed Sophie in the nose. And every few seconds, someone would stand on their tiptoes to see if Mr. Dante was coming yet. I was in the middle of telling Owen about my Evil Robot Band Directors idea when Gabby yelled: “There he is!”
“Oh no,” Natasha said softly. “I don’t see a trophy.”
My stomach plummeted. In a few seconds, I went from thinking we’d played great to feeling positive we’d somehow set a record for the worst ratings ever both onstage and in sight-reading.
“He did this on the band trip, though—hid the trophy behind his back,” Gabby said, although her voice was doubtful.
Everyone fell silent as Mr. Dante stepped in front of the risers, setting his bag on the ground. I groaned inwardly—no hands behind his back this time.
“First of all, I want to tell you how proud I am of all your hard work this year,” Mr. Dante said. “I know I really pushed you, especially with ‘Labyrinthine Dances,’ but I’m amazed at how far you’ve come. And after our performance onstage, I was completely unsurprised to see that all three judges gave us a Superior rating!”
Several people cheered a little, but I barely managed a smile. I mean, I was excited, but we’d worked so hard on sight-reading, too. If the music hadn’t been quite so hard, I bet we’d have gotten Superior ratings, no problem. It didn’t really seem fair.
Crushes, Codas, and Corsages #4 Page 6
