I Heart Band

by Michelle Schusterman

  “That’s totally what it was,” I said before Julia could respond. “She was all, do I know you? Wait, don’t we have PE together or something?”

  Natasha cracked up. “Hang on—you’re the reason I got smacked in the face during dodgeball! I wasn’t paying attention because I was too busy staring at your—”

  “Okay, okay!” Julia was laughing despite herself. “Enough, guys. He just . . . surprised me. We’ve never actually talked before.”

  “It sounded like the first time you’ve ever talked, period,” I said nonchalantly, unwrapping my sandwich. Julia groaned and buried her face in her hands, and Natasha and I grinned at each other.

  For a second. Then we both realized what we were doing and looked away.

  “Anyway.” Julia sat up, her cheeks still a little pink. “So, hey, I ended up getting fifth chair! Way better than I thought. But geez, you guys rocked it.”

  And we were back to awkward. I focused on opening my bag of chips, trying to look indifferent. “Thanks. I guess we’re having another chair test in a few weeks, then?”

  “Right before the football game,” Natasha said quickly. “I hope Mr. Dante picks something a little harder. This one was way too easy, don’t you think?” she added, giving me an innocent look.

  I tossed my unopened bag of chips back into my lunch sack. “Yeah. Super easy.” Glancing across the cafeteria, I scooted my chair back. “You know what? I totally forgot I need to talk to Owen about something. About, um, a science lab we have to do next period. I’ll see you guys later, okay?”

  Julia barely glanced up when I stood. “Yeah, okay. See you seventh.”

  Like she didn’t even care.

  “Can I sit with you?” I slumped down in the chair next to Owen before he could answer. Blinking, he set his Warlock cards down.

  “Yeah, sure. Everything okay?”

  “Everything’s great.” It came out more biting than I’d intended. “Sorry. Another bad day.”

  “Oh. Want to play?”

  I glanced at Owen, then across the table. Trevor was sitting next to his lab partner, Brent the Nose Picker. I made a mental note not to touch any of his cards.

  “Sure.”

  “Come on, seriously?” Trevor looked at me in disbelief. “You don’t even know how to play!”

  “I can figure it out,” I snapped, taking my cards from Owen. Spreading them out in a fan, I studied them. “Um, Owen?” I mumbled, leaning toward him. “What the heck is a moonrat?”

  I spent the rest of lunch trying to learn the rules of Warlock, which turned out to be insanely complicated. But Owen and Brent were pretty cool about it, and twenty minutes later, even Trevor was being nice. Kind of.

  “Good one,” he said approvingly when I tossed down a card with a goat-man. (Which was apparently called a satyr. Yes, I was learning the language of Geekdom.)

  “Thanks.” I collected a card from Brent (after checking for boogers), and Owen leaned over.

  “If that was Trevor’s card, he would’ve spilled his Coke on you and pretended it was an accident,” he whispered, and I laughed.

  “What is that?”

  The four of us looked up just as a massive hand snatched up all of Trevor’s cards. I froze. The red-haired giant. The one who was friends with . . .

  Oh no. No no no no no.

  “It’s a goblin, dude. Oh man, this one says ‘pixie,’” the giant snorted. “Check it out, Aaron. I got a pixie!” He waved the cards over Trevor’s head.

  At Aaron Cook.

  Who was standing right there.

  This was it. I was really, truly, seriously, honestly about to die in my chair, right here in the cafeteria. With Warlock cards in my hand.

  “Knock it off, Rick.” Aaron grabbed the cards from the giant’s hands and gave them to Trevor. “Sorry. He’s just being an idiot.” Trevor mumbled something that sounded a lot like “What else is new.” Lucky for him, Rick didn’t appear to hear.

  “Yeah, whatever. Come on, I need to hit the vending machines before fifth.”

  Rick the Giant lumbered off, but Aaron hesitated. I glanced up, and our eyes met.

  Sorry, he mouthed. I shrugged and tried to smile.

  He walked off just as the bell rang, and I stared numbly at the cards in my hand. He didn’t make fun of you, I told myself. Actually, he kind of defended you.

  But that only made me feel worse. Aaron was so nice. He was so nice and so cute. And now he thought I was a total geek.

  I put my cards down and gathered my things slowly, not daring to look at Owen or anyone else. If I got through the rest of this day without crying, it’d be a miracle.

  Chapter

  Eleven

  On Wednesday, I walked into the band hall feeling good. Sort of. Sure, Monday had been kind of rotten. But yesterday, Mr. Dante had handed out another new song—one we were going to perform at the football game. And it had a French horn solo.

  The next chair test was after the pep rally, but before the game. Maybe Natasha had first chair for now, but I could get it next time. I had to. Because that would mean at the football game, I’d be playing that solo.

  So long as I was passing science, of course. But I’d studied with Owen again yesterday after school, and we were meeting tomorrow, too.

  Things might have gotten off to a rough start this year, but I was going to fix it.

  I opened my horn case, feeling more confident than I had in weeks. When I straightened up and saw Aaron was at his cubby, I heard “Hey, Aaron,” and briefly wondered who said it before I realized it was me. Okay, maybe I was feeling a little too confident.

  He glanced over and smiled. “Hey, Holly. How’s it going?”

  “Great!” I smiled back at him and headed out into the band hall before my face had a chance to turn red. I was still fairly mortified that Aaron had seen me playing a dorky card game at lunch on Monday, but hey—he hadn’t laughed or made fun of me. He’d even told Rick the Giant to stop.

  “Hi, Gabby.” I slipped past her and took my seat. “Hi, Natasha.”

  “Hey,” they said in unison, Natasha looking mildly confused. I could smell Gabby’s Red Hots breath from my chair. Opening my folder, I pulled out “Galactic March” and started reading through the horn solo, very aware of Natasha staring at me.

  After we warmed up, Mr. Dante asked us to get the march out. We’d practiced it a little bit yesterday—it wasn’t exactly easy, but nowhere near as hard as “Labyrinthine Dances.” After playing the beginning a few times, he turned off the metronome.

  “This time, let’s go on and stop at measure sixty-two.”

  He counted us off, and we played. I’d practiced this part last night, so I already knew about the key change in measure forty-eight. At measure fifty-one, Mr. Dante glanced at the horns. When the band stopped, I turned to Natasha.

  “There’s a key change,” I whispered loudly enough for Mr. Dante to hear, pointing at her music. “I think you played a B-flat instead of a B in measure fifty-one.”

  “Holly’s right—we’re in the key of concert F now,” Mr. Dante said, and I smiled sweetly. Natasha turned bright pink. “Trumpets, I heard a few wrong notes from you around there as well. Let’s start right at measure forty-eight.”

  I sat up straight, trying not to look too pleased. I could practically feel Natasha’s glare.

  A few minutes later, Mr. Dante asked the horns and saxes to play four measures together. When we finished, he glanced down at his score.

  “Play just measure fifty-nine, and when you get to the third note, hold it until I stop you.”

  We did, and I heard it—we were out of tune. Mr. Dante asked each of us to play the note one at a time. After I played, Natasha cleared her throat.

  “It might help if you adjust your hand,” she said brightly, turning to me so I could see the angle of her hand in
the bell of her horn. “Try it like this.”

  I forced myself to smile back, even though inside I wanted to scream. “Thanks! I will.”

  Five minutes later, she skipped a rest and I immediately pointed it out. And just a minute after that, I missed a note and she showed me the fingering. By the end of class, my cheeks felt sore from fake-smiling and I was definitely reaching new levels of apoplectic. I took longer than necessary to put my music in my folder, while Natasha practically sprinted to her cubby.

  “What was that about?” Gabby asked. She was still in her chair, looking at me curiously.

  “What was what about?”

  “You and Natasha. I thought for sure one of you was going to slap the other before rehearsal was over.”

  I glanced around. Julia was already in the cubby room, putting her clarinet away and chatting with Sophie Wheeler. “Why would you think that?” I said innocently. “We were just . . . helping each other.”

  Gabby snorted. “Yeah. If you say so.”

  “Which type of organelle creates energy for a cell?”

  “Um . . .” My eyes strayed to the stack of cards on the coffee table. Owen sat facing me on the couch, his textbook open in his lap. At my feet, Worf gnawed on a piece of rawhide. I chewed my lip, thinking. “Mitochondria?”

  “Right!” he exclaimed, and I let out a breath of relief. I’d definitely gotten the hang of our game, but as soon as Owen had decided to quiz me, panic set in. The science test was Monday, and it definitely wasn’t going to involve cards with goofy pictures on them.

  “How many have I gotten right so far?” I asked, and Owen checked his notebook.

  “Fourteen out of twenty.”

  I slumped into the cushion, and Worf leaped onto my lap. “Stellar.”

  “It’s passing,” Owen said.

  “Barely.” I sat up quickly. “Not that this hasn’t—I mean, you’ve helped me a ton! It’s definitely much better than my quiz grade. I just . . . I can’t risk failing it at all.”

  “You won’t fail.”

  Worf started chewing my finger as I watched Owen gather up the cards and twist a rubber band around them. I wished I was as confident in myself as he apparently was. “Here, take these. You can use them over the weekend to study.”

  “Thanks.” I slipped the cards into my backpack, then glanced at the clock. “So . . . Prophets?”

  Owen grinned. “Prophets.”

  I handed Worf over to him, then got up to find the disc and hook up the controllers. Behind the stack of shoe boxes sat a squat, wide shelf filled with DVDs. I flipped through a few.

  “Dark Planet, Project Centaurus . . .” I turned around, eyebrows raised. “Cyborgs versus Ninjas?”

  “Cyborgs versus Ninjas,” Owen said solemnly, “is the greatest movie ever made.”

  I tried not to laugh as I tossed him a controller and flopped back on the couch. “No way. Not possible. I saw the greatest movie ever made last weekend. It just came out.”

  “Holly, I swear if you say Seven Dates I’m never inviting you over again.”

  I snorted. “Gross, no way. It was House of the Wicked.”

  Owen blinked in surprise. “Seriously, you went to see that?”

  “My brother took me. It was amazing.” I leaned forward, pushing my controller aside. “It’s about this guy and his daughter who move into this old house, and the girl starts seeing all this crazy stuff. Like her toys—she keeps finding them in weird places. All her dolls disappear and she finds their eyes in the ice tray in the freezer, and her jump rope gets twisted up in the ceiling fan, stuff like that. Oh my God, and at this one part she goes into the bathroom and the mirror is covered in—” I stopped, because Owen was laughing at me. “What?”

  “You like horror movies?”

  “Most movies that aren’t horror are boring,” I said flatly. “They’re all predictable. But horror movies—not the gory ones, I mean the ones that are scary without blood and guts—it’s almost impossible to figure out the ending. You would never guess the ending of House.”

  Owen looked skeptical. “Not all other types of movies are predictable.”

  “Yes they are. Doesn’t matter if it’s romance or action or sci-fi—no offense—they’ve all got a good guy and a bad guy, and the good guy pretty much always wins. You know the ending before the movie’s halfway done.”

  “And horror movies don’t have good guys and bad guys?”

  “Sometimes, but it doesn’t matter.” I shifted as Worf climbed back into my lap. “They can trick you. Maybe the bad guy wins, or maybe the one you thought was good was bad. Or maybe everyone dies. Or maybe everyone was dead the whole time. They’re always different.”

  Owen considered this. “Want to make a bet?” he said finally.

  “A bet?”

  He nodded. “I’ll bet you can’t guess the ending of Cyborgs versus Ninjas.”

  I started laughing. “Owen, that’s stupid! Either one wins or the other. Cyborgs or ninjas. I’ve got a fifty-fifty chance.”

  “No, I mean you should watch it,” Owen said, “and halfway through, you tell me the ending.”

  “Easy.” I glanced at the clock. “Not today, though—I have to be home in half an hour.”

  “Sure.” Owen started scrolling through the Prophets menu, then glanced at me. “No looking up the ending online, though.”

  I snorted. “Please. I won’t have to.”

  We played for twenty minutes, and I killed twelve aliens and blew up two pods. Secretly, I was looking forward to the next time Trevor came over. He wouldn’t be making fun of me again.

  When I got into the car, Mom held up a plastic bag with a flourish.

  “Ta-da! I stopped by the mall after work today.”

  “Ooh, what is it?” I squealed, grabbing the bag and turning it over. Shiny blue fabric spilled out onto my lap. “Wow.”

  It was dress. A gorgeous dress. Light blue, capped sleeves, with a thin black belt and a black flower pattern along the bottom.

  “Mom!” I yelled excitedly. “I have boots that would go perfect with this!”

  “I know!” she yelled back.

  “Thank you!”

  “You’re welcome!”

  We hugged. I examined the dress up close. “What’s this for, anyway?”

  “The band party, dork,” said Mom, checking her rearview mirror and pulling away from the curb. “Next Friday, right?”

  “Oh . . . right, yeah.”

  Mom gave me a strange look. “Are you okay, Holly?”

  “What?” I looked up. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “Okay.”

  I turned my attention back to the dress, but my excitement had definitely faded. Depending on how Monday went, there was a chance I wouldn’t even get to wear it.

  Chapter

  Twelve

  I called Julia twice on Saturday and she never called back. So Chad and I watched all three Watch the Fog movies, and then he went out with his friends and I did nothing.

  On Sunday, Dad took us to the lake. As usual, he and Chad ignored me every time I told them to put on more sunblock. And as usual, by the time we got home they were both practically purple.

  “Ice,” groaned Chad, lumbering like a zombie over to the freezer. He grabbed a bag of frozen chicken nuggets and held it to the back of his neck. I rolled my eyes.

  Dad headed into the laundry room with a bag full of wet towels and bathing suits. “Holly, will you check the messages?”

  “Sure.” I walked to the phone as Chad rubbed the bag of nuggets on his face.

  “Chad, gross!” Mom appeared in the doorway, arms crossed. “Next time just listen to your sister and put on the sunblock.”

  I smiled smugly at Chad, and he stuck his tongue out.

  When I pressed play on the answering machine, it beeped once.
“Hey, Holly, it’s Julia. Call me back!”

  “Let me know when you’re off the phone,” Mom said as I hurried up to my room.

  “Okay!” I yelled back. But when I closed my door, I pulled Owen’s cards out of my backpack without even looking at my phone. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to Julia. But my stomach was starting to knot up about this test tomorrow, and I figured a last-minute cram session couldn’t hurt.

  And anyway, maybe I would call Julia back if she’d bothered to return my call yesterday. But she hadn’t, so I wasn’t going to, either.

  The knots got tighter and tighter all Monday morning. By the time band rolled around, I was too anxious to think of a retort when Natasha cattily pointed out a tiny rhythm mistake I made in the march. At lunch, I got through half my sandwich before giving up and shoving everything back into the sack.

  And then I was at my desk, listening to Mrs. Driscoll tell us to get out our pencils and put everything else away. I shuffled through the cards one last time, and Owen smiled at me.

  “Good luck!”

  “Thanks, Owen.”

  Mrs. Driscoll handed me the test—three pages, holy cow—and I took a deep breath. Here we go.

  1. Centrioles are found in:

  A) plant cells

  B) animal cells

  C) both

  D) neither

  I pictured the blade chopping the onion and grinned, my stomach knots loosening a tiny bit. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

  I got to first-period English ten minutes early on Tuesday. Gabby was already there, ripping open a bag of M&M’s.

  “M&M’s for breakfast, Red Hots for lunch?” I asked, tossing my bag down on the desk in front of hers.

  “The Red Hots aren’t my lunch, Holly,” Gabby said around a mouthful of chocolate. “They’re to help me not starve to death before lunch.” She swallowed, then gave me an innocent look. “Lunch is peanut butter cups.”

  I laughed, then swiveled around when Mr. Franks entered the room. My eyes zeroed in on the packet in his hand.

  Progress reports.

  “I really hope he hands them out at the beginning of class.” I didn’t even realize I’d spoken out loud until Gabby responded.