Chapter 5

"Okay," said Crissy Hatch. "What do you think about Heather?"

The three tiny brunettes were huddled together on her bedroom floor. Her dad had already made his keep it down, girls visit, just like Courtney's dad had last time. She had plugged in a Donald Duck nightlight from an old cardboard box in the back of her closet, and the room was bathed in soft blue.

"I saw her practicing," said Courtney. "She was doing spins and stuff with the big yellow flag. All that around-the-body and behind-the-back stuff. You know?"

"Yeah, she's amazing," Julie agreed.

"And before that," Courtney continued, "I remember her and May were doing part of their routine from last year, and I couldn't take my eyes away. I mean, how are we supposed to get that good?"

"I know," said Julie. "Those flags are hard enough to manage indoors. Just think what it'll be like during the show, with the wind blowing and everything."

"Do you think she's really ... like ... a slut?" Courtney.

"Heather?" Crissy.

"Yeah." Courtney.

"I don't know, I don't think so." Crissy.

"I think they were just joking, you know." Julie.

"Yeah, it's hard to tell, though." Courtney.

Happily, Crissy leaned back on one of her big poofy pillows. It felt so wonderful to be going into high school, to have new friends like this. Friends not because they were in the same class with her, but because they actually shared the same interests. Because they were part of the same group. Now she was part of an us. Crissy had never been part of an us or a we before. "Who do you think is better?" she asked.

"Who?" said Julie.

"Heather or May," said Crissy.

"Well," said Courtney, "Heather's the saber captain, and May's the flag captain."

"Yeah, but I think Heather might be better at both," Crissy pointed out.

"Could be," Courtney shrugged. "It doesn't matter too much does it? Since Aisha's better than both of them?"

It wasn't a fair comparison, Crissy thought. Nobody would ever be as good as their striking colorguard captain with her striking African name. Aisha deserved her own bracket, head and shoulders above everyone else. In fact--

"I'm gonna ask Zoe where she takes dance lessons," Julie put in.

Crissy wasn't sure at first if her new friend was bragging. Usually, freshmen just did flag work, and whatever ensemble parts were choreographed. But Zoe had hand-picked Julie for the body squad over all the sophomores and three of the juniors. Julie might be body captain herself by junior year. And if the colorguard could win some awards, that would look very good to dance schools.

No, Julie wasn't bragging. She was just thinking out loud. Crissy was happy for her ... and a little bit jealous too.

"--get to hang out with a bunch of juniors all year," Courtney was saying.

"Yeah." Julie bit her lip. "I've got no idea what to say to any of them."

"Well," said Crissy smiling. "I don't think you've got to worry about it." She poked Julie in the ribs. "They're much more interested in your body than your mind!" She laughed at her own joke.

Julie was giggling also, probably more at being tickled. Courtney just shook her head.

"Get it?" Crissy said to Courtney, leaning over to poke the other girl's ribs. "Her body? Cause she's on the body squad?"

"Yeah, I get it, sheesh!" Courtney said, swatting the poking finger away from her side. But she couldn't help herself from laughing as well.

"That was dumb!" said Julie, laughing harder for no good reason.

"I know!" giggled Crissy, her voice rising higher. She wiped a tear from her eye.

"The body squad!" Courtney repeated, flopping onto her side. "Come on!"

They all quieted after a long moment. They breathed hard. "Why was that funny?" asked Julie. And they all burst out again.

"Why are you laughing?" asked Courtney, clutching her side.

"I don't know!" complained Julie, hardly able to talk straight.

"See?!" Crissy managed, through fits of her own giggles. "It was funny!" And then she hiccuped. And that just set them off ever harder.

"No it wasn't!" Julie wheezed, her words whistling a little.

"Oh, no," said Courtney slowly, trying to calm herself down. "Oh, let's stop now."

And then a knock-knock on the bedroom door. The three girls froze and clapped their hands over their mouths. A sliver of yellow light, just a little brighter than the blue Donald Duck nightlight, fell across the room as the door opened a crack. Crissy's dad was standing there, just a dark shadow. He whispered into the room, "Some of us have to go to work in the morning."

"Sorry, dad," Crissy said. Or tried to say, through her hands. Her voice was so high-pitched even she couldn't have understood herself. And the other two girls started all over, both collapsing and rolling on the floor.

"Goodnight, girls." Then the door closed.

Crissy turned on her friends, poking them both. "You guys need to be quiet!" she said.

But her pokes turned into tickles, and tickles turned into lots of squirming and wriggling around on the carpet. And they were both tickling her back, and all three of them were a single writhing mass of girl-flesh.

At last, they wore themselves out, and lay there panting.

"Let me up!" said Courtney, and she wormed herself free. "Whew!"

Crissy was still lying more or less on top of Julie. But Julie didn't seem all that interested in getting up. And Crissy wasn't all that interested in letting her up.

Courtney was watching them. After the silence became almost uncomfortable, she said, "Are you guys gonna ... you know..." She was blushing.

Crissy met Julie's eyes. Both of them were blushing as well. "You wanna?" she asked.

"Yeah," said Julie. "You?"

"Uh huh," Crissy nodded.

"Just let me watch, okay?" said Courtney, but neither girl answered her.

Still so unsure of what she was doing or why, Crissy moved her leg to straddle her friend's narrow hips. When she had suggested it last time, it was just an idea from some movie. She had never imagined she would enjoy it so much, or think about it so often afterward. Her heart was fluttering, like it couldn't remember its usual rhythm.

She put her elbows on the carpet, on either side of Julie's neck. She felt Julie's hands brushing through thick locks of her hair, piling that hair up in a big messy ball behind her head. And even before she had quite decided she was ready, those hands pulled her head down. A split-second passed in which Crissy wasn't sure whether to breath in or out. Then she just closed her eyes and let her face be guided. Soft lips touched her lips, and she settled in to enjoy her second kiss.

Crissy felt Julie's jaw drop, felt the light brush of a tongue across her lips. She opened her own mouth, felt the tongue lick her teeth. She felt Julie shudder just a little, heard a soft moan. It was so thrilling, the way two friends could enjoy each other's company like this! Her own tongue was descending into Julie's open mouth, when her hair was suddenly let go, and a brunette curtain dropped to cover their faces.

Julie's hands were on her neck, then her shoulders. And she felt Courtney reach in to brush her curtain of hair aside, felt Courtney's hand holding the back of her head, almost encouraging her to continue. Crissy was busy trying to decide where her own nose ended and Julie's began, the way they were smashed together, when she felt something else she hadn't been expecting. She felt Julie's fingers softly pass over her little boobs.

Crissy's eyes flew open. What was going on here? But then the fingers continued on, and slid around her sides, around to her back. So she closed her eyes again, and kept kissing.

Sleepovers were so much fun!

The Hannibal High School choir room was a pretty boring place, David thought. Risers, a few chairs, a piano. A rack along one wall for music folders. The Hannibal Middle School only had a single music room, that was shared by the choir, the band, and also the sixth graders who shrieked away on recorders. Until the beginning of this week, he had never before seen a room devoted only to choir. No music stands, no great big timpani and bass drum, no funny stains on the carpet where the brass players drained their spit valves day after day, no closet stacked high with instrument cases of all shapes and sizes.

What a boring room. At least on a normal day. But the freshman David Yates wasn't here on a normal day. All week, the battery had been using the choir room for its drills. Sometimes the pit would wheel their long xylophone carts into the room for full percussion drills. But right now, the pit was off in their practice room--with that hottie Maria cracking her whip--and the battery was broken up, working on different parts.

Across the room, the drum captain Josh was running the snares through some complicated pattern that was going to be a big part of the show. Thankfully, they all had put those black rubber drum mutes over the snares' heads--otherwise their soft tapping would have overwhelmed every other sound in the hard-walled room.

In another corner, the tenors were practicing some kind of drill David hadn't heard before. Quints, they were called. A harness with five drums attached, like carrying around a drumset. Those things were so cool, and he couldn't wait until next year when he might get the chance to march in the quint line. He actually knew the youngest of the four tenor players: Billy Upton had been a year ahead of him at Hannibal Middle School.

And also, there were the bass drums. Four of them, lined up from little to big, all with green rims and a big green hawk on each side. It must be hard to keep your part straight, David though as he watched. The music went up and down the different sized drums, and each of the four players had a different part of the rhythm to play. They were trying to sound like four parts of the same instrument. They didn't always succeed, but they were getting a lot better since the first day. It was kind of like the handbell choir he had seen at church once ... only not geeky.

But watch as he might, David Yates was not in any of these lines. He was a marching cymbal player. The first day, he thought it would be easy. He thought he would get bored too quickly. He thought he looked like a toy monkey with a red hat. Now he knew it was going to be a lot harder than he had imagined. It was not just memorizing the cymbal crashes for the show, and marching around with the battery on the field. He had to learn crash technique, and ride technique. He had to learn to play split parts with the other three cymbal players, a little like what the bass drummers were doing. He had to learn how to flare the shiny brass cymbals forward as a visual effect, a little like what the colorguard would be doing with their flags. But most of all--

"--you listening to me?" said a voice. "David!" It was Peggy Thayer, the only sophomore in a cymbal line of freshmen.

David snapped his head around, turning a little red. Most of all, he had to learn how to ignore all the cute high school girls, with their cute little titties and their tight little shirts. There was Jenny Luis, the only freshman in the snare line. Then there was the junior, Brandi Scott, the second base drummer. Erin Meyer was standing next to him giggling. David thought she was from Jefferson Middle School. And of course, Peggy, her cymbaled hands on her hips, glaring at him. He felt like he was constantly getting a boner.

"Sorry," he said. Sheepish.

"You keep getting on the on-beats," Peggy said. "Me and Sebastian are on the on-beats. You and Erin stay on the off-beats."

Sebastian, the other freshman, snickered. "Beat-off," he muttered, grinning.

"Yeah, I know," David answered Peggy. "I can't keep it straight after a few measures go by. I keep getting turned around."

"Well you better figure it out," she told him. "I'm going to keep you on all the off-beat parts all year until you do."

"Beat-off," Sebastian snickered again.

"Don't worry," Erin said, smiling. "You'll get it. It's not hard, it's just--" she thought a moment, "--it's just one day a light switch goes off in your head, and you just get it."

David smiled back at her, his face red. "Okay," he said. "I'll just keep trying." It was easier for him to act like he was just having trouble with the counting than to admit the truth. He knew how to count. He knew how to play on the off-beats. He just didn't know how to keep his teenage eyes from wandering and his teenage brain from switching to auto-pilot.

"Good," said Peggy, as if the issue was settled. "From the top."

The sounds of twelve drummers all banging away on different parts kept echoing off the room's four walls as Peggy counted them off again. So many different rhythms and patterns to listen to, it was easy to lose her voice and her tempo. They were working on a split ride pattern, cymbals held flat and tight against their stomachs, trying to mimic the sound of a drumset drummer playing a tight down-up pattern on a high-hat. David did his best to keep count.

Across the room, Jenny's titties were jiggling while her face was screwed up in concentration. In the other corner, Brandi's ass cheeks filled up her shorts in a way middle school guys don't get to see. Right next to him, Erin was just visible from the corner of his eye, and he kept thinking he could see her nipples poking out. And there was Peggy glaring at him.

Dammit! He had already messed up.

Erin giggled. Peggy glared. David's face was red. Sebastian snickered, "Beat-off."

Would this day never end?

Ruth Wood was running late. Windows down, humid July wind in her tangled hair, doing at least ten over the posted limit. Fifteen in some places. She sped through a yellow, making the left from Highway 147 onto South Old Mill, toward the high school. It was the only traffic signal in the entire township of Hannibal. The bald tires on her beat-up old Ranger protested loudly. The beat-up old cases stuffed in back shifted and banged against the side rail. Her un-seatbelted body threatened to slide across the bench seat toward the passenger door. A car honked. She finished the turn and straightened the wheel, and downshifted to second. The engine coughed.

Well, she wasn't really late. She was going to be right on time. But her plans for being early were shot now.

She had forgotten until the last minute to load up the six school mellophones--which she had so graciously volunteered to clean over the summer--and bring them to the meeting with her. It was Friday. The last day before all the new freshmen showed up. All the school instruments had to be back on the shelves to be cataloged before they could all be checked out again.

So she had somehow made all those big boxy cases fit into the bed of her little pickup, and gone racing off to the school building. Now, she drove too fast down South Old Mill, past a produce stand and a butcher shop and a small post office, until she saw the familiar green and white sign. Welcome to Hannibal High School, Home of the Hawks. She would end up being right on time.

She braked and put the shifter in first, and cut the wheel with her spinning palm for a hard right. The tires squealed again, and the back end of the pickup half-slid around into the school's entrance drive. A puff of black came out of the tailpipe as the engine revved a little too high for first gear.

Then over the crest of the little hill, and the school building was laid out below, with parking lots and sports fields all around. It looked like the football team was out, doing some kind of sprints on their practice field. It was awfully hot out for that. It was awfully hot out for doing anything.

Ruth coasted down the hill, around to the side of the school building. She let gravity carry her toward the side entrance where there were already a couple dozen cars in the diagonal spaces. Some of those would be percussion and colorguard, but six of them probably belonged to the other section leaders, who were already here. There was Mr. Williams' Camry and Sara Clark's little blue Escort. Ruth aimed at a spot, and hit the brakes and dropped the clutch. The engine died even as the truck slid to a squealing stop. Keys in hand, she was out the door and running even before the old bald tires had finished complaining. She didn't look back to see her front license plate kiss the bumper of whatever yellow Honda was parked in the opposite space.

Just as she reached the school doors, she heard a familiar voice.

"Hey, Ruth!" It was Emily Powell, the flute section leader, jogging up from behind. She must have been already parked, sitting in her car fiddling with something.

"Hey!" Hand on the door, Ruth waited. She ran her fingers through her tangled hair, trying to smooth it a bit. She smiled and hugged her friend.

"How're you?" Emily asked, smiling. "I like your parking job."

"Good, you?" Ruth pulled the door open, and the cool comfort of the school's air conditioning washed out. They stepped inside, and she headed down the hall toward the band room. According to the school clocks, it was a minute till eleven.

"Good," said Emily. "Wait up a sec, I'm gonna get a drink." She thumbed the dull metal button and bent over the fountain with pursed lips.