Spy School Oneshot Collection

Interrupting Tuba

Inspired by Erica saying in Secret Service that Chip went to a performing arts school where he specialized in, among other things, playing the oboe. Also by the fact that I had five (or six, depending on how you count) concerts the week I wrote this.

Everything was fine until the tuba fell over. Chip had been playing his oboe solo just as he had rehearsed, but as soon as that stupid giant piece of metal fell into the stand in front of it, causing both to hit the ground with a loud crash, everything fell apart.

How someone had even managed to drop their tuba in the middle of playing, Chip had no idea, but as soon as it happened, everyone else in the orchestra turned around to watch as the unlucky tuba player sheepishly picked up the instrument off the floor and set the stand back upright. All of this left Chip awkwardly standing in front of everyone, unsure of whether or not he should keep playing now that most everyone else had stopped, causing his solo to die off into the slow death of musical uncertainty.

Out in the audience, Hank was laughing his head off while everyone else sat mostly silently, though some of them were whispering about what might have happened since most of them hadn't had a very good view of the dropped tuba.

"Measure 37!" the conductor whispered agressively, and they all started up again, except for the people sitting next to the tuba player who had been personally affected by the fallen tuba beyond just its sound.

Chip started playing again, vowing to kill both his brother and the tuba player as soon as the concert was over. Well, at least just beat them up. Chip wasn't that keen on going to prison for murder.

Any excess adjectives/overly long sentences can be blamed on a history project I was working on while writing this where we were supposed to write romantically, put on the rubric as like 25 points for adjectives.