Changing Strides

~Chapter 4~

  The first two classes of the morning passed by slower than molasses. The high schoolers were out of control, of course nothing of that sort was out of the ordinary for my class. The time felt like the seconds were minutes and the minutes were hours. The teachers sounded like the parents in the Peanuts Movies, and overall the morning was just, blah. At least I had band. Not many kids misbehave in band. We all loved the teacher and he was funny and kind, but we got stuff done. Today I had heard rumors that we would get an extra piece added. I closed my locker, reluctantly neglecting the day dreams. I walked with Sammy and Amanda to band. We, as usual, chatted up a storm the whole way to the class, like every class we had together, but we enjoyed it. I walked into the band room and made my way over to the lockers. Locker, lockers, lockers, too many lockers. But after today, I wouldn't have to see a locker for a whole three weeks.

I grabbed my oboe and my music, and took my seat in front of my oboe partner, Laura. Laura and I had been good friends since 1st grade, and we had decided that we were both equally good musicians, but we had to keep our chairs. I pulled out my instrument and started warming up. I did our basic B flat scale before attempting the winter concert music. Our teacher, Mr. Peter quieted the class. He pulled out a stack of papers and began explaining, "Okay, class. I found this piece that should be easy for you guys. It's really fun, so when I came across it in the filing room, I couldn't pass it up. He divided the papers and passed them out. I looked down at the two page music in front of me. It read: The Polar Express (medley). That was all the encouragement I would need to convince myself that this would be a really cool piece. Mr. Peter waved his baton in the air and the class grew a couple inches. Shiny brass and plastic shone in the artificial lighting and the teacher waved his baton up. We sight read the music and already on our first try it sounded pretty good. I was thrilled to be doing this song. I knew I liked band for a reason, and having band in the middle of the day gave me a light in the dark. After this hour, I'd only have four more hours left until I would be on break and I wouldn't have to see homework for three weeks.