Alex Ham the orchestra man

Chapter 1

Alexander Hamilton sped through the school's dingy hallways, holding on to a cello strap with one hand and muttering to himself as he went: "Orchestra room, go straight down and turn right, past the stairs. Orchestra room, go straight and turn right, past the stairs. Hurry up, Alex, can't be late for the audition." He made the required turn and was met with a closed, wooden door with the room number 215. He racked his memory. This was - probably - the orchestra room.

The door opened and a tall African-American girl appeared, rolling a cello case behind her. She looked at him.

"Waiting to go in? He's ready for the next one."

He nodded thinly. She held the door open for him with her fingertips.

"Thanks," he said, barely audibly.

He headed in. The conductor had told him to call him just Washington, and he was sitting in one of the student chairs with a desk pulled in front of him, hand hovering over a sheet of paper with a pencil. He'd met Washington yesterday, when he came in with his uncle earlier to make sure his extra-packed schedule would be fine. Though he had gotten the audition music beforehand, for the seating arrangements in the orchestra. He wanted first chair. First chair got all the solos.

"Hello, Alexander isn't it?" - he nodded, "why don't you unpack and tune up?" He complied nervously, running up and down a couple of scales to warm up. He looked up when he was done, Washington smiling kindly at him.

"Start whenever you're ready."

He nodded a beat out, tapped it on the floor with his foot - he saw Washington's eyes flick towards it with no change in expression, and he chastised himself - it was a bad habit of his.

Halfway through his audition, he completely botched a rhythm and reverted to playing the section half as slowly, which was how he'd originally learned it, only realizing his mistake several bars after he switched to half time. Slightly shaken up, he stumbled through the rest of the piece, packing up as fast as he could and ignoring Washington's attempts to talk to him, calm him down. He made it outside and shut the door quietly - apparently he was the last to audition - before sitting down on the floor, pissed at himself and everything around him. He played his audition so badly, he'd be lucky to get fifth chair of the six available at this rate. He groaned.

A shadow fell over him, then bent over.

"Are you alright?" He craned his neck up. Standing in front of him was a tall African American boy, not smiling at him but not frowning either. His hand was stuck out in front of him. Hamilton took the boy's hand and used it to pull himself up, then shook it.

"I'm Alexander Hamilton."

"I gathered," the boy said, nodding at the tag on his cloth cello case. "I'm Aaron Burr, I play violin. Were you trying out?"

"Yeah, I messed it up. I played half time at that one part in the middle, you know? That part where there's the awkward sixteenths with all the string crossings? And that kind of shook me up for the rest of the audition, and I kind of just threw my bow at the strings with unnecessary energy and lost all my phrasing and -" He cut himself when he realized the boy - Burr - was looking at him strangely. "Sorry. I've been told I talk too much. I have to work on that, actually, I always got in trouble for talk - you know what, I'll shut up now. What?"

Burr waited a moment before saying, "Washington'll go easy if it's your first year." He paused. "It is your first year, right? I don't remember seeing you."

"Yeah, I moved here two months ago because my mom and I caught this flu that was going around, and we hadn't been vaccinated so we got pretty sick and then my mom died while she was holding me, just like that. That was two months ago and -" He stopped abruptly. Perhaps he shouldn't hit a person he just met with that. "- Never mind. Anyway, I live with my uncle now."