I just couldn't get the note out of my flute. Possibly the note that would change my life one way or another. If I didn't play this song correctly I was not going to get a place at one of the top music schools alongside my best friend Jazz. Therefore, I have to get a place. I couldn't imagine being in my secondary school in Year 8 without her.
Yes, I have other friends, though no one like Jazz. She came with me from primary school and has been my best friend forever. She plays the saxophone unlike me. I suppose she is quite different from me. She has always been the rebel in the class. Rolling up her skirt, untying her shoe laces, wearing make-up and customizing her blazer with every badge in the entire world that I think exists. I on the other hand am not like her. I work hard at everything especially music. I study and study, though Jazz doesn't and still is great. I suppose that is what makes us unique, Jazz and me.
I probably don't have the best environment for practising at the moment anyway though. I have a new baby brother so he is getting all the fuss at the moment and lapping it up too. My older sister, Hannah, is playing her music so loud the house is shuddering and my younger sister, Mia who is 5 (7 years younger than me) is walking round dressed in my clothes wearing my Mum's make-up smeared across her grinning face. Jazz is lucky. She only has an older brother who completely ignores her and acts as if she doesn't exist. Also, Jazz has a musical family. Her Mum plays the saxophone and helps her to learn it, her Dad plays the clarinet, her brother plays the piano and the guitar. My family are definitely NOT musical. Well, Mia does play hot cross buns on the recorder if that counts, though that is as far as it goes.
Chapter 2
I hate maths. It could possibly be my worst subject after art, and I tell you now I really do NOT like art. I need peace to do maths and you can't get peace when a group of boys at the back of the class start making paper aeroplanes to throw at the back of your head and the teacher's head if they can get away with it without getting a lunchtime detention. We have the biggest maths test today with half a calculator test and the other non-calculator. Now, what I don't get is why you are allowed a calculator in a test. Aren't tests meant to be you working them out NOT the calculator. Though I wouldn't go telling that to the teacher. Partly because I would get told off and secondly it helps to have a calculator. Oh, and would you look at that. I have just written a whole paragraph on the subject of maths.
Now music I can deal with. Miss Bell is our music teacher and she is the best in the world. Jazz and I compete at who Miss Bell likes more. I win because Miss Bell plays the flute the same as me. She also tells the boys at the back to be quiet as well. I wish Miss Bell was my flute teacher. Though I have a stricter one called Mrs Twig. She doesn't give me half a chance to say anything and is always telling me to practise an hour and a half a day. I already have 3 lessons a week! Though I suppose I must practise if I want to pass and get into this new school. Jazz is so laid back about this exam I can hardly believe it. She only practises half an hour a day! Everyone keeps telling me to stop practising that much. I know I have to if I want to get in though. They don't know what it's like.
The exam is in a month. I know what it's like to take exams because I am on my Grade 6 the same as Jazz is on her saxophone. Instead of hanging out with my friends in the canteen I go and practise my flute in the rickety old music room. The floor boards creak and the pipes make noises though it is mostly quiet as long as Jazz isn't in there and she normally isn't. Sometimes she has a packed lunch with me instead of canteen and we sit and play duets together. Though trust me, the flute and the saxophone are very different so you need the right song. That's what we are doing today. We have to get to the room quickly as soon as the bell goes in case someone gets there before us. Because its a Friday we have English after lunch and then music. I am so looking forward to English. We are writing stories at the minute. Mine is quite good, ( oh, look at me being modest), though Jazz is struggling. I do sit next to her and help her, however hers is turning out to be a fact file on the saxophone rather than a story. Jazz has to put up with me in maths, especially with our topic this term - algebra. I hate algebra, mostly because they mix letters in with numbers and that's just wrong, though also because it sounds like a country or a breakfast cereal rather than something to do with maths.
