MiLoh BSGSSB Adventures

Makeover time!!!!

Xuan's POV

About 7 years ago on this very day i was cleaning tubas with our old conductor Ms Siew. People would have described her as a woman of pure terror and fright,but she was nice sometimes. She happened to like to tease me a lot,which brings me back to what happened that very day.

"I want you all to practise your parts. Sec Ones stay."she commanded. I went to the other side of the studio with my junior and the Double Basses,and was about to start practising once again. "XXUUUAAAAAANNNN!!!!!!"she hollered my name out once again and i ran over to where she was standing,at our tuba area. Mrs Toh,the teacher in charge was there as well.

"Show Mrs Toh which 2 tubas are Besson tubas."she said.
"Which ones?"i asked. I was using a Yamaha tuba and we hadn't touched the Besson ones in almost half a year.
"Besson." I had to keep asking and she screamed her instructions over and over again,(not angrily,thankfully)until i finally heard it correctly. I can be a bit deaf sometimes. I then pointed out the 2 tubas that were right inside,and she screamed at me for not pulling them out. She can be a little unreasonable,but at least i wasn't being scolded. I took them both out,got a little mixed up with them because they looked exactly the same,and set them in front of her.

After a little tinkering,the stuck valves were as good as new. But something didn't seem right. "The tuba SO BLACK!!! Do you have polish and polishing cloth?"she asked. I scurried to our section to take polish and a polishing cloth,and to my surprise she snipped a strip off. "Now you do it like this,"she said,squirting a bit of polish on the middle and pulling the sides of the cloth to clean the tuba. I could see the blackness slowly coming off,and its original silver colour coming to light for the first time in at least 4 years. She handed me the cloth and told me to do the same,seemingly because some boys from another school had to borrow them or something,and she didn't want them to think Bandset Girls' tubas were filthy. Talk about good reputation.

She left me to do the job while she fixed one of the percussion's instruments. I used to think she had magic hands,because no matter how stubbornly your valve refused to budge,or if something was stuck,whenever she touched it it would return to normal,like as if it had never been faulty. Either she had magic hands or the instruments were mortally scared of her.

I scrubbed less than half the tuba clean while the band went on with combine,and when she noticed i wasn't there she yelled,"Where's Xuan?"
"Here!"i said,thrusting my darkened cloth into the air. From light pink,the poor cloth had been rubbed to a nasty greyish-black,and less than half the tuba was shining averagely. She grinned at me mischievously and yelled,"Can already lahh!!! You now then rub so hard?!?!" I was confused.
"It's still dirty-" "OHH MAYBE SHE RUB SO CLEAN NOW BECAUSE THE BOYS COME TO BORROW SO SHE WANT TO IMPRESS THEM HAAAAHHH!!!!!"she said to the whole band. I was so tired of reacting to her weird comments and taunts that i just groaned silently in unhappiness and shoved the cloth away. Only then did i notice how much time had passed,and how filthy my hands had become. When she was cleaning,she only got a bit of polish on her hands. The fingers on my right hand were completely black,especially under the fingernails,and i had 2 splotches of polish on the back of my hand and a slightly bleeding left index finger.

My instrument was all the way on the other side of the studio and i had no choice but to run there and get it. Everyone smirked at my frazzled self as i dashed to my seat,sweaty and covered in dirt. I managed to play before my soul collapsed and i ended up whining about the state i was in. She then made fun of my entire section because we were gullible,just like the leader(me).

What had started out energetic and enthusiastic had ended up tired and tarnished. I somewhat couldn't wait for the next practice,for my hands to be dirtyed again for the cleanliness of the tuba.

Signed
Xuan