Assisting Victoria

Part Eight

            Mr. Baron was back to conducting us in band that day, so when I walked in I set my stuff down on the floor around the corner and took a seat in on one of the storage chests that were there holding most of the percussion instruments for Tori’s classes.

            The thing about Mr. Baron conducting was that I never got a lot of parts. Actually, I barely ever got anything. He wasn’t like Tori. He wouldn’t pick parts for people and hand them out to us. All he would do is hand them to one member of our section and they’d fight over things with their friends before letting anyone else have a shot.

            I leaned back against the wall and listened as the rest of the band began to play the first song. Sitting out wasn’t all that bad. I did really enjoy being able to actually listen to the music and focus on all the different parts. If there was one reason I loved being in band, it seemed to be because I liked to dissect all the songs.

            When I say that, I mean that I liked to sit and listen to the parts individually just so when I went back to listening to the song as a whole, with everyone, I could more clearly notice the individual instruments. People always said I had a good ear for music, and I liked to believe I did. That was why I planned on going into the field of music after I graduated. I didn’t know what I wanted to do yet though.

            It would have been really cool if I could have ended up teaching, but I considered myself to be way to shy and quiet for that. I’d never be able to get my students to listen to me or pay attention. It also would have been cool to play professionally, but I wasn’t sure I was that good. I wasn’t bad, and Tori seemed to think I was one of the stronger percussionists in our band, but the confidence was not there.

            Speaking of Tori, she came in a little late as usual. This time she was carrying a bag full of what looked like more music for us. I wondered for a moment if that meant she’d be conducting us again. I smiled at the thought.”

            “Hey Kelsey?”

            Surprised to hear my name, I looked over to see her staring at me.

            “Yeah?”

            “Think you could help me with something today?” she asked.

            I nodded. Of course I could.

            She sat down on the steps that led up to the percussion section and the door and started pulling a few folders out of her bag. I got up and walked over, standing on the lowest level in front of her and waited for her to tell me what I would be doing. When she finally found the one she was looking for, she opened it up, pulled out the music and started to hand me parts.

            “Can you go give this to Adam Haines?”

            I looked over at Adam, who was sitting way in the back in the trombone section and headed in that direction. After that, I continued to go back and get parts from her to bring to the other members of our band. It was actually kind of tiring to walk back and forth so much, especially when some of the people I was handing music too were all the way on the other side of our decent sized band room, but I wasn’t about to complain.

            For as many people as there were, it didn’t take as long as I imagined it would. We were done before half the hour was over, and just as I had been hoping, Tori was going to be directing us again. She had us play the new song I just handed out, before going back to the one from the other day.

            I really liked them both, and I wasn’t surprised. Her taste in music, at least when it came to band music, seemed to be very similar to mine, where as Mr. Baron’s was almost the complete opposite. He liked to do way too many march like songs. Which weren’t bad when it was marching band season, but once that was over with I preferred to switch to something a little more… exciting I guess.

            That was the way Tori seemed to think to, because a lot of her songs were parts from movies or Broadway musicals. They always seemed to be on the louder and faster side, which wasn’t a shock either. Tori was one of the best teachers around. When we were in middle school she used to push us to be the best we could be and we were playing high school level music by the beginning of 8th grade.

            She also led us to win awards whenever we went to festival. Not that Mr. Baron wasn’t a good teacher. His students one awards all the time too, he just didn’t push us out of our comfort zones as much as she did. I liked that about her. She had the right thought in her head and I was sure I knew just it was. You can’t improve by playing it safe.

            At the end of the hour I sat down and relaxed for a bit. We ended a little early, which was weird for Tori, because she usually kept us going right until the bell rang to signal that it was time for lunch. Today though, she walked over to me at the end of class.

            “I see you’ve improved since we last played that piece. Now do you believe you can handle it?” she asked.

            I nodded. It was true. I had tried as hard as I could not to get lost that day and it had worked out a lot better than I had originally thought it would.

            “Yeah. I guess I didn’t do too bad.”

            “You didn’t do badly at all. Stop being so hard on yourself.” She half smiled and looked around the room. “Things better today I hope?”

            I tilted my head, slightly confused as I stared at her. It took me a minute to get why she was asking that.

            “Oh!” I finally said, as I realized she must have been referring to Mitch and the spaghetti incident. “I guess. I don’t really know yet though. I don’t see him until after this class.”

            “I see.” She thought for a moment. “Well, just checking. Let me know though if he does anything else.”

            She walked away after that and I wasn’t entirely sure what to think. On one hand, I was glad that I told her, because it seemed to be making her pay more attention to me. On the other hand, she was starting to care about me more and that scared me at the same time. I didn’t want her digging into things too much and finding out why exactly Mitch and his friends were teasing me.

            It was bad enough when I imagined our principal, or our guidance counselor talking to him, but I did NOT under any circumstances want Tori to talk to Mitch. I could only imagine what he’d tell her.