Yara:
"Jesus Christ you always take so long lol!"
Katya:
"I'm sorry! I'll be there in two minutes"
Yara:
"Better be, Hall is about to start"
I put my phone in my bag, and my dad dropped me out at front. I ran inside and grabbed the new music off of the piano.
"There you are!" Yara hugged me.
"Theres a lot of people in choir here compared to Sawdre".
Sawdre was our middle school.
Yara nodded, "There's also a lot of guys".
I looked around, just under half of the people were guys.
"Huh".
"Alright guys! Find a place on the risers!" Mr Hall called out.
Everyone kinda scattered around.
"We want sopranos on the left, basses beside them, then alto beside basses, and tenor beside altos on the right" He watched.
Everyone did that, both Yara and I are soprano.
"Morning everyone! I'm Mr Hall for the grade nines who don't know" Mr Hall smiled.
He seemed happy, Yara looked at me funny. I looked at her funny. We both looked back to Mr Hall.
"Now before I have people asking, because there are a lot of new choir and band members that ask. I am gay, and I am married".
There were a couple people who cheered.
"Alright, pull out Remembrance" Mr Hall grabbed one of the booklets.
Everyone did, and noticed there was a solo.
"We need one from every section".
I shot my arm in the air.
Mr Hall noticed, "You want to do the part for soprano?".
"Yes please" I smiled.
"Okay, now we need one for the other three" Mr Hall looked to the other sections.
"Jesus Christ you could've thought about it" Yara laughed a little.
"There's no time to think in choir".
Yara sighed.
"Alright, can I get the four soloists down here?" Mr Hall backed up.
I made my way down the risers. There was a girl for the altos, and boys for bass and tenor.
"Holly" Mr Hall looked at the girl at the piano.
Holly looked to Mr Hall.
"Can you write down the names of our soloists so I don't forget?".
She grabbed a piece of paper and a pen.
"For soprano is Katya, for alto to Clementine, for tenor is James, for bass is Tyler".
"Got it" Holly smiled.
"This is your last chance to back out".
Nobody said anything.
"Alright, it's in stone now" Mr Hall flipped to the solo page.
He taught us the parts, which were pretty easy. All the hard parts weren't part of the solos. The bell rang a lot sooner than I thought, I was having a good time.
"Have a good day in class! See you Thursday morning! My band kids at lunch today!" Mr Hall yelled.
Everyone rushed out.
First class I had was with Yara, Language arts. One of my favourite classes.
Then was Spanish, with nobody I knew. I didn't like that too much, but hopefully I'd make friends. Because the class seemed fun.
Then was lunch, and time for band. I was apparently the only Bass Clarinet in junior band. I took pride in that.
"Everyone get set up, we gotta get started!" Mr Hall yelled.
Everyone sped to get set up.
I didn't know where to sit, since there was multiple places I usually sat in middle school.
"Mr Hall" I knocked on his office door.
Mr Hall looked at me, "Hi Katya, what's up?".
"I don't know where to sit".
He walked out of the office and looked around.
I waited.
"I think since you have a very unique instrument, I want people to see it. Do you want to be in the front row?" He looked at me.
I nodded.
"So just pop a seat there" Mr Hall smiled and ventured back to his office.
I sat down in the first row.
Mr Hall stood in front of the band, "This is your permanent seat! So come to me if it's an emergency that you switch".
Everyone got quiet.
"I have people handing out the new music, which we will be performing at the Remembrance Day assembly in November" He started flipping threw some papers.
Getting used to the bass clarinet was weird. At least this one was. I've played since grade six. This one was just weird, or mildly broken.
I saw Mr Hall look over to me a couple times, which I found odd. Nobody really payed attention to me playing my instrument.
Then he stopped everyone.
"Katya can I talk to you after band?" He asked.
I nodded.
That scared the shit out of me.
He continued, and stopped sometimes. It was always the clarinets that we're doing something wrong this year. The songs were pretty fun to play, I loved every one of them.
Band ended around twenty minutes before lunch did.
Mr Hall was in his office, so I waited outside.
I saw pictures of him and his husband around his computer.
He looked at them too, "He's also a choir teacher".
I smiled, "He should come in one day".
"The last time he came to work with me was when we were only friends around eight years ago" Mr Hall smiled.
I took a deep breath.
"I think you've noticed the problem with your bass clarinet".
I nodded, "It's kinda iffy".
"From low B down won't work, Am I Right?" He asked.
I nodded.
"Can you leave it in my office and I'll work on it tonight".
"I'll do that".
"Thank you, see you at choir".
I went and put my bass clarinet away, then left it in Mr Halls office. He was on the phone, so I didn't bother him.
Everyone tried to get out of the band room at once, this is one thing I didn't miss about band.
"It went well, nobody reacted" Mr Hall laughed a little.
I looked at him.
"Not like when I first came out, it's stressful every year still".
I looked back at the doors, I tried to tune it out.
Then I finally got out of the music room.
"So I went to the doctor" I heard Yara speak.
I looked around, I was just hearing things.
"They diagnosed me finally".
I took a deep breath.
"It is depression, severe depression".
