Fallen Star 11

By: Lindsey Little

Star wasn’t sure how much more she could take. It was summer and band camp had begun. They were stuck out in the sweltering heat with the black pavement of the parking lot radiating heat beneath their feet. ‘Alex, what I do for you because I love you,’ Star said to herself as she stood at attention for the band director who had a striking resemblance to Hitler. Star would nickname the band director Adolf.

Alex looked back at Star with a smile, almost as if he knew Star was regretting letting him sign her up for the band program. It was like he was saying, “If you live through this, you won’t regret it anymore.” But not in his usual way. He was as sweaty, hot, and miserable as Star.

As Adolf counted the players off, Star marched with him. She was usually on the sidelines, playing the auxiliary percussion with Alex but Alex flaked on playing percussion and played the tuba. Who changes their mind from drums to tuba? Star rolled her eyes. She marched the first ten minutes of the program until Adolf decided to switch over and do the show. Then she got behind the gong, chimes, cymbals, bells, triangle, and the other auxiliary equipment.

Star was a loner. She didn’t even really have a lot of friends that were in the band program. All she had was Hatter, Alex, and some small girl who spoke only when spoken too. Star nicknamed her Jazzy because she was also in the jazz band program. Jazzy wasn’t really her friend though.

Hatter didn’t talk to Star as much as he used too and slowly, their friendship was drifting apart. Hatter turned into a stoner too. Star wasn’t really into drugs and so this made them drift even further apart.

Alex was the only good friend Star had. They went over the show five times that day and whenever Star messed up, her face turned a bright red hue. Whenever she caught Alex’s eye, he gave her one of those cheesy ‘don’t give up’ looks.

Whenever their first football came out and they played, Alex smiled at Star and hugged her. This was the reason why Star stayed through all of the humiliation and annoyingness of being in the marching band. Though they were tired, Star would think of Alex and keep on going.

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Resubmitted for reformatting and to save it to my own hardrive as of June 28. A sequal might be possible. If it is, I'll put it up on my profile. Chow!