Nanowrimo 2006

Author's note: This is unfinished, long, and boring. If I were you, I wouldn't waste my time reading it. Like, seriously oo

Prince Klemens VM HS, if anyone's wondering (which I don't think anyone is, but oh well), stands for Prince Klemens Von Metternich High School. Prince Metternich was a prince of Austria back in the Napoleonic era, by the way. I've got no idea why an American school would be named after him, but he's, like, my hero. And I couldn't think of anything else...

Oliver

Year One: Freshman Year

When Oliver thought about marching band, he thought about his uncle Sam sitting in the basement and playing scales with his tuba, his face red and his eyes bulging. All the high school movies that he had ever seen had taught him that he would be ridiculed for playing flute – a boy playing flute was as good as a boy who wore dresses – not very popular. And therefore, Oliver was a tad nervous about his first day of band camp in July, perhaps even more nervous than he was about his first day of school in September. All of the high school movies he had ever seen had taught him that band camp was not glamorous, but instead filled with nerdy freckled boys who discussed multi-variable calculus in their free time. From all of the high school movies he had learned to expect fat girls with messy braids, braces, unibrows, and thick glasses. And, naturally, he was unprepared for reality.

He sat cross-legged on the floor of the band room, looking around himself nervously. He brushed his light brown bangs out his impossibly green eyes. He was feeling a bit shocked. The girls were barely decent – wearing tiny shorts that showed off their legs and tank-tops that were much too tight. Most of them were wearing sunglasses on the tops of their heads and Oliver could count the number of unattractive girls on the fingers of his left hand. The percussionists were laughing raucously and throwing a pair of dark socks across the room while a frazzled drum major was trying to get them to stop and sending the other drum major pleading glances. The other drum major, meanwhile, was asleep with his head on the lap of a girl who was braiding his hair.

Oliver jerked his head to the left in order to avoid getting hit in the face by a balled-up sock. He didn't know anyone and was much too shy to go introduce himself, so instead he just sat and stared at the carpeted floor.

"Hi! You're the flute boy, right? Welcome to Prince Klemens VM High school!" she said in a cheerful voice. Oliver looked up into the face of a tall, smiling girl with blond hair that brushed her chin. Her eyes were such a light green that from the side they looked yellow.

"Yeah," he answered, and smiled in return.

She sat down in front of him. "I'm your section leader. My name's Zoe, but you can call me Z, okay?"

"Sure," he replied. "I'm Oliver."

"Oh, I know," she said and winked at him. "There were rumors going around since January about the all new, male addition to our amazing flute section."

Oliver raised his eyebrows.

"Speaking of which," she said and paused, "…well, not really. This is actually almost completely random. Why are you sitting here by yourself? You should come meet the rest of the flute section!"

Zoe stood up and waited for him to do the same. When he did, he realized that she was taller than him by a couple inches. She led him past the sleeping (although he was slowly being prodded to a state of alertness) drum major, around the poker-playing trumpets, and into the hallway outside the band room. A bunch of girls were standing in the small hallway that lead to the guard room. They were chatting with the girls inside the guard room through the door that was propped open by a piece of unidentifiable percussion equipment.

One of the girls turned around and smiled when she saw them. "Hey, Z! Who's this you've got with you?"

Zoe smiled and patted Oliver on the back. "He's what we've all been waiting for," she said and waggled her eyebrows. "Meet the flute boy, Oliver." She turned to Oliver. "This is Amy, one of our freshmen flutes."

Amy flashed her movie-star white teeth at him when she smiled. "Hi," she said. "It's so great to finally have a boy in the section!" Her sentiments were shared by the other flutes to whom he was introduced, and whose names he promptly forgot. There were twelve flutes overall, and Oliver was the only boy. The odds were in his favor, and when they swarmed around him, all trying to speak to him at once, he felt like his day was looking up.

"All right, guys!" the male drum major was yelling from inside the band room. "The drills are lying on the stool – you all know which one – so make sure you have one. You all have to be on the back field in seven minutes, and unless you can teleport I suggest you all get going!"

There was a wave of general muttering and the sounds of students getting up and starting to shuffle out the door.

"By the way," the female drum major was saying, "if you drive down to the field, make sure you don't run over anyone!"

"C'mon, Oliver," said Amy. "If we're late we're going to have to run laps and it's, like, 98 degrees out there," she said with a grimace. They headed outside.

---

"BAND, TEN'HUT!" yelled the male drum major, whose name turned out to be Alex. His dark, wavy hair was still braided, but it was now also pulled back into a low pony tail at the back of his head.

"HUT!" the band members yelled in unison and sprang to attention – their feet together, their arms at their sides, and their chins up.

"Erm…" said Oliver and looked around before carefully arranging himself to stand like the people surrounding him.

The drum majors slowly walked between the rows and columns of band members.

After two minutes of standing perfectly still Oliver's foot was starting to get itchy. Suddenly, a gust of wind blew a cloud of dust into his face. Oliver had managed to close his eyes just in time, and instead of going into his eyes, the dust went up his nose. He sneezed loudly, the force of it making him double over and stagger backwards.

"No moving at attention!" said Courtney, the female drum major. Her brown hair was pulled back into a pony tail and she was taller than him – Oliver was starting to notice a trend.

"Okay," he said as he wiped his nose with his sleeve.

"Give me ten," she replied.

Oliver frowned. "Huh?" he asked.

"Push-ups."

Oliver glanced over at Zoe, who was still looking straight ahead, before looking back to Courtney. "You guys actually do that here?"

"Well, yeah," the drum major replied. "Now, could you please get to it? You're really holding me up, here."

Oliver looked down at the dusty ground with surprise before getting down into the push-up position.

He stood up after having done ten to find that Courtney had already moved on and was giving push-ups to some one else.

Oliver got back to attention and waited.

"DETAIL, PARADE REST!" came the next command.

"HUT!" yelled the band and simultaneously moved into parade rest, their feet shoulder length apart, their heads down, and their arms crossed over their chests.

"What?" said Oliver. He looked around and copied the positions of the surrounding students.

"No moving at parade rest," said Courtney as she was passing by. She smiled and made him do ten more push-ups.

The drum majors called out some more commands, and Oliver managed to mess them all up – earning ten push-ups for each mistake. After an hour of marching back and forth across the same strip of land Courtney finally stopped them.

"Alright, guys," said Alex, "go take a break. But make sure you come back with your drills!"

The band members cheered and left the field for the shade under the bleachers.

Zoe fell back to walk next to Oliver.

"You're completely covered in dust," she said and laughed.

"Yeah, we'll see how clean you are after you've done a hundred push-ups," Oliver replied.

"That's actually not too far from the mark," said Amy as she caught up to them.

They walked into the shade together and moved to sit down, but Zoe grabbed their arms to stop them.

She looked them seriously in the eyes for a moment. "I want you both to be careful," she said. "Here there be goose shit."

Amy looked down at the ground in disgust. "Oh," she said and wrinkled her nose.

Zoe pulled back and grinned. "You two have fun, and drink lots of water!" She patted them on the shoulders before turning around and going to talk to some of her other friends. Oliver crouched down next to his bag and started to rummage through it, looking for his water bottle.

Amy tapped him on the shoulder and he looked up into her face. Her light brown hair was in a pony tail, and when she bent over to talk to him, it spilled over her right shoulder.

"I forgot my water at home today," she said, "so I'm going to go get a drink from the band cooler, okay?" She smiled at him, and he smiled back.

"Sure. I'll see you after break," he answered.

She turned and her short pink skirt twirled, rising almost enough to be considered indecent. Oliver turned back to his bag, finally finding his water. He inspected the ground carefully to make sure there wasn't any bird shit on it before he plopped down on it. He took a deep drink from his water bottle and sighed in relief as the cool liquid poured down his throat. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back to rest against one of the supports for the bleachers.

"Hey, Oliver!" said a male voice.

"There you are, Ollie!" echoed a female one.

Oliver opened his eyes and sat up straight. He looked around to see who was talking to him.

A girl with black hair with a white baseball cap and lilac knee-length shorts was standing over him next to a red-haired, freckled boy who was fanning himself with his drill.

"Allison! Derek!" yelled Oliver and jumped up. He gave Allison a nice long hug and Derek a greatly shortened one. "I haven't seen you guys since the end of last year! It's pretty cool that we get to see each other earlier than we would have if there wasn't any band camp."

Allison threw down her drill and sat down on it. "Pfft. That's about the only cool thing about it… Who knew that band camp would suck so much? All the movies made it sound like fun."

Derek remained standing, but leaned against the support that Oliver was sitting in front of. "What movies have you seen about band camp?" he asked.

Allison thought for a moment. "Well… one? Anyway, it doesn't really matter. The point is, it's hot, and sticky, and miserable, and have you even seen what some of those girls are wearing?"

Derek and Oliver laughed. "How could I not noticed?" said Derek. "That what I've been looking at this entire time!"

Oliver smiled again. "You're totally right about the miserable part, though… How is it that I'm the only one that doesn't know all those commands?"

Allison adjusted her hat and grinned. "You missed band camp yesterday, that's when they taught all us new kids how to do stuff."
Oliver looked down. "Oh," he said. "I forgot about that." He took a large drink out of his water bottle.

"EVERYONE BACK TO THE FIELD!" Alex, the male drum major, yelled.

"BRING YOUR DRILLS!" yelled Courtney, his female counterpart.

"Awww, dang it!" said Allison.

Derek sighed. "I thought that we'd have more time!"
"This sucks," Oliver said and stood up. He brushed dead grass and gravel off of his butt before crouching back down and getting his drill out of his bag. The three of them headed out of the shade and onto the field.

"EVERYONE GET IN YOUR SECTIONS!" yelled Alex.

Allison waved at Oliver and Derek when she ran off to join the other colorguard members.

"See you later, man," said Derek when he moved away towards the other clarinets.

Oliver kept walking straight and walked into the midst of the flutes.

"Alright, guys," said Alex. He didn't have to yell anymore because the band was mostly clustered in one place. "Now that you're all here, get into your first set."

"Section leaders, help the newbies out, alright?" asked Courtney. "Let's try to make this go faster than years past."

The last statement had apparently been an inside joke, because the upperclassmen all laughed.

"Alright, guys," said Alex again, "let's do this thing! Set one!"

Alex and Courtney walked off the field and towards the bleachers, but didn't go into the shade. They bent their heads over a binder and started discussing something quietly. Alex looked up periodically to check on the band's progress.

Oliver looked down at the packet of papers in his hand. The first sheet of paper was some sort of chart with squares and numbered dots on it. It was labeled 'set one,' and he had no idea what to do with it.

"Um," he said and looked up at Zoe. All of the other new flutes were in the same predicament, and the older flutes were chatting with each other. Zoe was ignoring them all and focusing on searching through her pockets.

"Piece of crap on a stick!" she exclaimed once she finished looking through her pockets. "Where is that damn list!" She bent over and looked into her socks, and shoes. She straightened up again and put her hands on her hips. "Hm," she said and scrunched up her nose. "Hm," she said again and scratched her chin. "Oh yeah!" she exclaimed and pulled her drill out of her pocked. She flipped it over to the back and read the list that was scribbled on there.

"All right girls," she said and looked up. "And Oliver," she added when she saw him. "Here are your numbers: Rachel – two, Sally – three, Leslie – four, Laura – five, Debbie – six, Janet – seven, Mary – eight, Maggie – nine, Katie – ten, Amy – eleven, and, last but of course not least, Oliver – twelve."

She flipped the drill back to the first page. "Old girls, go ahead and go into your first set while I explain this to the new flutes."

Six of the flutes walked away, glancing down at their drills periodically.

"Um," said Amy, "if you don't mind me asking, what are we going to be doing?"

Zoe laughed. "Well, we're going to go find set one, then we're going to stand there for twenty minutes while the drum majors walk around and fix people. Then were going to go find set two, and stand there for twenty minutes while they walk around and fix people. Then we're going to go back to set one and march to set two. Then we're going to go back to set one and march to set two again. And then we're going to do it again. And again. And again. And then we're going to go to set three and repeat the entire process. It all really very exciting."

Oliver was starting to understand Alex's earlier comment.

They crowded around Zoe as she explained how the chart worked. After a couple of minutes she sent them on their way to find their spots and went to check on the older girls.

The drum majors had stopped talking and Courtney had gone on top of the bleachers with a walkie – talkie. Alex sat on the drum major podium waiting for the band kids to find their spots.

When the kids stopped moving he stood up and walked onto the field.

"How does it look from up there?" he said into the walkie – talkie. It beeped and Courtney's artificial voice answered.

"Go fix number forty – three, fifty – three, seventy – two, and the entire trombone section."

Alex went off to adjust the drill, and Zoe leaned over to Oliver, whose spot was right next to hers.

"And so we wait," she said with a small laugh. She looked around at the ground before she plopped down on it, cross-legged. Oliver and the other flutes followed her example.

By the time Alex had finished with the trombone section, clarinet section, and trumpets Amy had taught Oliver 'A' through 'K' in sign language.

"Okay, stand up, band!" called Alex.

The students did as they were told.

"You all better remember the spot you're in, because I did not just spend-" Alex paused to look at his watch before continuing, "- twenty two minutes fixing this set to do it all over again in an hour. Now, look at your drill charts and go to set two."

Zoe had to help Oliver find his spot, and the flute section was ready and sitting down within minutes. It took Alex slightly less time adjusting the second set than it took for the first. Soon, he told them to go back to set one.

"Newbies!" Alex called. "There is a box on page two that tells you how many counts it will take to get there. One count is one step, and for every odd count you step with your left foot. I guess that's it… Let's march into set two!"

Alex counted them off and they marched sixteen counts into their next set. There were no incidents except a baritone that backed up into a trumpet.

"Alright, that was – not terrible," said Alex. "Go back to set one, and let's do this again!"

By lunch time they had learned a grand total of four sets and the sun was reaching its peak for the day – the temperature along with it.

The band cheered when the drum majors dismissed them to the band room for lunch.

Alex met with Allison and Derek underneath the bleachers near his bag. They walked down to the band room together.

"I am so ready to eat," said Derek.

"I'm so hungry, I could eat a McDonald's big mac!" exclaimed Allison as she tried to roll her drill into a small enough tube that could fit into her pocket.

"Wow, that's extreme for you. Ten years of being a vegetarian, down the drain! Looks like band camp has defeated you," said Oliver. Derek laughed and patted Allison on the back.

"What does it taste like, anyway?" asked Allison after a moment.

"What, band camp? Or a big mac?" replied Derek.

"Duh," said Allison and rolled her eyes, "what do you think?"

"Tastes a little like cardboard coated in ketchup, with a slightly meaty aftertaste," said Oliver.

"Come on now, it's not that bad!" exclaimed Derek. "It actually tastes pretty good."

"Yeah, of course you'd say that," said Allison, she thumped him on the arm before continuing, "you carnivore."

They finished walking down to the band room in relative silence.

They ate in the midst of chaos and played cards when they finished. Lunch was over much faster than any of them would have liked, and in what seemed like no time they were being herded off to do sectionals.

Zoe found Oliver and took him out into the hall, where the flute sectionals were being held. They practiced the marching music until it was time to go home. When it was all over Oliver gratefully packed up his flute, said goodbye to his new friends, and went to the front of the school to wait for his ride.

He sat on the sidewalk for fifteen minutes before a blue Toyota pulled up in front of him. The passenger side window rolled down and his brother, Tim, told him to hop in from inside.

Oliver stood up and walked over to the car. He didn't waste any time before opening the door and getting in.

His brother barely waited for him to close the door before he took his foot off of the brake, and Oliver waved to Allison as they rolled by.

"Close the window, Oliver," Tim said, "it's boiling hot out there!"

Oliver sighed and rolled up the window with a press of a button. His brother scratched his head and then fooled around with the climate controls when they stopped at a red light, and then turned on the radio to a song that sounded like a pack of chimpanzees were trying to get out of a working dryer while the nearby washing machine was washing bricks.

Tim cringed and changed the station as fast as humanly possible. Then next station was a badly censored rap about drugs and prostitutes. Tim grimaced again and pressed a different button, finally finding something that he liked.

"Oliver, have you been messing with my presets?"

"Don't look at me!" Oliver answered, "Maybe you should ask your girlfriend. She's the one that likes… that."

Tim glanced over at him suspiciously before turning back to the road. He had very short dirty-blond hair and his ears each had multiple piercings in them. He was wearing a couple of rings, and his hands were covered in red, blue, yellow, purple, green, and other unidentifiably colored splotches. He was wearing a tight orange tee-shirt with a dark blue skateboard company logo on it, black cargo pants that went down a little below his knees, and pink flip-flops.

Oliver had learned the hard way that making fun of his brother's fashion sense was not a good idea.

They spent the rest of the ride in silence.

When they got back to their house Tim turned off the engine and got out, not bothering to help Oliver with his bag or flute. Oliver barely closed the door before Tim locked the car, and almost got hit in the face with the front door when Tim didn't hold it for him. Oliver glared at his brother, who wasn't paying any attention.

"Welcome back boys!" called a female voice. "How was band camp, Oliver?"

Oliver dropped his bag near the door and put his flute on the couch in the living room. "Mom?" he called. "Where are you?"

"I'm right here, honey," she said as she walked down the stairs.

"Hi, mom," said Tim. He gave her a brief wave, "I'm gonna go downstairs and continue working on my project. I think it might be finished today," he said before turning and heading towards the door that lead to the basement.

"Well, Oliver? How was band camp?" she asked again.

Oliver shrugged. "It was hot, sweaty, and generally disgusting. But other than that it wasn't too bad."

She smiled. "Well, I suppose that's… good."

"I met some new people," said Oliver. "At least now I'll have some upperclassmen friends when I get to high school. Maybe they can protect me from people who will want to stuff me into trash cans, lockers, or whatever."

His mother smiled and headed into the kitchen. He followed her.

"I don't think that people do that anymore, dear. That's just what happens in movies."

Oliver shrugged. "You never know."

"I guess not," his mother answered with a small smile. "Having older friends can't hurt, anyway. Now, come over here and have some juice. I finally used that juice machine your father got for me two months ago!"

"Sure, mom," said Oliver and sat down at the kitchen table. He had never valued air conditioning as much as he did in that particular moment.

---

The rest of the week followed the same schedule as Monday, with once exception: on Wednesday they went back outside after lunch, and Oliver stayed behind to help put away the drum major podium and yard markers. As a result he was later than usual in returning to the band room and when he finally got there, it was locked.

"Crap," Oliver said under his breath and kicked the door lightly. He sighed. His bag with his lunch box was still inside. "I guess it's not a big deal," he muttered. There wasn't anything in the bag that was particularly vital to his day or the next, he could get it on Thursday. Still, he hated to leave his stuff lying around in the open.

He headed back down the stairs and started going towards the front of the school, where his brother was probably waiting for him.

"Hey," came a voice from behind him. "Is this yours?" the voice continued.

Oliver turned around and saw a boy leaning against the brick wall whom he hadn't noticed before. The boy had dark hair that fell into his eyes and he was wearing a tight black shirt with long dark pants, brown leather sandals and many black bands on his thin wrists. The boy was holding Oliver's bag in one of his hands, and a cigarette in the other.

Oliver narrowed his eyes at that in disgust. "Yeah, the bag's mine," he said.

The boy tossed it to him, and Oliver caught it with both hands.

"I'm Eric Lancaster, by the way," the boy said.

"I'm Oliver Tylman," Oliver replied. Eric stepped towards him as if he wanted to shake hands, but Oliver took a step back. "I have to go," he said.

Eric grinned in reply and stepped back, leaning against the wall. He took a drag of his cigarette and looked back at Oliver. "I guess I'll be seeing you then," he said, smoke pulsing out of his mouth and nose in synch with his words.

Oliver nodded once, turned around, and walked away. He resisted the urge to cough until he was out of hearing range. Smoking – what a disgusting habit. He knew he'd never want to do something like that.

---

It wasn't until Friday that Oliver realized he had never seen the band director.

He asked Zoe about it when they were eating lunch in the chorus room, and when other new students heard his question they crowded around to listen, Allison, Derek, and Amy among them.

"The band director?" Zoe asked.

"Yeah," Oliver repeated, "where is he? I haven't seen him at all, I thought he'd be supervising this thing or something. And yesterday I realized that I don't even know his name!"

The other freshmen and new kids murmured their agreement.

"Well," said Zoe, "his name is Mr. Cross. And he doesn't come down until the last couple of days of band camp."

"Why not?" Derek asked.

"He hates to see the band when we're not at our best, and how can we be at our best if we're still learning the drill and the music? He gets very stressed out and angry when we're not absolutely perfect. Plus, he hates the heat."

"Well, that's not very fair," someone murmured.

Zoe shrugged. "That's the way life is."

"Tell us something else!" exclaimed Allison.

"Yeah!" a bunch of other freshmen agreed.

"What does he look like?" asked Amy.

"What does he look like? Huh," said Zoe and looked up to the ceiling in thought. "He's pretty young, he's in his twenties. He's got black hair, and it was relatively short the last time I saw him – not a buzz cut or anything like that, of course but it's not long enough to fall into his eyes– and he's not too tall, but he's not a hobbit, either. He's probably a little taller than Oliver, and even a little taller than me. He's not taller than Alex, though. And he usually – well… always, actually - comes in to school in a three piece suit, only instead of the jacket he wears a black knee-length wool coat. Oh, and he always wears black leather gloves. In fact, in the two years I've known him I've never seen him without them."

"Oh, do you know why he wears them?" Oliver asked.

Zoe shrugged again. "Nope. Of course there are plenty rumors. Depending on who you ask; he either strangles children in his spare time so he wears the gloves not to leave fingerprints, or he was part of a gang in his earlier years and is trying to cover up his gang tattoos." The freshmen murmured. "I know which one I think is more likely, but the gang thing is still stretching it pretty far, I think."

"So why do you think he wears them?" asked Amy.

"Well, I think that he's just an eccentric band director, just like all the others. He probably just does it to mess with us."

"I guess," someone said in a disappointed tone of voice.

"Maybe he was in some kind of accident and now his hands are all disfigured!" someone said. The kids brightened up and started discussing the new scenario with excitement. Zoe rolled her eyes and resumed eating her tuna sandwich.

"What else can you tell us about him?" asked Oliver.

Zoe took another bite and chewed thoughtfully. She swallowed and put her sandwich down. "He's really tough on us. We have to win, and if we don't, he takes it personally. If we loose, to him it's the same as if we've gone and spray-painted his car – it's an insult. And he says we perform better when we're angry, so be prepared for him to do pretty mean things to us." Zoe paused and took another bite of her sandwich. "But the thing is, when you think he doesn't give a shit about what we want an what we feel, he does something that's unbelievably nice and considerate. And he acts as if it's nothing; he doesn't even expect us to say 'thank-you,' and when we do, he seems to be surprised."

"That's pretty weird," said Derek.

"I guess," Zoe said and continued to eat. "He's pretty hard to pin down," she said when she finished. "But you shouldn't worry. You'll be fine." She smiled and gulped down her soda.

"One time he overheard me talking to a friend of mine about a teacher that was being unfair to me – I came down with a bad case of the flu pretty suddenly and as a result missed a test, and the teacher wasn't letting me make the test up. I was pretty upset about it, after all, the test was really important to my grade." Zoe paused for a moment and grimaced in memory. She mumbled a profanity under her breath.

"Well, Mr. Cross sent my teacher a threatening e-mail – a different friend of mine was snooping around on her computer one time, found it, and sent it to me. That e-mail was pretty intense, I think at one point he called her a 'worthless sniveling worm of a woman' for not being able to see the potential in me and threatened to get her fired." Zoe laughed. Oliver, Derek, Amy, and Allison were staring at here with wide eyes.

"The next day she called me in to talk to her. She apologized for being so inconsiderate and said that she should be more understanding. She let me re-take the test and gave me a chance to do corrections on the questions I missed, and get back all of the points."

"That sounds pretty cool," Derek said after a moment.

"Yeah, well, that's the kind of guy Mr. Cross is," said Zoe. "He's full of surprises."

"Hey, are you guys talking about the Cross-man?" asked Alex; he had wandered by in time to hear Mr. Cross' name.

Zoe nodded, and Alex dumped someone out of a chair before pulling it over and sitting in it himself. The someone whose chair had been stolen voiced an offended 'hey!' before walking away, muttering under his breath. Alex grinned smugly.

"That kid's been annoying me all week," he confessed to them, "he's always messing up!

"Anyway," Alex continued, "Mr. Cross sent an e-mail to the drum majors, he's gonna come to band camp the last three days. He wants us to have finished learning the drill by then!"

"WHAT?!" exclaimed Zoe. "We've only learned twelve pages so far, and it's been a week! So we've got, what? Ten days left to learn thirty six more pages? There's no way that we can do that!"

Alex sighed and leaned back, placing one elbow on the back of the chair and crossing his legs so that his right ankle was resting on his left knee.

"I know, it's pretty crazy. But that's what the boss – man wants. Courtney was thinking that we could spend all four hours of morning practice learning drill, and taking music time off the bottom to do basics in sectionals."

"That could work, I guess," said Zoe dubiously. "Maybe the newbies and bad marchers could do basics while the old kids and good marchers learn the music. That way everyone will look good on the field, and we'll still sound good cause the good players will be playing while the bad players stay silent."

Oliver, Derek, Allison, and Amy sat watching the conversation in silence. They had no idea what Zoe and Alex were talking about.

"That could probably work," said Courtney. She had been standing behind them, listening, unnoticed. As soon as she made herself known Alex and Zoe looked up at her. She walked over and sat down on the table. "Do you think he'd notice?"

"Of course he'd notice," Alex exclaimed. "That guy's got crazy hearing. It might be better than the alternative, though."

Zoe looked at Alex and then at Courtney. "When did Mr. Cross say we had to pass off the music?"

"He said that the first and second song needs to be passed off by next Wednesday, and the third song needs to be passed off by Friday," said Courtney.

"Wait, wait, wait," Oliver interrupted. "Pass-off – what does that even mean?"

Zoe, Alex, and Courtney turned to look at him.

"Means that you'll have to know the songs by heart on those days, kiddo," said Alex.

Oliver and Derek paled, and Amy's mouth dropped open.

"W-what?" Amy stuttered. "We have to know the songs by heart?!" She sounded a little panicked. Courtney patted her on the shoulder in order to calm her.

"Yeah," said Zoe. She turned back to Alex. "Is he expecting the music to be with the drill by the time he gets here?"

Alex nodded, and Amy groaned and dropped her head into her arms.

"Don't worry about it, you'll be just fine. Zoe's told me that the flute section's doing just fine right now."

Zoe smiled and nodded. "Yeah, but unfortunately we've got a lot of work ahead of us."

Alex shrugged and looked up at the clock. "Lunch will be over in two minutes. We should all get ready to go to sectionals."

Zoe sighed and stood up. "I guess so," she said and started herding the flutes out into the hall.

---

The next week went by smoothly, but at the following Wednesday's morning practice the drum majors seemed to be tense and jittery.

The band had managed to learn all forty-eight pages of drill, but there were a lot of rough spots. Alex and Courtney made the band do run-throughs, stopping occasionally to go over the really terrible places set-by-set. They talked to each other in low voices between run-throughs and during breaks.

Half-way into practice they had a heated argument which Courtney seemed to have won, and they called the section leaders out of the formation.

"Listen guys," said Alex to the small group of older students when they stood before him. "Pick out the worst players in your section and take them to the side of the field. Make sure they know their music, okay? If you've got terrible marchers, send them over to Courtney and she'll do basics with them."

The section leaders nodded and went off the pick the worst students in their sections.

Oliver was relieved when Zoe didn't tell him to go to the side. At least he was doing something right!

They rehearsed for another hour and had a break, after which the bad marchers and players rejoined the rest of the band and they all did run-throughs together.

Before they were dismissed for lunch Alex and Courtney called the band to a meeting.

"You did good work today and during all of band camp," said Courtney loudly enough for the people in the back to hear her. "When we go back out here after lunch, Mr. Cross is going to be here. We're going to perform a run-through for him, and if he says it's good, we'll get to go home early." The band cheered. "If it's okay, he'll let us go inside and do sectionals in the air conditioning." The band cheered again, but this time it was weaker.

"If he says it's bad," says Alex and paused, "he'll make us stay out here and practice. Plus he'll extend band camp three hours – one more in the morning, one more in the afternoon, and one more in the evening." The band groaned.

Courtney continued once they stopped. "Now, I know that a lot of you guys haven't met Mr. Cross yet, and so you might get nervous and screw up. And I know a lot of you guys have met Mr. Cross and will definitely get nervous and screw up. Plus, I know the pressure is on right now. Just please, please, do your best."

Alex turned to Courtney. "Do you know a way to get rid of nervousness around Mr. Cross?"

Courtney shrugged. "Normally I'd say imagine him in his underwear, but I thought about doing that as I was sitting down for chair auditions, but before I could, he gave me this look, like he knew exactly what I was thinking." Courtney shuddered. "It was the creepiest thing this side of the equator."

Alex nodded sadly. "Great. That helps." He turned back to the band. "Don't do that, then," he said.

The band members shuffled around nervously.

"Fall out," said Courtney, "and go eat lunch. Remember, we're going to be back on the field afterwards!"

The students began walking away towards the band room, talking nervously to each other.

After lunch Alex told them all to get into first set while Courtney went up to the top of the bleachers. They stood there for a couple of minutes before Courtney told Alex something via walkie-talkie.

"BAND TEN'HUT!" yelled out Alex.

"HUT!" called the band loudly and sprang to attention.

A short man dressed in dark dress pants and an open black coat above a dark vest and white shirt walked onto the field slowly. He walked in front of the band, his dark eyes flashing ominously as his gaze swept from one side of the field to the other. He stopped in front of Alex and, without saying a word, lifted his head to look up at Courtney where she was on the bleachers. He raised a gloved hand and motioned for Courtney to come down. He stood next to Alex, waiting silently for her to join them on the ground.

"Hello, Mr. Cross," Courtney murmured when she joined them.

"Hello, Mr. Cross," Alex finally echoed.

The man nodded and turned his head to look back at the band again. No one had moved.

"How much progress have you made?" Mr. Cross asked after a moment.

Alex and Courtney looked at each other, silently deciding who would be the one to speak. Courtney glanced at Mr. Cross, and Alex nodded at her.

"We know the entire drill with the music, but there is still plenty of work to be done," she said. "There is still a lot of phasing, and not all the kids know their music."

Mr. Cross nodded. "Let's see it, then." He turned and walked towards the bleachers.

Alex and Courtney looked at each other and grinned nervously before turning and going separate directions towards their drum major podiums. Alex got on the one in the middle, while Courtney got on the one that was on the thirty-yard line. They stood waiting patiently for Mr. Cross to get on top of the bleachers. When he finally got there they looked to him, not daring to start before his approving nod. Once it was granted they turned back to the band.

"BAND HORNS UP!" yelled Courtney.

"REST AND HIT!" called back the band and the students raised their instruments simultaneously.

Courtney and Alex raised their arms and looked each other for a moment before taking a deep breath and started conducting together.

The band started playing and marching, they performed the show without any major mishaps and when they stopped Alex called them to lower their instruments. They stood in attention awaiting the verdict.

Mr. Cross motioned for the two drum majors to join him atop the bleachers and they hurried up the steps.

The band director inspected the band while he waited for them. A lot of the students were breathing hard, but no one was moving at attention.

The drum majors had reached him a few moments later and stood behind him, catching their breath.

He stood there for a moment, looking at the band with his gloved hands on the railing. "It was…" began Mr. Cross but trailed off, distracted by a trombone player that had reached up to scratch his nose. Alex and Courtney stood with baited breath, waiting for him to finish his sentence. "Adequate," he stated firmly after a moment.

Alex and Courtney exchanged glances and smiled at each other weakly.

"However, I can see that you've done a lot of work. You evidently put a lot of effort into this show for it to look as good as it done. I found it interesting that although all of the band members march well, the new members didn't seem to be playing. Clever trick."

Alex shifted from one foot to the other.

"Whose idea was that, if I may ask…?"

Alex and Courtney stayed silent for a moment, trying to figure out whether they would get in trouble. Mr. Cross turned away from the band to look at them.

"Zoe thought of it," said Courtney.

Mr. Cross smiled. "She does seem to be the type." He turned back to the band. "That was an interesting temporary solution, but I want everyone playing by our first competition."

The drum majors relaxed a little when they noticed that Mr. Cross wasn't angry.

"Send the band home," he said.

Alex grinned and moved to the railing of the bleachers.

"AT EASE!" he called out, and the entire band seemed to sag simultaneously as the students let their straight posture slide down into a more typical slouch.

"MR. CROSS SAYS YOU DID A GOOD JOB!" Alex yelled out again. The band kids cheered. "BE BACK ON THE FIELD TOMORROW! DON'T BE LATE!" Alex paused for effect and surveyed the band. "YOU ALL, FALL OUT!" There was a more enthusiastic round of cheering at that one, and the band kids started walking towards the shade under the bleachers.

Mr. Cross nodded once and left the field, pulling his black leather gloves further down onto his hands as he walked.

---

Oliver was made aware of the parent show the day before it was scheduled to occur. Luckily, his mother worked from home and was able to show up. It went by mostly without incident.

A colorguard member managed to bash a trumpet player who had been bothering her in the head and make it look like an accident. A clarinet player tripped over a trombone and got his foot stuck in the horn of the instrument (Mr. Cross hadn't been very happy about that, though Mr. Cross rarely seemed to be happy about anything so it wasn't a very noticeable change).

The parents clapped and proclaimed how impressed they were, as dutiful parents should. The mother of the colorguard member congratulated her baby girl from the point of view of a woman who had been on the wrong end of sexual harassment and had handled it appropriately – with a slap and the threat of a lawsuit. She also berated her girl – gently, and with a mischievous grin on her face – for resorting to physical violence. The father of the clarinet player consoled the boy for his clumsiness while throwing apologetic glances to the parents of the trombone player.

Mr. Cross didn't react to the performance in any visible way other than a small nod. Afterwards, while they were in the band instrument storage rooms Zoe told Oliver that she could tell that Mr. Cross was – albeit mildly – impressed.

---

On the first day of school Oliver studied his schedule uncertainly – having forgotten to even throw it an idle glance during the last days of summer, preferring to ignore the concept of school altogether. The schedule had seven classes on it, but his agenda said that it was a silver day, and he had no idea what that meant. He decided simply to go to his first class - health.

The room number was 227 and he couldn't find it anywhere on his map. After a moment of searching he decided that in all probability his class would be upstairs and headed off in search of a staircase. His plan was to get to the second floor and wander around aimlessly until he found it.

He searched the second floor for ten minutes after the late bell had rung and was stopped by an administrator.

"Why aren't you in class?" the man asked.

"I would be, I just can't find it… Could you help me out?" he asked with his best smile in place.

"Let me have a look at your schedule," the administrator said and Oliver offered him the sheet of paper. "Ah," the man said after he saw the room number. "I can see why you're confused. You'd think that this room is upstairs because it's a two-hundred, but really it's downstairs. You want to go down and you'll find the room close to the big gym."

"Thanks!" said Oliver and exhaled gratefully. "But do you think you could maybe answer one more question?" he asked.

"What is it, kid?"

"I noticed that today is a 'silver' day, as opposed to a 'violet' day. Could you explain the significance of the colors? What does that even mean?"

The man laughed. "Silver and violet are the school colors, kid," he said. "On a silver day you have your first, third, fifth, and seventh period. On violet days you have your second, fourth, sixth, and seventh period. Is that all you wanted to know?"

Oliver nodded, "yes, thank you," and headed downstairs to look for room 227.

It took him another ten minutes of searching, and he had to ask for directions twice. As a result, he was twenty five minutes late to class. Luckily for him, the last teacher whom he had asked for help had written him a pass, and he wouldn't be counted tardy on his first day ever.

When he walked into the classroom the teacher threw him a dirty look without pausing in her speech about the wheel of health. She took his pass and motioned for him to go take a seat.

Oliver stood at the front of the classroom uncertainly for a moment, trying to locate a familiar face. He finally spotted Allison in the back of the room. From far away she seemed to be taking notes intently, but when he got closer he realized that she was writing a specific and thorough set of instructions for performing the hokey-pokey, complete with stick figure illustrations of the most important parts.

She didn't notice him until he sat down next to her. She greeted him quietly so as to not draw attention to herself – the teacher was in the process of inspecting the class for students who seemingly weren't paying attention and then asking them questions about their personal wheel of health.

"Hey, Oliver," Allison whispered and leaned over to him. "What comes after shaking your left foot all about?"

"The hokey-pokey," Oliver whispered. "That is what it's all about."

"Psh," Allison answered and rolled her eyes. "I know that. I meant," she broke off when the teacher glared at them. "I meant," she said again, more quietly, "what goes after that?"

Oliver pretended that he was taking notes. "Your whole self."

Allison snickered. "Your whole self? So you put it in, and then you take it out, and then you shake your whole self all about?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"How would you go about shaking your whole self? Would that be, like, random movements – flailing your extremities every which way?"

Oliver looked at her and attempted to raise an eyebrow. "That doesn't sound very safe," he said.

"I guess," Allison shrugged. "So then, would it be just jumping up and down?"

"It could be," Oliver agreed.

"But – that can't be all… Can it? That's too simplistic. If it was just jumping up and down, they'd say that in the song."
"They wouldn't," said Oliver.

"Sure they would!"

"They wouldn't," Oliver persisted. "It doesn't fit with the song. The whole point is that the same instructions are repeated with only one thing changing."

They stayed quiet for a moment when the teacher flashed an angry glance at them.

"But, see, that's the thing," Allison whispered. "It would be: 'you put your whole self in, you take your whole self out, you put your whole self in, and you jump up and down.'" Once she finished, Allison looked at Oliver expectantly.

"What?" asked Oliver when he'd had enough of her staring at him.

"It's the perfect amount of syllables, it even rhymes! And therefore, logically, the act of shaking one's whole self about doesn't include jumping up and down of any sort."

"I guess you're right," Oliver answered with a bewildered expression on his face. "You've put a lot of thought into this."

Allison nodded seriously, said "This is pretty important stuff," and turned back to her sheet of paper. Oliver started listening to the teacher again.

After forty minutes she was still talking about the same thing, and the part of the class that wasn't falling asleep was ignoring her. Oliver noticed a boy intently carving his name into his desk. On the other side of the room a girl was trying was trying to get all the pencils out of her box of forty-eight prismacolors to stand vertically on her desk. A variety of kids were playing games, some on their calculators, some on their gameboys, and one boy had taken out his laptop and was playing a multiplayer game over the school's wireless connection.

Allison had mostly finished with her instructional guide, and was now working on writing the last section, entitled "Alternate Body Parts."

When the bell rang, the only person that was upset was the girl who had been putting up the pencils – which all fell down and rolled onto the floor as a result of the commotion caused by students getting up and getting all of their stuff together.

Oliver crouched down and picked up a couple of pencils that had rolled towards him and went over to put them into the box on top of the girl's desk.

She grabbed his hand, "No, no," she said, "they have to go in the correct color order!"

"Oh," Oliver said. "Sorry."

The girl winced and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "No, I'm the one that needs to be sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you. I'm just… particular." She smiled apologetically.

Oliver grinned in response. "Naw, don't worry about it. I know how that is, I'm a little OCD about some stuff, too."

She nodded.

"Oh Oliver, stop drooling and start moving," said Allison from behind him. She dumped his bag into his hands and poked him in the back to get him to start walking.

"Sorry, I gotta go," Oliver said to the girl.

"I'll see you later, I guess," she replied.

Oliver walked out of the classroom with Allison on his heels. They walked away from the classroom in the midst of excited talking of their classmates.

"What's your next class?" asked Allison.

Oliver got his schedule out of his pocket while they walked up the stairs, trying to do so and not trip. He finally wrestled it out of his pocket on the last step and unfolded it.

"Let's see, um…" he trailed off. "My second period is English and my third is… World History."

Allison grinned at him. "Me too! Looks like we've got another class together!"

Oliver smiled as well. "Which is great, since I've got no idea where to go… Do you know where our class room is?"

Allison rolled her eyes. "Of course I know. Like a good student, I spent some time after band camp walking around school finding out where all my classes are."

Oliver raised his eyebrows. "Wow. I didn't even think of doing that."

"Well," Allison answered in a haughty tone of voice. "That's because I'm a lot smarter than you."

"Or maybe you're just a nerd," Oliver laughed and pocked her in the shoulder.

Allison retaliated by shoving him into some lockers. Oliver recovered and they went up the stairs to the second floor. He followed her down the hall and into a classroom whose number coincided with the number on his schedule.

They sat down near the middle of the room and waited for class to start. The teacher, a young man wearing a tee-shirt and jeans was fiddling with the wires coming out of the television that was suspended from the ceiling.

The bell (more of a prolonged annoying tone) rang, and moments before it stopped a tall, dark haired boy wearing glasses, a tight dark green tee-shirt, blue jeans and fingerless gloves burst into the room like a bat out of hell.

"That doesn't count as late does it?" he muttered under his breath.

The teacher didn't acknowledge his presence with more than a glance and a small smile, and the boy looked around the room to find a seat.

Allison snickered and Oliver waved him over.

The boy walked further into the classroom and sat down at a free desk next to Oliver.

The teacher introduced himself and started talking about the syllabus and the grade system, as well as the sorts of things that they would be learning during the year.

"Late as always, Cory," Oliver whispered.

"Shut up, dammit!" replied Cory in a heated whisper. "It's not late if the bell hasn't stopped ringing!"

Allison snickered. "Does that philosophy work for you?"

"Pft," Cory answered and turned his head to pay attention to the teacher, there was a slight smile on his face. After a moment he whispered again, not turning his head. "It wasn't my fault, anyway. That stupid girl, Rachel? Beth? I can't remember her name… she told me she wanted to talk to me – in private!"
Oliver and Allison winced. "That sort of talk never means a good thing. She was either going to ask you to be her boyfriend or tell you that your loved ones have been in some sort of accident."

Cory rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well I think I know which one it probably was."

Allison snickered again, and tried to hide it by putting a hand over her mouth.

"Anyway," Cory continued, "I told her I that I would be late for class, I took off like I was being chased by an insane axe murderer. And that – that- girl! She followed me! I couldn't believe it, I panicked and, obviously, forgot where the hell I was going."

"Wait," interrupted Allison, still giggling, "so you got scared of a girl and ran away, and then you got lost?" She dissolved in silent laughter. The teacher glanced at her strangely.

"Well, you weren't there!" Cory hissed.

"Yeah, I totally know how scary girls can be," Oliver teased. "I mean, a girl wants to date you! I'd run away, too."

"You guys suck," Cory grumbled and crossed his arms over his chest. He hunched down in his chair.

They all turned to the front and started paying attention.

They were soon entranced by the teacher's wide hand gestures and excited tone of voice. It wasn't hard to believe that the class would be fun.

Soon – sooner that it should have, it seemed – the bell rang and they all filed out of the room and headed to the cafeteria.

On the way down the stairs they caught up to Derek.

"Hey, man," said Derek to Cory. "Did you run away from Christine?"

"Yeah, I made it just barely," Cory said before turning and glaring at Oliver and Allison. "My man Derek, here, understands the trouble the fear that a girl is capable of inspiring." He turned back to Derek and pouted. "They made fun of me," he said in a pitiful tone of voice.

Derek gasped and turned his head to look at Oliver and Allison. "You made fun of Cory?" he asked in an incredulous tone of voice. "It's quite obvious that you've never met the girl," he continued while he patted Cory on the back. Cory pretended to cry into Derek's shoulder.

"They hurt my feelings," he whimpered pathetically.

"That girl is terrifying," said Derek. Cory straightened up and looked back at Oliver and Allison.

He stuck out his tongue. "I told you."

They walked down the hall, past the main office and counselor's office to the cafeteria. They got in line together, all four of them. Luckily for them they were ahead of most of the student body, and when they walked into the cafeteria the lines weren't too long.

"I just realized something," said Oliver when they stopped the left-most line. "Where are we going to eat?"

Allison looked around. "Well, in here, I guess."

Cory scoffed and rolled his eyes. "What are you all, noobs? We can't eat in the cafeteria. That you even thought we would is too lame for words."

Derek nodded his agreement.

The line moved and they all shuffled forward.

"Where did you plan to eat, Cory?" asked Allison.

"In the courtyard, of course. That's where all of my people will be."

"Your people?" asked Allison. "You don't have any people," she laughed.

Cory stoically ignored her.

"Besides," said Derek, as though Allison had never said anything, "the cafeteria's gross. There's all kinds of… of… stuff on the floor!"

Oliver inspected the floor critically. The line moved again and they all moved with it. "Hmm," he said. "I think you're right."

"Listen," said Allison, "I don't care where we eat, I just want to eat."

They finally reached the food. They all got indecently pink trays and unnaturally small, one serving sized milk containers.

"You know what?" asked Oliver when he saw the food, "I think I'm not that hungry anymore."

"What are you talking about?" asked Cory, who was still pre-occupied with choosing a box of milk. "It can't possibly be that ba- oh," he said right before he turned around. The last syllable was said when he saw the food, and it fell from his mouth as though he was trying to keep himself from throwing up.

There were strangely spotted fries lying in paper boxes covered in indescent amounts of salt. There were burritos with the meat – small brown chunks, really, with brown beans swimming in it like undigested chunks of carrot in a pile of vomit – spilling out of cracked overcooked pastry in the sides and bottom, staining the oily sheets of paper a diarrhea brown. Next to them were steamed vegetables which actually looked edible. There were rectangular pieces of pizza covered in cheese that looked to be months old and were infected with the bubonic plague, the areas without cheese exposed chunky tomato sauce. Next to the pizza, on a metal shelf that had vegetables, was a plastic box of something that vaguely resembled apple cobbler. Whatever it was, it was covered with a generous amount of whipped cream which did a good job of concealing most of it. There was also a clear plastic container with aged lettuce and a lone slice of tomato on top.

Oliver ended up placing only the steamed vegetables, milk, and lettuce on his tray. He typed his lunch card number into the keypad next to the cash register. The severe lunch lady glared at him and waved him away. He hurried past her and waited for the rest of his friends.

Cory was next. He only had a container of steamed vegetables and a packaged muffin on his tray. He waited for the lunch lady to tell him the price and handed her a worn five dollar bill.

She grunted. "That's all you're going to get?" she asked disinterestedly as Cory was leaving. He turned back around.

"I really don't see how you can expect me to eat-" he began before Derek elbowed him in the ribs, hard.

"Err," said Cory as he rubbed his side with one hand while holding the tray in the other. "I mean yes. Yes, that's all I'm going to get." He kicked Derek in the shin before turning and walking to join Oliver.

Derek and Allison paid for their lunch next and they all headed to the courtyard together.

They went through a set of doors and ended up in a grassy area with a couple of picnic tables and some trees. All of the tables were taken, so they went to sit down in the shade of a tree. Oliver arranged himself so that he was leaning against the brick wall of the school. Allison sat cross-legged across from him and started to eat her lunch. Cory quickly devoured the vegetables, put the muffin in the pocket of his cargo pants, and threw his tray at Derek.

Derek caught it one handed and sat down next to Oliver against the wall.

Cory put his bag on the ground and laid his head on it. He lay on the grass in the shade, and for all appearances, fell asleep.

"You know, Allison," said Oliver after a moment, "I'm surprised that you didn't get any ice cream or anything."

Derek murmured his agreement but otherwise kept silently eating his lunch.

Allison scoffed. "I read an article that said that all school ice cream is low fat, so I figure: what's the point?"

Oliver shrugged. "It's still sugary."

Allison grimaced. "Yeah, but… it's low fat… It's, like, lying to me. I can't eat deceitful ice cream!"

Derek raised a ginger eyebrow. "Deceitful ice cream? Allie, you're so full of it."

Oliver laughed and finished drinking his milk.

"You really shouldn't do that," came a voice from above them.

Oliver, Derek, and Allison looked up.

"Amy!" Oliver exclaimed. "Come sit with us, there's always room for one more." He patted the ground next to him.

Amy smiled and went over to sit by the wall. She was wearing a skirt and sandals, and she had to arrange herself carefully so that the skirt wouldn't reveal anything.

Derek and Allison said hello.

"Who's that?" Amy asked as she leaned over to Oliver and pointed at the sleeping boy beside her.

"Oh, that's Cory," said Oliver. "He's… well. Asleep. He gets really pissed off if you wake him up, though, and I don't think that would be a very good first impression." Oliver smiled apologetically and Amy nodded.

There was a moment of silence before Amy spoke again.

"So how are you guys?" Amy asked as she took her lunch out of a brown paper bag.

"Fine," Oliver answered and smiled at her. "But we haven't really done anything yet, it's just the first day. The teachers have only given us some forms to fill out, and, well… you know the drill."

Derek leaner over to Oliver "You're babbling," he whispered in his ear.

Oliver smiled apologetically without looking away from Amy.

"You brought your lunch?" asked Allison, who hadn't been paying much attention to the conversation. "You are so smart. The food in there is disgusting!"

Amy smiled. "My older sister warned me about that, so I decided to pack myself a sandwich."

"I wish my brother had warned me," said Oliver, "but I guess he just likes to see me suffer." Oliver sighed sadly and set his empty milk carton on his tray.

A bird sang in the distance and a cool breeze blew through the courtyard, ruffling the leaves of the trees.

"Hey! You're making me out to be some kind monster!"

Oliver looked up. "Tim."

His brother grinned. "Yup. Hello there, Ollie."

"Hi, Tim," said Derek.

"Hi," said Allison.

"Hgh," murmured Cory and raised his hand weakly in a wave before letting it drop back onto his stomach again.

"And who's this pretty girl?" Tim asked as he leered at Amy.

Oliver glared at him. "She's a friend of mine. A fellow flute player."

"Hi," said Amy and smiled.

"So are you a freshman this year?" Tim asked.

Amy nodded, a blush staining her heart-shaped face.

Oliver bristled and clenched his fists. "You should probably take your pervert self out of here, Tim. I think your girlfriend-" Oliver emphasized that word, throwing a meaningful glance to Amy, "-is waiting for you. Didn't you promise to eat lunch with her today?"

Tim sighed and adjusted his collar. "Yeah, I guess." He ran his slim fingers through his short hair and sighed again.

Oliver smiled smugly and leaned back against the rough brick wall.

"Later," said Tim and walked away, back towards the school.

"Yeah," Oliver muttered.

"Your brother…" said Derek. "Well. He's a piece of work."

Allison shrugged. "Well, you know how Tim is. He's an artist! They're all weirdo's. My friend's sister is an artist, and she spent the entire weekend in her room, working on a project-" Allison said the last word while doing air quotations with her fingers, "- and when they finally went into her room, it turned out that she had been sitting on the floor of her room with a bucket over her head the entire time! She said that it was her inspiration."

Derek laughed. "Come on, that didn't really happen!"

"Hey, I believe it! One time Tim painted the entire basement blue because he said that the white was stealing his thoughts. And he never closes the curtains in his room because he says that it's too dark to breathe."

They shared a quiet laugh.

Just then, the doors opened and Zoe walked out into the courtyard, trailed by Sally, a Junior piccolo. She caught sight of them, grinned and waved.

Amy smiled at her and waved her over.

"Hi, kids," said Zoe once she was in hearing range. "How's your first day going so far?"

Oliver nodded. "Pretty good. My teachers are pretty cool so far."

"Yeah, me too," said Amy. "My math teacher seems to be really nice."

Derek and Allison murmured their agreement.

"How about you?" asked Amy.

Sally went off to chat with a boy that was chasing another boy around an aluminum picnic table. She sat on the table and watched them run for a little while before innocently sticking her foot out at the opportune moment. The boy being chased fell down spectacularly into the dirt, and the boy doing the chasing tripped over him and fell even more spectacularly on top of him. Sally threw her head and cackled while the boys tried to sort their body parts out.

Zoe glanced at the scene and looked back as though she was used to seeing her friends attempt to kill people.

"My day so far has sucked," she said with an ironic grin. "Both my teachers have given me homework already."

Derek winced. "That does suck."

Zoe nodded while biting her lip. She looked back at Sally. Sally was arm wrestling with the boy who had been getting chased while the boy who had done the chasing and his posse was clustered around the table, chanting encouragements.

"I think I'd better go and take Sally away with me before she – or anyone else - hurts someone…"

They murmured their goodbye's and she gave them a smile and a wave before walking away.

Sally slammed the boy's hand onto the table and the crowd of spectators clustered around them exploded in cheers: they had apparently been cheering for Sally. She jumped up from her seat and started to gloat. Before she could go too far with it, Zoe came by and slid her index finger under the back of Sally's collar and pulled, dragging Sally into the building with her.

The people still crowding around the table booed and called for a rematch. The noise was so loud that Oliver almost didn't hear the bell.

Cory groaned and sat up. "Dang," he said. "I guess lunch is over." He straightened his glasses and started to stand up. He stretched and yawned, then looked at his watch.

"I'll see you guys later," he said. "I need to leave, because as of now I've got exactly seven minutes to use the loo and get to my class."

He grabbed his bag and started to walk away, but then turned back. "It was nice meeting you… Amy? Was it?" He didn't wait for an answer before going into the building.

"Huh," said Amy and smiled. She turned to Oliver. "You've got strange people surrounding you."

"Yeah," he said and got up. "I just wish they'd all stop hitting on you," he muttered under his breath.

"What?" asked Amy. "Where you talking to me? I didn't hear you."

"Nah," said Oliver with a smile, "it was nothing."

Allison and Derek elbowed him as they went past him, and Allison had the indecency to wink at him, too.

---

Oliver suffered through a lecture by his math teacher, and when the bell rang he tried to get out of the classroom as soon as he could. He nearly tripped over the disgruntled teacher – and that probably hadn't been a good move he thought later – in his haste to leave.

He finally escaped to freedom and walked down the corridor. His next class was band and he was having mixed feelings about it. Mr. Cross had been pretty intimidating the few times that Oliver had seen him, but he was hoping that he could get used to the band director with time.

On the way to the band room he met up with Derek and they walked the remaining distance together.

They sat down in their spots right before the bell rang, and started getting out their instruments.

There was tension in the voices of the band kids as the conversed quietly and waited for Mr. Cross to show up.

Oliver talked to Amy while the other flutes talked amongst themselves. Derek was talking to a trumpet player that sat behind him while the trombones cautiously got out a deck of cards.

After fifteen minutes of being absent, Mr. Cross finally walked in. He was wearing a pinstriped gray vest over a shirt so white it seemed to be glowing, matching gray pinstriped pants, and a blood red tie which looked like it was made out of silk.

"Breathing exercises," he announced with no preamble. He took out a thin black pouch and pulled an elegant dark baton out of it and Oliver noticed that he was, as always, wearing black leather gloves. "In for four, out for four." He tapped on the stand in front of him, keeping time as the students followed his directions. His dark eyes scanned the room for anyone not doing as they were told. "In for two, out for six."

Half a minute passed. "In for one, out for ten."

Finally, he stopped them. "That is enough for now," he said and looked around. "Courtney?" he asked the room.

She stood up. "Yes, Mr. Cross?" she asked.

"Run rehearsal, try to get them to finish memorizing the music." Courtney nodded.

Mr. Cross looked over the band one more time as he put away his baton.

"I hope that you all haven't forgotten about band practice this afternoon. First day of school or no, if any one of you fail to show up for no good reason, you won't be passing band this quarter."

There was a moment of silence. "Those of you who are members of the colorguard… feel free to do whatever. I don't particularly care as long as you don't make a lot of noise or a mess." He waved his hand dismissively at them and walked out of the band room.

Courtney smiled. "Alrighty, then band. Let's get to it, shall we?"

They started practice.

---

When Oliver got home – after two hours of band practice – he was not in the best of moods. His mother had been the one to drive him, and she asked him what was wrong. He could hardly tell her that Tim had been hitting on one of his friends and told her that it was nothing.

He got home and took a quick, much needed, shower.

Afterwards he got dressed in sweat pants and a long sleeved tee-shirt. His hair still a dripping mess, he barged into his brother's room.

Tim's room was bright, the windows were all open. His round bed was in the corner farthest from the door – it was covered with a blanket, but not as neatly made as their mother would have liked for it to be. An alarm clock was on the mattress next to the pillow, the time large red glowing numbers. There was a small bedside table in the gap between the edge of the bed and the corner of the room; there was a green, checkered apple laptop . The floor was mostly covered in newspapers, with an easel standing on them, positioned to get the most amount of light from the window. The walls were so covered by sketches that no one who was seeing the room for the first time would know that the walls were originally painted light lavender. Canvases – both clean and with paintings on them – were leaning against the walls under the windows and in the corner behind the easel.

Tim was bent over his only chair, sketching something or other. His pencil had a string tied on to the eraser side of it with a tack attached to the end of the string. He didn't look at Oliver when he came in.

Oliver jumped on Tim's bed and wriggled his bare toes on top of the lightly colored sheet.

"You're such a jerk, you know that?" Oliver asked after a while.

Tim glanced up at him briefly and went back to sketching.

"Why do you say that?"

Oliver scoffed and rolled his eyes – an act that Tim didn't see, but – if he knew his brother as well as he thought he did – knew to expect.

"You were totally hitting on Amy today!"

Tim finally straightened up and turned around to look at Oliver. "Yeah, so?"

Oliver sat up and glared accusingly. "You've got a girlfriend."

Tim turned around briefly to tack the pencil to the wall, then picked up the paper he had been drawing on and tacked that to the wall as well.

"You were never that concerned about my girlfriend, Oliver. So-" Tim said as he picked up the metal folding chair that was now cleared off and set it so that the back was facing Oliver. He sat down and folded his arms over the top of the chair, then rested his chin on them. "- I consider it safe to assume that this really isn't about my girlfriend. It's about Amy." Tim grinned. "You've got a crush on her!"

Oliver pulled up his legs, wrapped his arms around them and burrowed his face into his knees in order to hide his blush. "I don't think I do… I mean, I've only just met her a couple weeks ago. We're friends!"

"Pft," Tim scoffed. "You're not that great friends. Besides, I've only just met her today, and I think I'm about to get a crush on her. She's very pretty, don't you agree?"

Oliver nodded, but didn't look up at his brother. If possible, he got even redder.

"There it is, then." Tim sat for a little while before grinning once again. Oliver had looked up by then, his blush died down a bit, and he found the his brother looked a bit like the Cheshire cat. "You know what you've got to do, right?"

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

"You've got to ask her out."

Oliver's eyes widened. "What? I can't do that!"

"Why not? The perfect opportunity is coming around, too."

"What are you talking about?"

Tim rolled his eyes. "Homecoming. The homecoming dance is in two weeks. Ask her."

Oliver ran a hand through his hair, sending droplets flying through the room.

"Hey," Tim protested quietly. Oliver ignored him.

"But what if I ask her… and she says no?" Oliver looked at time with wide green eyes.

Tim's grin widened. "Trust me. She's not going to say no."

Oliver picked at the bottom of his sweatpants and stared at his toes nervously. "I… I don't know."

Tim rolled his eyes and got up from the chair. He ran his hand over his short hair and sighed before sitting down next to Oliver. He shoved Oliver over.

"Stop being a baby and just ask her. If she says no – and I guarantee you, she won't – it's not like it's the end of the world, right?"

"I guess," Oliver murmured.

Tim laughed. "Alright, Ollie," he said. "Time to get out of my room. I've got work to do."

Oliver stood up and was ushered out of the room. As soon as he was out in the hall, the door slammed behind him.

---

First period on Tuesday was English, and it passed by quickly. The teacher was an energetic young woman and it wasn't hard to pay attention to her. Especially when they realized that she answered questions truthfully after someone asked her why she decided to be an English teacher.

"It was either English or History, and History bores me to tears," she said with a shrug. Her homework policy was refreshing as well. "Hey, you don't like doing it," she said, "and I don't like grading it. There are very few homework assignments that you'll actually have to turn in."

The class seemed excited by this.

"I still suggest that you do it, though," she continued. "Trust me, you'll do better in this class if you do."

She gave them a list of words to study, and when the bell rang sent her students on their way.

Oliver headed to his next class: French.

French was less fun, as the teacher turned out to be a frigid bitch. However, Oliver enjoyed languages and he was pretty good at French, so he didn't think that it would be a much of a problem.

Lunch was less eventful than Monday, and he ate with his friends out in the courtyard. They whiled away the time with idle chatter, and before they knew it, the bell rang and lunch was over.

Biology was a drag. Luckily, he had it with Derek, and Derek always managed to lighten the mood.

The elderly teacher seemed to be going senile and often repeated herself.

Derek wrote notes to Oliver with jokes about everything, and Oliver tried as hard as he could not to laugh out loud.

The one time that he failed, the teacher turned to him and opened her mouth. He just knew that she was going to say something like "what is so funny, dear?" with a clueless look in her eyes and an empty smile on her face, so he turned it into a coughing fit. Her mouth drifted closed and she frowned at him in confusion for a moment before turning back to the students and resuming her lecture.

Afterwards, Oliver walked down to the band room with Derek.

This time, Mr. Cross didn't show himself at all, and the entire rehearsal was run by Courtney. They had finally finished memorizing the show and were now practicing playing it all the way through.

The bell rang and Oliver hurried to pack up, he didn't want to miss the bus. He made it out of the building just before the busses turned on their engines, so he didn't need to have worried. He got on the bus with plenty of time to spare. Allison plopped into the seat next to him and groaned.

"That girl that Cory was talking about yesterday?"

Oliver turned to her. "Yeah. Christine? Chelsea?"

Allison nodded. "Christine, yeah." She paused and sank lower into the seat. "Well, Cory wouldn't stop talking about her! He said she was stalking him or something."

"I find it hard to believe that anyone would stalk him," said Oliver.

The bus began moving, and Oliver looked out the window as the pulled away from the school.

"And, he's just so ridiculous about it!"

Oliver shrugged. "Maybe she really is stalking him."

"Oh please," said Allison and rolled her eyes. "He doesn't need to make such a huge deal out of it."

There was a moment of silence.

"So, have you ever even met her?" asked Oliver.

"No. But I doubt that she's as bad as he makes her out to be."

"Yeah," said Oliver. They trailed off into silence as the bus made its stops. They finally got off on their own stop and walked home together.

---

There was a home game on Friday that Oliver found out that he had to attend. He was in the band room at six in the evening, like Mr. Cross had said.

"Everybody, go get your uniforms on, get ready, whatever," said Alex.

Oliver looked around uncertainly as the band room exploded into a flurry of motion. He saw Zoe going by and he jumped up.

"Zoe! Z-Zoe!" he yelled and grabbed on to her sleeve. She turned.

"Yeah, Oliver? What is it?"

"Er… I have no idea what's going on. Do you think you could explain it to me?"

Zoe laughed and put her arm around his shoulders. "Of course! Now, come one…"

She explained the process of getting uniforms as she led him towards the uniform closet. They stood in line for a while.

When Oliver got all the pieces of his uniform Zoe steered him away and practically pushed him into the boy's bathroom.

"Put that on! If you need any help with this part, I suggest you ask someone else!" she called from outside the bathroom and chuckled good-naturedly.

Oliver looked at the clothing in his hands with foreboding.

"Hey Oliver," said Derek, who was changing in front of the sinks.

"Hia. Do you have any idea how this works?"

"Yeah, it's easy!"

Derek quickly explained the mechanics of the band uniform and Oliver was dressed within minutes.

"By the way, Oliver," Derek said while they were walking out of the bathroom, heading back towards the band room.

"You might want to cut the fingers off of those gloves of yours," Derek pointed at Oliver's hands.

"What? Why? And are we even allowed to do that? Wouldn't that be considered vandalism?"

Derek laughed. "How else do you expect to play the flute in those bulky gloves? Besides, I've seen all the other old kids do it."

"I guess," said Oliver.

When he got to the band room he found the flutes clustered around Zoe. They were passing around a pair of scissors.

"That answers that question," Oliver muttered. He peeled off his gloves and waited until someone passed him the scissors. One of the older flutes finally gave them to him and he looked at Zoe's gloves before cutting his own.

Once he was done he put them back on and retrieved his flute.

Alex took roll while the students warmed up. Suddenly he frowned and squinted down at the sheet, looked around the room, then looked back down to the sheet.

He looked up. "Hey, does anyone know…" he paused to check the sheet again, " Eric Lancaster?"

The band kids looked blankly.

"No one?" asked Alex. "Because he's not here right now and I was thinking someone could call him… Eric Lancaster? Anyone?"

Oliver finally looked up. "Eric?" he asked.

Alex turned to him. "Yeah. I think he's that saxophone player… dark hair, dark clothes. Do you know him?"

Oliver shrugged. "Well. I've talked to him. Once."

"Hey, that's better than me," said Alex.

"You should be the one to call him!" said Courtney.

Oliver looked around nervously and realized that the entire band was looking at him.

"W-what?"

"We're going to call him to see what he's doing that's so important that he can't be here," said Alex.

"But… I don't know his number."

"Not a problem," said Courtney with a grin. She nodded at the first chair percussionist. "We need the number for Eric Lancaster, Vince."

He nodded and pulled out a thin school directory seemingly out of nowhere. Courtney took out his phone, a picture of readiness. When Vince started calling out the numbers she was quick to type them in. When she handed the phone to Oliver it was already ringing.

"W-wha?! I've got no idea what I'm doing!" he yelled desperately.

There was another ring.

Alex patted him on the shoulder. "Just ask him what he's doing, and tell him to get down here as soon as he can."

There was another ring.

"There's really nothing to it," said Courtney with a wide smile. "You can go into the hall if you're uncomfortable doing this in public."

Click. "Hello?" asked a rough male voice.

"Oh. Um. Hello," said Oliver as he rushed out of the band room and into the hall. "My name is Oliver. Um. Tylman. I'm calling for Eric Lancaster?"

The voice on the other side of the line grunted. "Ugh. I'll get him."

Oliver heard the rattling crash of the phone being dropped on some surface and heavy footsteps heading away from it.

By then he was already in the relative quiet of the hall, and so could hear perfectly what was going on on the other side of the line.

There was now a muted argument going on between the male voice he had heard previously and an obviously female one. He made out the words "Come down here boy, there's some stupid kid calling you!" because they were yelled at the top of the man's voice. The woman and the man resumed their bickering and Oliver heard thumps, as those of someone going down the stairs. A younger male voice joined the argument for a little while before footsteps headed back towards the phone.

"Hello?" asked the younger male voice, Eric's.

"Oh. Um. Hi. This is Oliver Tylman, I don't know if you remember me, but we met on the first Wednesday of band camp?"

"Yeah, of course I remember you, Oliver. I'm a bit surprised that you're calling, though. I mean, you're welcome to call anytime, but… - how did you get this number, anyway?"

"Oh. Well, I didn't really get it. Er. Alex, the drum major? Well, he told me to call you to ask why you weren't at the game… and then Courtney had Vince, that one percussionist that's really good? Well, she asked him for your number and he found it in the directory…

"But the reason I'm calling is to ask what you're doing and remind you that we've got a game in half an hour."

"Oh," said Eric's voice. He sounded vaguely disappointed. "Something came up and I had to go home. I'm at my house right now. The only way I can get there in time is if some one comes to get me, but I don't see how that's possible…"

"Listen," said Oliver, "could you hold on a moment, I guess I'll go tell Alex. Maybe there's something that can be done."

"Alright," said Eric.

Oliver put a hand over the phone to muffle any sound coming in from his end and went in to the band room. He waved Alex over and they went into the hall together. Oliver quickly explained the situation while Alex looked thoughtful and nodded.

When Oliver finished he looked up. "I don't see how that's a problem," he said with a shrug while Oliver stared. "Is he still on the line?" asked Alex as he gestured at the phone. Oliver mutely handed the phone to him and stepped back to listen to the rest of the conversation.

"Hi, Eric? … Yeah, this is Alex. I'm going to come and get you from your house, alright? … Okay. Where do you live? … Yeah, yeah, I know where that is… No, that's - … yeah, alright. I should be there in about ten minutes… Yeah, I can do that… It's settled then. I'll see you in ten." Alex snapped the phone shut and grinned at Oliver. "Problem solved."

"Well. Wow. I've never seen a problem handled so simply."

Alex raised an eyebrow and spread his arms out. "Well, that was before you met Alexander the Amazing."

Oliver snorted.

"By the way, Oliver," said Alex, "thanks for calling him. You did a great job." Alex patted him on the shoulder and they went back into the band room. The band was rehearsing, but Courtney stopped them and looked over at Alex as he crossed the band room.

"What's the situation?" she asked.

"I'm going to go get the kid now. I'll be back in twenty minutes. There's nothing to worry about," Alex replied as he dug his car keys out of his pockets.

Courtney nodded and turned back to the band.

"Alright, let's start in measure twenty five and keep going."

---

Courtney ran a short rehearsal, and Alex came back with Eric right before they had to line up and march to the field. He went with Eric to get the band closet keys from Mr. Cross, who reacted to Eric's lateness by raising an eyebrow and mutely handing over the keys.

The band lined up in the street outside the band room, effectively cutting off all traffic heading to and from the field. Courtney took great pleasure in standing in front of the cars and smirking at the frustrated drivers.

One of the cars coming back from the field started inching forward, as though it wanted to drive through the band. The colorguard captain turned around sharply, 'accidentally' hitting the car with one of her flags.

"Oops!" she called out with fake astonishment. "I'm sooooo sorry!" she simpered. "Don't worry, I'm sure they'll be able to paint that right over," she smirked. The driver glared, but moved his car backwards, so that it wasn't crowding the band anymore.

Finally, they were ready to go. Courtney called the band to attention, and Mr. Cross moved to the front of the block, looking imposing in his knee-length black overcoat and black leather gloves.

"DETAIL, MARK TIME!" yelled out Alex. Courtney called for them to start moving forward.

The percussion section played while they marched, following Mr. Cross. When they got to the field, Mr. Cross unlocked the gate, opened it, and stepped to the side, sending the band marching a long the track as though sending them out of a slingshot. The percussion kept playing.

They marched past the visitor stands. The cheerleaders and coaches stood on the track, staring in the way of those who thought that they would be accommodated, expecting the band to march around them. The colorguard captain and the older colorguard girls were marching at the front, moving determinately forward, making no move to step aside. The cheerleaders soon got unnerved by the unblinking stares of the band members. The coaches stayed where they were, the youngest one right in the middle of the track – in front of the colorguard captain. As she was bearing down on him, she raised her head a little higher and a smirk ghosted across her lips. She didn't move from her course, and by the time he realized that she wasn't about to move aside she had already stepped on his foot. He tried to move back but fell down on his butt. She stepped over him calmly and kept going straight. All the band kids after her followed her example, except for a trombone, who accidentally stepped on the man's arm.

Whey they got into the stands Mr. Cross chuckled and patted the colorguard captain on the back. "I was hoping that someone would have the guts to walk on one of those stupid coaches."

The captain grinned at him "Thanks Mr. Cross," she said, "I'm glad you approve."

Finally the football game started.

Oliver strategically maneuvered himself so that he would be sitting next to Amy.

"So," he said to her between songs and loud cheers. "How's life?"

Amy smiled. "Pretty good." They were allowed to take their hats off in the stands, and they had all done just that. Amy brushed back a strand of hair that had escaped from her pony tail.

"Hey, man!" said Derek as he insinuated himself between the two of them. Oliver was the least happy to see his friend then, than he had ever been in his entire life. "Hi, Amy," he said, when he realized that she was there, too.

"So," he said, turning back to Oliver. "I didn't know you were friends with Eric!"

Oliver looked back to find out where said boy was. He didn't like talking about anyone unless he knew where they were, and that they were out of hearing range.

Eric was talking with some of his saxophone buddies near the back of the band.

"We're not friends, I just talked to him. Once. And, really, he was the one talking to me. What I don't understand is, though, why I was the one that was forced to call him. Why didn't any of his buddies do it?" Oliver scowled and turned back to Derek, who had ignored his last statement.

"You talked to him? About what? Why aren't you two friends?"

Allison made their way to them, just in time to hear enough of their conversation to know what they were talking about.

"You're friends with Eric?" she asked. "Can you introduce me? He's cute," she grinned and glanced at Eric.

Amy leaned forward as well. "Yeah, tell us about your relationship with Eeeric." She stretched out the first syllable, and ended the name with a click of her tongue. She smiled innocently at Oliver.

Oliver sighed in exasperation. "I told you guys, we're not friends! He talked to me once, and that's it! Or has someone one changed the friendship rules again? Does that qualify as a friendship?"

"You talked?" asked Allison. "About what?"

Oliver rolled his eyes. "I forgot my bag in the band room, and he gave it back to me. He introduced himself, I introduced myself, he reeked of smoke so I high-tailed it out of there."

"So why aren't you friends?" asked Amy.

"He. Reeks. Of. Smoke."

"So?" asked Allison.

Oliver sighed again and threw up his hands in frustration. "He's not exactly a good influence, don't you think? He smokes, he skips class, so on and so forth. That's not really the type of people that I'm friends with."

Derek blinked. "Your brother and Cory smoke and skip class. Sometimes together. You're still friends with them."

Oliver's eyes widened in shock. "They do what?"

"Oh," Allison said. "You didn't know!"

"This is interesting," said Amy. "Now that you know, will you stop being friends with them?"

Oliver fiddled with his hat. "Of course not. But I'm going to have a talk with them about their… habits and priorities."

Derek laughed. "Good luck with that."

Just then their team scored and they had to break off their conversation in order to play the school fight song.

It seemed that in no time at all (or all the time in the world, depending on how you looked at it) it was time to go and get ready for the show.

"Nervous?" asked Zoe when they lined up, ready to march onto the field as soon as halftime started.

Oliver smiled weakly. "I think I'm about to throw up. Does that count?"

"Me too," said Amy.

Zoe laughed. "You've got every right to be. It's your first real show. There's quite a crowd tonight." Zoe turned away from them to look to the front of the line.

"Um," said Amy. "Aren't you going to say something comforting?"

Zoe turned back. She stared at them blankly. "Well, I really wasn't planning on it," she said, not unkindly. She turned away from them once again.

"BAND TEN'HUT!" yelled Alex.

The whistle was blown and halftime was about to start.

"HEY BAND!" yelled Vince, "WHAT TIME IS IT?"

Oliver was confused until the band members yelled, "IT'S SHOW TIME! HUGH!"

The drum majors called for them to start moving forward, and they marched onto the field.

The colorguard ran to set their equipment as the band members moved into their first set and performed a scale.

"Drum majors, is your band ready?" called the announcer.

Alex and Courtney performed the drum major salute simultaneously and moved towards the podium on the fifty yard line and thirty five yard line, respectively, taking off their hats as they went. Once they got on their podiums they glanced at each other and started conducting.

The show was over sooner than Oliver had expected. Before he knew it, they were standing in a huddle next to the bleachers.

"That wasn't terrible," said Mr. Cross. "Frankly, it was a lot better than the parent show, and I suppose I'm satisfied with that. You all enjoy your third quarter break."

The band cheered.

"For your own good, I hope you're back in the bleachers by the beginning of fourth quarter. Seniors, fall out."

The seniors left the huddle.

The freshmen were the last to be dismissed, and by the time Oliver got to the concession stand there was a long line. He stood and chatted with his friends while he waited.

The rest of the game passed in the blink of an eye. The band, now relaxed after their show celebrated with abandonment.

Before he knew it, Oliver was back in the band room, getting changed back into his street clothes. He took longer than he needed to, getting dressed slowly, and when he put his marching flute back into his locker he found himself alone with Amy in the band instrument storage room.

He was about to leave, until he realized that if he did, he would miss the perfect opportunity. He was in the doorway when this thought hit him. He stopped and turned around abruptly, only to find himself nearly face to face with Amy, who had walked up behind him.

"Oh," she stepped back, surprised. "Sorry," she said with a smile.

"Hey Amy," Oliver began. She looked at him quizzically. "Are you going to the Homecoming dance?"

She blinked. "Yeah."

"Are you – that is… Are you going with anyone?"

"No, just my friends."

"Well, I was wondering – " Oliver broke off and scratched the back of his head nervously. He looked down. "Um. Well." He looked back up then, because he felt that if he said it without looking at her it would be somehow cheating. "Will you go to the dance with me?"

She blinked. "Sure. As friends, or…"

"No. Not as friends. Will you be my date? And, maybe, my girlfriend…?"

Amy smiled widely. "Yes!"

"To which?"

"To all of them!" She gave him a big hug then.

Oliver hugged her back, and when they pulled away he grinned at her. "I guess I'll pick you up then."

"Yeah!" said Amy.

A tinny melody played and Amy made an exclamation of surprise before searching through her pockets for her phone. She pulled the tiny pink thing out and pressed it to her ear.

"Hello?... Yeah, sorry… Yeah… I'll be out, mom… No, I'm finished… Alright, see you in a couple minutes… bye."

She hung up, then looked up at Oliver.

"I've got to go, that was my mom…" she trailed off and broke into another smile. "Alrigh. Bye."

"Bye," Oliver replied, and finally stepped out of the doorframe, finally letting her out of the band instrument storage locker. She left through the side door and he turned around to get the rest of his things.

Tim was reclining on a chair in the back of the band room. "Well, I can't exactly call that smooth, but I suppose it's something," he said. "It went well."

"Yeah!" said Oliver with a ridiculous grin.

"C'mon, I'm parked illegally right now, and I don't want to get a ticket."

As they passed the band director's office they heard muffled voices. Oliver looked through the window in the door to see Mr. Cross talking to the orchestra director, Mr. Cattela. Their voices were so low and quiet that their words were unintelligible, but Mr. Cross was reclining in his comfortable leather swivel chair with his fingers steepled in front of his face, and Mr. Cattela was perched on the edge of Mr. Cross' desk in front of him.

Oliver and Tim walked through the double doors together.

---

On the night of the Homecoming dance Oliver was nervous. He had asked his mother to drive him to the dance because Tim absolutely refused to play chauffeur for Oliver and Amy.

Oliver went up the sidewalk to Amy's house and rang the doorbell. A friendly looking woman with short brown hair opened the door.

"Oh, hello! You must be Oliver." Her eyes crinkled by her smile, she looked very amiable. "She's almost ready, just wait a little. She'll be down soon."

Oliver loitered on the front porch uncertainly.

In a minute Amy came down the stairs. She was wearing a slinky red dress covered in sparkles and shoes to match. Her long brown hair was done up in a complicated knot at the top of her head. Her make up was tasteful but not obvious, doing a good job of accenting her natural beauty.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," Oliver replied. "You look really good."

She blushed and looked down at her shoes. "Thanks." He handed her the bouquet of flowers he had brought with him. She thanked him again and handed the flowers off to her mother to put in water.

"Are you ready to go?" asked Oliver. Amy answered him with a nod.

She said goodbye to her mother and left hand in hand with Oliver. They climbed into the back of Oliver's mother's car, and she pulled away from the curb. Oliver introduced Amy quickly and the rest of the short ride talked to Amy.

When they got to the school they got out of the car and Oliver's mother drove away after asking what time they wanted to be picked up.

Fancily dressed students were milling about in front of the entrance to the school. Oliver spotted Allison and the rest of his friends among the crowd and headed to them. Together they headed inside.

The dance was held in the cafeteria, and the DJ was playing obnoxious, suggestive music that Oliver doubted was appropriate for an in school situation.

"Wow," said Derek, staring into the throng of dancing students. "It's like having sex with your clothes on."

"I know," said Oliver. "It's –" he was about to make a derogatory remark about people who danced like that, but was forced to swallow his words when he saw Tim grinding with his girlfriend the middle of the crowd, and Cory 'dancing' extremely inappropriately, surrounded by three girls.

Oliver frowned. "Ewww."

Allison shuddered. "Wow, that's embarrassing. I think I'd die of shame from dancing like that."

Oliver looked around the cafeteria, looking for other people he knew, still holding Amy's hand.

Zoe was wearing a flattering, lavender knee-length dress that looked like it was made of silk. She was talking to Courtney, who was dressed in blue, and Alex, who was dressed in a black shirt, white pants and white jacket. They were surrounded by various other female members of the band. Alex looked quite like a pimp.

Oliver's English teacher was chatting happily with an older man that Oliver didn't know.

Mr. Cross was looming silently in a dark corner, holding a (doubtlessly alcoholic) drink in his hand and in front of his face, as though trying to shield himself from the chaos of the room. He was dressed in his usual fashion, although he wasn't wearing his overcoat or a jacket, and his shirt was a rich plum color under his dark vest.

Mr. Cattela was leaning against the wall next to him and seemed to be teasing the band director about something.

Amy leaned over to Oliver.

"Do you want to dance?"

---

Halfway through the dance Oliver felt like he was being suffocated by the gyrating, sweat-soaked bodies surrounding him.

He left Amy chatting with her friends by the tables that served snacks and drinks, and went out into the hallway.

He stepped through the double doors into the courtyard.

It was ten thirty in the evening, and the sky was pitch black, and the breath came out in puffs of fog from Oliver's nose and mouth. The only light in the courtyard came through the windows into the cafeteria. Oliver walked forward a couple of steps and plopped down on the bench of one of the picnic tables.

He didn't notice Eric until he was almost sitting on top of the black-clad boy.

"Hi, Oliver," said Eric. He was lying on the picnic table, his arms folded under his head.

"Oh, hi," Oliver responded. "I didn't notice you."

Eric didn't reply. Oliver took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"So, how's the dance going?" asked Eric.

"It's fine. Just a little crowded."

"Yeah," said Eric. "I heard that Amy is your date. Is that right, or is it just a rumor?"

"No, I'm with her," said Oliver.

"She's hot, great job landing her. So how's the relationship going so far, if you know what I mean."

Oliver tensed up. "I really don't see how that's any of your business."

Eric laughed. "Sorry, I didn't know it was such a sensitive topic. Don't worry, I won't ask again." He sat up and searched through his pockets. In a couple of moments he pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He pulled one out, lit it, and took a deep drag.

"Do you want one?" he asked Oliver.

"No thank you," the brown-haired boy replied tersely. He stood up. "I really think I should go back inside now," he said.

"Sure. I'll see you around then," said Eric.

Oliver nodded and went back into the cafeteria.

---

Oliver walked Amy to her front door. They rang the doorbell and stood on the porch together while they waited for Amy's mother to let Amy into the house.

"That was pretty fun, Oliver," Amy said. "I'm glad you asked me."

"I'm glad you said yes," said Oliver with a grin. Amy smiled back at him. "You know, I was thinking," said Oliver. Amy looked up at him. "Do you want to do something next Friday? Like, go see a movie or something?"

"Like… a date?" asked Amy.

"Yeah," Oliver replied.

Amy beamed. "I'd love to."

Just then the door opened. "Hi, honey," Amy's mother said. Amy smiled apologetically at Oliver.

"I'll talk to you on Monday, I guess."

"Yeah," Oliver replied. She went into the house and he turned around to go back to the car. He saw her waving at him through her window and he waved back.

When they got home Oliver's mother went to sleep, and Oliver went to Tim's room to tell him about the amazing time he had and thank his brother for the advice. When he walked into the room he found out that Tim wasn't home yet.

Oliver shrugged mentally and decided to go and make coffee while he waited for Tim to get home.

Tim arrived at three in the morning, smelling of liquor and smoke.

"Hey, Ollie!" he exclaimed.

"Tim!" Oliver hissed in an appalled whisper, "What do you think you're doing?! Are you drunk?!"

Tim hiccupped and grinned. His eyes were having trouble staying focused on any one spot for any considerable length of time. When he walked over to Oliver, he swayed on his feet and had to hold the wall for support.

"Why… yes! I am!" Tim giggled and Oliver slapped a hand over his brother's mouth trying to keep him quiet. He didn't want their parents to wake up and find Tim in the condition he was currently in.

"Please, please tell me that you didn't drive home like this!"

Tim slapped Oliver playfully on the shoulder. "Of cooourse not! I had… I had a friend do it. I forget who… I didn't drive."

Oliver nodded and exhaled the breath he had been holding in relief.

"Listen," he said. "You need to drink a lot of water and go to sleep. You can't let mom and dad find you like this!"

Tim nodded seriously and Oliver went to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water for his inebriated brother. He came back and made Tim drink all of it, then went back to the kitchen to refill the glass. He helped Tim to his room and sat him down on the bed.

"Listen, I'm putting this water on the bedside table. You drink it if you wake up and you're thirsty."
Tim nodded and giggled quietly. "Ollie, how am I supposed to take off my shoes…? I can't reach…"

Oliver sighed and bent down to untie Tim's shoelaces. Tim tried to toe off his shoes but failed miserably. Oliver did it for him.

"Go to sleep, Tim. I'll cover for you in the morning, just don't ever let mom or dad find out about this!"

"Alright, Ollie," said Tim and fell back on top of his blanket.

"Okay. Sleep," said Oliver and started to leave the room. Tim grabbed his sleeve and pulled him back.

"I broke up with her, Ollie."

"What?" asked Oliver in a tone of confusion, "you broke up with who?"

"My girlfriend, what ever her name was," said Tim as though the answer should have been obvious. "So you'd better watch out." Tim giggled again and released the sleeve.

Oliver's eyebrows met in the center of his forehead in his mystification.

"Just go to sleep," he hissed. Tim laughed and fell back onto his bed, asleep within seconds.

---

Oliver told his parents that Tim got in soon after him. They never found out about Tim's drunken, after hours adventure. Neither did Tim; when he woke up in the morning he couldn't remember the night before.

Oliver, as sole keeper of the secret, forgot about it in a couple of weeks when other things started occupying his mind.

---

On Friday Oliver went to the movies with Amy. They had a great time, except for the fact that the people behind them tended to yell at the screen, and after the movie Amy tripped on the stairs and spilled the remains of her ICEE on Oliver's shirt. Tim nearly didn't let Oliver get into the car wearing his soiled clothes.

Oliver came home sticky with sugar and hopped into the shower.

Despite the mishaps, however, he couldn't stop smiling for the rest of the day.

---

Saturday was the first marching band competition, and Oliver was forced to get up at 9:00 AM in order to get to school when he was supposed to get there.

It had rained that night, and they spent two squelchy hours on the main field doing run-throughs of their show.

Mr. Cross had apparently had a fight with the football coach, because right before they got ready to leave he took over control from the drum majors.

He told the band to line up in a block before calling them to attention.

"We are now going to practice some hazes," he said with a sharp predator-like grin. They performed about faces, as well as sharp turns to the right and to the left. After a couple of minutes Mr. Cross moved the block to a different part of the field and repeated the procedure.

When they left the field, it was in ruins. There were small areas of ground which were missing grass, spaced out in perfectly even squares, giving the impression that the field was covered in a grid.

The larger instruments and colorguard members put their equipment on the trailer, and they all went back to the band room to get their uniforms on.

Soon they were on their busses. Luckily, Oliver, Allison, Derek, and Amy were all on the same bus. They sat together in the back of the bus, Oliver sharing a seat with Amy, and Allison sharing a seat with Derek.

When the bus started moving the noise level rose considerably. Derek nearly had to yell to make himself heard.

"So are you two boyfriend and girlfriend now?" he asked.

"Cause we sure would like to know," said Allison.

Oliver and Amy looked at each other uncertainly. They had never really discussed it, and neither wanted to disappoint or anger the other. They sat in silence for a moment, and Amy gave a small hesitant shrug and flashed Oliver a warm smile.

Oliver turned to look back at his friends. "Yes. We are. Right?" he said the last word to Amy, turning back to look at her.

"Yeah," she said happily. They grinned at each other and hugged.

"Okay, let's stop the love-fest," said Derek and pretended to gag. Allison shoved him in the side and he nearly fell out of the seat, but just managed to grab the back of the seat in front of him and pull himself back.

"Shut up," said Allison. "It's sweet," she grinned a loopy grin. "You just can't understand 'cause you're a boy."

Derek raised an eyebrow. "I'm glad you're aware of that fact."

"Well, it took some time to figure out," Allison retaliated, "since you're always getting beaten up by girls."

Derek rolled his eyes at her before shoving her, lightly.

She laughed and stuck her tongue out at him.

Zoe fought her way down the isle and sat down in the seat across from Derek, next to one of her junior friends.

"Hey guys. How's it going?" she said with a wide smile.

All four of them said hello to her. Her eyes flicked back and forth between Derek and Amy, her smile not giving the slightest indication of fading, giving her a slightly eerie air.

"Soooo…" she said, drawing the word out. The smile on her face looked as though it had been glued on, and nailed on for good measure. "There's…. something. There's something going on here. There is definitely something going in here," stated certainly. She paused, and no one said anything. She looked a bit uncertain."Is there something going in here?" Her smile finally faded.

"If by 'something' you mean a little… eh… hanky panky… Then no. There isn't anything going on here," said Derek and laughed.

"Oh, please," sighed Allison and shoved him again.

Amy's smile had faded completely and was replaced by an expression of scrutiny.

"Hmmm… no… hanky panky sounds about right…"

Amy and Oliver blushed, although Amy's face was considerably more red, and she buried her face in this shoulder.

Zoe's face was instantly lit up by a smile, as though someone had switched a light bulb on in her brain. "Aha!" she exclaimed and punctuated by raising her left hand, her index finger extended and pointing at the ceiling of the bus. "You two," she leveled her finger to point at Oliver, then waggled it back and forth between him and Amy for a couple of moments, "you two are… dating!"

"Um. Yeah. I guess we are," said Oliver. Amy was still much too embarrassed to speak and said nothing at all.

Zoe laughed. "I knew it. From the moment I met you two, I knew you'd hook up!" She paused for a moment. "Well, not hook up, maybe. I don't think you'd have sex. Well, any time soon, at least-"

Amy groaned and buried her face in her hands in embarrassment. Her face was as red as fresh pizza sauce, and currently, she was pretending that she didn't exist.

"Zoe… please. STOP." said Oliver.

Zoe waggled her eyebrows at him. "Alright, alright. I'm…" she paused thoughtfully, "sorry. I suppose." Another pause. She grinned again. "Well, no. Not so much. Not really. Not at all, actually. AND!" she exclaimed. "I was right! There is something going on, 'cause you two are dating."

Derek laughed. Oliver smiled nervously.

"But, inter-section relationship? No offence," said Zoe, "but don't you consider it a little strange?" she turned to the girl she was sitting next to. "Don't you think it's strange?"

The girl had been listening to her headphones, and as a result didn't know that she was being addressed. She looked up from her book when Zoe poked her. "What?"

"Think fast. Inter-section relationship, it is weird, right?"

The girl nodded. "Definitely. It's almost like incest. Except for, you know. The incest."

Zoe nodded. "Yeah, that's what I thought." She turned back to Oliver. "Don't worry, though. I'm sure it's fine. I'm sure that it'll be fine."

"It'll never last," said the girl and turned back to her book.

Zoe turned her head to glare, but it went unnoticed. She turned back to Oliver and smiled apologetically. "No, no. I'm sure it will be fine."

Oliver, Amy, Derek, and Allison were staring at her in shock.

"Um," said Zoe, and fidgeted nervously. She squinted and pulled in her lips, her mouth becoming a tight, thin line. "Alrightely, then," she said when she couldn't take the silence anymore. "I think I should… leave." She smiled apologetically again and got up. She fought her way back to the front and went to sit with Alex.

"Well," said Allison, "that certainly puts a dampener on the proceedings."

The bus slowed down and stopped.

"Huh," said Oliver as he turned to look out of the window. "I guess we're here."

They were standing in the driveway of a large high school. Opposing marching bands were marching in straight lines along the sidewalk, heading towards the field, dressed in a medley of colors. Other marching bands were standing on the lawn in wide arcs, rehearsing their music, while their colorguards practiced their work off to the side.

The bus doors opened and a disinterested teenager got on. She was wielding a stamp and a small box containing an ink-soaked sponge. She went straight to the back of the bus and started working her way up to the front, stamping the hand of each band member as she went. When she got to the front she stopped next to Mr. Cross, waiting for him offer up his hand. She flipped her hair in irritation, and cleared her throat loudly a couple of times in order to get his attention. Finally she broke down and sighed loudly.

"Excuse me, sir. I need to stamp your hand, so that you can get back into the stadium for free.

Mr. Cross looked up at her, giving her an icy glare. "I don't think I will be having a problem getting into the stadium, thank you very much."

The girl smiled nastily. "I'm sorry, sir. I'm afraid that's not how it works. I'm going to need to stamp your hand."

Mr. Cross raised an eyebrow and stared at her silently. She refused to back down, and stood over him with her stamp raised. She was getting more nervous by the second.

Mr. Cattela – who had been sitting on the window side of the seat next to Mr. Cross for the entire bus ride – spent the time looking back and forth between Mr. Cross and the girl with an amused glint in his eye. Finally he decided to take pity on the girl.

"Listen," he said, leaning over Mr. Cross and staring the girl in the eye. "It is now evident to me that you're not going to win this one."

Mr. Cross smiled, which somehow made him seem more intimidating.

"So why don't we decide on a compromise, hmm? I think you can just stamp me for the both of us." He offered up both of his hands.

The girl though about it for a split second before stamping each of Mr. Cattela's hands and nearly running off the bus, trying to get as far away from Mr. Cross as quickly as possible.

"You're a mean guy," said Mr. Cattela and smirked.

Mr. Cross rolled his eyes and looked over at the other man. "Oh please. I know you have just as much fun with it as I do, David."

Mr. Cattela laughed. "That's right. But still, I'm not as bad as you."

The band director agreed with a shrug.

During their, albeit short, conversation the bus doors had closed again and the bus resumed its motion. In a couple of minutes the pulled into the parking lot.

Mr. Cross stood up and faced the students seated on the bus.

"We're here," he announced. "Get off the bus and get your instruments."

He was the first to leave, and the students shuffled out after him. The three other buses from their school pulled up next to the first, and the students on those busses were given the same directions.

The percussionists set to unloading the band trailer, and in twenty minutes the entire band had their instruments and/or equipment. Mr. Cross lead them over to a grassy area and told them to form into an arc.

Allison said goodbye to Derek and Oliver before going off to practice with the rest of the colorguard.

They played for nearly an hour before another young teenager came up to Mr. Cross. He leaned over to tap the band director's arm, but Mr. Cattela grabbed the boy's hand right before it made contact. The orchestra director shook his head warningly and let go of the boy's hand.

The boy, surprised, didn't say or do anything.

Mr. Cattela laid a hand on Mr. Cross' shoulder, finally catching the dark-haired man's attention. He motioned to the boy with his eyes and Mr. Cross turned around.

"Yes?" he asked.

The boy swallowed, unnerved – like most – by the imposing band director. "It's time for your band to head down to the field.

Mr. Cross nodded once and turned back around. He raised a gloved hand and motioned with his fingers for the band to cluster around him. The colorguard abandoned their flags on the ground and went to join the huddle.

"We've bothered to come all the way out here," said Mr. Cross. "And since we're here anyway, we might as well win. Right?"

The band cheered loudly.

"Line up," he said, and the band kids rushed to do as they were told. In less than three minutes they were standing in two lines (the colorguard lined up in the front, next to the band members) on the sidewalk, ready to go.

The teenager that had first spoken to Mr. Cross lead the way to the field. The band marched in step behind him.

They got to the gates of the field in time to watch the band before them perform. They were doing music out of the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean," and Mr. Cross grimaced in distaste.

Mr. Cattela, next to him, laughed. "How more generic can you get?"

"I looked at the program," replied Mr. Cross. "Three of the bands here are doing this music."

Mr. Cattela laughed again.

Mr. Cross turned to the band. "Keep your instruments warm. Blow warm air!"

They stood there for six minutes until the band that had been performing finished with a crescendo and paused before their drum majors called them to mark time and then march off the field.

Allison, who happened to be standing next Oliver gulped audibly and leaned over to her friend. "My stomach has tied itself into knots and is trying to jump out of my throat. How do you feel?"

"I'm trying not to throw up, and I feel that if I do, there will be wet crumpled butterflies all over the pavement."

Allison nodded. "Nice."

Oliver shuddered and brought his flute to his mouth, sealing his lips around the mouth hole and exhaling warm breath.

Allison snorted. "What are you, giving it CPR? Newsflash, that thing's not alive. And just… eww."

Oliver rolled his eyes before answering. "Mr. Cross said to keep our horns warm, alright. If you can't stomach it-"

"BAND TEN'HUT!" yelled out the drum majors in unison. They looked over at Mr. Cross, waiting for further instructions. He gave a curt nod, and they called the band to start marking time and then marching. They marched along the track for a bit before curving to the left and stepping onto the field.

Mr. Cross and Mr. Cattela moved towards the stands and sat down in the front row, waiting for the band to start.

"If we don't win this, heads will roll," said Mr. Cross to the orchestra director.

Mr. Cattela patted his friend on the back and chuckled. "You're overreacting. I've seen you guy's rehearse, and the band is good. Besides, if they do their best, that's the most important part. Winning isn't that important at all."

Mr. Cross looked over at the orchestra director incredulously. "Are you kidding? I don't give a flying fuck if they do their best! 'Oh well, you did your best' is a phrase that losers came up with to make themselves feel better about being losers. But I do agree with you on one point, it's not important that we win, it's important that everyone else looses."

Mr. Cattela raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth to respond, but Mr. Cross elbowed him in the side and nodded towards the band, which was ready to start.

---

After they had finished their backfield warm up and turned around Oliver stood and silently watched Courtney and Alex, waiting for them to start. He felt his knees start to shake and hoped that he wouldn't fall down during the show.

"BAND HORNS UP!"

Oliver snapped the flute up to his lips. He was glad that his fingers, at least, weren't shaking. When he played the cello, his hands would shake when he was nervous. That made it difficult to play, and one of the (lesser) reasons that he had quit.

Alex and Courtney glanced at each other and started to conduct together.

Oliver took a deep breath and got ready to play the first note.

---

"They're doing a good job," said Mr. Cattela.

"Hm," replied Mr. Cross, unconvinced. "They're doing a good job so far. Let's not count our chickens until they hatch."

They watched for a moment, and the band director winced when a trombone tripped and nearly fell.

"That boy is going to be running laps come Monday practice," the band director muttered.

"Why is this so important to you?" asked Mr. Cattela.

"It's always important to me," Mr. Cross replied without taking his eyes off of the field.

"Yeah, but usually you give a huge scary speech about what you'll do if your band looses, involving detention, running laps, cleaning toilets with bare hands, and all that. You didn't do that this time, it's as if… dare I say it? You were trying to make sure that they weren't more nervous than necessary."

Mr. Cross leaned back and muttered something.

The orchestra director grinned. "I'm sorry, what was that?"

The band director sighed and rolled his eyes. "I made a dumb bet with the principal. If we win this competition he said that he will divert more funding to the music department. If we loose, he's going to take funding away, and stop turning a blind eye to the fact that the band kids are illegally parking all over the place and having sex in the band instrument storage closet."

Mr. Cattela chocked on his saliva in surprise. "They're doing what in the storage closet? And you know about this?"

Mr. Cross rolled his eyes. "Of course I know. I know most everything that goes on in the music hall. Besides, there are bras and boxer shorts always lying around in there."

"Wait, wait, wait. You know everything that goes on in the music hall? Do you know who's been sticking pencils in the ceiling of the orchestra room?"

Mr. Cross didn't answer for a moment while he listened to a particularly tricky part of the show. "What…? Oh, yes. It's that short boy. He's got blond hair, plays viola, chews gum all the time – a disgusting habit – speaks with an English accent."

Mr. Cattela narrowed his eyes. "I knew it."

The band director raised an eyebrow. "I find it interesting that you're more concerned by pencils in the ceiling than students having sex in the storage closet."

"Well, I get new students every year. That ceiling is going to be there long after I'm dead. You can't say you feel the same way."

Mr. Cross shrugged. "I don't deny it. I, however, feel that pencils in the ceiling are quite artistic."

"I've never been fond of that type of art," said Mr. Cattela with a disdainful sniff.

"Hush," said the band director, "this part is what makes or breaks a show."

---

Oliver marched backwards while he and the rest of the flutes had a rest. He got ready to do the sixteenth note C-sharp scale run. He really hoped he didn't mess it up, in such a high octave any mistake would be heard in the next county.

The colorguard started performing a series of tosses as the band performed crescendos and accents.

The band started to line up, forming a large circle before feverishly 'following the leader' and starting to spiral into the center.

Oliver took a deep breath and performed the run perfectly and simultaneously with the other flutes. At the highest note the band stopped playing and the percussion took over, the booming of the base drum causing the stands to vibrate. The band went into a double time step and moved out of the thick circle to stand in a perfect block, seeming to move there almost instantaneously.

As they hit the set they played the last loud note and fell silent.

The audience broke out in cheers.

Beads of sweat were sliding down Oliver's forehead and one dripped into his left eye. He winced and jerked slightly, blinking quickly to try and get rid of the sting. He didn't dare move a hand to wipe his eye and limited himself to blinking in a deranged fashion.

Finally, Alex and Courtney lowered their hands and called the band to march off the field.

---

"That was very good, I though," said Mr. Cattela.

"I suppose," said Mr. Cross with a grimace. "Although, it could have been a lot better. Winning by a landslide is just so much better than just… winning."

The orchestra director laughed. "I take it that Mr. Nice Cross is over and done with?"

"Well, I don't see the point in continuing. They've already performed. There's no reason to spare their feelings."

---

The band met Mr. Cross and Mr. Cattela in the parking lot in front of the stadium.

"That was hardly as good as I would have liked for it to be," said the band director once the students were clustered around him. The orchestra director was standing off to the side, chatting (or, more accurately, hitting on) with the colorguard instructor from a rival school. He didn't seem to know that she was married with four kids, and Mr. Cross didn't want to interrupt his speech in order to go warn his friend.

"Frankly, if you win it will not be because you were good, but because the other bands were terrible."

The band students milled around nervously. They hadn't expected to be scolded, most of them were rather proud of their performance.

"Some parts, however, were outstanding," continued Mr. Cross. The students looked up hopefully, their spirits lifted.

"And that is why I'm letting you all have two hours for getting food and whatnot. Go back to the trailer and put your instruments on there. Feel free to change out of your uniforms and back into your street clothes. Do what ever, but I want you all back in those bleachers in two hours time."

He looked out over the band for a minute. "You're all dismissed."

The band cheered weakly and set off in different directions.

Mr. Cross went over to Mr. Cattela, leaned over and put his hand on his friends upper arm.

"Hello, Mrs. Bresna," Mr. Cross said to the – admittedly attractive – colorguard instructor. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to take back my friend."

Mrs. Bresna laughed. "Of course, it was nice talking with you, David," she said to Mr. Cattela, "and nice to see you," she said to Mr. Cross. She nodded to both of them, turned, and left with a smile.

"Wait, wait, wait. She was married?!" he asked the band director.

Mr. Cross laughed – a little cruelly. "Surprise. I guess you didn't notice the wedding ring, seeing as how it was under her glove."

They started walking towards the concessions stand together.

"That's really not fair," said the orchestra director. "She was really hot."

"She's married to a lawyer and has four kids, fifth on the way."

"What?! Damn."

---

Amy caught up to Oliver, bringing Allison with her. Allison was shivering in her sleeveless, bright purple spandex guard outfit.

Amy caught up to Oliver as he started to wander off, back in the direction of the busses. She was pulling Allison along with her. The black-haired girl was shivering in her sparkling, bright purple, sleeveless spandex guard uniform jumpsuit.

"Oliver, we've got to get back to the busses before Allison freezes to death!" said Amy.

Oliver nodded and looked around the parking lot. "That's were I was going... except I don't know where the busses are..."

Amy furrowed her brow. "Hmm. Well, why don't we go where everyone else is going?"

"They're all going to the concession stand, Allison's going to freeze to death if we've got to wait for people to get food before going back."

They saw Derek walking towards them quickly. "Why are you all just standing here?" he asked when he got within ear shot.

"We don't know where the busses are," they replied, in near-unison.

Derek rolled his eyes in exasperation. As he walked closer to them he reached behind himself and unzipped his jacket before taking it off. As he passed Allison, he tossed the wool jacket over her shoulders and kept walking. "Come on, then. Let's go!"

Allison, Oliver, and Amy rushed after him.

"Thanks, Derek," said Allison to him gratefully, "you're a real life saver."

"Thank goodness you're not as directionally challenged as us," said Amy.

They walked briskly through the cold parking lot and looked around for their busses. Finally, after five minutes of waking, they reached their destination. They knocked on the door of the bus, causing the bus driver to look over at them. He scowled and reached over to pull the lever that opened the door.

Oliver, Amy, Derek, and Allison climbed on the warm bus gratefully, murmuring their thanks to the bus driver as they went back.

Allison handed Derek's jacket back to him and gave him a quick hug. She scurried over to her seat and picked up her clothes, took off her marching shoes before putting her sweatshirt on, and then unzipping her uniform under it and slipping it off along with her pantyhose, the sweatshirt long enough to cover any potentially indecent body parts. She quickly pulled on her sweatpants, then put on thick socks and stuffed her feet into boots. She was putting on her coat when Amy, Derek, and Oliver were still trying to struggle out of their marching pants.

In a couple of minutes they were all ready to leave the bus.

They thanked the bus driver once again and climbed down the stairs to the ground. They walked through the parking lot back to the roar of the field, the cold September air making Amy pull her scarf closer to her chin, and Allison taking a pair of fuzzy green gloves out of her coat pockets and putting them on.

Oliver buried his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants and Derek hunched his shoulders to keep out the chill.

They reached the field in a couple of minutes, and walked over to stand in the line for the concession stand.

"Crap, it's going to be hours before we reach the end of this line," said Derek.

Another marching band was performing, and the girls looked over to the field, Amy watching the forms of the band and Allison watching the colorguard moves.

"Don't worry about it," replied Oliver, "we've got plenty of time."

They stood in the line in silence, Amy and Allison periodically ooh-ing and ahh-ing when the band performed a particularly difficult set, or the colorguard did a particularly interesting move or toss.

"Did you see that?" exclaimed Allison. "They just did two helicopter tosses in a row!"

"I'm not feeling so good about our performance right now," said Amy.

Oliver patted her on the back. "I'm sure we did fine. And even if we didn't, what's the worse that can happen?"

"Wrong thing to say, Oliver," said Derek while slowly shaking his head.

"What...? Why?" exclaimed Oliver.

"I heard that Mr. Cross kicked a tuba player out one time, because he had tripped during a show, causing the entire drum section to go down."

"No way," said Allison incredulously.

"Well, what I heard was that that tuba player was also smoking pot in the band instrument storage closet and Mr. Cross caught him. Plus he used to get into fights and stuff. I'm sure that it was just the last straw," said Amy.

"Well, what about the kid that spilled coffee in the band room?" Derek persisted.

Oliver blinked. "I've never heard of that, what about him?"

Derek grinned. "Well. He spilled coffee in the band room, like I've already said, and Mr. Cross gave him detention for the rest of the year - he made the kid scrub the bathrooms with an eye shadow brush."

Oliver, Amy, and Allison shuddered in disgust.

"Ew," said Amy.

"That's just cruel," agreed Oliver.

Finally they were at the front of the line.

"What'll you be having?" asked an elderly band parent from behind the counter.

Oliver looked over at Amy. "What do you want to eat?"

She blushed. "It's fine, I can pay for myself."

"C'mon," said Oliver. "It's no big deal, let me get this."

The man looked at Oliver, then at Amy. "So… what'll you be having?" he repeated.

Amy murmured in Oliver's ear. He turned back to the counter. "Could I have four slices of cheese pizza and two hot chocolates, please?" he asked.

The man nodded and called out the order to the people behind him. The pizza and Styrofoam cups filled with hot chocolate were brought over and put onto the counter almost immediately.

"That'll be eight dollars, please," the man said. Oliver handed him a ten dollar bill and waited for change while Amy picked up the hot chocolates. As soon as Oliver got two dollars from the man he picked up the plates of pizza and went with Amy to stand by the fence of the field, waiting for Derek and Allison.

Allison ordered a hot dog and a hot cider. When the man asked her for her money she blushed a bright beet red. "Hold on a moment, please. Sorry." She turned back to Derek.

"Derek, my money's in my bra," she hissed in an embarrassment-filled voice. "Do you think you could stand in front of me or something while I fish around in my shirt?" she asked.

Derek grinned and unzipped his coat before grabbing the sides and holding them out in front of himself, creating a sort of three walled tent, his body being the middle wall.

Allison thanked him and walked in closer so that she was between his arms. She glanced around and surreptitiously reached into the front of her sweatshirt. Derek could barely keep from laughing while she did, indeed, fish around in her bra. After a couple of moments she pulled out a ten victoriously and handed it to the man.

The man looked at it strangely before finally taking it.

She moved off to the side to where Amy and Oliver were standing and they all waited for Derek. After a couple of moments he came back with a hot dog and hot cider.

They still had an hour or so to kill before they had to be back in the stands, but for lack of anything better to do they decided to just go to the stands and watch the other bands while they ate (Oliver, Derek, Amy, and Allison ate, that is. Not the opposing bands). When they got into the stands they passed Mr. Cross and Mr. Cattela on their way to the top.

Mr. Cattela said hello and Mr. Cross gave them a small nod. They said hello to both of them and continued on their way up.

---

"I can't believe you trust your students to wander around like this. I'd be out of my mind. Even as we speak, I can't stop picturing a couple of students dressed in our marching uniforms being run over by a bus in the parking lot," said Mr. Cattela to Mr. Cross.

The band director gave a small shrug and an even smaller razor-sharp smile. "They know not to run off. And if they get run over by a bus, well… I had all their parents fill out forms, they can't sue the school for their own child's stupidity."

Mr. Cattela looked at his friend incredulously. "Forms? You had them sign forms?"

Mr. Cross nodded. "Well, of course. After the incident four years ago, how could I not?"

"Wait a minute, what incident? Did I hear about this?"

Mr. Cross rolled his eyes. "I'm sure that you've heard it. The gist of the matter is that on the band trip to Busch Garden I told the students to be back on the bus at eight o'clock in the evening, sharp. A boy and a couple of his friends decided that they wanted to ride some extra rides instead. By the time they got to the parking lot, at nine in the evening – a full hour late! – they found that the busses were gone."

Mr. Cattela gaped. "You… you left them in the theme park?"

The band director nodded calmly. "They made a choice and were forced to deal with the consequences. Their parents were very angry with me, and thought about suing the school. I… convinced… them to reconsider. None the less, those boys were never late to anything ever again, and as a result will probably become better, more successful adults. They should be thanking me."

Mr. Cattela was still staring at his friend. Mr. Cross started back for a few moments. "Oh, do close your mouth, David," he said after a while.

Mr. Cattela did as he was told and finally looked away. "I could never do something like that," he said.

"Oh, I'm sure you could. Haven't you ever wanted to leave anyone behind?"

Mr. Cattela blushed and refused to answer.

"Haven't you ever wanted to throw your baton at a student because they just wouldn't stop talking?" Mr. Cross continued.

The orchestra director nodded slowly.

"Haven't you ever wanted to send someone out of class because they were being disruptive?"

The orchestra director continued to nod.

"Haven't you ever wanted to switch the locks on the lockers of students who don't lock their instruments and then watch them panic when they can't get their lockers open?"

Mr. Cattela looked up sharply. "Well, I never-!"

The band director raised an eyebrow, causing his friend to stop abruptly and look down.

"… yes."

The band director smiled triumphantly. "You see, we're not so different. You're not that much nicer than me, after all, we both want to do the same things. I just do them, instead of fantasize about them."

"Hi, Mr. Cross, hi, Mr. Cattela."

Mr. Cross nodded to Oliver, Amy, Derek, and Allison as they went by.

"See?" said the band director once the students were out of earshot. "They always come back."

---

Oliver, Allison, Derek, and Amy sat in the bleachers, talked, and ate as they waited. Soon, the rest of the band began to file in an sit down. They were all out of their uniforms except for the drum majors, although they were both wearing coats. Alex walked in, Zoe next to him. They were talking about something serious in hushed voices. When they got to the bleachers they separated, Alex going to go talk to Mr. Cross while Zoe headed up to join Oliver's group.

She smiled weakly at them before sitting down. "How's it going, guys?" she asked. She was wearing flattering jeans and a large, thick, college sweatshirt.

"Pretty good," Amy answered. They talked for a bit before Zoe moved away to sit with her junior friends. Oliver could see that she was discussing something with Sally. They both had somber expressions on and Zoe looked about ready to cry.

"What's up with her?" asked Derek.

"She seemed fine on the bus…" said Allison with a puzzled expression on her face.

Amy and Oliver shrugged. "We've got no idea," they said.

They watched bands for another hour or so before Alex and Courtney took off their coats and headed to stand in front of the home team bleachers.

Mr. Cross stood up and faced the band.

"BAND, TEN'HUT!" he yelled. The band members instantly fell silent and turned to look at him. He looked over the band before speaking again. "The awards ceremony is about to start," he said. "You are to sit still an straight while it goes on. You will not react in any way to any news you hear. If you do not win something, you will not boo, you will not whisper to each other, you will not complain. If you do win something, you will not cheer." Mr. Cross paused for a moment in order to let his words sink into the brains and minds of the students sitting before him. "Anyone who does not do as I have said will be finding their own ride home."

If they had not been at attention, they would have broken out into distressed mutters. As it was, they were at attention, and moving or talking in attention was heavily punished.

Mr. Cross nodded and turned back to watch the home team bleachers. He did not sit back down, but instead moved to stand right behind the waist high chain-link fence at the front of the bleachers. He put his gloved hands on the metal bar across the top of the bar and seemed to freeze. He did not move, not even – it seemed – to breathe. The orchestra director kept sitting.

The drum majors from all of the bands were now lined up on the track, facing the home team bleachers. Band parents were setting up a table and putting trophies on it.

After a couple of minutes the announcer announced the beginning of the ceremony.

"Fifth place in General Effect –" the announcer began. Oliver tuned him out when he didn't announce his school. The band who won fifth place cheered loudly despite the fact the fifth place was last. The fourth place cheered too, as well as third and second.

"First place in General Effect is Prince Klemens VM High School!" exclaimed the announcer in an excited tone of voice. The announcement was met by an eerie silence. Oliver almost cheered before he remembered the instructions their band director gave them. Mr. Cross smirked in a way that could be classified creepy – it was definitely not a smirk you would want to see on someone you were walking past on a dark street – and merely nodded once.

"Er, alright," the announcer muttered uncertainly. The same process was repeated for the other categories, Prince Klemens VM HS winning them all.

At the end of the ceremony Courtney and Alex were standing by five large trophies. They had a bit of a hard time carrying them all to the bleachers. They presented them to Mr. Cross, who seemed pleased. He grinned smugly at another band director as he and his band passed Mr. Cross in order to get down from the bleachers.

Mr. Cross waited until most of the other bands were gone until he finally turned back to his band. "I'm very pleased by your performance. At ease!"

The band members cheered and started nearly climbing over themselves to get to the trophies. In almost no time Alex and Courtney were completely surrounded by a crowd of their peers. The trophies were being passed around so that everyone would have a chance to touch them.

Mr. Cross was standing off to the side with Mr. Cattela.

"So, how much money are you going to get for this?" the orchestra director asked with a quiet smirk.

"You mean how much money are we going to get out of this. I seem to recall you being part of the music department."

Mr. Cattela sighed and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. How much?"

Mr. Cross grinned a snake-like grin. "I think we can expect nearly ten thousand dollars."

The orchestra director stared at him opened mouthed for a few moments before finally regaining his senses and closing him mouth. He slapped his friend on the back. "You're brilliant, you know that?"

"Oh, yes. I know."

---

The bus ride home was peaceful and quiet. It was nearly ten o'clock in the evening and everyone was exhausted by the events of the day. The bus was pleasantly warm and Amy and Oliver cuddled on the seat, both nearly falling asleep.

Derek and Allison were sharing a set of headphones and listening to Allison's ipod. They laughed quietly periodically. Some kids were playing games on their gameboy's and others listened to music and yet others talked sedately among eachother.

Mr. Cross and Mr. Cattela were murmuring about something in soft voices, but no one could make out what they were talking about.

Zoe had her face in her friend Sally's shoulder and Sally was patting her back.

Oliver wondered what was wrong, but the movement of the bus was lulling him to sleep and he took a nap with Amy nearly lying on him.

---

"So how was your geeky band thing?" asked Tim when he picked Oliver up from school

Oliver just rolled his eyes and punched Tim in the shoulder. "It's not geeky, okay?"

Tim snickered and they drove home.

"Oh, honey," said their mother when they got through the door. Her long chestnut hair was loose down her back and she was sitting at the kitchen table in her silk nightgown. She was slowly drinking a cup of tea and covering her small yawns with one of her delicate long-fingered hands. "I'm so sorry we couldn't go see you," she said. She got up and gave Oliver a hug.

"Hey, you're back," said the voice of his father from the doorway. He was standing there in a fuzzy dressing gown and pink bunny slippers looking as though he had just gotten out of bed – which is accurate because that's exactly what had happened. He scratched at the fresh stubble on his chin and yawned. He was a couple of inches shorter than his wife. "How did it go?" he asked.

"It went great. We won everything!" Oliver exclaimed.

"Good job, son," said his father and patted him on the back.

"Did you have fun, honey?" asked his mother.

Oliver shrugged. "I wouldn't call it fun, per say. Some parts were very enjoyable, though," said Oliver while thinking of cuddling with Amy on the ride back.

Tim smirked and waggled his eyebrows. Thankfully, their parents didn't notice.

"You should go take a shower and get in bed," said his mother. "I'm sleepy, so I'm going to go, alright?"

Oliver nodded. His mother ruffled his hair with an exhausted smile. Then she turned to Tim and patted his cheek, "thanks for driving your brother, dear," she said.

"Sure, mom," Tim murmured.

She smiled at all of them, kissed each of their cheeks and went to bed.

His father stood around with them for a moment longer.

"Good job," he said again. "Sleep well," he said, then patted them both on the back and went to sleep as well.

Oliver yawned.

Tim elbowed him in the side. "I've still got some stuff to do," he said. "So I'm going to go downstairs. Good night, though."

Oliver nodded. "Good night to you too." He went off to shower and fantasized about sleep the entire time.

---

"So how was your geeky band thing?" asked Cory in History on Monday.

Oliver rolled his eyes and sighed. "It's not geeky, alright? If it were voluntary then yes, I agree with you, it would be pretty geeky. However I've got no choice in it, alright?"

Cory laughed quietly, watching out for the teacher as he did so.

"But since you asked, it went well."

They listened to the teacher talk for a while. When worksheets were being passed around Derek leaned over to Cory.

"What did you do to your hair?"

Cory's hand flew up to touch the hair on his head, as if checking to make sure that it was still there.

"What? I dyed it. Do you like it?" He had died his short hair black, but a patch of it was dyed red above his right ear.

"No offence, man. I think it makes you look a little… gay," Derek replied.

Cory pouted. "Well, it doesn't matter what you think. It only matters what girls think, and they happen to like it. What do you think, Allison?" he asked while turning to look at her.

Allison smiled. "I happen to like it. I think it looks very bad-ass slash artsy. You look good like that, Cory."

Cory turned back to Derek and stuck his tongue out.

"So there. Nyah."

Derek rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah." They started to pay attention to the teacher once again.

Once they left the class room and headed down the hall Cory started speaking again. "You know that crazy girl that's stalking me?"

"'That crazy girl,'" Oliver quoted disinterestedly.

"You mean Christine?" asked Derek.

"Yeah, that's the one," replied Cory. "Well, she cornered me the other day, asked for my e-mail address. She says she wants to be friends. Is that weird or what?"

Allison rolled her eyes. "I don't think it's that weird."

"Oh, come on!" said Cory, then looked around to make sure the object of their conversation wasn't anywhere near. "She used to stalk me, and now she wants to be friends?"

"Stop being a jerk, Cory," said Allison. "And anyway, why are you always talking about her? It seems to me that you're the one that's obsessed."

Oliver nodded. "She does have a point, man. I mean, you do know her entire schedule, don't you?"

Cory scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, but… That's just so I can avoid her. How am I supposed to avoid her if I don't know where she is?"

Derek rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. I'm hungry. Do you think we can get there before the unwashed masses make their way to the cafeteria? I really don't fancy the idea of standing in line for twenty minutes."

They all nodded and obliged.

---

Zoe seemed to be down, and neither Oliver, Derek or Allison knew why. Finally, Oliver decided to ask Zoe what was wrong. When he did, she smiled weakly and replied that nothing was wrong and walked away – right out of band class. Mr. Cross' only reaction was designating Zoe's solo to someone else for the remainder of the class. Derek later speculated that the reason Mr. Cross allowed it was that Zoe was in two band classes anyway.

However, the incident taught Oliver and his friends that perhaps Zoe was the wrong person to go to for insight into her psyche. After some discussion they decided to ask her best friend, Sally.

They cornered the girl before band practice.

"So what's wrong with Zoe? We asked her but she said she was fine and stormed out of the band room. Surely you've heard about it by now?"

Sally stared at the freshmen clustered around her. Derek, Oliver, and Allison were staring at her expectantly.

She sighed, grabbed Oliver's sleeve and dragged him under the bleachers, away from everyone else. She motioned for Derek and Allison to follow them.

"I'll tell you guys," she said once they were all standing together out of earshot from everyone else, "because Zoe seems to like you all and I know your type of people wont stop bothering me until they find out."

"So, what's going on?" Allison urged Sally on.

The older girl sighed. "Well, you know Alex."

They all nodded, how could they not? He was their drum major.

"Zoe's been crushing on him for the longest time. Ever since she met him in her freshman year. Well. Ever since she met him, he's been dating this really big – huge, really – bitch of a cheerleader. Only he knew that Zoe liked him, and he thought that maybe he liked her back. A couple of times he even got close to dumping his cheerleader and dating Zoe instead, but he never really was able to figure out who he liked more. Zoe was just happy to be friends with him, really. She was willing to wait for him to figure it out."

"Well, if this sort of thing has been going on for two years, why's she so depressed now?"

Sally rolled her eyes. "I'm getting to that, okay? Don't interrupt."

She stopped talking for a moment, testing to see if they would interrupt her. Finally satisfied, she went on. "Well, last competition she found out that he had broken up with perky tits. Naturally, she assumed that that meant he wanted to be with her. Only… he didn't."

"What? But she's so great!" exclaimed Oliver.

"Yeah, I'd totally date her," said Derek. Oliver, Allison, and Sally rolled their eyes.

"What did I tell you about interrupting me?"

Oliver looked down in embarrassment. "Sorry…"

"Alright, so. He told her that he's not ready to be in a relationship because he thinks he still has feelings for that brainless cheer monger."

"That bastard!" exclaimed Allison.

"For once I agree with you. Now Zoe is heartbroken and trying to figure out why an annoying stick is better than her… and she's actually coming up with stuff, you know? And that's a bad sign."

"Well what can we do?" asked Oliver.
Sally stared at him incredulously. "Nothing. All that can be done has been done."

"… Like what?" asked Derek.

"Listen, I don't think I should give away the secret mechanics that keep the marching band machine from stalling…" she said uncertainly.

"We're part of it, aren't we?" asked Allison logically. "I think we have a right to know."

Sally looked around and then turned back to them. "I suppose you're right. Well. First of all, the key to getting what you want in this band is Mr. Cross. If you've got him on your side you can get anything you desire. There are two ways to get Mr. Cross on your side. If the performance of the student is slipping, then he will most definitely be interested in fixing whatever it is that's wrong in order to bring up the quality of his band. Unfortunately, Zoe's got too much pride in her music to let her performance slip."

"What about –" started Oliver, but Sally interrupted him.

"So what if she storms out of the band room occasionally? She sounds damn good, and as long as she's there and amazing for the competitions, games, and concerts Mr. Cross really doesn't particularly care where she's at for the rehearsals."

"I never knew this was all so complicated," said Derek.

"What's the second thing?" asked Oliver.

"Well," said Sally, "the second thing is Mr. Cross' best friend, Mr. Cattela. As you all know, Mr. Cattela is the kind and caring orchestra director. He is easy to talk to and his students love him. He upholds a very good relationship with them, he wants them to feel like they can talk to him about anything. And they do, because he cares about what they're saying. He makes it clear that their concerns are his concerns."

"So what?" asked Allison.

Sally sighed. "So, Zoe is good friends with the first chair violinist – who has a particularly good relationship with Mr. Cattela. And as such, our first chair violinist has a lot of influence over Mr. Cattela and, by transition, Mr. Cross; as well as an interest in keeping Zoe – his good friend – happy. He's already talked to Mr. Cattela about the situation with Alex, and Mr. Cattela has no doubt talked to Mr. Cross. Mr. Cross will soon talk to Alex – probably.

"Now, in order to ensure success, we've decided to put double pressure on our dear drum major. I've talked to Courtney – who is good friends with Alex – and she has talked to him concerning his behavior. She will talk to him again, putting pressure on him to stop being a bastard. With the added pressure of Mr. Cross, Alex will have to decide once and for all who he wants."

Oliver, Allison, and Derek were staring at her wide-eyed.

"So as you can see," said Sally, "everything that can be done has been done, and we are now in the process of waiting for results. But I'll ask you lor not to spread it around."

"Wow," said Oliver after a moment. "That's a lot of effort spent on making Zoe happy."

Sally shrugged. "Not really. Besides, everyone loves her, she's a great person, a great friend, and a great section leader. Seeing her moping around is so… strange. It's completely against her nature. Gives me the shiveries to see her off moping in the corner."

Oliver, Allison and Derek murmured their agreement.

Just then the Courtney called them back to the field.

Sally looked up towards the field. "We've got to go or else we'll be late. I don't exactly fancy running laps right now."

They headed to the field, and started to see Alex in a new light.

---

On Wednesday morning Allison was absent from Health class and Oliver sat next to the girl whose pencils he had helped pick up.

"Hi," she greeted him with a smile.

"Hey," he replied with an answering smile.

Once class started she leaned over to him. "Hey," she said, "have you done your homework? I was really busy and I didn't get a chance…" she trailed off and blushed in embarrassment. "Do you think that maybe… I could see yours?"

Oliver smiled. "Yeah, sure. Don't worry about it. It was just busy work."

He fished around in his binder and pulled out a sheet of paper. He handed it to her and she smiled gratefully.

"Thanks a lot," she said, "you're really helping me out. I'd love to return the favor some time."

At the end of class the girl returned his homework to him, and it wasn't until he was in History talking to Derek and Cory that he realized he still didn't know the girl's name.

---

Oliver and Amy went to the movie theatre on Saturday and watched a terrible action movie which contained no plot and tried to compensate by stuffing it full of explosions and famous actors.

Oliver and Amy left the movie theatre feeling as though they had wasted their money, and in order to make up for it decided to go to the park instead of the mall. They walked around the park, talking, until they found the small playground.

They sat on the swings and joked around until it was time for Amy to get home. The park wasn't really far away from the park, so they decided to walk.

They stopped on Amy's porch and looked at each other.

"I had fun today," said Amy with a smile.

"Me too," said Oliver.

"Well, I guess bye then…?" asked Amy uncertainly.

Oliver looked down at his shoes. "Amy, um. Do you think that maybe I can kiss you?" he asked.

She seemed a bit nervous but covered it up with another smile. "Um. Yeah!" she said, Oliver didn't notice her false enthusiasm.

He leaned over and pressed his lips to hers, quickly pulling away. They were both blushing, and Oliver was feeling slightly mortified.

"I'll… see you later," said Amy before turning and going inside her house.

Oliver waved weekly at her and turned to go back to the road. He crammed his hands into his pockets and blushed all the way home. He was feeling disappointed, he had expected his first kiss to somehow be… better.

---

School went on as usual, although Oliver's teachers were starting to give more homework and assign projects. Oliver, being a good student, didn't have a problem with it. Unlike Derek, who was the biggest procrastinator Oliver know, and who ended up doing everything the day before.

---

The Friday varsity game went well. Prince Clemens VM High School won yet another game, keeping it's undefeated status. Unfortunately, after the marching band performed it started to rain. Mr. Cross led them all back to the band room to pack up their instruments, muttering about the damaging effect of moisture on woodwind instruments the entire way there. Once they got to the band room he told them that they were all dismissed; he didn't see the point of making the band stay if they couldn't play any stands music.

Oliver noticed that Zoe was absolutely ecstatic. Oliver cornered Sally on the walk back to the band room.

"Are Zoe and Alex…?" he trailed off.

Sally waggled her eyebrows at him with a grin. "You betcha! It's great to see her so happy, isn't it?"

Oliver nodded. "So… wait. Does that mean that Mr. Cross talked to him?"

Sally looked around and then grabbed his sleeve and pulled him to the wall of the school, away from the casual procession of band kids heading back to the school.

"Here's what happened," she said with the mischievous smile of a gossiper about to impart information on a fellow gossiper. "In band class on Thursday Mr. Cross told Alex to come see him in his office after class, he said it in front of everyone! So once the bell rang Alex followed Mr. Cross into his office. Of course, I, being the good friend I am, took as long as possible putting my flute away. I heard most of what they said. Well, okay. I heard everything they said."

"Well, what did they say?" asked Oliver excitedly.

"Alex asked why Mr. Cross wanted to talk to him, and you know what our band director said? He said that Alex should stop jerking Zoe around, that Zoe was one of the best flute players he had and that Alex was screwing with her mind. Alex tried to protest, but Mr. Cross told him that there was no way some brainless cheer monger – the very same words I used! – could be better than the flute section leader. He told Alex to make the right decision and then sent him out!"

"That's a little scandalous, don't you think?" asked Oliver. "Our band director is setting up our love lives."

Sally shrugged. "It's not like he does it all the time. He does have better things to do."

"I think I'm going to go tell Derek, Allison, and Amy," said Oliver with a grin.

"Go ahead," said Sally and patted him on the back before he rushed off to tell his news.

When he got there it was to find everyone busily packing up their instruments and sticking them in their lockers.

Some band members – mainly the ones who were dating either members of the cheerleading squad or members of the football team – decided to get their umbrellas and go back to the field. Most, however, elected to go home.

Oliver called his mother and asked her to pick him up, and as he waited all the other band members filed out. Eventually he and Amy were the only ones in the room.

"Hey, Oliver," she said and came up to him. She seemed a bit… off, Oliver thought. But he couldn't figure out how.

"Hi, Amy," he said brightly. "Do you want a ride home with me? My mom's coming soon, she should be here in five minutes or so…"

"No, I don't think that's such a good idea," she said. She seemed to be nervous.

Oliver looked at her with an expression of confusion.

"I think… I think that we should break up."

"But… Why?" asked Oliver. He was feeling a bit shocked.

"Well," Amy began. "I still really like you, Oliver. But… I like another boy more. And I think that we should just be friends. Can we stay friends?"

Oliver smiled sadly. "Yeah. Sure we can be friends."
He went over and they hugged. "Sorry, Oliver," said Amy. She looked up at him through her hair. "I've got to go, my ride's here."

"Yeah, alright," Oliver replied. "Bye, I guess."

She left the band room and headed to the front of the school. Oliver stayed where he was and looked through the window of the side door. He didn't see his mom's car yet, so he plopped down on a chair to wait and brood.

"Hi, Oliver," said a male voice. Oliver looked up to see Eric lounging in a chair on the other side of the room. Eric was completely soaked and his hair was plastered to his forehead and his dark clothes were sticking to his skin.

"Hello, Eric," Oliver replied curtly.

Eric stood up, leaving a dark wet mark on the seat and back of the chair he had been sitting in, and walked closer to Oliver. He stood in front of him and stuck his hands into his soggy pockets.

"Sorry that you got dumped, man," he said.

"You heard that…?" asked Oliver, but didn't wait for an answer before continuing to talk. "Yeah, I got dumped. I wish I knew who the other guy was, but I don't think she's too keen on telling me." Oliver ran his hand through his hair.

"Of course she isn't," said Eric. "She likes your brother."

Oliver looked up sharply at that. "What?!"

Eric shrugged. "Well, that's what it looks like, at least. I might be totally wrong, you know. I don't think I am, though. You should check on that."

Oliver opened his mouth to reply, but then realized he had nothing to say and closed it again.

Eric motioned with his chin towards the side door. "I think your ride is here," he said.

Oliver moved out of his chair to look out of the window. Sure enough, his mother's small yellow sports car was standing outside.

"Yeah," he said. He turned back to Eric. "I guess I'll see you around then."

Eric smirked. "I don't see why you wouldn't. I plan on being around."

Oliver narrowed his eyes briefly and then left the band room, jogging to try and spend the least amount of time possible in the rain.

He got into his mom's car and looked back towards the band room. Eric was no where to be seen.

When Oliver got home Tim wasn't there.

---

"Hey, what's wrong?" asked the girl whose pencils Oliver helped to pick up on the first day of school. They were sitting at their desks in Health, and class hadn't started yet.

"My girlfriend dumped me for some other guy," Oliver said dejectedly.

"Yeah, and he doesn't even know who the other guy is," said Allison.

The girl looked sad. "I'm sorry, that really sucks. Who was she?"

"You probably don't know her," said Oliver. "Her name is Amy and she's in band. She plays flute."

The girl furrowed her brow. "Hmm… I think I know who you're talking about. I saw her hanging out with a tall guy, I think he's a senior. He's got really short hair. One of my friends is in art with him, I think."

Oliver and Allison paled in surprise.

"What's wrong?" asked the girl.

"It's just that," began Oliver and paused. "Well. That sounds a lot like my brother."

Allison nodded. "Plus, this other band kid told Oliver that Amy was dating Oliver's brother."

"I don't really think that it's true, though," said Oliver. "I just don't think that my brother would do that to me."

"Don't you think it's strange?" asked Allison. "Two people now have told you that Tim is with Amy. Plus, remember how he was hitting on her when they first met?"

Oliver shrugged. "I just don't think he would do that, you know? We were always friends…"

"Maybe you should just –" began the girl but was interrupted by the bell. The teacher walked into the room and started giving instructions. "Maybe you should just ask him," the girl finished in a whisper before turning back to the front of the class.

---

At lunch it seemed to Oliver that their courtyard was emptier than usual. It was. Amy wasn't there.

Derek and Cory had heard about the break up from who knows where, seeing as how it happened only two days previously.

"Sorry man," said Derek. "I know you liked her."

"It sucks that she dumped you for some other guy," said Cory. "But I guess it's better that she broke up with you instead of cheating on you."

"She's just stupid, okay?" said Allison. "You're a great guy. I think she'll have a hard time finding someone better."

"She was pretty hot, though," said Cory with a sigh.

They all turned to stare at him.

He threw up his hands. "What?! It's true, okay?"

"Band is going to be pretty awkward," said Derek.

"Damn," said Oliver. "You're right. I sit right next to her!"

Allison shrugged. "Don't worry about it, alright? Besides you're the one that got broken up with. She's the one that's supposed to feel awkward."

"She says she wants to be friends," said Oliver.

"Well what did you say?" asked Derek.

"It's totally lame being friends with a girl," said Cory as he picked his teeth.

Allison glared him.

Derek punched him in the shoulder.

Band class seventh period was awkward despite what his friends had promised him. Derek threw his friends apologetic glances when Amy tried to talk to Oliver.

---

On Thursday Oliver saw Amy getting into his brother's car and knew that Eric as well as the girl from Health class were right.

---

When Tim got home and entered his room it was to find Oliver standing on the newspaper in the middle of the room with his arms crossed.

"Oliver," said Tim. "Hi. What do you want?"

Oliver narrowed his eyes. "How could you just steal my girl friend like that? That's just sick, okay?! You're such an asshole, Tim!" Oliver broke off his rant to breathe.

Tim just stared at him.

"Well, in my defense –" began Tim, but Oliver stormed out of his room and Tim was left talking to air.

"It's better to be the asshole than the whole ass," he muttered to his empty room.

---

"I'm sorry, it's actually kind of late to ask you this, but what is you name?" Oliver asked the girl whose pencils he had helped picked up. They were leaving Health class, with Allison on Oliver's right and the girl on his left.

She giggled. "You're so right! I've just realized that I don't know your name either."

"I'm Oliver," Oliver said.

"I'm Allison," said Allison.

"My name is Christine," said the girl with a smile. "It's nice to finally learn your name. It's been… what? Two months that we've known each other? And we finally know each other's names. Look, I've got to go that way," she said, pointing her thumb in the opposite way they were going.

"Oh, sure," said Oliver a bit weakly. "I guess we'll see you later."

"Bye… Christine," said Allison.

Christine smiled and waved before going in the opposite direction.

Oliver and Allison headed to History.

"Do you think that she's…?" began Allison.

"You mean the Christine?"

"Well, yeah," said Allison as they walked up the stairs.

"There is more than just one Christine that goes to this high school. Besides, she's completely different from the way Cory described her."

"Well, yeah. I guess," said Allison.

"I can't imagine her stalking anyone, much less Cory. She's not crazy at all. She's nice and funny and friendly. I don't think that Cory is her type."

"Really, Oliver. You're no one to judge who is whose type. You may not realize it, being a straight boy as you are, that Cory is cute. He's what a lot of girls would want."

"But he's so…"

"I know. He's kind of a jerk. But most people – well, girls, at least – don't know that."

"Listen, Allison, I just don't think it's her."

Allison shrugged. "You can think whatever you want."

---

A week after Oliver found out that Tim was dating Amy, Oliver came across his ex-girlfriend crying in the band room after school. She was sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest and had her face buried in them.

"Amy?" asked Oliver as he walked up to her.

She looked up, and he could see that the knees of her jeans were wet with tears.

"Oliver," she said and rubbed at her eyes. She was wearing little make up, but her sparse black eyeliner got a little smudged by the action.

"Amy, what's wrong?" asked Oliver. He sat down next to her and took hold of her hand.

She sniffed and looked down.

"It's about –" she paused and sobbed for a moment. When she got herself under control she continued. "You w-won't want to t-talk about it, Oliver. It's about me dating s-someone… else…" She broke into sobs again.

Oliver narrowed his eyes for a moment, but the distressed girl sitting before him finally made his compassion overcome his anger at being dumped. He squeezed her hand reassuringly. "You can talk to me about anything. We're friends, aren't we?"

Amy looked up and smiled at him, although tears were still spilling down her face. She looked back down and for a moment could not speak.

"Oh, O-Oliver," she wailed.

"It's Tim, right?" said Oliver. "It's alright, you can talk to me. Did he do something to you?"

Amy closed her eyes for a moment. "He didn't d-do a-anything. He just m-made it clear to me… w-what he. W-What he really w-w-wanted."

Oliver stared at her. "What?"
Amy sobbed and leaned into Oliver's shoulder.

"He b-broke up with m-me."

Oliver put one of his arms around Amy. "He broke up with you? Why would he do that? You're wonderful."

Amy cried into Oliver's shirt for a couple of moments before answering. "It t-turns out that all he w-w-wanted was to use me… He never really liked me for w-who I w-was. He just w-wanted –" She broke off again.

Oliver hugged her shaking shoulders and stayed silent. Amy calmed down half an hour later, but by then they had already missed the bus. Oliver's first though was to call Tim – an instinct, but he scratched that thought almost as quickly as it entered his head. Luckily Amy had Zoe's cell phone number. They called their friend and section leader – who was always willing to help – who agreed to come and drive them home.

As soon as she arrived she noticed that Amy had been crying.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Zoe asked as she led them outside to her small green car.

"I don't want to talk about it just yet," said Amy.

"That's okay," Zoe reassured her, "you don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"I'll tell you later," said Amy, "I promise. It's just that right now it's still too close to the surface… I've just managed to stop crying. I don't want to start again."

Zoe smiled at her. "It's fine, okay? Tell me when you want. Are you okay right now, though?"

"Yeah, now I feel okay." Amy put an arm on Oliver's shoulder. "Thanks to this guy right here. He let me cry on his shoulder for the past half hour. That's why we missed the bus, actually."

They got into Zoe's car, both Oliver and Amy sat in the back seat so that Oliver could keep his arm around her. They called directions to the girl behind the wheel, and in fifteen minutes Zoe parked the car in front of Amy's house.

Amy got out and waved goodbye before going through her front door.

"It's alright, Zoe," said Oliver. "I can walk home from here."

"No, no, Oliver. It's no trouble, alright? I'll drive you. Why don't you move on up to the front seat."

Oliver exited the car and moved to sit in the front.

As soon as he buckled his seat belt Zoe took off.

"Congratulations, by the way, on getting together with Alex," said Oliver. "I didn't get a chance to tell you, before."

"Thanks, Oliver," Zoe replied with a bright smile. "On a slightly related topic, are you planning on getting back together with Amy now that she's obviously been broken up with?"

Oliver stayed silent for a little while. "No. I think not. If she's run off the first time someone else wanted to date her, what's going to stop her from doing that again?"

"I agree with you," said Amy with a small nod. "I'm glad you made that decision."

"Besides," said Oliver. "I'm a little weirded out by the fact that she's dated my brother. Turn left here, by the way."

Zoe obliged before replying. "Oh god, your brother?" asked Zoe incredulously. "Wow. I didn't know that. Definitely don't date her again," she said with a small laugh.

"Please don't tell anyone, I don't want people gossiping about her," said Oliver pleadingly.

"Of course I wont," replied Zoe. She's my friend, too. Still, it's a bit strange, there's no denying that."

"I'm still mad at my brother for dumping her, though," said Oliver as they pulled up to his house. "I guess I'm going to go. Thanks for driving me, Zoe."

Zoe smiled. "Don't worry about, it. I'm glad to do it. I think it's great that when you needed help you thought of me. It means a lot that we're good enough friends for you to do that."

"Yeah," said Oliver with an answering smile. "Bye, then," he said and opened the door to get out.

"Bye, Oliver," said Zoe. Oliver gave her a small wave as he went by her window on the way to his house. Zoe gave him an answering wave.

---

As he walked down the sidewalk to his front door Oliver got more and more worked up about the situation. By the time he reached the door he was seething. He fished around in his pockets for his key and jammed it viciously into the lock. When he slammed the door closed, he was so angry steam was nearly rolling off of his skin.

He tossed his backpack on the floor and stomped into Tim's room.

He burst through his brother's door to find Tim seated behind his easel, painting a mostly blank canvas with a thin long-handled brush.

"I've told you how much of an asshole you are, right?"

Tim looked up. "Uh. Yeah." he said.

"I revise that statement. You are so much worse than just an asshole. You're completely heartless! I just don't understand how you can be such a bastard."

Tim stayed silent, staring at Oliver, waiting for his brother to elaborate on his sins.

"I can't believe you just dumped Amy like that, just because she wouldn't have sex with you. What did you expect?"

Tim rolled his eyes. "What did she expect? I'm a senior. She's a freshman. She's pretty, but not much else. What else could I have possibly wanted from her?"

Oliver stood in the middle of the floor gaping. "What?! How can you be so shallow?"

"Look, Oliver," said Tim, "I know what I want. I thought Amy knew what she was getting into. There was a misunderstanding. When I realized that, I cleared it up. It's not my fault that Amy took it harder than I thought that she would."

"So you think you did nothing wrong?" asked Oliver.

Tim shrugged. "Pretty much, yeah."

Oliver sighed. "Well, I'm happy for you. Must be nice to have a clear conscience," he said before storming out of his brother's room.

---

"If you don't win this one," said Mr. Cross before they went onto the field of the last competition of the season, "you can be assured that you all will suffer. Is that understood?"

"YES SIR!" the band yelled in unison.

Mr. Cross narrowed his eyes and glared at them all for a moment before nodding.

"Good. There is a lot riding on this one."

The band marched onto the field to cheering from the crowd.

"You've made another bet, haven't you?" asked Mr. Cattela as he and Mr. Cross walked to the bleachers.

"Not really. I just got a little drunk with the band director from Hierarch High School and bragged about how my band is going to wipe the field with his band come Saturday. As you can probably imagine, he worked his band like mules these past two weeks. I can only hope for either my band to be completely amazing or for all the extra practice to have backfired."

"I can assume you're expecting both," said Mr. Cattela with a grin. They sat down in the front row and listened to the back field work up.

Mr. Cross shrugged. "Yes. Although his band is probably very disgruntled right now due to the five extra hours a week of practice. I have found, however, that my band performs best when its members are angry scared or cold."

"You are a cruel man," said Mr. Cattela and laughed.

Mr. Cross shrugged. "I am a winner. Sometimes I do things that are… extreme, in order to keep that status. These kids will thank me later."

"Why would they possibly thank you?" asked Mr. Cattela incredibly.

"I've taught them discipline. Also, now they will be able to tell their children that in high school the band they were in won every competition it went to. Isn't that admirable?"

"What about all those other kids who don't win because you refuse to share the glory?"

Mr. Cross scoffed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I don't care about them. They're not my kids."

The orchestra director laughed.

Mr. Cross shushed him when the band started the show.

---

Once again the Prince Klemens VM High School won first place in all captions. Alex and Zoe stayed behind when the band was dismissed back to the busses and shared a celebratory kiss.

Unfortunately they didn't realize that Mr. Cross was still around.

As he went by he laughed. "I didn't think that you two would be all over each other after you'd finally get together." He sighed. "But I suppose that I should have guessed."
Alex pulled away from his girlfriend with a blush on his face, but Zoe only laughed in response. She took Alex's hand and they broke into a run to catch up with the rest of the band.

"It's your own fault!" she said with a grin and a stuck out tongue to her band director as they ran past him.

Mr. Cattela smiled next to the band director.

"Ah, young love. You just can't help but smile, can you."

Mr. Cross stared at his friend in shock.

"Remembering my own high school romance I would have to say that I disagree with you."

The wide grin left Mr. Cattela's face only to be replaced by a sheepish one. He rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry about that, I should have remembered. Now that I think of it, it was kind of a disaster."

Mr. Cross scoffed. "Don't remind me."

---

On the bus ride back Alex and Zoe laughed and cuddled.

Oliver sat with Amy while Derek and Allison sat behind them, all four of them friends again.

---

The last game of the season happened the week before thanksgiving. Prince Klemens VM High School won, as usual. The band was feeling a bit melancholy to perform its last show. Mr. Cross sat in the back with Mr. Cattela and generally let the band kids do whatever they wanted on their last show of the season.

The show went as well as usual, and since it was the final one Alex and Courtney performed a different, jazzed-up version of the drum major salute which involved break dancing and acrobatics. The audience laughed and they got on their podiums, ready to start the show.

In the stands afterwards, the colorguard let loose an obscene amount of confetti, scattering it everywhere. When the band walked back to the band room they left a trail of bits of paper in its wake.

---

Oliver had forgiven his brother for his treatment of Amy by thanksgiving, mostly because Amy had forgiven his brother as well.

As a result of this, the proceedings weren't as awkward as they could have been.

Thanksgiving that year was spent at his father's brother, Andrew's house.

Oliver's father sat behind the wheel, Oliver's mother in the front. Tim was sleeping on the window, his fingers twitching a little every time the car hit a pothole or bump in the road. Oliver sat reading a book and daydreaming about turkey.

Suddenly Oliver's father chuckled, seemingly for no reason.

"What is it, Mark?" asked Oliver's mother.

"Oh, Angela," he said and laughed again, "I'm just speculating."

"About what, Dad?" asked Oliver.

"Well son," his father began, "thanksgiving with my family has been marked by someone coming out after desert."

Tim woke up just in time to hear the last sentence.

"What?" he asked.

Angela sighed and looked out the window. "Not this again."

"Every year," said Mark, ignoring his wife, "an attending member of the traditional thanksgiving dinner has announced that he or she were gay. I'm just speculating on who it will be this year."

"Who was it in years previous?" asked Oliver.

"Well, as you kids know, last year we spent thanksgiving with your mother's family. But the year before that, my brother Drew's daughter, Jessica announced that she was a lesbian. Two years before that it was my sister Karen's son, Leo. Although he was only fourteen at the time and I think I've heard rumors that he's changed his mind about that."

"So who do you think it'll be this year, Dad," asked Tim.

"I've no idea, that's what I've been thinking about. Anyway, the surprise is part of the fun, I think."

Angela sighed from the front seat. "Some fun, placing bets on your family members' sexual orientations."

Tim and Oliver broke into identical grins. "You place bets?"

"Well, yeah," their father replied. "Where's the fun without bets? I scored fifty bucks off of Leo four years ago. I've always wondered about him. My brother Sam is the one that wins every time, though."

"Can we place bets, Dad?" asked Tim.

"My goodness," said Angela, would you all stop treating this like a sport? I think you're all being extremely crass."

Mark waited for his wife to finish before speaking. "I don't think that letting you place bets is such a great idea." He paused for a moment and his wife nodded her approval. "You can advise me on who I'm going to place my bet on though," he finished.

Tim and Oliver howled in laughter in the back seat while Angela tutted disapprovingly from the front.

---

They arrived at Andrew's house two hours later. The door was opened by his wife Allison. Their five year old son, Geoffrey, ran by in his underpants, screaming something that sounded a lot like "TURKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!"

As he got further away from them the sound fell in volume.

"Hi, there, Allison," said Oliver's father. "I see your son is excited!"

She nodded with a blush on her face and opened the door wider so that they could come in.

"Yes, you'd think we never feed him or something. Welcome you all!"

Oliver's mother handed Allison the large glass bowl of potato salad she had been holding.

Seeing that Allison's hands were full Mark decided to keep hold of the wine bottle they had brought.

"GEFF!!! GET BACK HERE AND PUT ON SOME PANTS!" came a yell and Mark's brother Andrew ran by. He skid to a stop when he noticed Mark, Angela, Tim, and Oliver in the doorway.

"Hi, guys. As you've probably noticed we're having technical difficulties. Why don't you come on in, get comfortable, whatever." He seemed a bit frazzled, his hair was messy and his shirt was covered in flour.

"TURKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYY!!" came the yell again, only it was getting loud as Geoffrey was getting closer to them.

Andrew narrowed his eyes and turned around.

The five year old rounded the corner, his small thumping footsteps offering forewarning.

Andrew bent down and as the small boy ran past him grabbed his son beneath his arms and lifted him straight off of the ground. The five year old squealed with laughter.

"Say hello to your aunt, uncle, and cousins, Geoffrey," said Allison.

The five year old smiled and then buried his face in his father's shirt.

"Aw, he's shy," said Andrew. "Listen, I'm going to go get some pants on him, but why don't you all make yourselves comfortable.

Oliver's family finally walked into the house. Allison led them into the living room and told them to settle down before walking back into the kitchen to check on the turkey.

The doorbell rang.

Geoffrey ran through the room, now wearing pants and a tee-shirt with a colorful turkey on it.

Andrew went to answer the door.

"Hey! Karen, David, Leo, Helen, Arthur! It's great to see you guys!"

"Hi, Andrew," came the voice of Karen and David.

"Hello, Uncle Andrew," said the voices of Leo, Helen, and Arthur.

"Mark and his family are here already," said Andrew. "Why don't you all go in the living room and say hi?"

Five people came into the room.

Mark stood up. "Hi, Karen, sis," he hugged her. Angela stood up as well to greet Karen and her husband David.

Leo strolled into the room acting like he owned the place, his brother and sister trailing after him.

"Yo, Ollie, Tim. Why isn't the T.V. on?"

"Hey, Leo," said Tim.

"Hi," said Oliver.

Helen and Arthur settled on the couch.

"Hi," said Helen.

"Hello!" said Arthur.

Tim and Oliver greeted them as well.

Leo rooted around in the bag he had slung around his shoulder as he walked over to the T.V. He kneeled in front of it and took out a PlayStation2 out of his bag. He started to hook it up and looked over his shoulder. "What would you guys do without me?"

Tim cheered and went over to Leo. He kneeled next to him and pulled the now much lighter bag towards him. He started looking through it, looking for which video game he wanted to play.

"Leo, you're a badass kid," Tim said.

Leo grinned and waggled his eyebrows.

In less than a minute the game station was hooked up to the T.V. and the game chosen – a Naruto fighting game.

"Sorry, bro," Leo said to Arthur, "there are only four controllers. Do you mind passing on the first round? You can take the place of the looser."

Arthur nodded enthusiastically, just happy to be included. He was only thirteen, much younger than fifteen year old Oliver, seventeen year old Tim, eighteen year old Leo, and sixteen year old Helen.

They played until more people showed up, Leo and Tim consistently kicking everyone's butt.

Oliver's father's brother Drew showed up an hour later with his wife Rachel and their two daughters Naomé and Jessica. When the two girls showed up Helen went to hang out with them.

The boys kept playing video games while the adults chatted and caught up in the kitchen. After a while Mark, Andrew, David, and Drew went downstairs to watch football. Their wives stayed in the kitchen and helped Allison with the food.

A little later the doorbell rang again and Allison went to answer it.

"Sam!" she exclaimed. "We weren't sure if you were coming, it's good to see you! Why don't you come on in?"

Sam, forty-eight years old and still looking not a day over thirty-five walked into the house. He was wearing a stylish brown knee-length coat and was dressed sharply in a suit underneath. His light brown hair was combed back from his face and looked incredibly soft.

He handed Allison an expensive bottle of champagne.

"It's good to see you too, my dear," he said and gave her a hug, she hugged him back.

Allison smiled and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "The men are downstairs watching football, the women are in the kitchen cooking, the girls are upstairs doing heaven knows what, and the boys are in the living room playing some fighting game or other."

"Thank you dear," he said and they walked into the living room.

"Uncle Sam!" the kids exclaimed happily.

Leo paused the game quickly and they all jumped up to pile a group hug on their favorite uncle.

"Uncle Sam, I'm so glad you're here," said Arthur, the youngest of them all.

"UNCLE SAAAAAAM!" yelled Geoffrey as he barreled into the room seemingly out of nowhere. He jumped up into Sam's arms and was lifted off the carpeted floor, squealing in laughter the entire time.

"Hey, you all," said Sam. "It's good be so well received. The commotion made the girls come downstairs, the men come upstairs, and the women come out of the kitchen.

"Uncle Sam!" yelled Naomé, Jessica, and Helen before each giving him a hug in turn. They were followed by Mark, Andrew, David, and Drew, and then by Angela, Rachel, and Karen.

"We didn't think you'd be coming," said Mark. "You said you had a business meeting!"

Sam shrugged. "I did, but then I thought thanksgiving is a time of the family, I shouldn't miss it. So I cancelled the meeting and came here instead."

"That's great, bro," said Drew and patted Sam on the back.

"You want to come downstairs with us and watch some football?" asked David.

Sam laughed. "Football? Me? I don't think so. But you all go, I don't want to distract you from the big game any longer."

"Alright, bro," said Andrew. "I guess we'll see you across from the turkey."

" Turkey!" exclaimed Geoffrey.

Sam laughed and the men went downstairs.

"We've got to get back to the kitchen," said Angela. "You're welcome to join us, Sam."

"Uncle Sam," said Leo, "You wanna play video games with us?"

Sam looked at the hopeful faces of the boys in front of him, then back at the women.

Angela, Allison, Rachel, and Karen smiled and went back in the kitchen.

"It looks like you've only got four controllers," said Sam as he sat down on the couch. "I'm happy to watch."

"No, no," said Tim.

"Yeah, where's the fun in that?" asked Leo.

"Here, you can have my controller," said Oliver. "Loser gives up their controller, though. Those are the rules."

Oliver handed his controller to Sam and the man accepted.

After Sam had won first place eleven times in a row Leo took away his uncle's controller. "Okay, you can watch now," he said and Sam laughed.

The doorbell rang again.

Allison left the kitchen to answer.

"Sarah, Jerome!" she exclaimed. She opened the door wider and an aged couple walked in.

"Everyone's here already," said Allison.

They walked into the living room and Tim paused the game. Sam looked up from the T.V.

"Hi Mom, Dad," he said.

"Wow," said Jerome, "we really are all here."

The whole family piled back into the living room to say hello.

"You came just in time," said Karen. "The turkey's done. Why don't we all go and eat?"
" TURKEY!" yelled Geoffrey.

Sarah laughed and picked up her grandson. "That's right, turkey."

They went inside the kitchen to eat.

---

The dinner went well, and before they went into the living room to drink coffee and eat cheesecake Mark elbowed his two sons and leaned down to whisper in their ears, "this is it," with a smile. "My money's on Naomé," he said with a small laugh that his sons shared.

They arranged themselves on the couch and floor and started talking about innocuous topics when the fateful question was asked.

"So, Sam," said Sarah.

"Yes, mom?" he asked in response.

"How is your business going?"

"It's well. We've just gained a very rich client and stock prices are rising."

"Hmm," said his mother.

"Well, son," said Jerome a bit nervously. "Not to be… rude, or anything, but you're not getting any younger. When do you think you'll be getting married and giving us grandchildren?"

Sam surprised them all by breaking into raucous laughter.

"Me? Grandchildren? You mean you all don't know…?"

He was met with blank stares.

"Oh, you… You all really don't know!" he laughed again. "I'm gay!"

Leo and Jessica laughed along with their uncle.

"I can't believe you all didn't know! I'm a forty-eight year old single man, what did you think? I had issues with commitment?"

"Well, now that you say that, it's a lot more surprising than it should have been," said Mark.

"Why didn't you say anything earlier?" asked Sarah, Sam's mother.

"I though that you all knew," he replied.

"Well, if that's the case, why haven't you brought around your… boyfriend, or… or… life partner or something?" asked Andrew.

"My life partner? Oh, his father is an army general, not too fond of the gay people, to say the least. So every major holiday he gets his best friend to pretend to be his wife and spends it with his family."

"Oh. That's… complicated," said Jerome, feeling vaguely uncomfortable.

"I don't think this needs to be said," said Sarah uncertainly, "but we still love you."

Sam nodded. "That's good to know, I've never doubted you for a second," he replied with an ironic smirk.

They all spent the night and finished off the turkey the next day. Karen and David were the first to leave, the rest of them following soon after.

Oliver went back to school rested and in good spirits, Thanksgiving having been a success. Oliver's father complained about the money he lost on the bet when Sam had been the one to come out. When his wife asked him who he thought it would be he promptly shut up.

---

Now that marching season was over they had finally started playing real music in band. Mr. Cross was actually – almost – always there.

A week before Christmas Mr. Cross asked Oliver to come to his office during lunch. When Oliver arrived it was to see Mr. Cross sitting in his leather lounge chair while Mr. Cattela stood next to him with his hand on the back of the chair. He was leaning over Mr. Cross, whispering something into the band director's ear, Mr. Cross' head was tilted up and his eyes were focused on a point somewhere across the room and he was nodding periodically.

Oliver knocked on the doorframe and Mr. Cross mentioned for him to come in while the orchestra director straightened up.

"Go get your flute, Oliver," said Mr. Cross. Oliver nodded and went to the band instrument storage closet to retrieve his instrument. He was confused, he hadn't been expecting this. When he walked back in Mr. Cattela was still in the office. The orchestra director made as if to leave, but Mr. Cross took hold of his friend's sleeve and gently tugged him back.

"No, no," said Mr. Cross, "I want you to hear this." He turned to Oliver. "Play the first song from the show," he instructed.

Oliver looked at Mr. Cattela uncertainly, hoping that at least the orchestra director would provide him with some answers. Mr. Cattela stayed silent.

Oliver brought his flute to his lips, took a deep breath and played as he was told.

Once he finished he lowered the flute and stared at the two men before him uncomprehendingly.

"Alright," said Mr. Cross. "Now play your chromatic scale," he said again.

Oliver played. Once he finished he was issued a new set of instructions.

"Play your D-flat scale," said Mr. Cross.

Oliver obeyed.

"You can sit down, now. If you'd like," said the band director. Oliver collapsed gratefully in the chair that had been strategically positioned right behind him. He looked back and forth between the band director and the orchestra director, uncertain of what was going on.

Mr. Cross turned his face up to look at his friend. "What do think of that? And notice, that was all without warming up. Did you hear the tone quality throughout? Even in the higher octaves? And that D-flat scale, three octaves. I didn't learn my high D-flat and D until I was a junior, and Oliver, here, is just a freshman. So what do you think, David?"

Mr. Cattela looked over at Mr. Cross, and then back at Oliver. "It was very good," he said to the band director.

"Yes, that part is self-evident. But was it good enough?"

"Good enough for what?" asked Oliver uncertainly. He was completely ignored.

"Hmm," said Mr. Cattela. He turned back to Oliver. "Would you play your chromatic scale again, please?" he asked.

Oliver stood up and did as he was told before sitting back down again.

The orchestra director turned to the band director. "Oh yes. Most definitely good enough."

Mr. Cross nodded. "That's how I feel, as well. However, before I did anything drastic I though it best to get a second opinion. I'm glad that you agree."

"What?" asked Oliver. He was staring at the two men before him with wide eyes. He had thought that they had been complimenting him, but when Mr. Cross used the word 'drastic' he felt a little on-guard.

Mr. Cross finally looked straight at Oliver. "You're a very good flute player," he said to the boy. "So how would you like to be moved up to the top band?"

Oliver stared at his band director for a couple of moments. "Is that… possible?"

Mr. Cross scoffed and waved a glove clad hand in dismissal of Oliver's statement. "Possible? Oh, please. Of course it's possible. Of course, your schedule might be messed about a bit, wind ensemble is during second period – which, I believe, is English for you? – but there shouldn't be any problems."

"But, Mr. Cross," said Oliver with concern, "I mean, not that I wouldn't like that, I think being in top band would be awesome, it's just that I've heard that all the other Pre-IB English classes were full."

"The boy's right," said Mr. Cattela to the band director, "or at least I'm pretty sure that he is."

Mr. Cross scoffed. "Not so full that they won't be able to squeeze in one more extra student. Especially if I'm the one asking."

"Well, you're sure of yourself," said Mr. Cattela with a laugh.

"Is what I'm saying not the truth?" asked the band director with a raised eyebrow.

Mr. Cattela laughed again. "Of course it's the truth. You're a terror to the faculty of the school! The principal brings you coffee in the morning, for crying out loud!"

"Well, to be fair, he does that because he lost a bet against me, but – We're getting off topic." Mr. Cross turned back to the flutist sitting in a chair on the other side of his small office. "Will you agree to do it, then?" he asked.

"Yeah," said Oliver enthusiastically.

Mr. Cross clapped his hands once, victoriously, but the sound was muffled by the black gloves he was wearing.

"Wonderful. I'll give you more information and your new schedule after Christmas break."

Oliver thanked him and went back into the band room to put away his flute.

Once he was done he still had half an hour for lunch and went to eat quickly and tell his friends about what had just happened.

---

Oliver and his family spent a quiet Christmas with his mother's sister Katherine. There was a minor incident during which Tim tricked Katherine's nine year old daughter into thinking that Santa was a creepy stalker and child molester who had fun killing little boys and girls. Jessie, the poor little girl barely fell asleep and then woke the house screaming when she woke up to find that her night light had broken.

The reason she was so scared was quickly discovered and Tim was punished by being forced to stay with her for the entire night and constantly reassure her that Santa Claus wasn't real, and, moreover, definitely not a child killer.

Later, Katherine, her husband James, and Helen and Robert, Katherine and Angela's parents, all agreed that it was a good way to break the non-existence of Santa Claus to children.

---

After Christmas break Oliver came back to a new schedule. He was happy to find out that the only things that had changed were his English class and Biology class. He was even happier to find out that his new English and Biology classes were with Christine.

---

"Hey, Oliver!" said Zoe cheerfully in Oliver's first wind ensemble class.

"Ngh," said Oliver. It was seven ten in the morning, for crying out loud! He didn't have the slightest idea of how anyone could be so chipper so early in the morning.

"It's great to see you here," she indicated the band room with a wide gesture which caused the paper cup-ensconced coffee slush around dangerously.

Ah, though Oliver, so that was the answer.

"You're the third ever freshmen to be in the top band," she said with a smile.

"Oh, yeah?" asked Oliver, still sleepy, "who was the first?"

Zoe beamed. "Me," she said, pointing to herself, before taking a swig of her no doubt extremely sugary coffee-like drink.

"And who was the second?" asked Oliver.

Zoe looked around the class room for a moment before finally finding who she was looking for. "That would be…" she said while her eyes scanned the band students milling around, "…him," she finished, pointing a finger towards a dark haired boy that seemed to be sleeping in his seat, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Eric?" Oliver asked incredulously. He had gotten the impression that Eric was a good for nothing slacker when he first met him, and nothing had happened to change that.

"Yeah, he's… good, I suppose. He's not very dedicated to the band, though," said Zoe. She shrugged. "That's the way the cookie crumbles."

Alex came over and wrapped an arm around his girlfriend's waist. "Hey, there, Z," he said before kissing her ear. "Hi, Oliver," he said while still looking at Zoe. He looked Oliver in the face a moment later and smiled. "Welcome to wind ensemble. I think you'll find that it's a bit sucky here, especially with the after school weekly rehearsals."

"That's… encouraging," said Oliver with a smile.

Mr. Cross walked into the room and immediately the noise level dropped and the speed of the students taking out their instruments and variously getting ready for band increased.

---

"Hi, Oliver," Christine greeted him when he walked into Biology. The teacher, a woman of considerable age, announced that they would be watching a movie in class and started looking for the video cassette on her – rather messy – desk.

The class relaxed and started chatting, they all knew that it would take her at least a quarter of an hour to find it.

"Hi, Christine," said Oliver. Her hair was down that day, the blonde tips just brushing her shoulders. She smiled at him, revealing her pearly white teeth. "You look very pretty today," he said after a moment, "even more so than usual. And you're all dressed up. Is there some particular reason?"

Christine blushed. "Oh, no. Not really. Thanks for noticing, though. I don't know if you can tell," she said, lowering her voice and leaning conspiratorially towards him, "but I'm wearing make-up today."

"Oh," said Oliver and she leaned back and giggled.

"Not a lot, of course. Though personally, I happen to think it makes a big difference. All my girlfriends think so too, but all of my guy friends when asked said that they couldn't see a difference. Except for you, of course," she said with a large smile.

Oliver rubbed the back of his head. "I'm having a hard time telling, is that supposed to be a compliment?"

"Don't be silly, Oliver. Of course it's a compliment!" she said cheerfully.

Oliver smiled in return. "That's good to know."

Finally their teacher had fished the video cassette out of the train wreck that was her desk.

"Get ready, class," she said. "This is a great video! I really think you'll like it."

Oliver leaned over to Christine. "This isn't a video of a live birth, is it?" he asked nervously.

Christine giggled. "Of course not! That's in fourth quarter, silly!"

Oliver gulped. "Well. That's one quarter I'm not looking forward to anymore."

The teacher popped the video into the VCR and the movie started. It looked like it had been made a hundred years ago and the sound left much to be desired. It included a group of teens dressed like aliens talking about the parts of a cell and a large man in a dog costume.

"What is this supposed to be teaching us?" Oliver asked Christine in a whisper. "I have no idea what any of them is saying!"

"Just, don't try too hard," Christine whispered back. "We haven't learned anything in this class so far, and the only tests we've had are not only basically common sense, but you can also do corrections on the questions you missed and get all your points back."

"That's a pretty good deal," said Oliver wonderingly.

Christine shrugged. "Why did you think this class was so full? Every kid who gets this teacher brags to all their friends and siblings and whatever. The rumors spread wide and far. I'm actually pretty surprised that they stuck you here. This class is already full beyond capacity."

Oliver glanced at Christine. "My band director got me in. I don't know if you know him. Mr. Cross? Well, anyway. My impression is that he owns this school."

"Really?" asked Christine in interest. "What about the principal?"

"The principal?" asked Oliver with a quiet laugh. "The principal brings Mr. Cross coffee in the mornings."

"That is so awesome!" said Christine in a quiet voice. "I don't think I know him, though. What does he look like?"

"He's pretty tall, usually dressed in black three piece suits, only without the jacket. His shirts are always white, though, and sometimes his ties are colorful. And sometimes instead of black his suits are varying shades of gray. And he's always wearing a pair of black leather gloves. He's got dark hair and really shiny shoes."

"Really?" asked Christine. Oliver nodded. "Well, in that case," she said, "I think I've seen him wandering the halls once or twice.

"You're pretty lucky, then," said Oliver. "As far as I know he rarely leaves his office."

Christine grinned. "I guess I'm pretty privileged, then."

Oliver laughed quietly. "I don't know if that's what I'd call it. To tell you the truth, Mr. Cross freaks me out a little bit."

"Really? Why?"

"Because his first name isn't in the school directory."

"So?"

"So? So, all the teachers have their first names in the school directory. Mr. Cross is just listed as C. J. Cross."

"That could be used as a clue, can't it?" asked Christine. "There can't possibly be that many male names that start with the letter C."

"Sure there can be," answered Oliver. "There's Cid, Charlie, Charles, Clyde, Cliff, Corey, Craig –"

Christine cut him off. "Alright, stop," she said with a laugh. I get the point."

There was a loud crash as one of the kids fell on the dog.

"What is the point of this movie?" asked Oliver again.

Christine laughed. "The point of this movie is for the teacher to take a nap –" Christine pointed to their elderly biology teacher who seemed to be sleeping, she was sitting in the big comfortable chair behind her desk with her arms folded over her chest and her head bobbing up and down on her neck with the timing of her breathing, "– and for the students," Christine continued, "to catch up on their homework. Or, you know. Whatever they feel like doing."

Oliver looked around the room. A number of boys in the back – he recognized a lot of them from band, most of them were trumpets – seemed to be playing poker for money. They had all ganged up on a nerdy looking kid who was loosing pretty badly. Near the middle of the classroom a group of girls had taken out their make-up kits and were giving each other makeovers. In a couple of minutes they got bored and called over a boy whose name Oliver didn't know and decided to paint his face green. He obliged, a bit transfixed by the pretty girls surrounding him.

Two kids, a boy and a girl, had their TI-84 calculators hooked up to each other by a small wire and were having some sort of competition. A tall boy and his even taller girlfriend had sneaked into the back corner of the classroom and were having a passionate make-out session behind a shelf full of scrawny plants.

A punked-out boy with piercings around every possible orifice (on his face at least, the ones that were probably beneath the boy's clothes were a mystery to Oliver and would always remain so… he hoped) and a chaotic and complicated hairdo which could hardly be classified as one on top of his head seemed to be carving something into his desk. Oliver assumed that it would be curse words or something along the lines of 'Biology Sucks Ass!" in big angry letters – you know, the sort with the really sharp corners.

"That's the point of this entire class, isn't it?"

Christine laughed. "That's what I said, right?"

Oliver blushed. "Oh yeah. Sorry."

Oliver looked over to the boys that had been playing poker to see the nerdy looking kid pulling a large pile of money towards his chest with a smug and satisfied grin while the trumpet playing boys argued among themselves and looked to be on the borderline of violence.

The boy that was having his face painted green had finally been given a mirror, nearly screamed in horror, and was now at the only sink that worked, desperately trying to wash off his face.

The bell rang and the teacher jerked awake. All the students began to desperately hide the things that they were doing that they probably should not have been doing.

"Alright, class!" said the teacher, although she still seemed a little out of it, "have a great rest of the day, and don't get run over by a car or anything!"

All the students wished for her to have a great day as well as they walked by her on the way to the door.

"Well, bye, then, Oliver," said Christine. The day was over and she was headed towards the busses while Oliver was headed to his brother's car in its parking spot behind the school.

"Yeah, Christine. I'll see you later, I guess," he said. They waved goodbye to each other and separated, walking in opposite directions with identical smiles on their young faces.

---

"What are you so happy about?" asked Tim when Oliver slid into the car.

Oliver stayed silent and looked out the window as Tim pulled out of his parking spot, narrowly avoiding the poled the basket ball hoops were hanging from and, even more narrowly, the cars of the other students that attended Prince Klemens VM High School.

---

"This is absolute rubbish!" exclaimed Allison. She, Oliver, Cory, and Derek were sitting around in the playground that was located in a park that was close by Derek's house. Allison was teetering backwards and forwards on one of the unbroken swings. She wearing a noxiously yellow windbreaker over a large, thick, dark blue woolen sweater, the sleeves of which were so long that they were coming out of the sleeves of her windbreaker. A thick light green scarf was wrapped around her long neck and a large floppy red hat was covering most of her head. Her pants were orange – matching her gloves – and wide, covering the black boots her feet were clad in. She looked like a rainbow.

Cory was dressed mostly in black with a coat that reminded Oliver of the sort of things Mr. Cross liked to wear. Cory was attempting to learn how to do lasting handstands, and kept failing, collapsing onto the ground – which was luckily for him covered in a thick layer of mulch, which softened his falls. Small bits of mulch were clinging to his sides and pants.

Derek was sitting on a swing next to Allison and was swinging back and forth, the chains holding the swing parallel to the ground at points in the swing and creaking under his weight.

Oliver was stretched out on a bench that stood next to, but not in the way of, the swings.

"Rubbish?" asked Oliver with a laugh. "I see you've been re-reading your Harry Potter novels."
"Well," Allison sniffed at the air haughtily, "I suppose I have. Do don't need to tease me, though, do you?"

"Of course I do! If I didn't do it, who would?"

There was a crash as Cory fell on the ground.

"Oh stop your sniping," he said, "what is absolute rubbish, Allison?" he asked before attempting the hand stand once again.

"The History paper we've got to write."

"Which one?" asked Derek.

"Which one? The one! The one that he assigned us last week. What other one is there?" Allison paused and suddenly her eyes widened. "Oh my god. There isn't another writing assignment that we have to do, is there?"

Derek laughed, the sound of his laughter fading in and out as he swung closer and away from them. "OF CoursE NOT ALlison, DON'T Worry aBOUT It." He assured her.

"Aren't you getting sick of that?" asked Allison as she looked up at Derek.

"Nah," he said. "I THInk thaT IT'S Lot's oF FUN!"

"Well, you're making me sick," Allison muttered.

Derek apparently heard her because at the apex of the swing he let go of the chains and flew forward just as Cory fell from his handstand yet again. Derek flew over Cory's head and landed in the mulch in a crouch. There was a small thump of impact and a moment later Derek was standing up again.

"Holy Hell!" Cory exclaimed when he realized how close to death he had come.

"A bit of an oxymoron, don't you think?" asked Oliver with a small laugh.

"Sorry," Derek murmured as he walked back over to Allison and slowed the still shuddering swing before sitting back down on it.

"It's just an essay," said Oliver, returning to an earlier topic, "what are you so worried about, Allison? You always ace everything."

"Well, I suppose so. But it's five thousand words! I don't think I've ever written that much at one time before."

Cory fell again.

"Would you stop doing that?" asked Derek irritably. "You're getting on my nerves. Can't you go sit on Oliver or something?"

"Sorry," said Cory as unapologetically as was possible. "I think you're right, I should probably stop. One of these times I'm going to fall on my head and splatter my brains all over the place."

"Ew," said Allison with a grimace. "That's probably not possible on mulch but, still, gross."

Cory stood up and sauntered over to Oliver, intending to sit on his stomach. Oliver was a bit late in realizing what was about to happen, but still managed to roll off of the bench before Cory collapsed on him.

"So have your fears about the essay been assuaged, Allison?" asked Oliver from the ground. He got up and started to brush his butt off, Cory helping him brush off his back in the parts that Oliver had a hard time reaching.

"You went about it in a completely useless and moronic way, but… Strangely enough, yes." She laughed and kicked the ground, causing a shower of mulch bits to spout out of the ground momentarily.

"So how's it going with your stalker girl, Cory?" asked Allison.

"Oh, I haven't seen her in a while," said Cory. "Which is a bit strange, I think…" he trailed off uncertainly.

"So you miss your stalker?" asked Derek. "And what, precisely, does that say about you, do you think?"

Cory scoffed and his friends laughed at him.

---

"Christine," Oliver asked once English was over and they were packing up their things. The two of them were consistently the slowest to get ready to leave, and so the classroom was mostly empty – even the teacher had gone to get a cup of tea from the English work room.

"Yes, Oliver?" she replied.

"What are you doing this Friday evening?" He was a bit nervous and kept his eyes on his backpack in order to avoid looking her in the face.

"This Friday? Uh… nothing. Or at least I don't think so. Why?"

"I was wondering if you would like to go on a date with me. Because, well, there are a bunch of good movies out right now and I thought that you might want to go with me…?"

Oliver looked up when he heard a silence that meant that Christine had either stopped or finished packing up. She was looking at him with a smile.

"Sure, sounds like fun. Are you going to pick me up, then?" she asked.

"Um, yeah!" said Oliver.

"Here, you'll need my phone number and address, now, won't you?" she said with a smile. She took out a sheet of paper and scribbled both items on it. She pushed it gently into his hand and left the classroom, throwing a smile over her shoulder right before she left the room.

Oliver went through the next couple of days on cloud nine.

---

The date went brilliantly and Oliver recounted it in great detail to Allison on the following Saturday. She laughed at him and gave him his congratulations.

---

"Did you know," asked Cory in History class while the teacher wasn't paying attention, "that Christine, creepy Christine that's been stalking me, has a boyfriend?"

"That's… interesting," said Oliver. He was getting a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Yeah," said Cory. "It turns out that she's had him for some time, now," said Cory.

"You seem to be upset," said Allison. "But when she asked you out in eighth grade you totally blew her off. What's the problem? You don't like her."

"Correction," said Cory, "I didn't like her, when she was pathetic and a little disproportionate and chasing after me like a starved woman chases after a pork chop. Now that she's in high school, and has got a boyfriend to boot, well… she's looking pretty good right now."

"You are so messed up," said Oliver. "Can't you make a decision and stick with it?"

"Sure I can," said Cory. "I stick with the decision I made then. But the situation is completely different now."

"How is it different?" asked Allison. "She's still the same girl, just a year older."

"'A year older' is not exactly how I'd put it," said Cory.

"How would you put it, then?" asked Oliver.

"I'd say that she was a year hotter, is what I'd say," said Cory with a lecherous grin that best belonged on the face of an old pervert than a fifteen-year old boy. Although both, in essence, were pretty similar.

"Well, that's too bad," said Allison. "There's nothing you can do about it. She's taken, if her boyfriend's anything to go by."

Cory shrugged. "Maybe. We'll see."

---

The last day of the quarter went by quickly, most of the teachers giving them a chance to finish late work in class instead of teaching new material.

Tim drove the both of them home and they rolled down the windows. Spring was finally here and the temperature was in that perfect area between hot and cold. It was still cold to perhaps need a light jacket, but it was already pleasant outside, and the sun shone down in warm rays. There were few clouds in the perfectly blue sky, and Oliver felt completely content and at peace with the world – a feeling that would not last too much longer.

When he got home he decided to take a quick shower, and when he got out if was to find that there was a new voice message on his cell phone.

He picked it up and turned the voice message on. He squeezed the phone between his ear and shoulder and started to towel off his hair. After a few moments his hands stilled and the towel slipped from his fingers. The soft shudder of sound drew him out of his spell and he took the phone into his hand and bent to pick the towel back up from the floor.

The message had been left by Christine.

"Hi, Oliver," her sad voice said, she seemed to be nervous but hid it well, "I was kind of hoping to talk to you, but I guess that this way is better… Um. I'm calling to say that I we can't date anymore. Um. There's another boy. I've liked him for a really long time and he asked me out a couple of days ago. I couldn't say no, I mean. I still like him. Um. I'm sorry about this, Oliver. Really. I didn't mean this to happen, it's just that… well. I'm sorry, at any rate. Goodbye, Oliver. I hope we can still be friends… um. Bye."

The message ended and Oliver nearly threw his phone in frustration. If his brother had anything to do with it he'd have to strangle Tim to death – family ties be damned.

---

As it turned out, Tim didn't have anything to do with it, he was much too busy trying to juggle three girls at once – and trying to keep them from finding out about each other – to have enough time to go stealing Oliver's girlfriend again. Tim offered his condolences and told Oliver to try and keep his next girlfriend.

---

On Monday Christine avoided Oliver as much as she could, and he entered History class to Cory's laughter.

"And just what is so funny?" asked Oliver, still irritable from being dropped like a dirty old sock.

"Ah, it is a brilliant tale, my friend," Cory replied. "Christine, my lovely stalker, agreed to ditch her boyfriend in favor of me, two seconds after I asked her out."

Oliver narrowed his eyes and turned up his face to glare at his friend. "What?" he asked.

Cory, missing his friend's anger, laughed again. "Christine! I asked her out the other day. She said 'I'm sorry Cory, I've already got a boyfriend,' and then she paused and looked up at me. And then she said, 'but that's alright, I'll break up with him tomorrow. What time will you be picking me up?'"

"Wow, that's a bit… whore-y don't you think?" asked Allison with a laugh.

"You knew she had a boyfriend," said Oliver, ignoring Allison's statement, "and you just – you just asked her out, regardless?"

"Well, yeah," said Cory, finally catching on to Oliver's anger. "So what's the problem?"

"The problem," said Oliver in a deadly hiss, "is that I was her boyfriend. I was the one she broke up with on Friday so that you could 'pick her up,' alright?"

Cory stared at him wide-eyed. "What?"

"I was dating Christine, you imbecile," said Oliver. "Until you suddenly decided that she was hot, and acted like the huge ass you are."

"I didn't know, alright? You never told me you had a girlfriend! Did you know, Allison?"

"No, I didn't know a thing," said Allison with a shake of her head.

Cory turned back to Oliver. "So it's really not my fault, okay? If I had known that it was you, then I obviously wouldn't have done that!"
"Oh, not to me, but you would have done that to some other unsuspecting boy?"

Cory blinked. "Well.. yeah."

Oliver scoffed. "And that makes you less of a bastard?"

Cory leaned over to Oliver and jabbed him in the chest with a long pointed finger. "Look, Oliver," he hissed, now angry himself. "If she really liked you, she wouldn't have broken up with you to go out with me, alright? She obviously didn't like you that much. Maybe she was just using you to get my attention, I don't know. But you should thank me, alright? I just saved you from dating a girl that obviously didn't like you as much as you like her. You should thank me."

"Thank you?! I should punch you in the face, is what I should do!"

Allison put a hand on each of their chests and pushed them apart.

"Calm down, alright?"

"Is there a problem here?" asked the teacher as he came over.

"No," said Oliver.

"No," said Cory.

They turned away from each other and Allison sighed.

"You'll make up some day. I know it."

---

Oliver felt a sense of déjà vu when a week later he came across Christine crying in the hallway after school.

She turned around and saw him, standing motionless in the hallway.

"Oh, O-Oliver!" she said, she seemed happy to see him despite the tears pouring out of her eyes, "I'm s-so s-sorry about w-what I did to you! I w-was completely w-wrong! Th-the b-boy that I dumped you for, he b-broke up w-with me t-today! It t-turns out that h-he didn't w-want me after all… Oh, O-Oliver, I'm so s-s-sorry! I feel really t-terrible. Please, g-give me a second chance… P-please, c-can't w-we be friends or, s-something? Please, Oliver…" she trailed off and her lower lip kept trembling with the force of her sobs. She looked at him pleadingly and Oliver almost went over to her and gave her a hug. He raised a hand towards her, but then let it drop.

"No. No, Christine. I don't think that that would be possible. Not after what you did."

The girl broke down into sobs even louder at his words. Oliver turned and walked away. He exited the school and left Christine behind him. He was done with all the bullshit.

---

The next day Oliver came over and sat next to Cory at lunch. It was a nice day so they were sitting outside in the courtyard. Cory was sitting with his back against a brick wall and was eating a turkey sandwich.

"Hey, man," he said. Cory looked up from his sandwich and smiled.

"Hey… are you talking to me again?" he asked hopefully.

"Yeah," said Oliver. The others were still inside buying their food, and Oliver sat next to Cory in silence.

"So you dumped her," said Oliver.

"Yeah," said Cory and took another bite of his sandwich.

"Why?" asked Oliver.

"Turns out she's still the same girl," Cory said and smiled ironically. "You're not mad at me anymore?" he asked.

Oliver smiled. "Naw, man. I'm not mad."

"And you're not mad that I dumped her?"

"No. She deserved it anyway."

Cory laughed. "Well, that's the sort of attitude that I was never expecting from you, my friend. I gotta say, though. I like it."

They sat together and waited for Derek and Allison to show up.

"Hey," said Allison when she walked out to the courtyard, Derek was walking next to her. "I'm glad to see you two are talking to each other again."

"Yeah," said Derek, "me too."

"Hey," said Cory, "me three."

"Me four," added Oliver.

Neither Allison nor Derek ever asked Oliver what had changed his mind.

---

The rest of the school year passed in a blur and in almost no time Oliver found himself in the band room on the last day of the year. The bell had already rung and most of the students had gone home. Oliver was waiting for his brother to drive up to the side door.

Oliver stood in the band room and said goodbye for the year, although he knew he'd be seeing it a lot sooner than he would like to see it.

"So," came a voice from the doorway of the band room. "How was your year?" The speaker finally stepped out of the shadow, revealing himself to be Eric.

"Hi," said Oliver. "It's been alright, as far as school goes."

"I heard you had some girl trouble," said Eric.

"I'm always having girl trouble," Oliver replied.

Eric shrugged and laughed. "Yeah, me too. I'm glad you worked it out, though."

Oliver shrugged as well. "Worked it out… not the precise way that I would put it but yeah, I suppose it is worked out."

There was a honking from outside the band room and Oliver looked out the window to see that his brother's car was standing outside.

"I've got to go," said Oliver and motioned to the side door.

"I can see that," sad Eric with a good natured chuckle. "Bye, then."

"Yeah," said Oliver, "bye."

"I'll be seeing you next year, Oliver," said Eric with a strange expression that Oliver only saw when he paused in the doorframe and looked back.

"Sure," he said, and left the band room.

---

Year two: Sophomore Year (Finally!)

---

Band camp seemed to be hotter and more crowded than usual. Zoe was the new drum major, which was definitely trippy. The second drum major was a tall boy named Keith. He was tall, blue-eyed, and his blond hair was perpetually spiked up. He played trumpet although he seemed to be born to be a surfer dude. Zoe got along well with him – though Zoe got along well with everyone, and everyone got along well with Keith – and they spent a lot of time joking around with the band and each other, adding a little much needed fun into band camp.

Zoe was a total softie, and so was Keith – in real life. Band camp, however, was not real life, or at least it didn't seem like it, and Oliver found out that the sweet, friendly Zoe, as well as the tanned, perpetually sunglasses wearing Keith had their hard sides.

It was many a time that Zoe had given Oliver, Derek, or Allison push-ups.

Mr. Cross made an appearance later on in the band camp experience. He silently stood like a specter atop the bleachers, his black clothes absorbing all light and yet failing to make him seem even the slightest bit overheated.

As a sophomore, Oliver felt more relaxed. He wasn't nervous about being in high school the way he had been for his freshman year. He was even not as scared of Mr. Cross as he had been during his freshman year. Mr. Cross might have had a fit if he knew. Oliver learned that Mr. Cross liked to be feared by his students.

Band camp, as terrible as it had been, was over quickly. Oliver was grateful when school started.

---

Oliver was happy to find out that he had no classes with Christine, but a lot of classes with Allison, Derek, Cory, and Amy.

His chemistry teacher was a complete bitch, but the fact that the gang was all present for the class seemed to make up for it.

On the first chemistry class the teacher went on and on about some inane story that had to do with shopping malls and children. Somehow it connected to molecules and atoms, but by the time she was finished telling it – an hour later – Oliver had quite lost track of the plot.

"What is going on?" he asked as he leaned over to Cory. Cory was reading a technical manual for his new laptop in the desk.

"Aw, who gives a flying fuck?" he whispered. "Just do something else like a normal high school kid." He turned back to his manual. At the lab table next to them Allison was braiding Derek's hair while the boy slept.

"You know," whispered Amy to Oliver as she leaned over, "I've always wondered about that expression," she said. "The flying fuck, one, I mean."

"What are you talking about?" asked Oliver, a little scandalized by the fact that Amy had said a bad word.

"Well, it's said like 'who gives a flying fuck' as if a flying fuck is nothing special. Personally if I had a flying fuck – and I do mean a fuck while flying – I wouldn't give that away! I mean, I think that that's pretty special, don't you?"

"Er," said Oliver. "I guess."

Amy nodded. "But I wonder how a flying fuck would even be possible, I mean the physics of it are a nightmare! I suppose it could be possible if you were –" she began but was interrupted by Oliver.

"Amy, please stop. You're really weirding me out here."

Amy giggled. "I'm sorry that I have offended your delicate sensibilities."

"Yeah, Oliver," said Cory, "if a girl was talking to me about fucking I'd definitely be paying attention, not being 'weirded out.'"

Oliver slapped his friend in the shoulder. "Shut up, Cory," he hissed, not without humor, "must you be so crass?"

"Well… yeah," said Cory as though it was self-evident.

"Oh, just listen to the story about the fat children," whispered Oliver in exasperation.

---

Oliver was surprised to meet Eric in his – Oliver's not… although, I suppose, it was Eric's as well – higher level math class. This threw Oliver for a bit of a loop, because he had always thought that Eric was a bit of a simpleton. He hadn't expected Eric to be… well… smart.

"Hello, Oliver," said Eric with a smile and a raised eyebrow. "I didn't get a chance to talk to you in band camp, so isn't this convenient."

"Hello, Eric," Oliver replied. He looked around the classroom, and – when seeing no other familiar faces – sat down in a desk next to Eric's. "I – wait a minute," he narrowed his eyes suspiciously and looked at Eric. "You weren't in band camp, were you?"

"Well spotted," said Eric with a slight tilt to his head and a small smile on his face. "No, I wasn't in band camp, because I'm not in marching band this year."

"Well, are you in band?"

"Yes, I am."

"And how, exactly did you manage that?"

Eric grinned. "That's a secret of the trade now though, isn't it? I suppose I can tell you." Eric leaned over to Oliver slightly. "You won't tell anyone." He laughed at that, as though it was a private joke and then leaned back in his seat.

"I went to Mr. Cross and told him I plan on having a horrific season. I told him that I'd be tripping and falling all the time – bringing the other members down with me – as well as being out of step and off beat and playing in rests."

"Well, what did Mr. Cross say?" asked Oliver.

Eric laughed again. He looked like he was on the verge of a heart attack, and then told me not to show up to band camp. When I got my schedule I saw that band was still on it and … voila! I guess that's the way to get out of marching band."

"That's brilliant," said Oliver. "I can't believe I didn't think of it before. It makes so much sense now!"

Eric shrugged. "I don't think it would work for just anyone, though. So if you tell this story to people, I'd add the small disclaimer 'kids, don't try this at home.'"

The bell rang and the teacher stood up and introduced herself before unceremoniously launching into teaching them new material.

"This class will be so much fun," said Eric sarcastically to Oliver, "I can just see it now – the headlines of next week's paper: "Twenty seven high school students horrifically murdered in math classroom by boredom!""

Oliver laughed and the teacher glared at the both of them, causing them to shut up immediately.

Oliver left the classroom thinking he had seriously underestimated Eric Lancaster.

---

Band season went as well as always, and Zoe glowed with pride every time the announcer stated that Prince Klemens VM High School Marching Band had won first in every caption.

Oliver supposed that Mr. Cross was glowing with pride as well, though very dimly.

On the last game the colorguard brought twice as much confetti as they did the previous year. When they left the stands, it looked as though the band section of the bleachers had been snow stormed on.

Mr. Cross quickly congratulated them on their season during the next band class and jumped right into sight reading new music.

Zoe was a bit sad to see the end of her conducting days, and was sitting in the band room – picking at the feather in her marching hat in a melancholy manner when Mr. Cross walked into the room.

"Is something wrong?" he asked and walked over to her.

"Oh, hi, Mr. Cross," she said when she became aware of his presence. She looked up at him and gave him a weak smile. "No, nothing's wrong. I'm just a bit sad to not be drum major anymore."

"Well, if you'd like you can fail your classes and be held back a year. If that happens I'll let you be drum major again."

Zoe laughed brightly. "No, that's alright. I think I'll pass. Thank you, though. I just really liked conducting."

Mr. Cross nodded. "I though so. Have you thought about your senior solo?"

Zoe looked up. "Not really, I still haven't really decided if I'm doing it or not." At the look in Mr. Cross' eyes she quickly reconsidered. "Er. I'm definitely doing it. I don't know what piece, though. Not yet, at any rate."

Mr. Cross nodded thoughtfully. "You know, if you compose a piece for the band, you will be able to conduct it."

Zoe looked at him, her eyes wide. "Compose a band piece?" she asked. Her voice squeaked a bit at the end

"Yes. I seem to recall, you've done a bit of composing."

"Well, yeah. A bit. And only for flutes. I've got no idea how to compose for other instruments."

"But are you interested in the idea?" asked Mr. Cross.

"Yes," said Zoe.

Mr. Cross nodded yet again. "You should try it. If you've got any questions, you know where my office is."

Zoe smiled brightly. "Thanks, Mr. Cross."

---

The school year seemed to stretch on and on while passing unnaturally fast at the same time. Nothing too terribly exciting happened, although Oliver was having a hard time staying awake in a couple of his classes.

Government, though, was definitely the worst. Oliver was lucky to have Allison there with him to wake him up if anything important was being said. She never needed to wake him up.

---

Thanksgiving that year was a quiet affair with Oliver's mother's family, not involving any sexual identity crises of any kind, other than the discover that Oliver's hamster – until then believed to be a girl – turned out to be a boy. This discovery had been made when Oliver had decided to bring his hamster to the Thanksgiving day feast. He had put it in the cage with his mother's sister's decidedly female hamster. The whole family had been surprised when the two – supposed female – hamsters started to fornicate. They had to be separated immediately and Oliver's mother's sister threatened to give them the babies – if there were any.

Christmas was spent with Oliver's father's boisterous family. Leo and Tim managed to set fire to the tree, though Sam – as a result of a number of unfortunate experiences of his own – was quick with the fire extinguisher and there was no irreparable damage to anything but the tree. The Christmas pictures had them standing around a blackened tree covered in what looked like snow.

Leo and Tim had been punished despite their protests that they should be thanked for making Christmas more exciting than usual.

Little Geoffrey had been yelling about turkey once again, only it was perhaps less cute when he started doing it at three o'clock in the morning.

Arthur – with help from his sister – got into the eggnog and the results weren't pretty. Helen – who was a bit more discreet than her brother Leo – made sure that her involvement in the matter was never discovered. Leo would have been blamed for that mishap as well if he hadn't been out looking for another tree with his father at the time.

Overall, Oliver had to admit, the Christmas holidays were quite enjoyable. He got back to school in high spirits.

---

"Wait a minute," said Oliver, "what did you say?"

Allison blushed and hooked her arm through Derek's. Cory was laughing hysterically next to Oliver.

"We're dating," said Allison of herself and Derek. "Derek asked me out a week ago," she said.

Oliver turned to Derek, wide eyed. "What? Derek, you asked her out?"

Cory nearly fell down in his laughter. By then they were getting strange looks from the other kids eating lunch in the courtyard.

"Yeah," said Derek. "I asked her out. Why do you seem so surprised?"

"Honestly, Oliver," said Cory between shuddering breaths. "The surprise on your face is absolutely priceless. I wish I had a camera!"

"Eh?" asked Oliver. He was having a bit of trouble processing the situation.

"Oliver, you really should have seen it coming," said Allison a bit testily. "Cory stop laughing, you look like a hyena. It's unnerving."
Cory's laughter winded down after a bit and he sat down next to them all. He still let out an occasional giggle every time he saw Oliver's face.

"I just… I don't know," said Oliver. "I never thought to expect something like this."

Derek sighed. "You say that like it's a bad thing. Are you upset that we're dating?"

"No, no," Oliver hurried to reassure them. "It's just a little strange, is all. We've been friends since the third grade!"

"Yeah, and I've had a crush on Allison since the fourth grade," said Derek.

"And I had a crush on Derek since fourth, too," said Allison.

"Since fourth grade?" asked Cory incredulously. "And you finally got together, six years later? Man, you guys are slow."

Allison and Derek glared at him and he fell silent. "Sorry," he said after a little while and gave them an apologetic smile.

"Are you okay with it, Oliver?" asked Allison. "We don't want you to be uncomfortable or anything, alright?"

"No, no, I'm fine," Oliver replied. "I'm glad for you two, really. I just hope you have more luck in your relationship than I've had in mine."

"I think what your luck can be defined as," said Derek, "is anti-luck. I think we'll be fine."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Oliver with a smile.

---

The year passed by calmly. The teachers gave plenty of homework but definitely not enough to cripple or even maim. Oliver managed just fine under the circumstances and did better on his midterms than he thought he would.

He liked all of his classes except Chemistry, but decided that that couldn't be helped. Nothing was perfect.

---

"Hey, Oliver," said Eric as Oliver walked into math class. Oliver sat in his now customary spot next to Eric and gave the boy a small smile.

"Hi, Eric. How's it going?"

"Good," the boy answered, "how about you?"

"I didn't do my math homework," said Oliver with a wince. "So I think I'm going to do that right now."

"That sucks, man," said Eric. "But good luck. It wasn't too hard. You should be able to finish it in about twenty minutes, no problem. If you've got a question or something you can just ask me."

"Thanks, man," Oliver replied and took out his math binder and the math worksheet from out of it. He got out his calculator and preceded to do the problems.

He was finished in fifteen minutes after the bell had rung and the teacher was still sitting at her desk, completely ignoring her students. She hadn't even taken roll yet.

Eric was napping with his head on his folded hands and Oliver decided not to wake him. He took out a book and read instead.

---

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" asked the boy that Oliver had accidentally walked into. He was going to the band instrument storage closet and wasn't looking where he was going because he had been talking to Eric.

"Look, I'm sorry," said Oliver with his hands out wide. "I wasn't looking where I was going, alright?"

The boy sneered at him. Oliver couldn't recall his name – the only thing he knew about the boy was that he played the base clarinet. "Damn right you weren't looking where you were going, you faggot."

Oliver's mouth dropped open in shock and Eric seemingly materialized out of the air to stand next to him, looking ready to kill someone.

"Excuse me?" asked Oliver in a strained tone of voice when he could finally speak.

"You heard me," said the boy and leaned forward to look the slightly shorter Oliver in the eye, completely ignoring Eric. "You're a faggot. I mean come on, a boy flute player? If that isn't a little fruity, I don't know what is. Plus, have you ever had a girlfriend in your life?"

Oliver started getting red in the face with anger at that. "Not that it's any of your business, but yeah. I've had two girlfriends."

The boy scoffed and leaned back. "Yeah," he said with an easy grin, "but they all dumped you when they found out how big of a faggot you are."

"Listen Johnson," hissed Eric, using the boy's last name hatefully and looking as if he was about to punch him in the face. Repeatedly. "You're one to talk! I saw you cuddling up to Charlie in the stands during the homecoming game, alright? So if anyone here's a faggot, that would be you."

The boy's eyes narrowed in rage and his next words were accompanied by small droplets of spittle shooting out of his mouth. "What did you say, you little shit?! I'm gonna kill –"

"Is there a problem here?" a cool voice interrupted. They turned to see Mr. Cross standing in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyebrow raised.

All three of the boys turned to face him. The bell had rung long ago and the room was empty except for them.

"Uh," said Johnson. "No, sir. There's no problem."

"There's no problem," said Eric. "Johnson here was just leaving."

The taller boy looked at Eric with unmasked hate, muttered 'yeah' and left the band room, grabbing his book bag off the floor as he went.

Mr. Cross watched him leave and then turned back to the two boys standing in front of him. Oliver didn't recognize the look on Mr. Cross' face and gulped in nervousness. He didn't know the punishment for being caught nearly fighting in the band director's domain.

Mr. Cross looked from Oliver to Eric. "Eric," he said without expression, "what was cause of this… incident?"

Eric balled his fists as the rage he had felt came back. "That piece of shit," he said, pointing the way Johnson had gone. Oliver winced at the use of a curse word in the presence of a grown up in a place of authority. Mr. Cross didn't react in any way other than to nod, urging Eric on. "He called Oliver a faggot," Eric finished.

"I see," said Mr. Cross and looked at Oliver. "I expect you take care of this… situation," he said after a moment. "I don't want this becoming a problem."

"Um…" said Oliver, uncertain of what was expected of him. "Yeah, sure."

Mr. Cross, catching Oliver's indecision turned to Eric. "You help him out if he needs help."

"Of course," said Eric with a nod.

Mr. Cross looked at the two of them for a moment more and then finally nodded as well. "You two should be on your way. You don't want to be late." He turned and left the band room to go back to his office.

"What was he talking about?" asked Oliver when he was certain that the band director wouldn't be able to hear it. Eric stayed silent for a moment and then got a chair and climbed up on it. He looked around at the tops of the lockers, then started moving some stuff around. "I wouldn't worry about Mr. Cross," he said. Dust was completely filling the air near the ceiling and Oliver felt dirty just looking at it. Finally Eric made a satisfied hum and grabbed something that had been lying on top of the lockers. Once he was on the ground again Oliver saw that he was holding a can of silver spray paint.

"This'll show up beautifully on that bastard's black paint job," he said with a smirk. He grabbed Oliver's sleeve. "Come on," he said and pulled him to the side door.

"Wait a minute, wait just a minute!" Oliver exclaimed in alarm. "What are you doing? We've got to get to math class, and – are you suggesting that we go vandalize someone's car or something because I really – I mean, I – "

Eric silenced him with a look. "That guy just called you a faggot, you understand? Are you going to let him – and others – get away with it? Because it's your chance for payback. You can take it or you can let people walk all over you. Besides, you've got an A in math, and we had a quiz last time – which you and I aced – which we're going to be going over for the entire class period. Neither you nor I really need to be there do we?"

"But, what if we're caught, I can't have that on my record! Vandalizing private property? That's really not my thing, you know…"

Eric laughed, causing Oliver to look up at him in surprise. "Didn't you hear Mr. Cross? He wants us to go out and put that moron in his place. Our band director hates homophobes and people who use gay slang in a derogatory manner. He'll cover our asses if they need to be covered."

"When did you hear him say that?" asked Oliver incredulously.

Eric sighed and ran a hand through his hair, somehow managing to maneuver his multitude of metal rings and bracelets so that they wouldn't get painfully caught in his hair. Oliver was sure that Eric had practiced in front of a mirror to make sure that the action was as suave as possible.

"Look, Oliver. Here's the deal – either you're coming or you're not. To tell you the truth, I could do this without you just as easily as I can do it with you. But you need to decide. What are you going to do?"

Eric looked Oliver in the eye, but Oliver looked down to the ground, thinking. Finally he looked up into Eric's gaze and gave the boy a razor sharp grin that he had no doubt learned from Mr. Cross. "Alright, let's do this thing."

Eric grinned a matching grin and patted Oliver on the shoulder. "Great! Let's go. Leave your stuff here, there's not going to be a class in here 'till seventh period."

Eric hid the spray can in one of the large pockets of his dark cargo pants, and they sneaked out the side door, leaving a stand in the doorway so that they wouldn't get locked out.

They walked along the wall of the school, crouching down under any windows so that they wouldn't be seen from the inside and carefully keeping an eye out for their high schools single police officer. Oliver was starting to get a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach – if his parents found out that not only was he skipping class, he was off spray painting private property.

They made it to the senior parking lot behind the school with no incident and headed towards the back where Eric said Johnson's car was parked.

"Do you know what it looks like?" asked Oliver dubiously as he looked around row upon row of cars standing on the black asphalt.

"Yeah," said Eric with a grin. "I washed the kid's car a couple of times for some extra money. Strange thing was, he'd sit at the window of his house whenever I did it, watching me. I stopped doing it too much after that."

Oliver shuddered. "Damn, that's way creepy."

Eric laughed. "Yeah, I know. But that's not how I know he's gay."

Oliver grabbed Eric's sleeve. "What?! He's gay?!"

Eric laughed again and kept walking through the parking lot, looking around at each car in turn. "Yeah. I saw him making out with some guy under the bleachers last year. That's the only reason he's calling you gay, you know. He just doesn't want people to find out about him."

Eric stopped behind a hot black sports car. "We're here, this is it. Nice, isn't it?"

The dark-haired boy started to shake up the can with the tell-tale click.

Oliver grabbed his friends hand and pulled it back, away from the car.

"Wait a minute, Eric," he said, biting his lower lip.

Eric sighed and turned to Oliver. "What is it? You're not having second thoughts, are you?"

Oliver looked down at the ground. "Yeah, I am! I mean, don't you think this is a bit too extreme? Just… ruining his car like this? Besides, you said it yourself. The only reason that he called me… that, was because he's gay himself and doesn't want people to find out. This whole thing just feels, really… strange to me."

Eric ran a hand through his hair and then rubbed the back of his neck. "Oliver,
he said. "Oh, Oliver. How can I explain it to you?"

Oliver looked at his friend with wide eyes and stayed silent.

"Don't you see how much of a hypocrite he is? Doesn't that make you mad?"

"Well, I guess," murmured Oliver, and scuffed his toe against the asphalt.

"Besides," said Eric, "it won't be that much damage. He'll just get another paint job. Whoever can afford a car like this can afford to get it repainted. If we do this now, it'll be fixed by tomorrow.

"And if you're worried about getting in trouble, don't be. Trust me. We'll be fine, even if we're caught. Besides, you've never done this sort of thing before, so at most you'll just get detention. Does that make you feel any better?"

Oliver nodded.

"So are we doing this, or what?"

Oliver thought for a while. "Yeah," he said firmly, "yeah, let's do it."

Eric shook up the can and smirked at Oliver. "Great."

By the time they left the car was completely covered in silver marks.

---

At the end of the next band class Oliver saw that Mr. Cross was talking to Johnson and Prince Klemens VM High School's only police officer in his office.

The students were all gone by then and Oliver and Eric were the only ones left in the band room. Eric put a hand to his lips, signaling for Oliver to be quiet, and waved the light-haired boy over to join him in the doorway of the band room. The place where they stood could not be seen from the band director's office, but they could hear perfectly what was being said inside.

"This boy believes he knows who vandalized his car," said the deep rumbling voice of the police officer. He sounded extremely disinterested and Oliver could easily picture him picking his fingernails.

"Damn right, I know who did it!" came the over – excited voice of Johnson. "It was that flute boy and his punk friend! It couldn't have been anyone else!"

"I'm getting a little nauseous from all of those exclamation marks," Eric whispered to Oliver with a grin. Oliver was too nervous about being discovered to pay his friend any attention.

"I assure you, you're mistaken," came the cool disinterested voice of Mr. Cross.

"Can you prove that the two boys in question were elsewhere during the event," the police officer drawled.

"There were here with me," said Mr. Cross. "I made them organize music."

"Alright, then, Mr. Cross," said the police officer. "Sorry boy, I guess you were mistaken," he said again, this time speaking to Johnson.

"What! Like hell they were here! They were outside spray painting my car!"

Eric winced and laughed quietly. "Damn, that was a big mistake."

"Excuse me?" Mr. Cross asked Johnson in an icy tone of voice that made the temperature in the room fall twenty degrees.

There was a long silence before Johnson hurried to apologize, stuttering and tripping over his words.

"I – I – I – I'm so s – s – sorry s – s – sir! I – I – I – I'm certainly n – n – not c – c – calling y – y – you a l – liar, I w – w – w – was j – j – just –"

"I'll you two to work it out, then," drawled the police officer.

"Thank you," said Mr. Cross, not quite so coldly anymore, "that would be ideal."

Eric quickly pulled Oliver out of the doorway and back into the band room so that the officer wouldn't spot them when he walked out.

Once the officer was gone they went back so that they could listen to the rest of the conversation.

"I don't know what you thought you were doing," Mr. Cross hissed angrily.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Cross," said Johnson, humbled.

"Band matters will be handled within the band," Mr. Cross continued, ignoring the boy's apology. "I will not have you tarnishing the name of this department, and my name by association."

"Yes, sir," the boy replied.

"If it happens again, you can be assured that there will be hell to pay."

"Yes, sir," said Johnson, "it won't happen again. I promise. I just – well. I'm sorry. Really, really, sorry, sir."

Mr. Cross scoffed. "Your apologies are useless to me. Just get out of here."

There was a scrape of a chair as Johnson stood up. "Um. Sorry, again. Goodbye."

Oliver and Eric dove back into the band room again, and the dejected boy walking out of the band director's office didn't notice them.

"Boys," came Mr. Cross' voice once Johnson left the music hall. "Come here."

"Crap," whispered Oliver worriedly. He was shocked, he had no idea that Mr. Cross had known there were there and listening.

"Don't worry about it," Eric whispered to his friend. They straightened up and walked into the band director's office. Oliver was a bit nervous and was wringing his hands in the bottom of his shirt.

"Don't bother sitting down," said Mr. Cross when they walked into his office. Eric perched on the corner of the band director's chair and Oliver remained standing close to the door. "This won't take long," Mr. Cross continued, his dark gaze sweeping over them. He was sitting comfortably in his large comfortable chair and his glove – clad hands were lying on the arm rests.

"I'm extremely disappointed that you made your identities so obvious to him." He turned to look at Eric. "I can understand Oliver, but you should have known better. Couldn't you at least have waited a couple of days for him to piss off someone else that you can transfer the blame to?"

Oliver stared at his band director in shock. He hadn't expected the man to give him advice on how to vandalize other people's cars.

"Sorry, sir," said Eric with a grin. "I don't know what got over me. I was too eager, and we rushed things a bit."

Mr. Cross shrugged. "Ah well. What's done is done. Apart from all that, I'd say you did a marvelous job."

Eric perked up in interest. "Oh? You saw?"

Mr. Cross nodded slowly. "That boy – he is not a good enough musician for me to possibly remember his name – brought photos and waved them around in my general direction angrily."

"So what did you think?" asked Eric.

Mr. Cross shrugged. "I congratulate you on not spray painting of the windows. That was a very clever tactical move, ensuring that he would be able to drive the car, advertising its condition to more people than would have seen it had it just been standing in the parking lot."

Eric's grin got – if possible – even wider.

"But, of course," continued the band director. "We've never had this conversation."

Eric nodded seriously, then elbowed Oliver in the ribs, causing Oliver to start nodding as well.

"Of course, sir," said Eric.

"Of course, sir," Oliver echoed.

"Never happened," said Eric.

Mr. Cross raised an eyebrow and inclined his head. "I'll see you two boys at practice, then. Don't be late."

Eric laughed and nodded. "Of course not," he said

"We won't be late," Oliver said.

They got up and left the office, dropped by the band room to retrieve their back packs and headed to math. As they passed Mr. Cross' office again the band director handed them two passes written on obscenely pink paper.

They murmured their thanks and grabbed the passes before hurrying out of the music hallway and towards their math classroom.

"Told you he'd look out for us," Eric told Oliver. Eric had longer legs than his friend, and Oliver was having a bit of trouble keeping up, so periodically he would have to break into a jog in order catch up.

"That's strange," said Oliver, "that the band director is facilitating our delinquency."

Eric laughed. "Wow, Ollie. Those are some big words!"

The late bell rang.

"Crap," said Oliver.

"It doesn't matter," said Eric. "We've got passes, remember?"

Oliver grabbed Eric's shoulder and pulled him backwards to slow down his pace. "If we've got passes, why in the world are we walking so fast?" he asked.

Eric glanced at Oliver. "You're completely right. Somehow I didn't think of that. Let's slow down, then, shall we? Take a stroll, the scenic route –"

"Yeah, yeah," Oliver interrupted. "We still don't want to miss being taught stuff, okay? The quiz is next class."

Eric laughed as they walked up the stairs. "So make up your mind, are we going fast or slow?"

Oliver thought for a moment before turning to Eric. "We are walking neither fast nor slow, we are walking at a reasonable walking pace."

"Clever," said Eric, and they continued on to class.

---

The rest of the year passed quickly, although the last week of school seemed to be stretching out indefinitely. Everyone was having trouble focusing, most teachers had given them their final exams the week previously, and now there was nothing to do. They sat around idly, chatted, and did whatever they pleased.

In history Cory taught Oliver how to play poker and he, Oliver, Allison, and Derek spent most of their time playing cards.

The chemistry teacher was still lecturing the kids on something, but since SOL's and all exams and tests were over, no one was paying attention to her. Derek had the kindness to upload a bunch of games onto Oliver's calculator, and Oliver spent the majority of the time trying to beat Derek's unnaturally high scores. He only succeeded in one game: snake, and that was only because Derek hated snake with a fiery passion.

The last day of school was pointless, and only there so that kids could sign each other's year books. Oliver debated on whether or not to come, and was finally suckered into it by his friends. When it was all over Oliver went outside to the front of the school to wait for his brother to bring the car over to the front.

"Hey, Oliver," said Eric behind him. Oliver turned around and smiled.

"Hi. I didn't see you at all today, I thought you weren't here. Where were you during the twenty minute joke that was math?"

Eric sat down on the curb next to Oliver. He waved his hand dismissively at Oliver's question. "I was hanging out with some other kids by the band room. Well. Outside, actually."

"Ah," said Oliver and nodded. He was still coming to terms with the fact that Eric smoked. At least, Oliver supposed, Eric wasn't a chain smoker. Or a pot smoker. Or addicted to heroin. In contrast with all those things, smoking really wasn't that back.

"So, how are you doing?" asked Eric, drawing the conversation back away from the precipice it was teetering on.

"I'm fine, just a little sad that I won't be seeing my friends over the summer that much. How are you?"

"I wanted to give you this," said Eric, and handed Oliver a small folded up sheet of paper that looked as though it had been ripped out of a note book.

"What's this?" asked Oliver as he unrolled it. A phone number was written on it, but it wasn't labeled.

"It's my cell phone number," said Eric with a grin. "You just said that you won't be seeing anyone that much over the summer, and this way we can keep in touch."

Oliver smiled. "Thanks! I don't have a cell phone, though, and – "

"It's alright," said Eric. "Just call me whenever, if you want to get together or just talk. But really. When I say whenever, I mean it. Whenever. Don't worry even if you need to call at three in the morning." Eric grinned. "I stay up late – or, well, early."

"Thanks, Eric," said Oliver.

A black jeep blasting loud rock music pulled up to a stop in front of them. Eric stood up. "This is my ride," he said. "Have you got a ride home, Oliver?" he asked.

Oliver nodded with a smile. "Yeah, my brother." Oliver looked over to the entrance of the high school drive and saw his brother's car. "He's actually here already."

Eric grinned. "Great. I guess I'll see you later. Or, well. Next year, at the latest."

"Bye," said Oliver.

"Are you getting in the fucking car or not?" yelled the driver at Eric. Eric turned around and glared. "Would you turn the damn music down, Richie?"

"Bastard," the driver muttered, but both Oliver and Eric heard him because he had turned the music down first.

"A friend of yours?" Oliver asked disapprovingly.

"Yeah," said Eric sheepishly. He leaned over to Oliver and whispered into his ear conspiratorially, "he's just crabby because he thought it would be cool to go commando on the last day of school."

Oliver's eyes widened in shock. That wasn't the explanation he was expecting.

"I told him it would chafe," said Eric with a shrug, "but he just didn't want to listen to me. I've got to go, see you later."

"Bye," said Oliver, and Eric got into the jeep. One the passenger side door was closed it took off with a mighty roar. Tim's car pulled up into the place where the jeep had been.

"Get in, bro," said Tim. "I'm late to a date with… what's her face. You know. The one with the hair." Tim motioned vaguely with his hands, indicating some sort of hair do.

"That's real specific," said Oliver with a laugh.

Tim took off from the curb marginally less violently than the jeep had. They went home for the summer.

---

"Ah, boys. You're back," said Oliver's mother when he and Tim walked through the door. It was the middle of July and the two brothers had just returned from an outing to the movie theater.

Oliver's mother was looking pale and worried. His father was sitting at the kitchen table, looking a little angry.

"We need to talk to you boys," he said.

Oliver's blood ran cold, those words never meant anything good. He felt Tim's fingers press into his shoulder gently.

"What is it?" asked Tim calmly.

Their mother took a deep breath before speaking. "Your father and I are getting a divorce."

Oliver went pale and Tim's fingers pressed harder into his shoulder, bringing Oliver back to reality. "Huh?" asked Oliver weakly, sounding a little lost.

"Your mother and I have decided that it would be better for everyone if we… did. That."

"Your father and I are separated starting today."

"What?" exclaimed Oliver. "I can't believe this, what the – OW!" Tim had dug his fingers into Oliver's shoulder, the quick flash of pain effectively cutting him off.

"So how will this work?" asked Tim with a cool calm.

"Oh," said their mother and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "We've talked to a lawyer and decided that you boys will live with your father in this house. Don't worry, though. I'm not going far. I've got an apartment within half an hour of here, and we'll be together all the time, okay?"

Tim nodded calmly while Oliver felt his face starting to get hot.

"Are you boys going to be alright with this?" asked their father nervously.

"We'll be fine," answered Tim. "Won't we, Oliver?" he asked and turned to look his brother in the face.

All three of his family members were staring at him now.

"I…" said Oliver but trailed off. He looked from his father to his mother then back again. "I- I'm going out, okay?" He shook off his brother's constraining hand and headed out the door.

"Oliver!" his mother called out and made to rush after her son. Tim put out a hand to stop her.

"He'll be alright, Mom. He just needs some time to adjust to the whole idea. You guys didn't exactly break it to us easy, did you? But don't worry about Oliver. He'll be fine. He'll be back in a couple of hours."

---

Oliver walked down the street to the park that was by his house. He nearly ran to the small playground and collapsed on a swing. He angrily wiped away tears when he noticed that they were there. He sighed after a while and kicked at the ground. Finally he took out his cell phone.

"Hey, Eric. It's Oliver."

"Hi, Ollie. How's it going?"

"Oh. It's… fine. Listen, do you want to hang out or something?"

"Yeah, definitely. When?"

"How about now?"

A laugh. "Now, Oliver? Sure. Where are you? I can come meet you."

"I'm at the park by my house… I don't really know where it is, but I guess I can go back to my house to wait for you…"

"You don't sound to enthusiastic about that. Is this the park that's next to the Korean church?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Where are you in the park?"

"I'm sitting on a swing at the playground that's by the tennis courts."

"Alright, then. I'll see you in about fifteen minutes."

"Great. I'll see you then.

"Bye, Ollie."

"Bye, Eric."

---

Oliver was dozing off when the frame the swings were hanging off of shuddered as Eric sat down on a swing next to him. Eric was wearing a dark gray shirt with small sleeves and a sharp logo of some skateboard company. He had on a pair of baggy light grey shorts that just barely covered his knees and a pair of bright green flip flops. He had a wide dark green wrist band with the same skateboard company logo stitched out on it in a bright neon green on one wrist and a multitude of metal and beaded bracelets on the other. All ten fingers were heavily covered by rings and he was wearing a small compass on a chain around his neck that went down the middle of his chest. He had gotten a lot more tan and his black hair was looking slightly damp and a little longer – in the front his hair went down to his earlobes and in the back it was just long enough to cover the nape of his neck. He was holding a lit cigarette in the fingers of his left hand. He brought it up to his face and took a deep drag before speaking.

"Hey, kid," said Eric with a smile.

"Hey," said Oliver dejectedly, he was unable to summon even the slightest bit of enthusiasm.

"You look…" Eric trailed off as he searched for an adjective in his mind, "terrible," he choose finally, unable to put a better spin on it. Oliver's plain tee shirt and baggy shorts were extremely wrinkled, his eyes were ringed in red, and his hair was messy from the number of times he had run his fingers through it nervously. "What happened?"

"I – Oh. Yeah, my parents have told me today that they're getting divorced."

Eric winced. "Jeez. I'm sorry, Oliver."

Oliver waved a hand to dismiss Eric's apology. "Don't worry about it. I'm fine."

Eric raised an eyebrow and looked at Oliver dubiously.

Oliver sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Seriously. I'm going to be fine. It's just a bit of a shock, you know? I didn't know that they were even having problems or anything. But I guess that's how life is. Whatever makes them happy, I guess." Oliver rubbed his face. "I don't want to talk about this anymore, it's making me depressed again."

Eric nodded sympathetically. "We should go out and do something fun," he said.

Oliver finally gave his friend a smile – although it was probably the weakest smile that Eric had ever seen. "Of course we should. Why do you think I called you? You always know what to do to cheer me up."

"You wanna go vandalize someone's car?" Eric asked jockingly.

Oliver laughed. "No thanks, I think I've had enough of vandalizing cars in my entire lifetime."

"Come on," said Eric and stood up. He took a final drag of his cigarette, flicked it to the ground and stomped it with his bright green rubber sole, putting it out. Oliver stood up and followed his friend out of the park.

"Damn, Eric," said Oliver with an easy laugh. "You're wearing so much jewelry, I'm surprised you're not jingling!"

Eric threw a good natured glare over his shoulder to his shorter friend. "Hey, I like it. Apparently there's a species of girls who like it too."

They walked out of the park and saw a old battered white sedan parked by the sidewalk. Eric dug through his pocket and pulled out a pair of keys on a lanyard. He pressed a button and the car beeped, unlocking.

"Woah," said Oliver and came to a stop next to Eric. "This is yours?"

Eric grinned. "Yeah. It's not much to look at, I know. But it's a car, which is better than no car."

Oliver laughed in delight. "It's white! The only time I've seen white on you is when you got caught in the middle of gesso day for the Art two class! I warned you but you went anyway, didn't you."

Eric scowled. "Listen you have an artist for a brother, how the hell was I supposed to know what gesso was? It all washed out, but I'm still too traumatized to go into the art room. I've always got to send someone in there first to see if anyone's priming a canvas."

Oliver laughed. "You're such a wimp sometimes, it's great. Can you even drive, by the way?"

"Yeah, I can, in fact. I got my license five weeks ago, right after school got out."

Oliver nodded and Eric walked over to the driver's side. They got into the car and buckled up. Eric leaned over Oliver to search through the glove department. He pulled out a packet of gum and offered some to Oliver, who declined. Eric pulled out two sticks of gum and stuffed both of the minty blue rectangles into his mouth. He chewed them feverishly while he put his keys into the ignition and started the car. He checked his mirrors and put his car into gear, carefully pulling away from the curb.

"As far as I can tell, you're a better driver than my brother," said Oliver.

"That's good to know," Eric replied.

"So, where are going?" asked Oliver.

"First, we're going to go have some ice cream, and then we're going to wait until eleven o'clock and go skinny dipping in the Ms. Anderson's pool." Eric checked the car clock quickly. "So we've got about two hours until then. Sound good?"

"Yeah," said Oliver. "Except I feel like you're having a bad influence on me. I've never gone skinny dipping, much less in a pool into which I've had to sneak in. I've actually never sneaked into anywhere before. I'm really feeling like a juvenile delinquent."

Eric laughed. "Well, it's not delinquency, it's summer! You've got to have a little fun, don't you? Besides, Mr. Anderson doesn't mind. Plus, she's not even here. She's in Amsterdam with her boyfriends."

"Boyfriends, plural?" asked Oliver in amazement.

"Two boyfriends. She's dating twins, or actually, she was dating one of the twins. But then it turned out that both twins liked her and were actually taking turns going on dates with her. When she found out that she was dating both of them she was quick to assure them that there was enough of her to go around."

"Wow, that's…" said Oliver, but trailed off when he failed to figure out what it was.

"Yeah. As you can see, she's too busy with the twins to care about some boys sneaking into her pool."

They had pulled up to the ice cream parlor and Eric carefully parked the car. He took the keys out of the ignition and both boys unbuckled their seatbelts. Before they left the car, however, Eric turned to look Oliver seriously in the eyes.

"We're here to have fun, right? So don't worry about your parents. Everything is going to turn out fine, and I'm not just saying that, I know from multiple experiences."

Oliver looked Eric in the eyes for a couple of moments and finally nodded. "Thanks, Eric."

They left the car and it was as though the summer had really started.

---

Eric and Oliver spent a lot of time together during the summer. They snuck into Ms. Anderson's pool on multiple occasions, and in the beginning of August Eric had introduced Oliver to her. Oliver had to agree that Ms. Anderson had other things on her mind than two boys sneaking into her pool.

Band camp started in the middle of August but Eric and Oliver didn't stop hanging out, although they were both always exhausted afterwards so they tended to go the closest air conditioned area with comfortable chairs and collapse.

The drum major was a boy named Matt who played trumpet and seemed to have no personality. He was the most neutral person that Oliver had come across, but he was a good musician and a good drum major.

Band was strange without Zoe, but the influx of loud obnoxious freshmen was a good distraction. Mr. Cross hated the insufferable freshmen as much as the upperclassmen did and started to employ a class based system which guaranteed that the freshmen would be doing all of the work. Oliver walked past Mr. Cross and Mr. Cattela chuckling about it a couple of times and was often invited to chuckle with them. Mr. Cross was also talking to Oliver more, asking his opinion about things. When Oliver asked Eric what he thought that meant Eric laughed and patted Oliver on the shoulder.

"I've known Mr. Cross a lot longer than most of the people here, and therefore I know him a lot better. He makes his mind up about things quickly. He's already chosen you to be next year's drum major, and now he's grooming you for the position."

Oliver blinked. "He's chosen me? But I don't even know how to conduct…"

"Don't worry about it," said Eric. "It's easy. Just think: Floor, door, window, ceiling."

"…What?"

Eric repeated the short little chant, this time demonstrating with his hands. "But really, I'm sure that Mr. Cross will find some cleverly subtle way to introduce you to conducting."

"But, I'm just not sure you're right. Why would he want me to be drum major?"

"He likes you," said Eric. "You're a great flutist, you're dedicated, you're smart, you're not constantly annoying him with stupid questions. Why wouldn't he want you to be drum major?"

It turned out that Eric had been right about one thing, though. When the school year started, so did flute choir. The three senior flute players miraculously couldn't be a part of it – all of them coming up with diverse reasons. One said that she was too busy preparing for her IB exams, one said that her doctor told her it would be unhealthy for her to play flute so often, one said that she was allergic to public performances. Oliver ended up being the oldest in the group. After two practices the flute sectionals teacher who was in charge of flute choir failed to show up. Oliver went and got Mr. Cross to ask him what they should do.

The band director walked into the band room and silently surveyed the seventeen flute players watching him with wide eyes while the eighteenth – Oliver – stood to the side and slightly behind him looking slightly bored with his arms crossed over his chest.

Mr. Cross turned to Oliver. "Alright, Oliver. You conduct."

Oliver uncrossed his arms and stood up straighter. "Oh. Um. What?"

"Is that a problem?" Mr. Cross asked with an arched eyebrow.

"Uh. No, that's not a problem."

"Great," said Mr. Cross and looked over the flute players. "Get to it, then."

As he walked past Oliver on the way back to his office he paused and leaned over imperceptibly. He spoke quietly. "Just remember: floor, door, window ceiling for four counts, skip the window for three, and skip the door for two. I doubt you have anything any more complicated than that, but always check the time signature and never do something you don't know how to conduct. If you have any questions, ask me after flute choir is over." Mr. Cross straightened up. "I believe your instructor left an extra score on the shelf," he said and made a wide sweep with his arm, specifying the shelf he was talking about. "Get to it, then."

He walked out and Oliver turned to the flute players that were staring at him. The freshmen were looking at him as though he was a God, the sophomores were regarding him with indifference, and the juniors – his peers – were watching him with barely hidden distaste.

Oliver walked over to the shelf and got the score. He opened it up and tried not to look too bewildered as he regarded the multiple flute parts all one under another. He decided to ignore the bits he didn't understand and saw that the first piece had a time signature of four/four, something that he could conduct. He decided to just follow the first part, and figured that it would work out.

"Alright, guys, let's play the first piece."

There was some quiet muttering mixed in with the shuffling of music but the flute players were all ready in a couple of minutes.

Oliver took a deep breath and raised his arms. "I'm going to give you a bar for nothing, and then you come in."

He conducted the first bar, and the music started.

Mr. Cross who was in his office but listening intently, smiled. Mr. Cattela and Eric, who were in the office as well, knew at the smile that Oliver's fate was sealed.

---

"Hey, Oliver," said Derek as he caught up to his friend.

"Hi, Derek," said Oliver. He was walking to his locker to get the rest of his things before going home. Eric was waiting for him in the junior parking lot, and he didn't want the other boy to be waiting for him for too long.

"Oliver, do you want to hang out with me, Allison, and Cory this Saturday?"

Oliver turned his head to look at Derek but didn't slow down. "Sorry, Derek, I've already got plans," he said with an apologetic shrug.

Derek scowled. "With who? That punk ass kid, what's his name? Eric?"

Oliver frowned. "Yeah, actually. He's my friend, though. So would you please not talk about him like that?"

They reached Oliver's locker and stopped in front of it. Oliver turned away from Derek, put his combination in, and opened the locker.

Derek slammed his hand on the closed locker next to Oliver's. "Damn it, Oliver! He's the only damn friend you've got! You've completely forgotten about us non smokers! None of us have seen you at all this summer, and in band camp you've basically ignored us. You haven't spoken to Cory even once this entire school year, and you've got a class with him! You've talked to Allison twice, and one time you said hello, and the second time you asked to borrow a dollar. This conversation we're having right now is the longest one we've had in three months. We're all feeling a little neglected in favor of your new friend," Derek spit out the last two words as though they were distasteful.

Oliver turned to Derek. "I'm sorry that you feel that way, it certainly wasn't my intention to do that. I really didn't mean to do that. Really. I'm sorry. You're absolutely right, now that I think about it. I have been neglecting you guys. We'll definitely get together soon. Just… not Saturday. Alright?" Oliver smiled at Derek, but Derek didn't smile back.

"Alright, Ollie. Sure. I'll see you later," said Derek and walked away.

Oliver took a deep breath and got the rest of the things he needed before heading downstairs and out into the parking lot. He met Eric by the dark haired boy's battered white sedan of indeterminate model. They decided to go to Ms. Anderson's pool one while she wasn't home yet, but decided against it when they found out that the twins were sunbathing in the deck chairs by the pool – naked.

Oliver and Eric decided to go take a nap on the grassy knoll behind the Giant.

---

"I'm so glad you could take time out of your busy schedule to hang out with our old friends," said Allison a bit angrily. All four of them were hanging out together at the park once again.

"I'm sorry," said Oliver. "I already told you. I'm going to make more of an effort from now on, okay? We'll hang out all the time. I'm sorry about how I neglected you."

"Your apology doesn't change anything," said Derek and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Guys!" exclaimed Cory. "I though we were doing this to have fun, not harass Oliver. I am not having fun listening to you two yell at him. He said he was sorry, he said he's not going to forget about us anymore, why can't you two just forgive him already?"

"Thank you Cory," said Oliver. "I'm actually surprised that you're the one that's standing up for me. I've treated you the worst out of all you guys. I haven't spoken to you at all until today."

Cory smiled and patted Oliver on the back. "Someone's got to protect you. Or those two," he jerked his thumb behind him to point at Allison and Derek, "will eat you alive. Besides, I don't think you'd forget about us on purpose, right?"

"Yeah," said Oliver.

"So why don't you tell us what's going on. Something's different, I know it. There's a change in you."

"Oh," said Oliver and looked down at the ground. "Yeah, something is different. My parents got divorced. I'm living with my dad now."

"Oh, wow," said Allison. "I'm so sorry I was so harsh with you. I didn't know that something like that happened, I thought you were just being an ass!"

Oliver smiled weakly. "Thanks, Allison."

She winced. "Sorry."

"Yeah, sorry man. I wouldn't have said all that mean stuff to you if I had known," said Derek.

Oliver shrugged. "No, I don't have an excuse, I'm sorry I forgot about you guys."

"So, what's it like?" asked Allison nervously.

"Oh," said Oliver dejectedly. "It's not so bad. I see my mom all the time. It was better when Tim was there, though. He took it really well, he had this whole speech about how our parents are people too, and they deserve to be happy and blah blah blah. I believed him when he said it. It was that good. And now he's off to college and it's just me and Dad and he's working all the time, and depressed all the time.

"And that's why I was hanging out with Eric all the time. I could call him anytime I wanted – he keeps really messed up hours – and he'd think of something we could do that would cheer me up. And I needed that, you know? Sometimes I would go to sleep perfectly fine and then wake up in the middle of the night and realize that oh my God, my parents are divorced! And I couldn't call any of you guys, because your parents would probably shoot me or something for calling at three in the morning."

"Oh," said Derek. "I'm sorry, Oliver."

"Yeah, I'm sorry too," said Cory.

"Me three," said Allison.

Oliver smiled at them. "No, no. It's fine. I'm good now. I can deal with it."

Cory, Derek, and Allison walked over to him and gave him a big group hug.

He pulled away from them. "Thanks guys," he said. "I'm sorry, but I've got to go."

"Oh, alright, then," said Allison with a smile. "Bye."

"Bye, Oliver," said Derek.

"I'll see you later, man," said Cory.

"Bye, guys," said Oliver. He gave them a little wave and left the park. He didn't tell them that he was going to meet Eric.

---

Author's note: Well, and that's basically it. ;