My Freshman Year

Chapter 1

freshman band camp

July 19, 2010

It was my first day of freshman band camp. I felt so small going into a new world that was so big. But, that's not really saying much because well I was kinda small. I'm was all of 5 foot 2 and only weighed about 100 pounds. I had wavy brown hair that went right past my shoulders and tri colored eyes. People had always seen my eyes as strange and weird because they had a dark blue ring around the outside with a green ring inside the blue and gold ring on the very inner part. I was wearing a cami and shorts with my usual vans.

Every year the section leaders that were chosen the year before come for the first two days to teach the freshman about how to march.

I unwillingly got out of my mothers car into the 100 degree weather of Alabama. I walked over to my friend Sam's car. She was only about an inch taller than me with almost shoulder length brown hair. She had grey eyes and broad shoulders but was muscular. She was wearing a tight fitting shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes. She waved but looked almost as nervous as I did. We walked together with our trumpet cases in hand to the big band room on the side of the school. We both put our cases in the same corner of the band room and got out our trumpets and got up to walk to the practice field which was the parking lot. There were already freshman grouping up. We walked over the black top to one side of the practice field and put our stuff down. We were standing there talking when I heard an unfamiliar voice say "Ellie?"

I turned to see a tall dark skinned boy standing a few feet away. "Tony??" I replied back and ran and jumped into the boy. "I haven't seen you in years!"

He hugged me back and replied, "I know. I've missed you."

Tony was my best friend since we were like 3. We grew up together and went to the same school. He left my small private school around 5th grade and I hadn't seen him since. It was a wonder he even recognized me. He was almost 6 feet tall with dark skin and a shaved head. There was a tall boy standing behind him. He was even taller than Tony. He had dark skin and braces and short hair that went into a little mini afro. He looked down at me and said, "Hey, I'm Jackson."

I replied, "Hey, I'm Ellie."

By that time the section leaders were starting to come outside and the band directors were following them. The section leaders started to round up their sections and Sam and I walked over to the trumpets. The section leader was hard to find. He was about the same height as most of the freshman but he was a total ass barking orders at us like we were mental. He was maybe only a few inches taller than me with tan skin and dark brown hair. He was wearing a t-shirt and gym shorts. There was a boy standing behind him, he looked older but I didn't know why he was there if this other asshole was our section leader. He was short only about 3 or 4 inches taller than me. He was wearing a grey t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off and black gym shorts. He was tan and had his head shaved. I didn't notice until later on though when he was closer to me that he had the bluest eyes I'd ever seen. They were beautiful and I wanted them. The boy was cute but I wasn't really interested, he seemed to keep to himself.

My section leader, James started yelling at us to get in line and started showing us how to march. While we practiced James and the other boy walked between the rows and inspected us. The other boy kept picking on me, my horn angle, my feet, the way I marched, it seemed like everything I did he had a comment on. It was starting to piss me off. I was just like really? This is my first day, back off.

We worked outside in the heat for hours until around lunch time, we had started at 8:00 that morning. We were dismissed by the director for the day and told to return the next day at the same time for our last day of freshman band camp.

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The next morning things went the same. Sam and I talked with Tony and Jackson until it was time to start. Tony and Jackson were both in the sax section so we didn't practice with them during the day. Sam and I joined our group like before where James was still screaming, shocker, and the other boy was standing quietly behind him. We marched for about and hour and then we were dismissed for a ten minute or so water break. Sam and I walked over and got some water from the coolers and sat in the shade of one of the transfer trucks. The quiet boy walked up to us and said, "I need two more for my section will you join."

I looked at the boy rather surprised and asked, "What section?"

He said, "I am the mellophone section leader, I'm Drake."

I said, "Maybe, but I will if she does." and pointed at Sam.

Sam said, "I'll think about it."

He looked at both of us and said "ok" and walked off.

The rest of the day went by pretty smooth aside from James' constant yelling and Drake's constant correcting me. We were dismissed around the same time as before and told to come back the next day ready for the real thing.