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I'm working on a short story on band and school and whatnot.
It'll probably end up being really long, though.
Thank you to everyone who reads it and please post your criticism. I need to know how good/bad it is and what I should fix.

Here it is! Begin rating please!

For most people, the first day of high school begins on, well...the first day of school. Mostly on August something or other. In books, they come in and can't find their locker, see old friends they used to live and now they can't stand, and they get lost still trying to find their locker and then they're late for first period, still not having found their locker.

Well, that's how my first day of high school was, but high school seemed to begin a whole lot sooner than that.

Freshman band camp. Everything you needed to know about eternal damnation. In Texas, summer is hot, hot, hot and there's nothing you can do about it. Not even pray.

So the first day of summer band, it's just us freshman. Some of these freshman, I know, some I don't, mostly I don't care. I'm just happy we're inside, in the air conditioning, instead of outside on the blacktop "marching field." We're all getting to know each other. We sit in a circle and tell our names and something about ourselves. Then the next person has to repeat the previous person's name and distinguishing attribute and then do the same for themselves. The next person has to repeat the first two people's names and whatever is interesting about them and then state their own information.

I have a really bad memory, but I fare well. I only screw up a few people's names before I get to tell them my own. "My name is Anna, and I have a pet cougar."

I hear a collective gasp. Exactly what I was going for.

"Really?" And so begins the barrage of questions.

"You actually have a lion?"

"No, not a lion. I used to have a lion, but right now we have a cougar. They're smaller than lions." I hear murmurs about the lion, but they continue on with the cougar idea. I love the attention.

"Does it ever attack you?"

"No, she doesn't. She's in a metal cage."

"What do you feed it?"

"We buy this specially formulated canned food that zoos feed their wild cats."

"Do you play with it?"

"No, my dad plays with her, though. We had her de clawed and they filed down her really pointy teeth. She can't really hurt you...too much." I never went near the thing. I didn't like to go by her cage, because she would run up to the bars and try to attack you through the holes in the wire. Plus, dad needed to scoop her litter box, because it smelled something fierce. I don't want to say this, though. I tell them how great it is to have a pet cougar and I love her.

"Yeah," I say as we move on to the next person, "Kitty-Kitty's awesome."

We learn how to march. They teach us the attention positions, and when the band directors or the drum majors or the band officers yell a command, such as: “Knight!” We respond, “Sir!” We spread our legs out to shoulder length and put our left hands behind our backs and our right hands in a fist, down by our sides. Then, they say, “Ten-hut, ten-hut!” And we counter, “Huh!” We smartly bring our heels together and put our hands together, about chest height, about a foot in front of our bodies, left hand over the right hand and our thumbs together. We make sure our heels are together, but our toes are supposed to be a fist-length apart, and our knees are also together and slightly bent, but not too bent and also not too straight. We’re supposed to lean forward a little bit, but not too much to where we would fall over. We make sure that our backs are straight and our stomachs are in and our chests are out and that our eyes are with pride.

Then we stand there. We stand out on the hot blacktop in end-of-July weather, which is basically hot with a side of heat beating down on you and sunburn for dessert. We stand there and continue to stand there until all of the officers and band directors and whatnot finish going around and correcting people. They fix our posture and our legs and our whole attention position. Our feet are too far apart or too close together because people’s fists are different sizes. We stand there and sweat is running down my nose and my legs itch and sweat is now in my eyes and I desperately want to wipe it off, but I can’t because we’re not allowed to move. We move and they yell at you.

“Ten push ups.” They say. Then we’ll be even more tired of just standing there and we’ll move again and I’ll have to do more push ups. The whole band does push ups because a person moves.

Ten more push ups because someone gives in to that desire to scratch the itch on their nose. While I’m down doing my push ups, I wipe the sweat out of my eyes and scratch the back of my leg where some kind of bug landed there or bit me or something like that.

When you’re standing there, staring straight ahead, you try to think about anything but what you’re supposed to be thinking about. You’re supposed to be thinking about posture and body position and how you’re not supposed to be locking you knees because you’ll pass out. I’m supposed to be thinking about what the directors are saying about how this kind of discipline will help later on when we’re at contest and we have to stand there and wait for the judges to say that they’re ready. I tune the director out as he gives stupid reasons for us to be standing there in agony.

Ten push ups because someone was talking.

I think about how I’m only going to be in this long enough to get my letter jacket, and then I’m so out of band. I think about how next year, I’ll be at the beach or at least in air conditioning instead of out here on the marching field, learning how to stand.

Ten more push ups because people are moving.

I stare out ahead of myself and look up at the only two clouds in the sky, off in the distance. I imagine myself leaving my hot, gravity defined body and flying up into the clouds. I imagine myself perched up there in the mist and laughing at the little ants down on the ground just standing there.

Ten more push ups because I let my hands fall.

Ten more, ten more, ten more…I predict that, by the end of summer, I should have at least some kind of arm muscles.

We run a lap around the field and then we have to run an extra one because we were cutting the corners. Then, we go for a water break.

We haven’t even learned how to march yet and I’m ready to quit.

Reserved

Reserved...

Reserved

reserved.

xd

eek