AFTER PRACTICE, JERICHO DECIDED TO WALK home rather than wait for his dad to pick him up. He realized with dismay that he’d left his water bottle on the field, but he didn’t go back. In the distance he heard music—the familiar thumping of the drums, the bronzed tones of the saxophones, and the crisp metallic echoes of the trumpets. Band practice.
He couldn’t help it—he headed straight for the field where the band learned their steps, and stood by the fence, watching. Mr. Tambori stood on a platform, shouting instructions from a megaphone. “Backs straight! Knees up! Keep those lines straight now!”
Jericho thought the band sounded pretty good. They were practicing today without marching in the intricate patterns that looked like squares or circles or other designs. The clarinets sounded a little off-key, he thought, but the brass instruments shone in the sunshine and sounded like it as well, as far as he was concerned. The sound washed over Jericho. It was the first time all day he’d relaxed.
“Hold your horns up,” Mr. Tambori was calling. “Don’t play to the ground—let the audience hear you! Swing those horns in rhythm! Move, trombones, move!”
Jericho spied Olivia Thigpen blowing her sousaphone with everything she had. It was clear she loved what she was doing, her cheeks puffing in and out and her feet marking the beat as she stood in place.
Jericho knew a lot of kids didn’t get marching band. They thought the football players and cheerleaders were the ones who really worked. But he knew that marching band members were the tough ones. It was so much more than simply playing an instrument—it was about being a team player, memorizing every piece of music, holding the instrument correctly, learning new ways of moving and breathing. It was a lot of work. Some of those tenor drum sets could weigh up to fifty pounds. Tambori bellowed out, “Let’s try that cadence again!”
Jericho laughed out loud as he looked across the field to Crazy Jack in the percussion section. Jack Krazinski loved to play the cymbals. He’d crash them on beat and off beat whenever he felt like it—before, during, and after practice. It wasn’t uncommon to hear Crazy Jack smashing his cymbals together in school as he walked down the hall. Teachers would frown and write him disciplinary reprimands, but the next week he’d be at it again, making as much noise as he possibly could, grinning the whole time.
Jericho noticed that Olivia had put down her instrument as the woodwinds took up the song. The trilling of the flutes and piccolos, weaving in and out of the wailing of the clarinets, sounded like birds in the hot summer air. Olivia glanced over to where Jericho stood. She waved when she noticed him, then pointed to the area where the trumpet players stood, where Jericho would have been standing. He waved back but shook his head.
He looked at the kid who had taken his place as first trumpet and sighed. A sophomore! And a girl? He couldn’t believe Tambori gave such an important position to somebody who’d only been playing for a couple of years! But then he realized he had no right to complain. He was the one who had quit the band. He watched quietly for a few more minutes, then picked up his bag to head home as band practice was dismissed.
He heard Mr. Tambori called out, “How was football practice?” He was walking toward Jericho.
“It was aight,” Jericho answered, saying the word carelessly. But every muscle in his body seemed to be aching.
“There’s still room for you here, you know.” Mr. Tambori dangled the words like temptation. “Carole is an adequate player, but she’s not you. She just reads the notes off the page of music. You feel them.”
“So why did you make her first chair trumpet?”
“Because she was the best I had left.”
“Hey, I appreciate what you’re tryin’ to do, Mr. T, but I gotta go. I hope the band has a good season.”
“Take care, Jericho. Remember I’m here if you need me.”
“Thanks, man.” Jericho headed away from the fence and trudged down the street. This must be what hell feels like, he thought. I need me some air-conditioning!
“Hey, Jericho!”
Now what? He turned and saw Olivia Thigpen waving and hurrying in his direction. “What’s up, Olivia?” Jericho really didn’t feel like being bothered with her or anyone else today.
Her bright red, long-sleeved sweatshirt, tight over her arms and belly, was damp with sweat. She carried her sousaphone case, bulky and black, in front of her. “This is the kind of day I wish I played the flute,” she said with a laugh.
“Hey, let me carry that thing for you,” Jericho offered. “You look like one of those soldier ants carrying a big piece of food from the picnic table!”
“More like a beached whale carrying an elephant!” she joked, but she gave him the instrument.
“I told you about blasting on yourself,” he chided.
“Forget about me—what did you think of football?”
“I like it.”
“For real?”
“I think I’m gonna be pretty good at it. Coach Barnes says I’m really fast for a big dude.”
Olivia made a face. “Gee, you smell like you want to be by yourself!” she teased.
“Maybe I do,” he told her. “But you ain’t no peaches-and-cream cologne either!”
Olivia grinned broadly and nodded in agreement. “You got that right! So, did football give you that man-savage feeling that dudes act like they need?”
“I guess so. We had chocolate-covered rocks as a snack when we finished.”
She laughed again and wiped beads of sweat from her forehead. She had a natural, comfortable laugh and was the easiest girl to talk to that Jericho knew.
“Mr. T was telling us about the first game,” she said. “I can’t believe they scheduled us to play Excelsior! Their band is, like, the best in the nation!”
“So is their football team.”
“We’re gonna get destroyed! Our band uniforms, the same ones they used back in the eighties, are just plain embarrassing. We’re gonna look like refugees from the thrift store.”
“I hear at least we’re supposed to be getting new football uniforms—white with red numbers, I think. Coach said the athletic director knows somebody who owns a warehouse and he’s getting them for us real cheap.”
“It sure would be nice to show up at Excelsior with some band threads we could be proud of,” she said as she fell into step with Jericho.
“Yeah, but it’s not likely,” he told her. “You know the school board doesn’t have the money for stuff like that.”
“But our band sounds good, even if we do show up lookin’ like leftover soup,” Olivia asserted. “Mr. T is the best band teacher around.” She paused and glanced at Jericho. “I saw him talkin’ to you.”
“He’s a good man, but he just doesn’t understand.”
“Maybe not. But maybe you’re tossing away the wrong thing. Hey, here’s my bus stop. I’ll see you around, Jericho.”
“You’re taking the bus with this big old instrument?” Jericho asked as he handed it back to her.
“Hey, at least I got some kinda wheels. You seem to be doing the two-foot shuffle home. What happened to your car?”
“My stepmother’s car is in the shop, so she’s driving mine today. I can’t complain—she and my dad make the payments on it. And I really don’t mind the walk. It feels good sometimes.”
“I feel ya. Here’s my bus. Catch you later.” The bus swallowed Olivia and her sousaphone, and Jericho was left alone in the heat of the summer afternoon.