The Band Experience

by CS

My days at Claremont were stressful. My eighth grade year has been the best of the three, all because I joined band. I learned to play the flute; I’m now good at it, but not that good. I’ve also met new people in band. It was fun because we got to perform at assemblies. They were on Fridays, so we got to miss almost the whole day of school. We would still have to go to 5th or 6th period, but that’s okay because I like 6th period English.

One day- the day before our play-a-thon, which is a big fundraiser concert to raise money for us to go to a contest at Great America- I lost my brand new flute. I was the first person ever to use it. I thought I had left it in one of my classes, but the next day, when I looked for it, I couldn’t find it. None of my teachers had seen it. After school that day I looked all over the school. I could not find it anywhere and I was mad. I was also nervous, because I hadn’t told Ms.Briggs about me losing it. The only reason she didn’t find out during band class was because I borrowed a friend’s flute. Unfortunately, I knew I had to tell her soon, because my brother plays the violin and he would be at the play-a-thon. I couldn’t think of a reason why my brother would be there but I wasn’t, so I knew it would look suspicious.

An hour or so before the concert, I told Ms. Briggs what happened, and she said that someone had come to her and said they found a flute, and she told them to bring to her, but they didn’t. I was wondering if she could remember who it was, or what they looked liked, but I didn’t ask. Ms. Briggs told me to go look for my flute.

My brother said he’d heard that someone had it, so we looked all over the school for that person. We finally found them, but they said someone else had it. I had to go all around the school looking for it again. It was time for the play-a-thon and I still couldn’t find it. So I just went to eat with my friends. Since I couldn’t play in the play-a-thon, I went with some friends who weren’t in band and we went shopping and then to Trader Joe’s to buy some whipped cream. After that, we went back to the play-a-thon to see some of the people in the band and gave them some. The real reason we were there was to pick up my brother at 4:00. Then we had a whipped cream fight. After the fight we went to Dreyer’s for some ice cream and to cool off.

The next day of school, which was a Monday, I didn’t want to go to school because I didn’t want to sit in band doing nothing the whole time. But I went into my class anyway and sat down in my section. When class started, Ms.Briggs told me to go look for my flute again. I was so mad, because I had already looked for it for hours on Friday, with help, but could not find it. I was so mad I was crying. I sat in band with no instrument for a few weeks.

Then I finally got a new flute- at least, it was new to me. I still had a few weeks to learn and practice the songs. Then, one Friday, we had a contest. We played our best and got a good score: an 88. The next week, on Saturday, we went to another contest at Great America, and came in second in both band and orchestra. The orchestra had the highest score they’d gotten in years! They had the same score as the band: an 86. Even though I lost my flute, this year has been a success. Maybe I will continue to play the flute or other instruments.