Marching Band Extended Action

We walked out of the band room to head to the street to start marching. Everyone carried their instruments out. My baritone saxophone’s weight started tugging at my neck and upper back as I walked to the road where everyone else stood. We get out to the road and wait for our drum major Gabe to come and help us get lined up. He walks out twisting his baton as he walks fast toward us. He stands in front of us and blows his whistle.

Everyone quiets down and waits for him to say who goes in the front row. He calls the trumpets to go in the front row. The flutes line up in the second row and the clarinets follow. The saxophones line up on the third and fourth row. The drums including the bass, snare, and quad get the next two rows. The tuba and I get the back row with the trombones. We quiet down and get at ease. At ease starts with having our feet shoulder width apart.

Gabe calls, “Band Attend!” and our relay Tyrell calls back the same thing. After Tyrell says ,“Band Attend!” a snare clicks and Gabe twits his whistle. As Gabe twits his whistle we move our right foot to our left foot and put them at a forty-five degree angle. Gabe has instructed us to look at the person in front of us at all times. Gabe pivots on his left foot and faces the same way that we do. He twirls the baton in his hand while blowing the whistle. He stops the baton pointing ahead of him. He twits the whistle four times and each time we lift the back of our feet. The first one we lift our right then our left then right then we on the last one we lift our left foot off the ground and start marching. We call this the Snap Start.

The snare clicks on beat for a while telling us when the bottom left foot hit the ground so we continue on beat. Gabe calls the cadence and the drums play for a while. It feels cool to feel the drum beat under my feet. We get to the Emery High parking lot and Gabe calls us to play Raiders March. He holds his baton up and whistles while holding up one finger. We started passing the Emery High parking lot as he called this. The drums stop their cadence and do a roll off to Raiders. On the first and second beat we keep our instruments down then the third and fourth we put our instruments up to our mouth but not directly to our mouth so we don’t give our self a bloody lip.

In the process of doing that I got my instrument up and started playing and only got to the 5^th measure and I couldn’t keep the baritone saxophone from bouncing on my leg. I felt something warm around my mouth and I tasted something funny, and I knew it couldn’t be my reed. I took my mouth piece out of my mouth and it had turned red from the blood. The reed looked red also.  My brackets had gone into my bottom and top lip leaving 5 holes. I stopped playing and put my instrument into at ease position. 

New Ending to Stuck in Neutral

Crackle-crackle-crackle. I could feel my seizure creeping up on me. Why does this have to happen now? I try to hold back the seizure but I could slowly feel myself losing control. My dad had tears running down his face as my eyes look at him for a moment. He still had the pillow in his lap. I wanted to stick around to find out what was going to happen, but I slowly faded away. I woke up standing outside my room. I looked in, we both haven’t moved.  I slowly walked toward dad. “Dad, don’t do it,” I said softly.  He looked up like he had heard me. I don’t know if he really did but I continued. “I’m alive and I’m not in pain. Please let me live. I don’t want to die.”

I looked in his eyes. The tears had started again. He grabbed the pillow and stood up. I didn’t know what he was going to do next. He lifted my head and looked into my eyes. “Don’t do it.” I whispered to myself. He laid the pillow under my head and kissed me on the forehead. “I’m sorry. I should have never thought of doing that. I love you too much to lose you.” He laid next to my bed on the floor. I slipped into my body after a couple of hours to still find him there. He had fallen asleep. I laid there in the darkness and thought about how glad I was to still be alive.  I wondered what mom was going to do when she got home and found him here, but I was just glad to have someone here instead of being by myself. 

The Shadow of the Summer's Day

The cold, misty air blew though Rose’s hair as she headed for the fields. She loved how the fields smelled with the dew still on the hay. Rose stopped and grabbed her shovel from her truck and started for the fields. She was heading out to irrigate water for her family’s farm. She had a long day’s work ahead of her but she was looking forward to it. It was the middle of June and they were going to have their first cut of hay. She was going to help her dad Randy with the cutting and even with two people that was going to take most of the day.

Rose finally made it to the gate of the fields. The breeze and the mist were stronger now. It sent chills down her back and legs. The breeze made the air a lot colder than it had been at the house. She opened the gate, the metal cold to the touch.  Rose had never experienced anything like this. Everything that was going on so far this morning was feeling very odd. The wind was starting to blow harder as she walked the dirt road down her family’s 350-acre farm.

 “It just seems to get colder as I walk.” She said to herself. She started getting a feeling that something was around, but she didn’t know what. “If there is something down here,” she thought, “then I could kind of protect myself.” She gripped the shovel tighter and said a little prayer. Sweat started trickling down her neck and back. She started shivering, and it wasn’t only from the cold. She started feeling like someone or something was following her but she didn’t want to turn around. She just wanted to get to the fields and work so she could get over this silly fear. She saw a shadow form with hers. She heard a shriek and everything went dark.

“Alisha’s time was 17.55. Good run Alisha.” The announcer was loud and clear from the arena. Rose was waiting for her run, but she still had a while to go before they called her named. Her horse Bear was brushed and ready to be saddled, but she did not want him to get sweaty and hot long before the run. She was in Salina for the weekend with her Cousin Rachael. Rachael had won a run Friday night but she had not been called yet today.

Rose was 12 going on 13, has gem green eyes, and blonde hair that went to the small of her back. She wasn’t tall for her age, only reaching 4ft. 11in. She was mature for her age. She played Soccer and was hoping to someday play for the High School or College. She had been in barrel racing for most of her life and hoped to continue it throughout her life.

Rose got up and left the arena to go check on her cousin and their horses. As she was almost to the arena exit, she saw Alisha walking her horse Patsy back to the trailer.  Rose decided to tell her she had a good run. She ran up to her. “Hey, good run. You probably had one of the best times.” “Well thanks,” Alisha said. “I hope you have just as good run.” Rose laughed. “Well you should come watch and wish me luck.” Both of them laughed at this. Alisha shrugged her shoulders and said, “Sure, why not?” That’s where their friendship began.

Rose walked in to the Jr. High where she was going to school for her last year. She was excited for this year because her class was the oldest of the school. She wasn’t one of the popular girls, and she didn’t have a lot of friends, but she had one great friend and that was all she wanted. She and Alisha had been friends sense the day they met in Salina a couple years back. They still do the same things they do now but only the conversations have changed. Instead of talking about silly things like Teddy Bears, they would talk about barrel racing and boys, more of the serious subjects. They would always go riding or practice for the next barrel race and if they could, they would go to the football games at the high school.

Rose went and sat down in the commons area and waited for Alisha. She hadn’t seen her for about a month because she was busy with different barrel races, but she was excited to see her now. They had so much to talk about, like how the competitions went.  She still had a couple of minutes till Alisha’s bus got here.

Rose saw Alisha running toward her at the last minute. Rose jumped up to give her a hug but ended up falling down the commons area with Alisha coming down with her. “Sorry. I was happy to see you.” Alisha laughed and picked her up and hugged her. Rose groaned. “It’s fine. I’m happy to see you to.”  Alisha set her bag down where Rose was in the first place before she was run over and told her everything. She talked about how the barrel races went and about how her ranch was.

The bell rang and they headed to their first class. They only had two classes together but they saw each other most of the day. She was enjoying her classes as the day was ending. She didn’t have much to do today after school, so she was planning on either hanging out or taking a nap. When school ended, she went to find Alisha to see what she was planning on doing for the rest of the day. “Do you want to hang out or something?” Rose asked Alisha. “Um, I’ll call you and see if I can later.” “Alright.  That sounds good to me.”  Rose and Alisha went their separate ways.

Alisha was too busy to hang out so Rose fell asleep. She woke up a couple of hours later to the dogs howling. She got up and went to feed them, when she got a feeling that she was being watched. She didn’t know by who or what. She fed the dogs and locked the door. Her dad wasn’t home yet and she wasn’t surprised. Tomorrow she would have to work in the fields, so she needed a good night sleep.

The cold, misty air blew though Rose’s hair as she headed for the fields. She loved how the fields smelled with the dew still on the hay. Rose stopped and grabbed her shovel from her truck and started for the fields. She was heading out to irrigate water for her family’s farm. She had a long day’s work ahead of her but she was looking forward to it. It was the middle of June and they were going to have their first cut. She was going to help her dad Randy with the cutting and even with two people that was going to take most of the day.

Rose finally made it to the gate of the fields. The breeze and the mist were stronger now. It sent chills down her back and legs. The breeze made the air a lot colder than it had been at the house. She opened the gate, the metal cold to the touch.  Rose had never experienced anything like this. Everything that was going on so far this morning was feeling very odd. The wind was starting to blow harder as she walked the dirt road down her family’s 350-acre farm.

 “It just seems to get colder as I walk.” She said to herself. She started getting a feeling that something was around, but she didn’t know what. “If there is something down here,” she thought, “then I could kind of protect myself.” She gripped the shovel tighter and said a little prayer. Sweat started trickling down her neck and back. She started shivering, and it was not only from the cold. She started feeling like someone or something was following her but she did not want to turn around. She just wanted to get to the fields and work so she could get over this silly fear. She felt something hit her and she screamed. All she could hear was her heartbeat. She could feel blood going down her leg. She did not know what had hit her but all she knew was that it hurt. She tried to stand but she could not. Her leg was useless. Rose caught glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye. She rolled over, ignoring her leg, and saw a sheep standing a few feet away from her. It was her neighbor’s sheep, but how had it got out?

Her shovel had been knocked just out of her reach. She could not grab it, but she had to do something. She rolled a little more and finally got a hold of her shovel. She grabbed it and tried to swing it at the sheep. The sheep charged and hit her side while moving her a couple of feet from where she was before. She swung the shovel again and hit the sheep across the head. The sheep dropped, she had knocked it out.  She went to stand up, fell the first time but was able to get her good leg underneath her.

She limped back to the house, hoping that the sheep was still down the field. She opened the gate and locked it. She took one final look out to the field.  The sheep had disappeared. She got to the house and sat down. She pulled up her pant leg. The sheep had done something to her knee, but she would have to wait for her dad to get home to find out what. She grabbed some ice and sat down. All she could do now is wait.