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Great Writing - Home > Extended > The Dorkestra--Part 1
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Extended Work
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| The Dorkestra--Part 1 | |
| By anorwegianwood | ||||
| 04 February 2007 | ||||
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This is the beginning to an idea I've been fiddling with for a while. It's hard to see the exact format of it with only this part so far, but it's meant to a collection of embellished stories of my experiences in my high school orchestra. They are told as flashbacks of three main characters while they are in detention at the end of their senior year. Many of the flashbacks will be based on real experiences, though this openeing is entirely made up in order to handle that nasty thing called exposition. As I just transformed my many notes into actually prose this afternoon, it definitely needs some tweaking. Love to get some feedback. “But it was worth it.” “Definitely.” “Best senior prank ever.” “And who would’ve thought I’d get detention for the first time ever the day before graduation?” Astrid asks her two best friends. “It had to happen eventually,” Oz replies, pushing a stray lock of dark hair out of his blue eyes. “High school without detention is like the eighties without mullets.” “I thought you said that was celery without peanut butter,” Heather says with an amused smile. “It is a multi-purpose analogy.” Oz dismisses her comment with a wave of his hand. “Where is Bax?” he adds, looking around. The three detentionees are sitting around a large kettledrum in the orchestra room. It looks exactly as any other classroom does on the last day of school: in sore need of organizing. Instruments ready to be sent to the repair shop are lined up against the far wall in their battered cases, stacks of papers waiting to be filed occupy many of the chairs, and various doodles and messages cover the blackboards, the most prominent of which reads “Dorkestra Rulz” in block letters. After a few moments, a tall man with a longish nose and thinning hair enters the room, carrying a stack of several boxes. He sets them down and fixes the three delinquents with a stern look. “I’m very disappointed in you three, getting in trouble on your last day of high school.” He smiles. “Now that’s out of the way, may I add, off the record, I thought it was a brilliant prank. One of the best. You just shouldn’t have gotten caught.” “It was a political statement, Mr. Baxter, we’re proud to take the credit,” Oz says seriously. “May our escapades never be forgotten.” “I doubt they will,” Mr. Baxter replies. “For your detention, you’ll be organizing some of the old music. A lot of the parts are mixed up and some of the folders are falling apart. I have some new ones here.” He points to a stack of yellow music sleeves on a table in the corner. “So, if you three could just go through these boxes, count the parts for each piece and put them in score order, erase any stray markings on the pieces, and put them in new folders for me. I’ve picked some boxes you might find interesting. I’ll be in my office if you need me,” he finishes as he goes through the door of his office. Heather opens the first box and pulls out a stack of old music. She sets it on the kettledrum, flicking aside her curtain of blonde hair, and opens the first folder, so tattered the paper has become as soft as cloth. “Hey!” she says, holding up a yellowed cello part from the top of the stack. “Our freshman audition music.” Astrid takes the part from her fondly and starts looking through it. “One of my favorite pieces. Even if Tchaikovsky is hard on the winds.” “Tchaikovsky is hard on everybody,” Heather says fairly. “I don’t remember what we played for audition that year,” Oz says. “Romeo & Juliet, the Fantasy Overture! How could you possibly forget that?” Astrid says in surprise. “I remember playing it, I just didn’t remember it being the audition music,” he replies defensively. “How could I remember every detail of an audition four years ago?” “I do,” Astrid responds. “You’re weird.” “That’s exactly what you told me at the audition.” *** “The freshmen always look so freaked out, don’t they?" Astrid looks back over her shoulder as she walks past the group of talking violinists, all leaning casually against the wall. The girl who had made the remark looks away quickly as Astrid’s gaze meets hers. Astrid does indeed look freaked out, however, she can’t deny that. But she feels justified. This is supposed to be the best high school orchestra in the state. Surely freaking out is a common, even expected part of the audition process. Looking around at the other students in the hallway confirms this suspicion. The vast majority of the faces she sees appear unnaturally pale. Many of the hands are trembling slightly. The only people who look at all at ease are the older students, the ones who have been through it all successfully before. Astrid checks the alignment of the reed on her oboe for the thirty-somethingth time. “Please line up by class!” a voice calls. A slightly harassed-looking girl carrying a flute elbows her way through the crowded hallway. “Seniors by the door, freshmen at the end. Come on, do you want to be here all day?” Astrid makes her way to the end of the line and leans against the wall, realigning her reed. She looks back down the hall at the other students. The group closest to the door, including the leaning violinists, must be the seniors, and the group standing further down the hall must the juniors. There appear to be about fifteen people in each group. The next group, the sophomores is responsible for most of the buzz of nervous conversation in the hall. There must be nearly thirty of them, and not a single one looks at all happy to be there. Indeed, several look ready to bolt for the nearest exit. And there’s the last group, Astrid’s group. Six. Six freshmen auditioning. Six freshmen who must be either very talented or very stupid, because everyone knows freshmen don’t get into the Honors Orchestra. Astrid is trying to decide which category she belongs in, realigning her reed nervously, when a voice very close to her left ear makes her jump. “Think you’ll make it?” Astrid looks up in surprise to see a boy holding a trumpet lounging against the wall next to her. He brushes dark hair out of his large, blue eyes and fixes her with a blue stare that stops her thoughts cold. “Sorry?” she says. “The orchestra. Do you think you’ll make it in?” His eyes, so unlike Astrid’s own brown ones, are so striking and captivating that she is surprised she didn’t notice this boy earlier. They seem to demand noticing. They are eyes that can capture anyone else’s gaze and hold it. Eyes that say, Pay attention to me. “Freshmen don’t usually make it, do they?” she says finally, coming out of the shock of that strong, blue stare. “But if you didn’t really think you could, you wouldn’t be here.” “You obviously think you’ll make it,” Astrid replies. “Yeah, I do.” He gives a smile that walks the line between self-confident and arrogant and gazes nonchalantly at the rest of the freshmen. “They appear to be second-guessing themselves a bit, don’t they.” Astrid looks at the other four freshmen. A cellist she knows vaguely from middle school is frantically retuning. A girl clutching a clarinet as though afraid someone might snatch it from her gazes blank-eyed into space. A boy with a viola tucked under his arm looks about to pass out, and a petite violinist is anxiously playing through the audition passages, her curtain of blonde hair obscuring her face. Astrid’s nervousness doubles as she watches them, and she checks her reed again. Just as the cellist is retuning his C string, the harassed-looking flutist appears and hands each person a slip of paper with a number on it. “These are your audition numbers. You can switch numbers if you want, but make sure you write your name on the back. When your number is called, go into the office, play, and leave. Don’t say anything, this is a blind audition, Mr. Baxter will have his back to you. Just be sure to leave your number with your name on it in the box outside the office.” The blue-eyed boy glances at Astrid’s number. “Sixty-two. Mind if we switch? I’d rather go sooner.” Astrid nods and takes his number, sixty-three. “Looks like we’ll be here a while. Just how big is this orchestra, do you know?” A violist sitting against the wall at the end of the line of sophomores responds. “Forty, give or take. Open-level orchestra is about a hundred and fifty.” “How many freshmen made it last year?” Astrid asks him. “One. Baxter likes freshmen to start in open-level. He only takes the absolute best their first year.” The violist turns back to his friends, and Astrid turns back to the blue-eyed boy, genuine panic now rising in her chest. “One.” She slides down the wall, sitting with her oboe across her bent knees, her music folder under one elbow. “So what?” Blue Eyes says, sliding down next to her. “Maybe the sophomores all suck.” (“Heard that!” a voice calls from the sophomore line.) “You got a pencil?” he asks Astrid. She wordlessly hands him the pencil clipped to her music folder and watches him write his name as she readjusts her reed. Austin Collins. “Now, I ask you,” he begins suddenly, “do I look like an Austin?” Astrid looks at him in surprise, not sure what to say. “I can see by your confused expression that you don’t think so,” he continues, returning the pencil. “I go by Oz.” “Astrid.” “Weird. I like it. You look like an Astrid.” “I look weird?” She raises an eyebrow. “No, but you look like you’d have a weird name. The dark hair, the dark eyes, the pale skin…makes you look mysterious. Last name?” “Gray.” “Astrid Gray, secret agent, undercover spy for the forces of good,” he says in a deep voice. “Protecting the public from misaligned oboe reeds!” Astrid jerks her hand away from the mouthpiece of her oboe. “Honestly,” Oz tells her in a very serious voice, “if you don’t relax, you’re going to blow your chances. You must’ve fiddled with that reed fifty times since we started talking. Set your mind on something else.” “Like what?” “The category is films.” “What?” Oz takes the pencil from Astrid’s music folder, flips over his own copy of the audition music, and draws eleven short lines and a hangman’s gallows, then looks up at her expectantly. Astrid smiles reluctantly. “E.” The next two hours pass quickly, Astrid and Oz filling the backs of most of the music in their folders with games of Hangman. When only a few sophomores are left before the freshmen must audition, they both stand and warm up on the audition music for a few minutes. A voice from inside Mr. Baxter’s office calls “Sixty-two,” and Oz walks towards the door. “Good luck,” Astrid says quietly. “I don’t need it. Neither do you,” he says with a grin, disappearing into the office. Astrid puts her music back into her folder, glancing at the last game of Hangman she’d been agonizing over when they stopped to warm up. With a flash of recognition and a smile, she fills in the remaining letters. Sweet Smell of Success.
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