There’s no ceiling.  That’s the first thing he notices.  There’s the metal grid where the ceiling tiles should go, but no more than about fifteen actual tiles.  He can look right up into the mess of pipes and wires between this floor and the one above.  The few ceiling tiles still in place are yellow and orange with water damage.  The room has a distinct feeling of neglect.  Chipped paint, old chairs, a stained floor, and no ceiling.  This can’t possibly be the right room.  Nationally renowned high school orchestras do not practice in basement classrooms with rattling air vents and rust-stained walls.  And they certainly do not practice without ceilings.

Matthew Wellings is, however, certainly in the right room.  The instrument lockers and cello racks and slightly crooked music stands make that clear.  It doesn’t seem possible, but this is the orchestra room, and he will be spending every afternoon here for the next four years.  He sighs deeply and drops his trumpet case on the nearest scuffed chair.

Matthew plays the trumpet, but he is not a trumpet player.  At least, he has never considered himself a trumpet player.  Trumpet players are loud and self-assured, happy to stand out in the brass section.  Matthew, on the other hand, is a quiet, slightly awkward introvert who just happened to pick the trumpet because he liked the way it looked, all twisted back on itself.  It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy playing the trumpet, it’s just that he never feels like he fits in with the other players in his section.  He occasionally wonders if he’d prefer the quiet life of a bassoon player.

He wanders slowly around the edge of the room, reading the plaques and awards from orchestra festivals of the past.  There certainly are a lot of them.  A few are for the open level symphony orchestra, but most of them are for the audition-only chamber ensemble, the group of forty or so players representing the best of the high school music students.  The Dorkestra, as they like to call themselves.  This is the group that has made Winchester High School’s fine arts department one of the best in the nation.  This is the group that Matthew still can’t quite believe accepted him.

Matthew checks his watch for the twenty-sixth time.  It’s definitely the right room, but is it the right time?  He could have sworn he heard the eighth period bell ring, but there’s no one here, not even the teacher.  He pulls out a dog-eared schedule.  This is definitely the right time.  So far, he has spent his first day of high school getting lost and arriving everywhere several minutes late.  Now, for his last class, he finally manages to locate the room on time, only to find it completely deserted.  He is just about to go to the office and ask if there’s been some mistake when a voice startles him from behind.

“We’ve got a freshie!” the voice cries out in delight from the doorway.  Matthew turns quickly to see an older boy with eyes the color of Windex striding confidently into the room, carrying a small black case and followed by a group of chatting students.

“What?” Matthew asks timidly, not exactly sure what the boy just said.

“You’re a freshman!  We don’t get many of those, you know.”

“How do you know I’m a freshman?”  Is it really that obvious?

“The youthful light of energy and terror in your eyes.”

Matthew blinks in reply.

“Plus, you got here on time when everyone knows that Dorkestra members are permitted three extra minutes travel time.  Don’t worry, young child, you’ll learn.”  The boy sets his black case on a chair near Matthew’s, then puts one foot up on seat, resting crossed arms on his knee and looking around the room as if he owns it.  Matthew looks at the case and recognizes it as a trumpet case.  He should have guessed.  “What do you play, freshie?” the boy asks as he starts unpacking his instrument.

“Trumpet,” Matthew replies, hastening to unpack his own.

“Really?  I had you pegged for a bassoon player…ah, well.  You’re in my section.  I’m Oz.”

“Matthew.”

“We’ve already got one of those.  Two, actually, now that we’ve picked up that sophomore violist.  ‘Freshie’ it is, then.”

Matthew opens his mouth to reply, though he’s not exactly sure what he’ll say.  He never finds out, though, because at that moment, a tall man with thinning hair enters the room carrying a flat, thin box.  He takes a paper from on top of the box and sets it on the kettledrum.  “Seating chart,” he says, and disappears into a small office off the side of the room.

After checking for his seat, Matthew finds that he is one of three trumpets, Oz as the section leader.  The other trumpet player, sitting between Oz and Matthew, is a burly junior named Adam wearing ripped jeans and an over-sized T-shirt.  When Oz gets up to talk to a group of students just entering the room, Adam leans over to talk to Matthew.

“He doesn’t mean anything by it, it’s actually a compliment,” he says quietly.

“What is?” Matthew asks.

“‘Freshie.’  It’s what his section leader called him when he was a freshman.  He’s a Four.”

“Four what?”

“This is his fourth year with the Dorkestra,” Adam says.  “We call people who start as freshmen ‘Fours,’ but they’re pretty rare.  Most people don’t get into Dorkestra until sophomore or junior year.  We’ve only got a total of three Fours in the group right now, all seniors.  I don’t think any freshmen made it last year or the year before that.  You’re probably the first since Oz.  And Astrid and Heather.”

“Who are they?”

“Those two seniors over there,” he says, pointing.

Matthew looks over to see two girls talking to Oz near the front of the room.  One, a brunette, is talking around a reed stuck in the corner of her mouth.  The other, a petite blonde, is rosining a violin bow and laughing.

“Heather’s the hot one,” the junior tells him.  “Astrid’s the oboe.”

After a minute, the brunette, Astrid, returns to her seat two rows in front of Matthew and transfers the reed from her mouth to her oboe.  She walks with all the confidence of Oz, her fellow Four, but none of the arrogance.  She smiles quickly at Matthew before sitting down.  The stack of books under her chair is imposing.  All appear to be Advanced Placement or Honors course books: multivariable calculus, statistics, German, chemistry, physics, European literature, psychology.  Matthew didn’t even know students were permitted to take so many classes.

Once her reed is in place, Astrid starts playing.  Matthew doesn’t recognize the piece, but he’s awed by how beautiful it is.  Her playing seems effortless.  She moves her whole body as if the music is coursing through her.  He leans forward to see what she’s playing, but there’s no music on the stand.  He assumes it’s a piece she has memorized, but then he notices how fluid and rapidly changing the music is, occasionally interrupted by a barely detectable pause.  She’s improvising.

Matthew looks to the front of the room where Heather is sitting third chair in the first violin section.  She twists her curtain of blonde hair back from the left side of her face and secures it with a bobby pin.  On her neck, just below her jaw, Matthew can make out a small, red mark.  A violin hickey, as the industry term is.  A place where the fixture for the chin rest of the instrument has actually rubbed the skin raw from constant playing.  A mark of endless hours of dedication.

Matthew immediately feels a sickening feeling as he realizes just what sort of talent these people have.  There’s a reason freshmen so rarely make it into the Dorkestra.  There’s a reason there are only three Fours in this group.  Matthew turns back to the junior next to him, trying to find something else to think about.  “Why do we get three extras minutes before class?”

“It’s because we stay an extra hour after school.  We have a longer rehearsal period than regular orchestra, so Bax gives us a few extra minutes to get ready.  It’s his way of reminding us that he actually does like us.”

“Bax?

“Mr. Baxter, the conductor.  That guy,” the junior says, pointing as the tall man with the thin box emerges from his office and crosses to the front of the room.  He sets the box on the conductor’s stand.  Matthew squints to see what’s written on the side of the box.  Dvorak: New World Symphony, score and parts.  Matthew looks at it with apprehension.  The New World is no easy piece.

Oz returns to the back of the room to take his seat, but pauses when he sees the look on Matthew’s face.  “Hey, Freshie,” Oz whispers.  “Don’t look so freaked out.  You’ll be fine.  You wouldn’t be here if you couldn’t handle it.  You’re the fourth Four.”

Mr. Baxter calls for attention and the class quiets.  “I’ll start with roll.  Let me know if you go by a nickname, please,” he says and begins reading off names.  At the third name, he pauses.  “Austin, I presume you’re still going by ‘Oz’?”

“You bet,” is the response.

“To each his own,” Mr. Baxter mumbles.  “Michael Evans, do you go by Mike?” he continues, working his way down the list.  He comes to the last name.  “Matthew Wellings, do you prefer Matt?”

“No,” Matthew says after a moment.  “I prefer ‘Freshie.’”