Boys in the Back Row Page 2

  “Find a seat, everyone, let’s go,” Mr. Drabek said. I hustled down to the front of the room to take my place with the girls and their girl instruments.

  I was definitely having doubts about my choice of instrument, but Skye turned out to be awesome—she was good at giving advice in a way that didn’t make you feel stupid—and after the first practice I realized I was already one of the better players in the section. It helped that we were playing reeeeeeeally basic stuff, but still, I knew right away that I wasn’t totally horrible at the music thing. Plus I might have already made two friends, Eric and Skye. A person can dream, anyway.

  My first-ever band practice went by at warp speed, and when it was over everyone packed up and headed for the band room exit in a noisy stampede. The door to the rest of the music wing was along one side of the risers where the band sits, kind of like the hallway leading into an upstairs movie theater. Our cubbies were there too, and a super-tight traffic jam formed as everyone tried to get their stuff out of their cubby at the same time. In the crush of band geeks I got pushed shoulder to shoulder with Eric, who grinned and rolled his eyes.

  “Welcome to the cattle pen,” he said.

  “Is it like we’re being led to slaughter?”

  “Feels like that, doesn’t it?”

  “Is this normal?” I said. I could actually feel people squished up against my chest, back, both shoulders, and both arms.

  “I’d say no, but I’d be lying.”

  “Hey, are you a girl?” an older kid said, sticking his face right between Eric’s head and my head. I got a blast of his warm, horrible breath right in the face, and I jerked my head sideways and almost knocked my skull against the shoulder of a tall girl who I later found out was named Janet Fritz. Janet’s really tall.

  That was my introduction to Kenny Delacroix. It was like crossing a bridge and finding out there was a mean, trumpet-playing troll with a terrible sense of humor living under it.

  “I said, are you a girl? Or are you just gay?”

  “Oh shut up, Ken,” Eric said. “You’re such an idiot.”

  “If you’re asking for a kiss, the answer’s no,” I said, surprising myself. Eric grinned at me over his shoulder, and there was a burst of laughter from the band geek pileup around me. Kenny’s super-hairy eyebrows went up in surprise.

  “Show him who’s boss, Kenny,” Sean said from behind me.

  “No means no, Kenny!” a girl’s voice said from somewhere else in the human pileup—I wasn’t sure, but I think it might have been Skye’s sister—but Kenny ignored it and leaned in even closer to me. We were practically cheek to cheek.

  “Oh, you’re dead, Wang,” he said.

  “My last name’s Park.”

  “Your name’s Wang, Wang.” Kenny poked me in the back with a finger, hard, on each “Wang.”

  “Racist much?” Eric said to the back of Kenny’s head. “And what does that even mean?”

  “I’m not talking to you, midget, I’m talking to the Chink.”

  “I’m not Chinese,” I said.

  “You’re whatever I say you are, Wang!”

  “You’re an idiot,” Eric said, waving Kenny away like a fly.

  A gap opened in the layer of people in front of me, and I turned sideways and slithered through it, away from Kenny and his disturbing finger. Lucky for me the only thing in my cubby was my backpack. I pulled it out, escaped into the hallway where the mob scene was a little more spread out, and booked it down the hallway, feeling bummed out and angry.

  “Don’t worry about it,” someone said. I looked up to see Sean walking next to me.

  “Don’t worry about what?” I said, confused because I hadn’t done anything to Sean.

  “About what Kenny said—he’s just being funny.”

  “He was being what?” I stopped and turned my whole body to look at Sean, who surprised the crap out of me by sticking a hand straight at me. I grabbed it mostly to keep it from poking me in the chest.

  “I’m Sean, by the way. Sean McKenna.”

  He squeezed my hand once, hard, then dropped it.

  “Is that Kenny person a friend of yours?” I said. “Because he’s pretty racist.”

  “Yeah, we’re buds, and nah, he’s not a racist,” Sean said, waving off what I’d said like it was nothing, even though it was definitely not nothing. “See you later.”

  Sean McKenna, having weirdly introduced himself with both of his names, strolled away.

  “Hey, Matt!”

  I looked over my shoulder and saw Eric hurrying toward me with his backpack on and a pair of drumsticks in his hands.

  “I see you’ve met Tweedledum and Tweedledee,” Eric said.

  “What a couple of jerks,” I said as we headed out of the music wing. “Does Kenny know this is the twenty-first century?”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t care,” Eric said.

  “Well, if he was trying to ruin my first time at band practice, it worked.”

  “He’s good at ruining stuff.”

  “And what’s with that Sean kid?” I asked. “He was all, ‘Kenny’s not a racist’ and ‘I’m Sean McKenna,’ like I’d know who he is.”

  “Sean’s super annoying,” Eric said. “He’s not as bad as Kenny, though. So, hey, were you serious about the comic book thing?”

  It was my turn to grin, although I secretly felt worried, like, what if this kid finds out I’m actually a giant dork? It was a legit worry, even if it wasn’t a new worry.

  “Totally!” I said. “Can you come over to my house after school today?”

  “Yeah, let’s go!”

  So, after school we headed off to Chez Park, dork strong, united by harassment, already in the process of becoming best friends. In the end, fourth grade turned out to be pretty good, because how many times a year do you meet your best friend in the whole world?

  So yeah, that was fourth grade. Two years later Kenny was still terrorizing anyone who he thought was gay, weaker than him, smarter than him, smart at all, or different from him in any visible way, and Sean was still walking the line between being truly evil and being just annoying.

  Telling Mom and Dad about the competition would be easy—if there was music, art, theater, or writing involved, they were automatically on board. I totally expected them to say yes. A half hour after Eric went home we had dinner, where Mom and Dad did their usual comedy routine about weird food.

  “Hey, did you finish off the quinoa?” Dad said.

  “Yup,” Mom said.

  “Honey, you know I’m not eating grains,” Dad said. “Come on.”

  “What’s that have to do with it?”

  “Quinoa’s a seed. I’m not cutting down on seeds.”

  “I see you’re not cutting down on mansplaining either.”

  “Yes, sorry, mansplaining’s even unhealthier than eating carbs,” Dad chuckled in his gee-whiz-I’m-funny way.

  Yes, this is the kind of stuff my parents talk about. Quinoa. Kale. How to ruin perfectly good muffins by making them with almond flour and coconut oil. MUFFINS SHOULD BE MADE WITH REGULAR FLOUR. It was amazing how many websites and blogs Mom and Dad could find with instructions for ruining perfectly good food by making it all “paleo.” Lucky for me, Dad is actually willing to cook stuff I like, so if there was going to be any trouble during dinner, it wouldn’t be because I hated the food. If there was going to be trouble, it’d be because I said how relieved I was to not hear jokes all day about playing a girl’s instrument.

  At least I’m not mansplaining, I thought. Mansplaining’s when a man (like Dad) tries to explain something to a woman (like Mom) who already knows about the thing. They talk about stuff like that too. Mom and Dad have really confusing conversations.

  “So Mom, Dad—”

  “Uh-oh,” Dad said. “‘So,’ huh?”

  “Right, nothing good ever starts with ‘so,’” Mom said with a grin.

  “You guys are so funny,” I said. “Or at least you think you are.”

 
; “Come on, Matt, spit it out.” Dad handed me the bowl of Parmesan before I asked, and I shook a bunch of it onto my bowl of farfalle.

  “The marching band’s entered in a competition at World of Amazement,” I said.

  “Really!” Dad said. “That sounds great!”

  “Wonderful, we’re in,” Mom said. “How much do you need?”

  See? Mom and Dad are awesome, despite their terrible sense of humor.

  “I don’t know yet. They’re gonna hand out the forms and stuff later in the month,” I said. “So it’s okay if I go?”

  “A marching band competition at World of Amazement? Are you kidding?” Dad said with a laugh. “Of course it’s okay!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Geez, Matt, do you want to go?” Dad said.

  “Are you asking us, or are we asking you?” Mom said.

  “I’m asking.”

  “YES,” Mom and Dad said in unison. I don’t know how they do that, but it’s kind of impressive. Also kind of creepy.

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “I just wish …” Dad said.

  “No you don’t,” Mom said.

  “I haven’t said anything yet,” Dad said, raising his arms in protest.

  “No, but starting with ‘I just wish’ never ends well.”

  “… Sometimes it does,” Dad said.

  “Nope.” Mom shook her head.

  Mom and Dad had this argument all the time, so it didn’t distract me from feeling like I knew what Dad was “just wishing.”

  “I was just going to say it would be meaningful if you’d play piccolo at the competition—”

  Knew it.

  “—but I still support you in playing the instrument you want to play.”

  Mom, who’d been sitting with arms crossed and a twisty-mouth, wiggly-eyebrow kind of look on her face, smiled and patted him on the arm.

  “Nicely done, honey.”

  “DON’T PATRONIZE ME, WOMAN,” Dad said in a super-deep voice. “I AM A MAN!” He stuck out his chest so far it looked like an alien was about to burst out of it.

  Mom and I took our time snorting, hooting, and saying things like “What??” and “Yeah, right,” while Dad laughed with us. Mom stuck her tongue out at Dad, but she also put a hand on his arm. He grabbed her hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed it. They’re so gross sometimes.

  “I know, Dad,” I said. “I’m sorry, I just—”

  “No no no no no,” Dad said, waving the hand that Mom wasn’t still holding. “I’m sorry, this is my issue, not yours.”

  “I’m glad Eric and I will be in the same section for this,” I said. “It’ll be, like, you know, the biggest marching band adventure we’ll have together.”

  “Aw, you guys are adorable!” Mom said. I guess it was too adorable for her to keep sitting down, because she actually stood up and hugged me around the neck, even though she was in the process of eating a piece of kale.

  “Kale, Mom. Kale in my hair.”

  “Oh sorry!” Mom looked at the half piece of kale she’d just mashed against the side of my head and brushed the crumbled bits off into her hand.

  “That is so sweet, Matt,” Dad said with a smile. “Of course you’d want to do that. Especially now that you’re in the same section!”

  Even though I’m not playing the flute like you want me to! And I feel terrible about it! A little bit angry too! Also I feel incredibly wrong for feeling terrible and angry about it! I’m the biggest dork on the planet—no wonder Eric’s my only friend!

  “It sounds perfect,” Dad said. “Will there be a day to get out and have some fun while you’re there? Maybe get to know some of the kids from the other marching bands?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “The last day we get to go on the rides and stuff.”

  “It’s a done deal, honey, don’t you worry about it,” Mom said. “How was your first day playing bass drum?”

  “It was fun,” I said, pangs of guilt still going through me. “Bass drum’s kind of easy, actually.”

  “You’re probably banging out quarter notes most of the time,” Dad said, pretending to hit a drum with alternating swings of his fists.

  “Kind of,” I said. “It’s fun, but it’s really different from piccolo.”

  “Well, it’ll give you a good head start on playing drums in orchestra,” Dad said. His voice was so ridiculously cheerful that he sounded like an anime character, and Mom caught his eye and smiled. I know she thinks I don’t notice that kind of stuff, like I’m always looking out the window or something.

  “Hopefully,” I said. “I’ll still need to practice, though.”

  “I’m not so sure about having a drum kit in here,” Dad said with a smile.

  “Me neither,” Mom said.

  “I mean at school.”

  “Ah, okay,” Dad said.

  “Remember that time we went to the Pop Culture Museum and I played the drums in their sound lab?” Mom said. “I was pretty good.”

  Dad and I nodded in agreement. Mom had rhythm.

  “The thought of both of you practicing doesn’t make me think a drum kit in here will be, you know, quieter,” Dad said.

  “Me neither, I’m just thinking out loud,” Mom said. “Matt, I love that you had the self-confidence to be the only boy in a section full of girls, whether you decide to go back to it or not …”

  Mom ruffled my hair. Self-confidence? What did that have to do with anything? “Lack of advance warning” was more like it. And was she really rubbing my hair with a hand that had hummus on it? Yes, she was.

  “Mom. You need to use a napkin.”

  “Oops, sorry, honey. I’m just saying, if you want to keep playing drums, we can probably figure something out.” She looked at Dad. “What do you think, honey?”

  “Thanks for asking, honey!” Dad said, sounding only a little bit sarcastic. “I’m still not sure, but they do have those electronic drum kits where the sound all comes through headphones.”

  “Mom. Dad. I don’t even know what I’d play in orchestra yet. Calm down.”

  They both laughed.

  “Sorry, sorry,” Mom said.

  “Too much pressure, I know,” Dad said. He got up, walked around the table, and gave me a kiss on the top of the head.

  “A little bit,” I said, but I let him kiss my head anyway.

  “We’re thrilled about the competition, it sounds wonderful,” Mom said.

  “Awesome. Hey, since I’ll be spending a whole weekend in another city, can I get a phone?”

  “NO,” Mom and Dad said together.

  Rats.

  It was weird to think about practicing for an event that was months and months away, and at first I was pretty nervous about playing a new instrument at World of Amazement because I’d never played in front of such a gigantic audience before. Mr. D didn’t actually talk about WoA that much, though, and as the first weeks of school went by I got sucked into the process of adjusting to my new gig.

  In some ways, playing the bass drum was super easy compared to playing the piccolo. There aren’t any notes, you don’t have to worry about staying in tune, and most of the time you’re just banging on the drum one beat at a time. In other ways, it was harder—the drums are bigger and heavier, and I actually did get a little bored by banging out quarter notes.

  On the plus side, when a song got all fortissimo it was fun to hammer on the drums really hard. Also, the view from the drum section was way better than from the piccolo section. The piccolos are at the front of the band room, so we—I mean they—have to turn around to see anything interesting that’s happening, but the drums are at the back of the room. Each of the band room’s three levels was as high as one step on a staircase, with the highest tier at the back, which meant we could see everything going on in the room without having to hear it first, then turn around and look.

  From up there it was obvious that a bunch of kids were really good at secretly checking their phones, the clarinet section was rowdier tha
n I thought it was, and most of the girls and at least one of the boys in the band spent a lot of time staring dreamily at Summer Oh’s brother Graysin as he adjusted the mouthpiece on his clarinet. He is really good-looking, to be fair. Then I looked over at the trumpet section and realized two boys were staring at Graysin. One was the newest trumpet player, and the other was … Kenny?

  Kenny hadn’t even taken his trumpet out of its case yet—it was in his lap, with his giant troll hands resting on top of it, and he was definitely staring at Graysin. His face looked weird—sad, maybe—then he caught my eye, and for a second he almost looked scared. Then he made a terrifying “I’m going to kill you” face, and I quickly looked away.

  Bass drum was easy enough to play that by October I was already getting a handle on the other bass drummers. Hector was definitely not great—he missed a lot of notes, and he spent a lot of time staring at the music with a frown—but the real problem turned out to be Sean. He was terrible! He always talked about his drum kit at home and the band he was in, and he’d played snare the year before, but he couldn’t stay on the beat to save his life. Unlike Hector, however, he didn’t just drop out—he played really loudly, which made it super hard on those of us who were actually playing the songs right. At one point he looked over at me and shook his head, a clear “dude, that was wrong” message, even though he’d messed it up and I’d gotten it right!

  “Okay, gang, that’s it,” Mr. Drabek said at the end of class. “New horns and bass drummers, you’re doing solid work, but there’s definitely a lot of tightening up to do—”

  “Totally,” Sean said in a firm, loud voice. Grrr.

  “—before the Spring Festival, but overall, that’s a good start. Thanksgiving parade’s in six weeks, and starting next time we’ll rehearse outside until the holiday break, so start dressing warmly. Go home!”

  He did a big waving motion with his baton, and the room was suddenly all scraping chairs, rustling papers, and snapping latches as everyone hurried to put their stuff away. I manhandled my drum back into its spot in the closet, getting there before both Hector and Sean. Sean looked like he was going to say something to me, but as he opened his mouth I turned sideways, my back facing him and my front facing Hector, and slithered between them.