Zara flinched. It was a quick-enough flinch that maybe I was the only one who noticed. But then, I knew all about Zara’s giant crush on Leo, who had wavy, sandy-colored hair, greenish eyes, and just a few freckles. He was cute, but in a Hey, don’t you think I’m cute? sort of way.
I wriggled my shoulder, but Callum’s hand was squeezing. And not leaving.
Now I could feel my armpits getting damp.
“Well, thanks, but I’m kind of getting smooshed here,” Omi called out. “So if you guys wouldn’t mind—”
“Okay, sorry!” Leo said. “Happy birthday, Omi! Bye!”
All at once, like a flock of birds, they took off for the basketball court.
Immediately my friends and I pulled apart, and I could breathe normally again.
“Okay, that was weird,” I said, brushing boy molecules off the fuzz of my sweater.
“Oh, Mila, don’t be such a baby,” Zara said. “They were just being friendly.”
I snorted. “You think getting smooshed like that is friendly?”
“Yeah, Zara,” Max said. “You’re only saying that because you like Leo.”
Zara gave a short laugh. “All right, Max, I agree, the whole thing was incredibly awkward, but I thought it was kind of sweet. Didn’t you, Omi?”
“I don’t know, I guess,” Omi said. “Maybe.” She shrugged, but she was smiling. Also blushing.
Max’s long hair was in his face, so I couldn’t see his eyes. “Well, they wrecked the O,” he muttered.
He was right: the pebbles were scattered everywhere. No more Circle of Friendship, or O for Omi.
“Dang,” I said. “Well, we did promise Ms. Wardak we’d clear off the pebbles. So we should put them back now anyway.”
“Who’s Ms. Wardak?” Omi asked.
“You know. The lunch aide.” I started kicking the pebbles over to the edge of the asphalt, and so did Max.
“Oh, who cares about her, Mila,” Zara said impatiently. “She’s not even a teacher, and she doesn’t pay attention.” She grabbed Omi’s hand. “We have another present for you, and it’s so much better! Look!”
Zara reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out the little red sack of chocolate pebbles.
Omi screamed. “Omigod, you guys, I love these! How did you know?”
“Because we’re your best friends and we do pay attention,” Zara replied, beaming.
I almost added that they were my idea. But I decided that wouldn’t be best-friendly.
SWISH
Aside from lunch, when I could be with my friends, my best time at school was definitely band. I could be having a boring or awful or just not very fun day, and then as soon as I started playing my trumpet, it felt like the skies were opening up. And I had this feeling of endless space, no people or clouds or even buildings anywhere. Just big wide fields of grass and a blank blue sky. Sometimes when I was playing, I even saw the color blue.
I don’t mean I literally saw the color blue. I mean it felt like the color blue. Calm and open, like it could go on forever.
Also, it just felt good to get really loud. Because all day long, teachers were telling us to be quiet. No talking, no laughing, no whispering. Sometimes our math teacher even complained about “loud sighing.” So band was the one time of the day when you could let it out. Should let it out, the louder the better.
And after that weirdness today at lunch, I needed band.
But as soon as I took my chair in the trumpet section, I could tell something was up. People were standing around, chatting, laughing nervously, instead of warming up their instruments.
“What’s going on?” I asked the kid to my right, Rowan Crawley.
“Section leaders getting announced,” he muttered. “And that means Callum, of course.”
“Dude,” Dante agreed. He shoved Callum playfully.
Callum grinned.
I couldn’t even look at him. Instead I took my trumpet out of its case, wiping it slowly and carefully with a little gray cloth. Wipe, wipe, wipe.
Ms. Fender tapped her music stand with her baton.
“Okay, people, here we go,” she said. “I’m ready to announce this year’s seventh grade band leaders.”
Everyone stopped talking. Have you ever seen a tree full of chirping birds when a hawk or a fox appears? All of a sudden there isn’t a peep. Just a sort of loud quiet. It was almost like that in the band room, except for chairs squeaking.
So it was weird that my heart was thumping. I mean, I knew I played trumpet really well, and I’d even taken some private lessons over the summer with this cool high school girl named Emerson. But I didn’t really think Ms. Fender would pick me for section leader. She was the kind of teacher who had special pets—people like Samira Spurlock on clarinet, and Annabel Cho on saxophone. Who I thought of as Pets Number One and Two.
And of the trumpet players, her favorite was Callum—Pet Number Three. We’d only been in seventh grade band for a couple of weeks, but already she’d made that clear. As soon as she handed out a new piece of music, she’d ask him to stand up and play it, not just for the trumpet section, but for the whole band. I’m not saying he wasn’t a good player—and it wasn’t that I was jealous. But I couldn’t help wondering: Why was it always him?
“First I want to make clear that being chosen section leader is an honor, but also a big responsibility,” Ms. Fender was saying. “So if you don’t practice your instrument every day, you will quickly lose your position.” She gave the whole band a stern look over her music stand. “We have a very ambitious program this year, and I’m going to need leaders I can count on. We all do.”
Ms. Fender paused as she flipped her honey-colored hair over one shoulder. Music teachers know about timing.
And now she was smiling. “All right, then, without further ado: here are our seventh grade band leaders. Please stand when I call your name. For clarinets, Samira Spurlock. For saxophones, Annabel Cho. For trumpets, Callum Burley—”
Hey, what a surprise. Pets Number One, Two, and Three.
Dante, who played trumpet, and Leo, who played sax, started cheering like they were at a basketball game. Tobias (trombone) actually whistled.
Callum stood, raking his floppy brown hair out of his dark brown eyes, blushing and smiling at his friends. And when he bowed—a sort of bow in quotation marks, as if he were wearing a tuxedo—his hand swished across my shoulder.
Had he noticed this? It was hard to imagine that he hadn’t—my sweater was green and fuzzy, so unless his hand was expecting to collide with a Muppet or something, he should have been startled. Although he’d already touched my sweater during Omi’s birthday hug, and actually, this hand swish was much quicker, more random, than the shoulder squeeze.
Still, it was the kind of contact that meant you should apologize. Even if he hadn’t hurt my shoulder.
But when I looked at him, he didn’t say anything or even glance in my direction. Probably he was focused on Ms. Fender, looking cool to his friends, making an impression on the entire band.
Who were all smiling at him, clapping. So of course that’s what I did too.