The Pros of Cons Read online

  We always used to have fun together at these conventions. Maybe if I tried hard enough, we still could, even without Mom.

  Every spring, the Ridgewood High School percussion ensemble packed up our junky equipment and drove almost twenty hours east to prove to Orlando, Florida, that we still sucked.

  It wasn’t our fault most of the other schools owned timpani that probably cost more than our entire band hall. Like Bishop, our rival high school from back in Austin, who pretty much always placed in the top three at the Indoor Percussion Association Convention. They had two sets of everything: one for marching season, one for concert season. They even had a vibraphone with gold bars. Not actual gold, but still. Our poor old vibes were held together with duct tape and happy thoughts. One of the wheels had fallen off when we’d unloaded the truck an hour ago, and we’d wasted five minutes searching before finding it wedged under the ramp. And at competitions like IPAC, where the schedule was so tight that getting from truck to stage was like running a marathon, every minute was precious.

  “Look at that, Phoebe.” My best friend, Brian Krantz, pointed up ahead as Bishop’s legion of band booster parents began wheeling their gleaming, perfect equipment into Hall 1B for their performance. “Look at those timpani. Real copper. I bet those are calfskin heads, too.”

  “I see them,” I said distractedly, trying to untangle our wind chimes. “Hey, you might want to check the pedal on two—it looks jacked again.”

  Groaning, Brian pushed his glasses up his nose and crouched next to the second-smallest of our dented fiberglass timps. That drum had become the stuff of legend during football playoffs sophomore year, when one of our linebackers dove straight into it helmet-first a few seconds before halftime. His game-changing interception had made him the hero of the night, and the pedal hadn’t been able to get higher than B-flat ever since.

  “Figures we have to follow Bishop,” Scott Lloyd muttered as he retied the knot on one of the crash cymbal handles. “How are we supposed to sound halfway decent when—”

  “It’s about the musician, not the instrument,” Mr. Mackey interrupted, handing me a lug nut that had fallen off the wind chime stand. “And don’t even start all this why can’t we have nice things stuff with me right now. Especially after you two just sent our instruments rolling all over the C-wing lobby.”

  “That was Brian’s fault,” Scott said immediately. “He was steering the cart.” I could tell Brian wanted to argue, but he just rolled his eyes. He was too much of a suck-up to gripe in front of Mr. Mackey.

  “There.” I finished untangling the last two wind chimes and examined them. Six—no, seven chimes were missing, up from only three. “Crap, I think we lost a few more in the lobby,” I told Mr. Mackey. He opened his mouth to respond, but a sudden, muffled BOOM and a familiar ringing chord sounded from Hall 1B. Brian straightened up slowly, a look of horror on his face.

  “Is that …?”

  “Yeah.” Mr. Mackey closed his eyes briefly. “‘Big Top Circus.’”

  “Oh, sharks.” I opened my music folder and stared at my sheet music. Big Top Circus: Percussion 3 (Xylophone, bass drum, wind chimes, suspended cymbal, 4 toms). My eyes followed measure for measure, like I was trying to prove to myself this wasn’t the same music. Being played by our rivals on concert-hall-worthy instruments.

  “We’re screwed,” said Scott. “We’re so screwed.”

  Mr. Mackey rubbed his eyes and sighed. “We’ll be fine.” He joined Christina Gonzalez and Nuri Hwang, who were inspecting the marimba keys to make sure everything was in order after the crash in the lobby. Scott wandered over to where the other boys were sitting against the wall, drumming on the floor. I sat on the edge of the cart next to Brian.

  “Nervous?” he asked, running his hand over his head. It was a new tic he’d developed after randomly deciding to buzz his curly red hair over spring break.

  “Meh. Not really. Maybe a little about this part.” I pointed to the wall as Bishop reached the xylophone feature: twenty-four measures of nonstop rapid sixteenth notes played with extra-hard plastic mallets that exposed even the tiniest flaw. Every wrong note, every rushed rhythm would be as noticeable in the giant, echoey hall as a crystal chandelier crashing to the floor. Of course, the Bishop kid was nailing it. And he was probably playing on a xylophone that didn’t have a huge crack in the low C-sharp key.

  “When’s your solo?” I asked Brian. “Mine’s tomorrow afternoon.”

  “All the timpani solos are Saturday,” he replied. “Marimba’s Friday.”

  Ridgewood might have had a bad rep as far as ensembles went, but we made up for it in solo competition. Christina and Brian were amazing, and Scott, Nuri, Amy Robinson, Jorge Ramirez, and I always placed pretty high. A lot of that had to do with the fact that all soloists used the shiny, new instruments of whatever company was sponsoring the competition that year. Which kind of blew a hole in Mr. Mackey’s theory about the judges not judging our shoddy equipment. But I guess that’s the kind of crap you have to tell students when their school doesn’t have a budget for extracurriculars unless they involve helmets and balls.

  “I think they scheduled me and Christina last, since we won our categories last year,” Brian added. His eyes flickered over to Christina as he spoke, and she glanced up and shot him a grin. A flush crept up Brian’s neck as he smiled back, and I rolled my eyes. The two of them had started dating last month and they were still in that kind-of-cute, kind-of-annoying early couple stage. I’d been trying hard to hide my irritation, because they were clearly crazy about each other. But my current best friend dating my former best friend made for a pretty uncomfortable third-wheel situation.

  Brian spread his “Big Top Circus” music out in front of him and started air-drumming along with Bishop’s timpanist, his brow knit with concentration. The sight made me smile. We could roll into a competition with paint cans and a busted tambourine, and Brian would still take it as seriously as a performance at the Grammys.

  When Bishop finished, the muffled sound of cheers and applause sent a fresh wave of nerves through me. I wondered how much of their crowd would stick around to hear the other school from the suburbs of Austin play the same arrangement as their better, richer rivals. Anyone who wanted a good laugh, I figured.

  The double doors flew open, and Bishop’s students poured out, flushed and talking loudly as they rolled their flawless instruments down the corridor. A few noticed us and waved or called, “Good luck!” I waved back and tried to smile. Brian looked so smitten, he might as well have been running toward their timpani through a field of flowers while an orchestral arrangement of “At Last” swelled up in the background.

  “Here we go!” called Mr. Mackey, pushing the vibes at the front of our line into the room. Brian grabbed the handle of the timpani cart, and I followed him, pushing the xylophone with one hand and carrying the wind chimes with the other. Twice, the leather bag with all of our harder mallets and triangle beaters slipped off the xylophone, and each time I stopped to catch it, Scott bumped me with the bass drum. (I was pretty sure the second time was on purpose.) By the time we were in front of the judges on the floor, irritation had almost completely replaced my nerves.

  The hall was maybe two-thirds full, mostly with students from schools who’d played earlier in the day and wanted to check out the competition. Three tables, one for each judge, sat spread out in front of the sea of chairs. As Mr. Mackey shook hands with the announcer, the rest of us went into setup mode, moving quickly without speaking. IPAC had a one-minute setup, one-minute breakdown rule that could supposedly get a group disqualified if they went over. No one knew how closely they timed it, but we didn’t want to take any chances.

  I had my station ready to go—bass on the left, xylo in front, toms and auxiliary on the right—in half a minute, and unzipped the leather bag on the trap table Scott and I shared. I stared at the contents for a solid five seconds before clearing my throat.

  “Um, Scott?”

  “
Yeah?” He looked down, and his eyes widened. “Uh … what the hell is that?”

  Like our mallet bag, this bag had three rows of deep pockets. Unlike our mallet bag, this bag did not contain mallets. Instead, each pocket held a tool, silver and highly polished. There were curvy scissors, tweezers, knives, scalpels, and a bunch of other weird tools, all with clear plastic safety caps. Every pocket was labeled: Caliper. Tail Splitter. Fleshing Knife.

  My hands shook as I flipped the bag and saw BUCHANNAN TAXIDERMY neatly stenciled in bright white letters on the back.

  “That girl you plowed over in the lobby,” I whispered. “With all the dead turkeys—this is her bag!”

  “That was Brian’s fault!” Scott hissed back. Gritting my teeth, I looked over at Mr. Mackey just as the announcer stepped up to the microphone.

  “Next up, from Austin, Texas, the Ridgewood High School percussion ensemble! Ridgewood will also be performing ‘Big Top Circus,’ arranged by …”

  I waved frantically at Mr. Mackey, but he was already stepping up on the podium. Leaning over the toms, I tugged Brian’s sleeve.

  “We lost the mallet bag, give me any extra mallets you’ve got!”

  Brian’s eyes widened. “Um …” He reached into the bag hanging from the third timpani and handed me a pair of super-puffy mallets. I grabbed them and spun around as Christina handed Scott an extra pair of yarn mallets for his vibraphone part. I did a frantic, three-second assessment of my situation: I could use the puffy ends of the mallets on the suspended cymbal and the bass, then flip them over and use the harder back ends for the toms and—I winced at the thought—the xylophone. Mr. Mackey would kill me if I dented the keys, but hey, better that than no xylophone solo at all, right?

  I barely had time to feel a surge of panic about getting through the next four minutes when Mr. Mackey lifted his hands. Taking a deep breath, I adjusted the bass drum slightly, lifted the timpani mallet, and nodded to let him know I was ready.

  BOOM! The piece started loud and fast, and for the next minute and a half I almost forgot about our predicament. Christina’s yarn mallets worked fine for Scott’s vibraphone part, and I was doing okay with Brian’s timpani mallets—Mr. Mackey hadn’t even noticed that anything was different yet. As we slowed into the chorale section, I set the mallets on the trap table between me and Scott. The next thirty-six measures were pretty much a big solo featuring Christina, our marimba rock star. All I had to do was add a little wind chime accompaniment. Christina was on her game today, too—I saw the judges nodding and jotting down notes on their comment sheets, probably praising her flawless technique and expressive musicality, as usual.

  With four measures left of the chorale, I reached for the timpani mallets. They weren’t there.

  My stomach plummeted as I looked around the trap table and under the weird taxidermy bag. Then I spotted them. In Scott’s. Freaking. Hands. He was using the back ends on the bells like I’d been planning to do.

  “Scott!” I hissed. His eyes stayed glued to his music, but he lifted a shoulder and an eyebrow as if to say, Sorry, bro.

  Two measures left. The yarn mallets sat on the vibes: the yarn was way too soft for the xylophone, and the handles were lightweight plastic. Even if I used those backward, I might as well not be playing at all. And clearly Scott was too much of a douche to realize my part was a little more important than his. Now I had nothing to use. I’d just be standing here dumbly behind the xylophone while everyone, including Scott, accompanied a solo that wasn’t happening. I stared down at the trap table, unable to look at Mr. Mackey, and my gaze fell on a pair of scalpels.

  Heavy duty, said the label.

  Screw it, said my brain.

  I grabbed both scalpels and whirled around right as Mr. Mackey cued the tempo change for my solo. The label hadn’t been kidding; I was holding both scalpels by the plastic caps, and the handles were made of some seriously heavy silver. The resulting sound as I hammered the keys was probably similar to what you’d get if you dumped a sack of marbles on a toy glockenspiel. Really accurate marbles, though. Terrible implements aside, I was kind of nailing this feature.

  Twelve measures in, the caps started to slip off. For a split second, I thought for sure the scalpels were going to fly out of my hands, and I adjusted my grip, loosening my back fingers and letting go of the caps. The scalpel blades dug uncomfortably into my palms, but I ignored them.

  I chanced a glance up at Mr. Mackey. He looked horrified.

  Laughter bubbled up inside me, and I stared at my hands. Yup, I’m at a massive percussion competition in front of hundreds of people, destroying a xylophone with scalpels probably used to gut fish. Aaaand I think my hands are bleeding. Eight measures to go … four … two …

  And then it was over. Nothing left but half a page of suspended cymbal rolls. I tossed the scalpels down, and Scott handed me the timpani mallets. Our eyes met, and his mixed expression of horror and admiration was so ridiculous that I had to bite the insides of my cheeks to keep from smiling. If Mr. Mackey saw me giggling about this, he’d kill me.

  When we finished, the applause was mixed with a good deal of murmuring as we schlepped back out of the hall. I kept my gaze fixed on Scott’s back, waiting until we were out of the judges’ sight before ramming the xylophone into his butt.

  “Hey!” he yelped.

  “You aardvark!” I yelled, but that only made him giggle. “You knew I needed those mallets! What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “I don’t know, I guess I didn’t really think about it.” Scott glanced down at the taxidermy bag. “Nice save with those knives, though. That was epic.”

  “They were scalpels. Look at my hands!” I held up my scratched-up palms, and his eyes widened.

  “Whoa, you’re bleeding!” he exclaimed gleefully. A few seconds later, the entire percussion section had surrounded me, inspecting my hands and asking what had happened. I explained, starting with the bag mix-up in the lobby and making sure to lay as much blame on Scott as possible. But with every sentence, his smile grew broader and broader. Nuri elbowed him in the side.

  “What are you so happy about, jerkface?”

  “She’s bleeding, for chrissake,” Amy added.

  Scott grinned at me. “I know; it’s so hardcore.”

  “But it’s your fault,” Christina said pointedly. Amy and Nuri looked at me, probably waiting for me to chew him out.

  But they were just scratches, really. And this would definitely become a classic band tale, retold year after year: that time Phoebe Byrd rocked a xylophone solo with taxidermy scalpels until her hands bled. I found myself grinning back at Scott, pretending not to notice when Nuri and Amy exchanged disgusted looks.

  “Mackey’s coming,” Brian said, and everyone hurried back to the instruments they’d abandoned. Mr. Mackey was talking to Christina’s dad and a few other parent chaperones. I hung back once we reached the service elevator, letting the others pack our stuff inside to take down to the loading dock. My palms were still stinging, and I wanted to explain everything to Mr. Mackey.

  “You say you met the people this belongs to?” he asked when I finished, pointing to the leather bag.

  “Sort of. It was this red-haired girl in the lobby of C-wing,” I said as Brian walked up. “You talked to her, right?”

  I held up the bag, and Brian nodded. “There’s a taxidermy competition or something going on here,” he said. “She had a dead turkey in a box.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “So this could’ve been worse. We could’ve mixed that up with the snare drum case.” Brian snickered, then stopped when Mr. Mackey shot him a look.

  “I’ll bring the bag to the front desk at the hotel tomorrow and see if I can find her and get our mallets back,” I said. “My solo’s in the morning, so I can do it in the afternoon.”

  “Thanks, Phoebe. Mrs. Hwang is getting the first aid kit—she’ll be back in a few minutes to check out your hands, okay?”

  “Sure.” I paused. “Mr. Mackey? How bad w
as it, honestly?” I nodded in the direction of the hall. Mackey sighed.

  “All things considered, it was … not the worst thing ever. I’ll explain to the judges about the bag, although I don’t expect them to cut us any slack for it.” He smiled, patting my shoulder. “Nice improvising, I guess. Although if I find a crack in one of those bars, I’m coming after you.”

  “Don’t forget the bottom C-sharp was already cracked!” I called after him as he headed over to the elevator to supervise. When I turned back around, Christina had appeared next to Brian.

  “I brought a ton of Band-Aids,” she said, rummaging through her purse. “Are your hands still bleeding?”

  “Um … just a little.” I scowled at my palms. “Scott is such an aardvark.”

  Brian snickered. “Your parents aren’t here, you know. You don’t have to worry about the swear jar.”

  “I know, I just don’t want to risk slipping up when I get home.” I accepted two bandages from Christina and smiled briefly at her. “Thanks.”

  “Sure.” She flashed a quick smile back, then slipped her hand into Brian’s.

  An awkward silence descended. It was broken when a guy with longish, greasy black hair sprinted around the corner and tore down the hall past us, wearing nothing but gray briefs and swinging black robes over his head like a lasso. The three of us gaped at him. Brian spoke first.

  “Is it just me, or does that guy look kind of like …”

  Christina and I said it at the same time. “Snape.”

  A split second later, a massive, glowing, puffy thing flew around the corner in hot pursuit. It was a second before my brain registered what I was seeing: a person in a costume that appeared to be entirely made out of cotton balls and green Christmas twinkly lights.