Keep up Zac he imitated me and laughed Who are you Byrd Junior I repositioned my mouthpiece staring at my music and totally ignoring Zac Okay Mr Byrd said Play like the musicians you are Then he counted for us to begin the section Again When we finished Mr Byrd said You’re making progress The family Apidae would be proud The family who-dee-what Zac asked The family Apidae Sherman Frye said from the flute section That’s the scientific name for bumblebees And other bees too like honeybees and cuckoo bees Cuckoo bees They must’ve been named after you Sherman Zac joked Very funny Sherman frowned That’s enough Mr Byrd said I have some exciting news to share so listen up As some of you may know the governor’s mansion is celebrating 6
its one hundredth birthday A daylong event is being held to honor this historic milestone It’s sort of like a birthday party for the mansion That sounds fun Can we go Yulia asked She was right It did sound fun And I write for our school newspaper the Benton Bluff Bloodhound It could make a great story Maybe Mr Byrd said Junior high bands from across the state are being invited to play at the festivities You mean we’re going the governor Lemuel Soriano popped up out of his chair clutching his trumpet Awesome to play for Slow down Lem Mr Byrd held up both hands I didn’t say that We might get to play at the governor’s mansion But first we have to win our region by competing against some other bands at our local performing arts center I raised my hand Baylor Mr Byrd said 7
How many other bands are we talking about Right now Mr Byrd said fifteen junior high bands in our region have registered to compete Whoa I said That’s a lot of bands How many winners will there be in a region Sherman asked Mr Byrd held up two fingers Only two Why even bother Zac asked Playing before an audience and getting judges feedback is a great opportunity for our band Zac even if we don’t win And Mr Byrd went on our band is just as talented as the other competitors Did you hear us today Zac held his nose We stunk We won’t stink if we all learn the music And show up with all of our stuff Lem added Lem was talking about Zac So far this week he’d forgotten his sheet music one day and left his mouthpiece on the bus another day We all knew Zac did it on purpose to get out of playing 8
Okay guys Mr Byrd went on I have one other piece of exciting news to share He wiggled his eyebrows up and down behind his glasses What was Mr Byrd up to now We’re going to have a little pre-competition competition right here in the band room he said I’ve asked a couple of guest judges to help me choose a soloist for our song at the competition I didn’t like the way this was going My hands were sweaty just thinking about playing a solo Do we have to try out for the solo I asked Please say no Because I really really don’t want to Absolutely Mr Byrd nodded It’ll be a good experience for everyone And a fair competition for the solo I was afraid he’d say that But trying out for a solo I didn’t even want seemed totally unfair And the song I’ve chosen for us to play at the competition is one we’ve practiced a lot lately Mr Byrd said It’s Flight of the Bumblebee 9
