Chapter 1 WHERE'S Bert Saturday March 17 5:52 p.m. Tonight was the night the finals of the statewide Music and Variety Talent Contest With just eight minutes until the stage two curtain went up the Quetlock Quavers were in a flurry of excitement checking and rechecking their music and warming up their instruments There were high fluttery notes from the flutes low farty notes from the trombones and tubas and the loud clang of a dropped triangle from the percussion section followed by an even louder cry of pain OWWWW Watch what you're doing clumsy That landed on my toe This was it their grand moment in the spotlight on a proper stage in a proper theater in front of all their family and friends This was their chance to shine to prove to the waiting judges that they were THE best school orchestra in the whole state
Stage Two Hullabaloo Even better than those stuck up show offs from the Quetlock Heights Academy with their silly tartan ties and blazers The snooty academy concert orchestra might have won the title last year and the year before that and every year stretching back to the beginning of talent show time but their reign was over now There was a new school orchestra champion in town waiting behind the curtain in their red Quetlock Quavers T shirts ready for the performance of their lives The orchestra had been practicing nonstop for weeks For months They knew their opening piece Foxtrot for Elephant back to front and inside out They knew it so well they could have played it in their sleep In fact one of the flautists Piper Lewis had been doing just that for the last three nights in a row She was still humming it when she woke up each morning her fingers picking out the notes on imaginary flute keys as she lay there under the covers And Cody Clendon the Quetlock Quavers's percussionist was no better He'd been tapping out his part on every desk in school for the last two weeks much to his teachers annoyance Stop tapping Cody and work on your math problems Less tapping and more Spanish please Mr Clendon CODY CLENDON STOP THAT TERRIBLE TAPPING It wasn't just Cody's fingers drumming out the opening bars of Foxtrot for Elephant now though Nervous excitement had
Where's Bert set his arms and legs off too elbows jerking up and down like a hyper chicken BUMP CLATTER CRASH Ow ow ow cried his neighbor as the cymbal went flying off after the triangle Watch out clumsy that's my other toe Shh hissed the conductor Mrs Allegro waving her baton at them We don't want the judges to hear you arguing Good luck everyone she added Let's make it a good one Our best performance yet Good luck whispered the violins to the violas Break a leg said the clarinets to the oboes May the force be with you said the bassoonist who was a bit of a Star Wars nut Psst Ying it's time to put your book away and get warmed up What Oh Sorry Ying Cheung put down her library book and picked up her trombone squeezing her lips into shape Tick tock tick tock Six minutes to go The nervous chain of good luck wishes carried on rippling across the stage in soft whispering waves Good luck hissed the first cello to the second Good luck mouthed the second cello to Dev Shah on third Good luck with the solo Bert said Dev turning to his
