Chapter 1

   "Hey, Mel, can I borrow that book you were reading?" Harmony asks as we approach our band lockers.

   "It depends," I say taking my clarinet from my locker and putting it together. Harm takes out her trumpet and empties her spit valve. "Which one?" I continue as we walk into the main band hall. Though I had only been here for about a year, they all felt like family.

   "You know! The one about the ghost girl. I think her name was... Beatrice!" We sit our instruments down at our assigned spots and meet up again in the guard room. It was an enormous room and had three separate mirrors. The walls were white and peeling and the floor was checkered blue and white. In the corner was a picture of a serious girl with a flag. The caption read, THE ARMED GUARD.

   As we walk into the room we laugh at the poster and sit down on the floor. Then, I reply, "You mean 'I've Been Dead Before?' How could you forget that's all I've been talking about for months! Sure you can. Spoiler alert: Josh-"

   She holds her finger to my lips and says through clenched teeth, "I swear if you spoil this book for me I will punch you so hard!"

   I laugh, "Sure you will." I know she won't, she's to nice. Harmony Bivens was an eighth grader at Benhide Middle School like me. She was tall and not at all tan, she had baby blue eyes, and a beautiful and cheery smile. Her shoulder-length brunette hair often covers her left eye.

   She smiles at me. "You know me so well." She says, sarcasm dripping from her voice. I hear a faint whistle from downstairs. "We better go. Thirty seconds until band practice starts." She grabs my wrist and runs downstairs.

   When we arrive everyone else is in their seats. We're late, as usual. One of the two field commanders, Hannah, gives us half a glance and says, "Give me twenty-five for lateness."

   I give her a half smile and then get onto the floor. My first fifteen go by quickly, and I'm way ahead of Harm, but by nineteen, I grow tired and have to shrug my shoulders to subside the pain.

   She beats me by two and on my way to my seat I glare at the back of her head. I sit at my seat praying that my section leader won't call me out. I know he won't, he's as sweet as he could be. My section leader is a Junior. His name is Jordan. He has brown hair and his eyes are hazel. He's also always testing his limits.

   We play through the show once and I zone out as the band director, Ms. Jerik, yabbers on about how pathetic our consistent air flow was.

   Ms. Jerik whispers to Hannah and immediately after she begins calling role.

   "Jordan."

   "Here!"

   "Kailey."

   "Here!"

   "Mary."

   "Here."

   "CA."

   "Here!"

   "Harmony."

   Harmony doesn't respond. I look over at her. She's playing a game on her phone. I nudge her with my elbow.

   "What?" she snaps and the virtual bird on the game dies. "I was almost beating the high-score!"

   "Harmony!" Hannah tries again and glances at Harm.

   "Oh, here!"

   "Katlyn."

   "Here!"

   "Melody."

   "Here!" I say raising my hand.

   "Brittany."

   "Here!"

   "Lexi."

   "Here!"

   She continues calling role and I zone out until Hannah begins giving instructions. "Okay, guys. We're going to go..." Hannah says giving the other field commander, Kaitlin, a look.

    "...Go outside and practice set by set." Kaitlin finishes for her. 

   For the rest of the day I just follow people around and hope I was doing it right. Band practice went by quicker than usual and soon my mom's coming to pick me up.