Semi-Charmed Life

October

"Hey, El?"

Rachel's voice reached El just as El met her boyfriend's eyes across the room, so she was almost distracted. His gaze flickered away after a second as a small smile crossed his face. She turned to the girl in the chair next to her.

"Yeah?"

Rachel paused with her mouth open for a moment, as if she was trying to find the right words to say. "Are- you know, your friends- are they... single?"

El scrunched her nose, which was quickly followed with a cheeky smile. Rachel was a nice girl, and pretty too. Her dark curly hair and big brown eyes had captured many attentions. "We all are, except Will," she lied. "Why, do you like one of them?"

Rachel looked down nervously. "I-"

"You'd better not, " interrupted Paige, the girl in the seat on Rachel's other side. As she sat, her eyes swept toward the brass section, straying further to the back of it long enough for El to notice.

"Why not?" She asked. Rachel was silent.

Paige rolled her eyes. "Those boys are gross. Especially Henderson. And Wheeler," she added, almost as an afterthought. "Sinclair's on thin ice."

El crossed her arms. "My friends aren't gross."

Paige started assembling her flute without a word, her expression clearly conveying that she thought she was too good for this conversation to continue. El personally thought it was because Paige was scared she was going to accidentally say something to reveal her actual feelings.

But she didn't say anything. After all, Paige wasn't the only one lying straight to everyone's faces...

At the end of practice, their director stopped them all from leaving by stating he had something big to announce. El looked to her right at her stepbrother, sitting in the second row of the clarinet section and looking at her with the same confused expression.

"So..." said Mr. Thompson slowly. "It's now October. That means the time is coming up for auditions to Indiana North, and I have secured permission from our principal!"

The class immediately erupted into excited yells. Indiana North? As far as El knew, Hawkins High hadn't auditioned again since the disaster performance at the semifinal in 2003. It was doubly exciting because this was the last opportunity for their group, as seniors.

"Settle down!" Mr. Thompson yelled over the din. "I know you're excited, but you all know what this means?"

The other students took a few moments to quiet down and El could still hear some of the boys at the back whispering, but their director continued.

"Hawkins High has not been a part of this competition for almost fourteen years," he said. "But I think this year's senior band has the greatest potential to do well that I've seen in my years teaching since then. However ," and here he paused for dramatic effect, "this is going to take a lot of work from all of our parts. We are going to need to practice regularly. Home practice is your own responsibility, but I'm going to be adding an additional Tuesday after school on top of our regular Fridays."

El caught Max's eye from where she was standing by the table near the door that held extra percussion instruments. The redhead was tapping her drumsticks against her thigh in a quick rhythm, looking excited. El knew this type of thing was something Max had dreamed of almost her whole life. Music was a big passion of hers, and getting to show off her skills to people that were not citizens of Hawkins, population circa 3,000? Wicked.

El zoned out for a minute as she packed up her flute, and was about to leave the classroom when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

Rachel blinked at her, nervously tugging the ends of her hair. "Mr. Thompson wants to talk to you."