Emily was in her room one afternoon, writing a story on her laptop computer. However, she wasn’t writing. She was staring at the blank computer screen, trying to think of something to write. Her ears suddenly tuned in to the radio, which she hadn’t really been listening to.
 
“What is this crap?” Emily demanded. She snatched up her remote and began changing the stations. She landed on the oldies station and decided to keep it there. Listening to oldies reminded her of when she was a seventh-grader, oldies were all that she listened to, and she always wrote something regardless of what people thought. She smiled slyly as she began typing away at what was now her very own keyboard.
 

 The band hallway was unusually quiet the next morning. Emily noticed that Andrew and his friends had not yet arrived. On the rare occasions that Emily went down the band hallway first thing in the morning, Andrew and his company were always there. Andrew never said anything to Emily. He simply stared at her as she walked by. This always sent a bit of a shiver up Emily’s spine.

 That morning, Emily was meeting Colette and the other seniors to get their shirts for the seniors’ performance that night. She had to leave right away to get a copy of her transcripts from the counseling office, so she stuck around only long enough to try on the shirt. As the others were talking and trying on their shirts, Colette interrupted with an “Oh, my gosh!” And everyone turned to look at Emily.

 Emily grinned sheepishly. The double-extra-large shirt reached down nearly to her knees, and four inches hung from her arms.

 “A little big, isn’t it?” asked Kyle.

 “It’s okay,” said Emily. She unbuttoned her pants--the guys turned away suddenly--and quickly tucked in the shirt. She buttoned her pants back up and flashed a grin at everyone. Nick was still turned away, covering his eyes.

 “I’m done, Nick,” said Emily.

 Nick looked at Emily and said, “That’s better.”

 Emily turned around to leave, just as she heard Colette say, “Now, about the show tonight... Leslie said she would still conduct if....”

 The hallway door closed behind Emily, and she heard nothing more.
 

 “So I’m thirteenth in the class,” Emily said that night, showing her transcript sheet to Nick when they had a moment together. “I’m absolutely thrilled. This should bring me some good luck, all right.”

 “I sure hope so,” said Nick, oblivious to the sarcasm in Emily’s voice as he yanked on his uniform pants. He then turned away to answer the “Nick-calls”--so Emily called them--coming from cute little Brittany Walsh. Emily frowned, tucked her transcripts away into her backpack, and buttoned up her jacket. The other seniors were displeased because they had to wear their uniforms for the first half of the game. Emily didn’t mind. The uniform was warmer, anyway. She hated being cold.

 The band got ready, marched out to the football field and performed their pre-game show like they normally did. After pre-game was done, the seniors went back to the band room to change into their special outfits for the senior show.

 While Emily tugged on her layers in a corner of the band room, she overheard some of the others talking. Paul, Dan, Simon and a few of the others were out of the room, while Nick ran in and out like a madman.

 “We’re going to line up in the front of the band,” said Colette. “Leslie said she would still conduct.”

 Emily was puzzled. She thought Mr. Minuzo had said that they had to be with the rest of the band. Perhaps he changed his mind. She shrugged and attempted to tuck in her gray senior shirt amid several layers of other shirts.

 “Did Mr. Minuzo change his mind?” Emily finally asked, her curiosity overcoming her.

 “No,” said Michelle.

 Emily thought for a moment. This puzzled her further. “So we’re going to stand in front of the band to play, even though he really doesn’t want us to?”

 “Yeah,” Colette replied.

 “Okay,” Emily shrugged.

 Mrs. Gutierrez walked into the band room at that moment, but the others didn’t stop talking about how they were going to go about their plan. Emily wandered out of the room to get a drink of water, half-listening to what the others were saying. Her mind wasn’t really on the game that night. She was wondering if she had managed to get into NHS. She had done no community service to speak of, so the service page of her application had been left blank. She hurried back out onto the track with the others to line up.

 The first part of the senior show ran smoothly. The seniors were escorted down the track by their parents and had their names announced over the loudspeaker. Since it was in reverse alphabetical order, Emily was the last to go.

 Emily finally heard her announcement. “And finally, mellophone player Emily Collins, escorted by her parents, Meg and Jeremy Collins.” She went to the end of the track, her parents received the flowers, and they split up so that Emily could join the others, preparing to go on the field.

 The rest of the band was already on the field. The seniors formed a line and marched out until they were just in front of the band.

 “Back! Back!” Mr. Minuzo yelled, signaling wildly.

 The line moved back a few paces. Emily, completely confused by now, moved back as far as they did and attempted to straighten out the line. Finally, Mr. Minuzo left them alone, and Leslie began conducting.

 The marching band banquet was the following Monday evening. Emily found her favorite blue dress and wore it for the occasion. It was a thing of ice blue, splashed with a dark-blue floral pattern, with a matching blue sweater. She put it on, along with a touch of makeup and a smile on her face, and decided that she looked “remotely decent.”
 Emily was in a “quiet mood” that evening--she felt pleasant, but she was not excited or hyper. She chose to sit with her family instead of with the other kids, who were somewhat rowdy. She saw very little of Mr. Minuzo, and wondered for a moment what he might say about the Friday night performance.

 She saw him while standing in line for food. He looked her in the eyes, but she couldn’t comprehend what his face was saying. Those eyes always gave her a little shiver. She clasped her hands, bit her bottom lip a little and gave him a half-imploring, half-sympathetic look that was altogether sweet. He shook his head and turned away.

 “Get a move-on, Emily!” said Justin, poking Emily in the side with his fork. She jumped at the sharp pain, gathered up her plate and silverware, and continued down the line.

 When everyone was fed, Mr. Minuzo began his speech. He talked about how proud he was of the improvements that the band had made, thanked everyone, and seemed to cut his speech short somewhere. Emily was suspicious that the speech was far from heartfelt and sincere. In fact, she knew he did not mean a word he said.

 Then the awards were presented. To her surprise, Emily was given the “Best Marcher” award along with Dan Ward, and the “Best Attitude” award along with Paul Murray. She was not expecting any awards. She had never thought of herself as a very good marcher because her fellow marchers had always criticized her; and she knew that her attitude had improved greatly from the year before, but she wasn’t sure she had the best one. She accepted her awards without argument, deciding that maybe, after all, she did deserve them.

 She went home that night and did her homework. After she was done with her trigonometry and physics problems, she began her literature assignment--to read the first scene of the ancient Greek play, Antigone, so she would be familiar with it for the class the next day. She ended up reading well into the first act, getting the idea of what the confusing language really said. The main character, Antigone, was a Greek princess with two brothers and a sister. After the death of their father, the two brothers, Eteocles and Polyneices, decided to share the throne by alternating who had it each year. However, by the end of the first year, Eteocles did not want to give up the throne to his brother. Angered, Polyneices gathered an army and attacked the city. After a brief war, it was down to Eteocles and Polyneices. They killed each other in battle. Their uncle, Creon, became the new king. He gave Eteocles a proper burial, but left Polyneices on the battlefield to be eaten by dogs and vultures, and told the city that anyone caught burying Polyneices would be punished. Antigone wanted to give Polyneices a proper burial, but her only surviving sibling, her sister Ismene, was apprehensive. She did not want to go against the rules, but finally gave up trying to convince Antigone not to bury Polyneices.

 Emily looked at the time. It was nearly eleven o’clock. She put the story away, knowing that she would finish it in literature class anyway. Then she climbed into bed.