IN MY CONFUSED EFFORTS TO navigate from AP Calculus — which I have after homeroom on Mondays — to my next class, I thankfully find a girl who seems to share a common destination with me.

I assume she is also heading to Music Theory because of the violin case clutched in her hand. If not, at the very least, she can point me in the right direction. As I discreetly follow her from behind, I observe the girl.

Streaks of colour dart in and out of the bottom third of her hair, like fish swimming through a golden ocean at the speed of light, leaving only a visual imprint of where they were. Green streaks, orange tresses, blue fish, purple hair. Every shade of the spectrum must be squeezed onto her brown hair, but instead of looking messy and crowded, it looks beyond artistic on her.

She is always two steps ahead of me, but I am content with following her. It's from this vantage point that I see a boy slide his foot out and trip her. The case tumbles out of her hands. The discordant clang of strings is a musician's equivalent of nails on a chalkboard and makes me wince, both for her and for her instrument.

While she picks herself up from the floor, frazzled, I get the violin case, and pick off the specks of grime that latched onto it.

"Thanks," her voice charms.

A smile tugs at one side of her lips, forming an approachable half-smile that looks like it could be used in any situation or context. She could say hello with that smile; she could say goodbye; she might even say sorry for a runaway cat.

"You're welcome. That was really rude of him." I pass the violin case back into her hands.

"Oh." She glances at the boy on the other side of the hallway, chatting innocently with his friends. "I'm sure he didn't mean that. He probably just stumbled."

My eyebrows knit together, having watched the whole thing from two paces away. He did not stumble. But she seems content to sweep the incident away, so I ask pleasantly, "Do you play violin?"

And then smack myself internally.

"Of course you play violin," I grimace. "It's not like you carry that just for decoration."

The girl throws back her head and laughs. "That's okay. I've played since I was ten years old. Do you play any instruments?" 

I'm receiving good vibes from her. I don't even know her name, but already, I see better friendship prospects with her than Terrence the prankster with friends in high places. She's smart, and forgiving, and musical — which is something we have in common.

"Yeah, I play piano."

"That's cool! Are you enrolled in any music classes this year?"

I nod as we stroll down the hallways, much quicker now that I have someone who knows where she is going. "I'm taking the senior Music Theory elective. I actually noticed your violin case and hoped you knew where that classroom is, since you seem familiar with the music department."

"You are in luck, new girl." She extends a hand. "I'm Leah, and I'm taking Music Theory with you."

Cool relief flows down my spine. A friend! On my first day, too. That's a win if I ever saw one. 

I extend my own hand and we share a handshake between two bright grins. "I'm Sophie. Very nice to meet you."

Once we are acquainted, it's like our common musicality sparks up an immediate friendship. We find ourselves discussing our musical history when Leah tells me a joke about how to remember the strings of the violin. It is so cheesy, and so lame.

"Why do Australians like the violin?" Leah asks. "Because its strings say g'day!" Then she bursts out laughing at her own joke, clutching her stomach with her free hand. I give a half-hearted chuckle, but my face clearly belies that I don't get the joke.

And being as unfamiliar with string instruments as I am, Leah goes on to explain drily how the strings of a violin ascend G, D, A, E. If you pronounce it, it sounds like g'day. See, I was so inept at violin that I didn't even remember the notes of the strings.

"Clearly, it's not funny anymore because I explained it. That's just how jokes work. Exposition kills the magic," Leah quips, her voice melodious as she babbles.

"No, no, it's still funny," I assure her through genuine peals of laughter. "I'm just so green with string instruments."

"Thanks, Soph. But, yes, that one joke was how I learnt to remember the string order. And now you know it, too, so yay — I guess."

With this bundle of joy by my side, the commute to the music room passes in the breath of a laugh. Leah tells me about her role in the school concert band, something we have — well, had — in common. She harbours dreams to be admitted to the Juilliard School of Music. It feels so comforting to have someone open up to me so easily, so early on.

Upon entering, I immediately gather that Music Theory has far fewer people than my AP Calculus class. Including our teacher, Leah and me, there are a total of six people in the room.

"Most people only take Music Theory because all you need to do to learn is how to read one octave of notes in treble clef and count in common and waltz time," Leah rolls her eyes.

Looking around the room, I trip up on her words most people. It seems like we have the least people in any class at the school. In layman's terms: to pass this class, you just have to identify dots on a line and count to four over and over again. Easy, it would seem.

"But because all of us are band kids, and probably know theory better than the teacher, we just use the period as practise time."

It's then I notice a group of kids at the back of the room, setting up music stands and preparing their instruments. Leah walks over coolly, and gestures for my nervous self to follow.

I see the variety of instruments they play, ranging from drums to flute, and immediately feel at home. A tall, black-haired guy is cleaning his flute with a cloth. Another boy with wild, unruly hair is adjusting the height of the cymbals on his drum kit. A girl with a punky, shaved haircut is tuning her guitar to the notes on a piano.

Leah introduces them all.

Ashley — the guitarist — has an eyebrow piercing that makes me want one, too. Callum — the drummer — wears a green tribal bandana in effort to tie down his unruly curly hair. The super tall guy playing the flute is Quentin. 

All three of them are in the Wind Symphony, another elective class. Quentin and Callum are also in the school marching band, the latter belonging to drumline. As a violinist, Leah could join neither Wind Symphony nor marching band, so she uses Music Theory as her practical period.

After the frivolous greetings and kind questions regarding how I am finding Carsonville are exchanged, Ashley pulls out a red folder, filled to bursting with worn pages of music. A few pieces drop out, cascading off her chair, and she hurriedly picks them up and tosses them onto a spare chair.

"Ladies and gents, what shall we play today?" she mutters to herself as she flips rapidly through the file.

"Won't we get in trouble for not doing any work?" I wonder.

"It's Music class! This is work," Callum exclaims.

I purse my lips worriedly. "What will the teacher do?"

All four of them glance over their backs with barely concealed laughter. The teacher has headphones strung over his head, intently watching a video on his laptop.

"Probably thank us for giving him a break," Ashley chuckles, pulling out a stack of sheet music. "Aha, found it. Do you play, Sophie?"

"Oh... um. No, I'm not—"

Leah smiles. "She plays piano!" Shit.

"Great!" Ashley says. "I knew I liked you from the get."

Callum adds, "We could use a pianist for this one."

After years of being relegated to playing timpani, cymbals, real background-type instruments, in my old school's concert band, the thought of playing the only piano part in front of people — even if they're nice — scares me. There's not much sound to cover my mistakes.

But before I can protest, Leah plants her hands on my shoulders and sits me down at the studio piano. Quentin sweeps the cover off, Callum lifts the lid and Ashley arranges the sheet music all neatly for me on the stand.

"It's only music," she says when she pulls her hands away. "Don't overthink it."

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Somehow, Callum hit the crash cymbal hard enough to have it still ring a full minute after we finished.

"Oh my God. That was amazing," Leah cheers. Her face is red from either the exertion of playing or the excitement of the music — though I shouldn't exclude the situation of it being both.

Yeah. They were amazing. Ashley had chosen a simple and catchy pop song for us to cover, and somehow the arrangement just clicked. Quen and Leah squeezed every drop of beauty from the melody and harmony lines, while Callum drove the rhythm on and Ashley and I ebbed and flowed the swell of the volume with our chords.

All of them played so expertly and passionately that I felt like a toddler tripping my way through with discordant notes and late entries.

Quentin jocularly says to me, "And you said you weren't good at sight-reading."

I shrug and hand the sheet music back to Ashley who re-staples the pieces back together — she has this cute, miniature, purple stapler that fits into her pocket — and puts it back in the folder.

I am never going to be a concert pianist, but I have familiarity around a set of keys. My sight-reading comes through when I need to pick up melodies quickly or fill accompaniments, filling the gap left by my average virtuosity.

"You know, we could use someone like you in our band," Callum offers. Instead of going into any sort of case or bag, Callum opts to shove his dented drumsticks into a belt loop on his jeans, folding them into the waistband to secure them.

"Are you in the concert band, too?"

"Nope," he says, popping his lips. "The four of us are starting an independent band."

Ashley hits Callum on the arm and turns to me. "He's exaggerating. We're just a casual group of people who get together and play music."

But Callum disagrees, evidently, when he protests, "That's what a band is."

"You moron, you can't just run through a couple of other people's songs and call yourself a band—"

Ashley and Callum are still debating what constitutes a band when Leah takes over and says, "We could really use another addition. A pianist would add so much more diversity to our group."

She must have gone through years' worth of bickering to be absolutely immune to this, I realise, as she straps her violin into its case like profanities aren't being tossed into the air like beach balls. In fact, she doesn't seem to register the fighting pair at all. Her eyes twinkle at me expectantly, calm unlike her two friends.

I guess if it was such a relaxed arrangement, there would be no harm in saying yes right now. My voice was tentative, "Okay?"

"Yes! We all have the same period for Music, so this is where we'll play." Callum pumps his fist in the air. "You won't regret it, newbie. Promise."