Excerpt
“On most days Polkton Collegiate was a snake pit, and the first day of the year was no exception. As fifteen-year-old Meredith came through the east tech-wing entrance, the halls closed in with their familiar mayhem, catcalls and laughter ricocheting off the walls. Short and slight, she was immediately absorbed into the crowd; ducking to the right, she sidestepped the oncoming flow of students and headed past the first overhead security camera and on down the corridor. Ten meters in from the entrance was her homeform - the schools only music classroom - and as she approached, she quickened her step. An expression of anticipation crossed her face; glancing to either side, she swallowed once and slipped through the open doorway.
The room was empty, not even Mr. Woolger, her homeform teacher, to be seen, and for a moment Meredith simply stood, a grin of relief on her face. Then, without hesitating, she strode past the shelves of numbered instrument cases and the tubas positioned upside-down on their stands, and climbed the risers that contained the students chairs. At the third and highest riser, she paused and scanned various nearby percussion instruments before turning her attention to the drum set. Briefly her grin broadened, and almost disbelievingly she touched a fingertip to one of the cymbals. Here it was - the moment she had been pondering for weeks - and now, with one glance around, she stepped behind the largest drum and parked her butt.
For a second, she felt disoriented. Having spent the previous year seated in a floor-level chair in the front row, the view from the third riser felt surreal - three descending rows of chairs and music stands and Mr. Woolgers front-of-the-room conducting podium and desk. There was so much space, Meredith wanted to stretch out her arms and holler. The drum set was, simply put, the place to be in Homeform 75, and the fact that she had snagged it for her grade-ten year was sweet.”