A True Hero (Steve)

Help. Me.

No one did vibrato in the violin section. We were testing over Kokoro, our one performance number, because I sensed that the chair placement was way off. One of the seconds has the best bow control of anyone I've seen in this ensemble and the concertmaster has horrible intonation. Our cellists clearly had no idea what they were doing. Surprisingly, our violas were doing just fine. This arrangement of Kokoro featured the violas, which masked the fact that our violins' intonation was comparable to creeper dung.

I was about done with the first violins. Though I've haven't decided on a concertmaster yet, I had a few likely candidates: Kaitlyn Berg, Maxwell Cox, and Aliyah Zhu. All of them were well-qualified, but, seeing that I'm a concertmaster myself, none of them have what it truly takes. Aliyah's heart is with her flute in band, which was good, but why was she in the orchestra and not doing other flute stuff? Maxwell is busy with STEM and Kaitlyn is just plain mean-spirited. I could see her across from me with that saccharine smile of hers. However, the moment someone finished a test, she would start whispering comments to her stand partner, Adrienne. I overheard the name Lisette and something about yanking hair.

That brought me to the second violins. I tested until I saw a Lisette. There weren't many Lisettes in the world, let alone at Mindcrack, so I could only assume that this was who Kaitlyn and Adrienne were talking about. Lisette raised her bow and played her part almost perfectly. After giving her the music for the first part and telling her to play the solo, she soared. Something about the way she played transcended everything else I've heard so far and then the music stopped. I came back down from my musical high to see that Lisette was crying and not from the beauty of what she just played.

Kaitlyn snickered at Lisette's pain. I completely lost it. I just sent her out of the room and gave her a zero on her playing test. If there's one thing I do not take kindly to in the music world, it's sabotage. Music is about putting on your best show, not ruining someone else's. Being rather concerned, I pulled Lisette aside for a bit. She got out of her wheelchair and walked over to me. She had an odd gait, but it seemed to do the job for Lisette. I lowered the volume on my device to something barely above a whisper.
          "What happened?"
          "Someone yanked my hair while I was playing and now my wheelchair doesn't work. The wheels won't move." She hobbled over accordingly and showed me the problem at hand. The wheels would not budge. I looked at the axles. They were jammed with gum.
          "What is that?" I pointed to her arm.
          "Oh. I felt something stab me." She wiped the blood away, but it came back just as fast and ran down her arm. That wasn't a something. That was a someone. It was a switchblade wound. Switchblades are the weapons of cowards. They are rarely, if ever, used in any sort of honorable combat. Being largely tied to criminal activities, switchblades are banned on a variety of campuses. Mindcrack doesn't ban switchblades, only chemical and biological weapons. I made note of the other seconds and I was done with the tests. I had a good idea of what the violas, cellos, and basses would do.

Because I didn't want to risk her being around Adrienne any longer, I escorted Lisette to the nurse myself. She had red coppery hair the color of acacia wood and silver eyes. They almost looked unnatural, but they weren't piercing like gray eyes normally are. Instead, they looked especially soft and innocent. It wouldn't be an issue because the bell was four minutes from ringing.

About halfway down the hall, Lisette's wheelchair started falling apart. I looked more closely at it. A few key screws had been loosened with, from what I could tell, a bloody switchblade. Lisette handed me something and, instantly, my suspicions were confirmed. It was indeed a switchblade. It had no name, but it did have a poppy engraving. I'm not well-versed in engravings on weapons, but, generally, those with poppy engravings are not to be trusted.

I asked Lisette if she would be okay walking to the nurse. After she shook her head, I ended up carrying her to the nurse. I dropped her off and took the switchblade to the office.

After describing the incident for a bit, which was difficult because my device decided to rage quit on me in the middle of a sentence. How convenient.

When school got out, I got a notice in my inbox saying that the school would shut down for a week starting tomorrow. I saw Lisette with a cane and she thanked me for carrying her to the nurse's office.
          "Not many people would do that. You're a true hero."
          "Why not?"
          "Well, it's because of my brother." She looked down shamefacedly. "You know about the Havencraft High School shooting?" I did, as a matter of fact. My school was shut down for the day because the shooter was in the area. "It was my brother who did that and I keep getting harassed because of it."
           "And his name?"
           "Landon LaCoste."