Red eyes stared at the ceiling, the odd ceiling where only half of the road had tiles, to make it look artsy. The eyes' owners grumbled to himself as he looked at the white board that was staring at him. Things to bring: LONG white socks, white shirt, blue shorts. He read to himself, at least he remembered that when he got home yesterday, unlike others that had to call home. His seat wobbled some as he moved his legs, if he fell it wouldn't hurt, he was on the last step of the band stand. He then looked at his right side, a grey bird, who he had a little confrontation with when they were younger, was cleaning his tube. The gold looking brass shining in the light. A red echidna, cleaning his trumpet, was next to him.

"Yo! Tails! We need the marimbas, pronto!" a voice was heard behind Shadow. He closed his eyes, knowing the voice too well.

"Sonic!" a fox whined, who was at the other end of the room, whitening a mountain of white shoes.

"Can't you see I'm busy?

"Then who's going to take 'em to the truck?"

"I'll take them," a young albino hedgehog volunteered. He was placing his saxophone back in his case, he seemed to be done with cleaning it.

"Alright, Silver!" Sonic cheered as he started to walk into another room. Shadow sighed, annoyed by the voices around him. All talking, yelling, laughing; the nervous tension coming ever so often when someone shouts the time.

"12:34." Someone called out but Shadow didn't know who. Flutes started to play in the background, making Shadow growl some. He looked behind, there stood Blaze and Cream practicing on their silver painted instruments. Walking in front of him was Silver, taking the marimbas to the back door, using his telekinesis powers to take them.

"Shad! Yo, Shadster!" Shadow grumbled at this.

"What did I tell you abou-"

"Yo, dude. We like need help over here." Sonic called out as he lifted up a dirty, white shoe.

"Hn." Shadow responded. It was barely audible due to the clarinets blaring in the background. Marine and Mina was practicing the latest song they learned.

"Shadow! Come on!" That fox whined again. Doesn't that fox know anything other than whine? Shadow thought to himself. He started to walk over to the two, he had to go help them or they will just keep annoying him. When Shadow reached the pile of shoes, he grabbed the smallest pair and a bottle of shoe whitener.

"Storm. After you are done cleaning your tuba, take it to the truck." Vector called out, his hand covering the cell phone he was holding. He then said some words to it, which Shadow couldn't hear, and then hanged up.

"Um…Sir? Why are we taking the marimbas and the tuba in the truck?" Shadow looked over; it was that green plant person that the annoying fox was dating.

"Well Cosmo, I just found out that we couldn't get a bus where the compartments are big enough for those instruments. We could get one, but it will cost more and we just don't have the budget." Vector exclaimed as he looked over a clipboards he had, shuffling through the papers.

"Did you take Vanilla on a date with our money again?" Mighty asked, as he hold onto his trombone.

"Yes, yes I did." Vector said, in a matter-a-fact tone, as he walked into his office, still looking at his clipboard.

"That darn Vector. Can't believe that Dean Vanilla made him the band director." Sonic commented as they whitened the shoes. Shadow kept whitening the shoes, the faster he does this, the faster Sonic leaves him alone. The trumpets started to play their measures, just about eight measures. After the eight measures, they played it over again. Shadow looked at the trumpets, consisted of Knuckles, Julie-Su, and Ray. Shadow sighed, he was jealous. Why did I have to be so good at catching a damn baton? Shadow thought to himself. His dream bubble was popped when Rob started to play. The teal colored hedgehog blared the sound of his trombone, silencing almost the other instruments. He was soon followed by Mighty who was playing the same instrument. Shadow growled, but no one heard since the trombones were so loud. The pile of shoes was now small. Shadow gave a sigh a relief, because of the shoes and the trombones stopping their practice.

"Come on, Tails! Hurry up so we can practice!" Jet yelled from the other side of the room, tapping slowly on a snare drum.

"I'm almost done. Just let me do these last two." Tails responded as he tried his best to finish the shoes. He was about to reach for the last pair when Shadow reached for it. Tails looked up, or that's what Shadow thought, he was too busy with the whitener.

"Go. You need all the practice." Shadow told the fox. Tails smiled as he ran off towards Jet.

"Thanks." Shadow heard Tails say. He looked over and saw the fox scolding Jet of using his drums and sitting on Charmy's drums, who was flying over Jet, also scolding him.

"Silence, you commoners!" Jet was heard, laughing after the comment. Tails shook his head as he pushed Jet off, who stumbled backwards. Charmy reached for his drum and put the straps on it. Tails did the same and then they both walked out. Wave was heard laughing somewhere and Jet growled at wherever she was.

"Come on, Jet." Rotor was heard, but not really seen, due to the bass drum he had strapped on his torso. Rotor walked out, wobbling side to side. Wobbling after him was Big, taking his cymbals with him. A sigh was heard and Shadow turned to it. Antoine was walking with his head looking towards the ground, his cymbals under his chin.

"Why so blue, Antoine?" Sonic asked, holding in a laugh.

"If you must know Sonic, I am still pretty upset that I haven't been promoted to flute or clarinet." Antoine explained, in his French accent, as he waved around his cymbals. Behind him, Jet and Wave were putting the harnesses for the multi-tenor drums on. They seemed to be racing on who will put it on first.

"Maybe it's because you can't read music notes fast enough." Sonic explained, holding in his laughter. Antoine sighed and walked outside with the rest of the drum line, followed by the two birds who were arguing again. Shadow reached for another pair of shoes but noticed that his hand couldn't get any. When he finally looked, he noticed Sonic up on his feet, stretching.

"Now it's my time to shine." Sonic said before he ran, as fast as he could, to where his case was. Shadow got up as he looked at Sonic taking out his clarinet. Marine and Mina started to follow his lead and they all played about the same time. Shadow decided he needed some air. He started to walk outside, leaving most of the wind players inside.

"1:04!" Someone called out. Again, Shadow didn't know who it was. The light hurt his eyes as he stretched. In some few hours, ima be standing in that sun. At least, it's pretty cold. Shadow thought to himself. He took a deep breath and gave a relaxed sighed. He couldn't really hear the instruments inside the band room, which made things calmer. Why did the competition have to be on a weekday? At least it wasn't early like in the weekends. He felt in peace, he doesn't really do anything and it won't be in a while until he puts on his uniform anyways. His serenity was stopped short though; the drum line started to play. The snare drums were heard followed by the giant bass drum that made Shadow's body vibrate with the beat. The cymbals occasionally doing their thing every so measure. Shadow covered his ears; he was going to deal with this later anyways. The snare drums and bass drum stopped and the multi-tenors started to play their impressive fast paced melody. Shadow actually listened to the tenors play. They were playing so fast Shadow and the rest of the school couldn't believe, or so he heard from students when he walked during lunch after the pep rally. He knew that they were trying to be the best in the state, plus it was Wave and Jet trying to race each other. Shadow listened closely; by at least 1/3 of a second, you could hear Wave beat Jet. The fast paced tapping stopped and arguing was heard.

"I was so faster than you. You probably bribed these guys."

"Why do I need to bribe them? They know that I'm way faster than a green parrot."

"I'm not a parrot!"

"Shadow, shouldn't you be practicing?" Charmy flew next to him as he practiced his drumming, softly.

"1:19! Start putting your uniforms on!" Vector yelled outside and then yelled it again inside the band room.

"Why should I? I have never dropped it. I don't think I will this time." Shadow replied as he closed his eyes.

"Oh Shadow. Don't you ever get nervous that it might fall?" Shadow opened one of his eyes to look at the bat. She was wearing the color guard outfit, a full body leotard that had a glittery diagonal stripe on the torso, separating the red and the blue, with a small glittery skirt to add in a touch. She was followed by Amy and Bunnie, who were all wearing the same outfit plus some black flats. Bunnie and Amy were holding onto the poles of the blue and red flags they were going to use.

"Hn." Shadow replied.

"Whatever. Let's go practice girls since we are the only ones ready." Rouge said as she walked to the area where the drum line was, since they were starting to clean up and go inside of the band room.

"That will give us plenty of time to do all three routines." Amy commented, making Bunnie gave a giggle.

"The others change faster than Eggman after thanksgiving with a side order of chicken wings." Shadow, including the other girls and Charmy, just stared at the half robotic rabbit. (A/N: If you haven't noticed, I'm bad at Bunnie's personality.)

Rouge shook her head and walked away with a confused expression, followed by Amy and Bunnie. Charmy started to fly inside the band room, still thinking of what Bunnie just said.

"Come on Shadow. We gotta get ready." Silver was inside the band room, looking outside towards Shadow as he was putting in his blazer. The sleeves were red, two trapezoids next to the sleeves were blue and the rest of the bottom part and back was white. Shadow sighed, he didn't like putting on his uniform. Not because it was tedious, but because they all have to change in the band room. Because they change in the band room, they all have to wear shorts and a white shirt under so that everyone can change in peace, but girls will be girls. He walked into the room, already hearing a girl squeal.

"I told you to turn around!" Marine's voice was heard from the area where the guitars were kept, which was on the far left side of the room.

"You have shorts on!" Jet was near her as he put on his white pants. Marine covered herself, even though she had a white shirt on. Girls, Shadow thought to himself as he went to his seat, which someone placed his uniform on. Shadow picked up the bag in which the dry cleaner put his uniform in. He took out his uniform carefully and started to put in his jeans, since he was already wearing shorts on. The pants felt a bit loose, he had been running more often lately since Vector disliked his attitude. He put on his white button shirt; he was one the rare ones that liked to stay formal under, unlike Sonic and his plain t-shirt. He started to put on his blazer when he heard Tails stuttering.

"I-I'm s-sorr-ry. I didn't mean to look at you."

"She's wearing shorts, relax." Wave was seen putting on her blazer. Cosmo hiding behind her, blushing to the extreme.

"Then why is she all red?" Tails looked away, still a bit embarrassed.

"'Cause you have your boxers on," Wave laughed some as she buttoned on her blazer, the gold buttons shinning in the light.

"T-they are n-not boxers. They are my shorts." Tails got red himself. Shadow shook his head as he started to button his own blazer. He looked over to wear he cleaned all the shoes. He walked over and searched for a pair of shoes of his size. It wasn't too hard to find it, only he and Sonic had that size of shoes. I don't believe that the faker is the same size as me. He just wants to be like me. Shadow thought as he went back to his chair and sitting down on it, lifting his left foot to unlace the shoes he was wearing. When he started to put on the white shoes the saxophones jazzed up the room. He looked over and saw Silver and Sally, with their uniforms on, with some shades on. They moved around in a jazzy manner while Sonic and Blaze snapped their fingers. Rotor, who also now had shades on, was snapping his fingers as well as he did some odd dance steps making Sonic laugh. Shadow went back to putting on his uniform. As he finished, he walked over to a mirror that was next to Vector's office and looked at himself. When he was satisfied with what he saw, he looked over to the saxophones again who were now passing around a toy microphone. It looked like it was Sonic's turned as he reached for it and started to say an odd poem.

"Birds…Fly in the sky…Because…they are birds.

I…run faster…than them.

Because…I am faster." Many started to laugh at the silly poem, Shadow just 'hmph-ed'.

"It's not cool how you didn't get to practice, Tikal." Shadow heard behind him. He looked in the corner of his eye, not wanting to intrude. He saw the orange echidna talking to a pink echidna.

"Yeah, but Vector wanted the marimbas in the truck so we won't waste any time."

"I did want to practice before we left though," Cosmo said as she walked to them, adjusting her buttons.

"So how's our favorite Drum major?" Rouge walked up to Shadow, hand on her hip. Amy and Bunnie were seen going to the back door with the flags, probably going to put them on the truck.

"Hn."

"Is that all you say?"

"Hmph." Shadow responded. Rouge rolled her eyes as she walked over to Knuckles and wrapped her fingers in his dreadlocks.

"Oh hell no," Shadow heard before he saw Julie-Su stomp her way to the bat and echidna. Shadow just walked over to Vector's desk which was in the front of the room. He looked over through all the clutter the crocodile had. After placing some papers on the floor, he found his baton. He did some tricks with it, fiddling it in his hands, passing it behind his back, and then throwing it up high. It missed the ceiling by an inch. It fell back down and he caught it, as usual. He then looked over to the rest of the band members. All the wind instruments were in their cases and in the hands of their players. The drum line was walking back into the room from the back door after putting their drums into the truck. How big is this truck that Vector got? Shadow thought to himself. The Color guard girls were all sitting down by themselves as Rouge smiled a devilish looking smile as Amy looked over to Julie-Su who seemed to be scolding a certain red echidna. The marimba players, the cymbal players and Storm were all talking of who knows what.

Shadow turned to the direction of Vector's office, the door opening rather loudly.

"Alright you guys, the bus is here. Let's all head to the main building." Cheers were heard after Vector said that as he fixed his tie; he was wearing a nice dress shirt and some nice looking jeans. Many grabbed their instruments, the others started to walk out. Shadow walked over to Vector, who just looked over to him.

"Yeah, yeah. I know. You can go with Omega in the truck." Vector said before he jogged over to his office for some few more things. Shadow gave a small smirk as he walked outside through the back door. Just a normal day at band, he sighed before he closed the door behind him.

{Just to let you know, I thought this was going to be a smaller chapter but I guess it just evolved into this. Well, I wrote this little(?) drabble while I was in guitar class because I was so bored! My guitar teacher is the band director so he didn't teach us that day because the band had a competition so…it was a bit chaotic. People were running around, cleaning their instruments, tuning them, practicing, whitening their shoes and even putting on their uniforms. I probably got some things wrong because I'm not in band, but I got help from my friends that are in band. Hoped you enjoyed. Please Review!...or…..else!}