Symphony of Sound.

The four of them sit down to breakfast in the lunch hall the next morning, less than prepared for their first full timetabled day.

“So did you two do it last night?” Alex asks through a mouthful of toast and jam as Zack and Rian sit down opposite him and Jack.

“No. Shut the fuck up.” Zack snaps, digging his spoon into his cereal way too violently. Alex raises his hands in surrender, a piece of toast still hanging from his mouth.

“Zack’s not a morning person,” Rian sighs, even though Alex should know this by now. Zack ruffles his messy, curlier than he’d like, hair, mumbles something in apology to Alex and carries on practically inhaling his cereal.

“Do you all have to eat like animals? Some people are trying to memorize sheet music over here.” Jack sighs, rustling his music and taking another sip of tea, pushing his glasses further up his nose with the back of his wrist.

“Okay, Grandpa, sheesh,” Alex exclaims, rolling his eyes and slamming his now empty glass of orange juice down particularly hard just to irritate the younger boy.

Jack narrows his eyes at him, shakes his head and looks back at his music, humming the tune gently through closed lips.

“It’s not that difficult, Jack.” Zack comments across the table. “It’s only Vivaldi.”

“Only Vivaldi?” Jack exclaims in shock.

“Yeah, it’s not hard. And I’ve got the solo.”

“Yeah, but you’re like a boy genius or something. You’re at Grade Seven and you’re sixteen, damn it. I’m only at Grade Five.”

“Hardly.” Zack scoffs. “I’m just... Practiced. And besides, your Grade Six is coming up. I can’t do Grade Eight until senior year.”

Jack winces at the mention of his exam, shaking his head again and pinching the bridge of his nose.

The morning bell for the end of breakfast rings and they stand, shuffling around before heading back up to their dorms to make themselves look socially acceptable, at least on the outside in any case.

They surface again and regroup just as the start of lesson bell rings, and they stumble their way across campus with the instruments, Alex too tired to even care about how ridiculous he looks carrying a double bass.

They arrive at class right on time, about two seconds before Mr. Smith shows up, gets them all into their seats and starts to talk about what will be their first assignment of the year.

The lesson finishes all too quickly for Zack’s liking –he was rather enjoying staring out of the window at the clouds moving too fast in the fall breeze.

“Zack, Jack, could I talk to you for a second?” Mr. Smith asks, right as they’re about to leave the room. They glance at each other, nervous, both thinking ‘shit, what have we done now?’

“Don’t look so scared, you’re not in trouble.” Mr. Smith says, laughing when he sees the way they both sigh in relief. “I just wanted to ask if you were interested in being part of the string quartet.”

Jack and Zack exchange another glance, nodding slightly before looking back at Mr. Smith.

“Sure, why not.”

“Great!” He says, clapping his hands together and smiling, rummaging around on his desk for two sets of sheet music. “Jack, that’s yours for the cello, Zack, that’s yours for the violin.”

Zack looks down at the heading on the paper, reading ‘The Reason – Hoobastank’ before skimming over the notes.

“Who are the other two members?” Jack asks, rolling up the music and stuffing it into his bag.

“Jonathan Cook from twelfth grade on the viola and Evan Kirkendall from tenth grade on the second violin.”

Zack nods, plays with his tie and rolls up his music, shoving it into his back pocket.

“Practice is during lunch hour today. Bring your lunch over here and eat before we play.”

“What was that about?” Rian asks as the two of them appear from the classroom, quietly talking over their plans for tonight.

“String quartet.” Zack replies, heading off down the stairs towards Math class.

He and Jack trudge their way back up to Music during lunch break, pushing open the door to find Jonathan and Evan sitting waiting for them, with half eaten cup noodles and pasta, instruments on their chairs near their music stands.

They nod in greeting as they sit down beside them, immediately starting to eat the now lukewarm pizza and toasted sandwich they picked up from the cafeteria on their way by.

“You all play together during orchestra, don’t you?” Mr. Smith asks, to which they all nod, mouths too full to speak an even vaguely delicate response.

They’re done eating around five minutes later, and they assemble themselves on their chairs with their music in front of them.

“Now I know this is the first time you’ve played this song, so don’t worry if it doesn’t sound that great. We have all year to fix it up.” He continues with a smile. “I’ll count you in.”

Zack rests his violin on his shoulder, wriggling a little to try and get it to feel even the least bit comfier as everyone else plays the introduction.

He nearly misses his cue, but quickly recovers, acting as if nothing is wrong as his eyes skim the music, fingers faultlessly switching strings without even looking away from the page.

Considering it’s their first practice, Zack honestly doesn’t think they sound all that terrible –no one dropped out of time that he noticed, in any case.

“Wow, guys, I’m impressed.” Mr. Smith says, applauding them with a grin. “That needs less work than I thought it would. I say we try out something else, too.”

Zack smiles shyly when Jonathan pats him on the back, whispering ‘you sounded great, man!’

Mr. Smith returns with more sheet music, which he places on their music stands and lets them take in for a minute or so.

“So, what do you think?”

Zack nods a little, reading the words ‘What A Catch, Donnie – Fall Out Boy’ on the top of the page before repositioning his violin on his shoulder, rotating his wrist a little to try and regain movement.

“Your wrist surely shouldn’t be making noises like that,” Jonathan comments, wincing as he hears the way Zack’s wrist cracks as he twists it.

“Years of playing violin does things to you,” Zack says with a laugh, plucking his bow from where he’d placed it, teetering on the rim of his music stand.

The song doesn’t go as smoothly as Zack or Jack would’ve liked –they fumble a few notes here and there, and Zack very nearly swears at a section he completely forgot about in his previous haste.

“You know, you guys are way better than any string quartet we’ve had in previous years, and we’re not even at the end of one practice yet. I’ve got high hopes for you all.” Mr. Smith says with a broad grin.

Zack blushes, looking down at his feet and Jack elbows him, whispering ‘stop being so shy.’

“With some work, you are going to sound so great. We’ll show the brass quartet what the strings section is made of.”

Zack can’t help but laugh at his enthusiasm, because honestly –there’s no way they’ll be better than the brass quartet. They’ve ruled the school for as long as he can remember.

The bell rings through the block, signalling the end of lunch and the fact that period four begins in ten minutes.

Jack and Zack pack up their instruments, Jack struggling a little more than usual with his cello because his arms ache a little, so Zack comes over to help him.

“Thanks,” Jack says with a small smile, standing up and starting to walk towards English class with Zack.

They find Rian and Alex already there, both of whom begin to complain almost straight away as soon as they lay eyes on the younger two, condemning them for leaving them and how they were so bored they had to resort to talking to the theatre kids.

This makes both of them laugh, because they know how irritating the theatre kids are –they all talk in stupid theatre talk that no one other than them understands, spend far too much time quoting The Sound Of Music and worship Andrew Lloyd Webber.

In English class, despite it only being the first day back, they’re presented with a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird and are told that it’s their book for this term and that the essay will be due before Christmas break.

Zack resists the urge to throw the book out of this window (or at Nick’s head, which is currently right in front of him) and stares down at it.

He zones out completely, deciding to examine the white paint on the walls and manages to miss the essay question entirely and curses to himself, running his fingers through his knotted hair and frowning at nothing in particular.

“What was the question for the essay?” Zack asks Rian as they leave English, turning and heading towards Science for their last class of the day.

The older boy looks sheepish, laughing nervously and blushing a little.

“I was going to ask you that.”

“Oh.” Zack replies, looking thoughtful for a second and biting gently at his lip before his eyes meet Rian’s and he bursts out laughing.

“Why are we so useless?” He asks, punching Rian playfully on the arm as they start to walk towards the old, dirty gray stone Science block.

“We’re not useless, we’re just... Limitedly talented.”

“That makes absolutely no sense.” Zack says with a soft laugh.

“My point exactly, Zack dear.”