Band geeks

"From the percussion section at the back of room 217, Carmen Trochez keeps the Benton Bluff Junior High band steady. But when a student teacher enters the scene, the band's loyalties are divided. Carmen is usually the glue. Can she keep everything from falling apart?"--Back cover.

Seventh-grader Davis Beadle joins the Benton Bluff Junior High band, stubbornly determined to play the trumpet--but that section is full, so the band director instructs him to spend time with several of the other instruments, hoping Davis will find his true place in the band.

When one of the other members of Benton Bluff Junior High band shows up with a shiny new trombone, Kori Neal's school-loaner suddenly seems beat-up and old so she comes up with an idea to organize a fund-raiser to buy new instruments--until advice from a famous local jazz musician gives her a clearer perspective on the issue.

When her grandparents sign her up for the Benton Bluff Junior High band Tally Nguyen is horrified and worried about what the kids on her snowboarding team will think--but she comes to realize that she doesn't need to choose between the groups.

The Benton Bluff Junior High band is one of a number of bands that will compete to perform for a chance to play for the governor, and two of the band members are fighting over who gets to be the soloist; Baylor Meece (clarinet) is not one of them, so can she come up with a plan to bring the band back into harmony?.

Flutist Hope James is under a lot of pressure from her mother to win first chair in the band, so when Sherman Frye enrolls at Benton Bluff Junior High she panics because he could steal it from her--so Hope and her friend Baylor come up with a plan to sabotage Sherman, not realizing that he is under pressure too.

The whole Benton Bluff Junior High band is at band camp, and when things start to go missing everybody blames Zac, the class clown--but when Zac's saxophone disappears he suspects that it is someone in another group trying to sabotage Benton Bluff, and sets out to uncover the culprit.