| He tried to think of it with the Lincoln High School Black Panther painted on it | During the ten minutes between the C Band and B Band sessions, Mr |
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| Heavens, I have no idea where he was going | As the members of the C Band dropped out of the waltz, one by one, as though mustard gas were coming out of the ventilators, Mr |
| He gasped suddenly, turned to the front page again, looked up a number in the phone book, and dialed feverishly | Lincoln High School awarded letter sweaters to the members of the A Band, and the sweaters were deeply respected—and properly so |
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| He looked up at his flaking ceiling in prayer | He started to back his instrument into an aisle between the tubas and the trombones—like a man backing a trailer truck into a narrow alley—backing it toward the percussion section, where the amazed musicians were hastily making room |
He paused on the doorsill for one more wistful look at the A Band that would never have a chair for him.
21| Helmholtz lived in a world of music, and even the throbbing of his headaches came to him musically, if painfully, as the deep-throated boom of a cart-borne bass drum seven feet in diameter | Helmholtz ran after him with a floundering, foot-slapping gait |
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| But none of them, he prayed, were after a bargain in a cart-borne bass drum | Helmholtz, forming careful sentences in his mind before speaking, opened his newspaper, and laid it open on the coffee table |