Being in band, like me, one doesn't see too many muscular guys; no more than during marching band camp when the football team passes you on their way from the locker room to the practice field. However, when I was a sophomore, this changed a whole lot. Since the band program at my school was not very good, I was already the best trumpet player in the school by my sophomore year. Yea, there were some freshmen that moved up from the middle school, but they weren't very good. We were having what they called an off couple of years where the talent wasn't very good at all. One of the freshman trumpet players was one of them. His name was JP and he was the typical freshman, or at least seemed like the typical freshman: short, about 5 foot 6, skinny, couldn't have been much more than 100 pounds, and not very noticeable. He was a decent player, though, probably one of the better ones, but he was generally quiet, that is, until one day in early November when he finally started "showing off." We were outside on the bleachers in the football stadium during a break in our marching band rehearsal. It had been an unusually warm day for November so most people were wearing short-sleeved shirts. A group of my friends and I were for some reason talking about gaining and losing weight. (Some of the "band sluts" always stressed about that.) I confessed that I had gained weight over the summer because I was no longer in crew. "In fact," I said, "I used to have a six-pack during crew season." Well, that was a little lie just to impress the girls there. True, I had been more fit during crew season, but I never really had a six-pack. Suddenly, JP pipes up: "I have a six-pack!" We hadn't even noticed him come over to sit by us and we were a little annoyed that a freshman was trying to butt into our conversation. We all looked at him weird. One of my friends said, "A six-pack?" "Yea!" he answered back almost braggingly. "I have a cut six-pack!" A few of us were laughing to ourselves. There was no way in heaven that a freshman his size could have a six-pack. The kid was really skinny. During marching band season, we musicians were constantly changing in front of everyone one else due to time constraints, so we all saw JP shirtless on more than one occasion. He was so skinny, you could see almost every one of his ribs and he definitely did not have a six-pack. Maybe if he was one of the "freaky freshmen" who were bigger than most seniors, but JP had barely gone into puberty yet. "Well, let's see it." one of the girls said. "Ok." JP answered and lifted up his shirt so that his bare stomach was showing. I couldn't help but look and laugh at the freshman. He was asking for it. I mean, his stomach was completely flat. Not a single bump of ab muscle could be seen. "Go on, touch it," he invited one of the girls. She pushed in gently against his stomach, just above the belly button. "It's pretty firm." she contested. I couldn't tell if she was being serious or just joking around. JP put his shirt down and said, "By the time I'm a senior, I'll have muscles so big, no one will be able to recognize me from my freshman picture." We all couldn't help but laugh out loud at JP's bold prediction. Little did I know how right his prediction was.

I didn't think much of this incident because he was like any other silly freshman: thinking they're all that. In fact, I nearly forgot about that episode, until mid-February. I had to stay after school for a concert band rehearsal, so I was eating a snack outside the band room. I had just finished eating and was packing up when JP came over. He was carrying a half-liter of soda and two foot-long subs. "Is all that food for you?" I asked him. "Yep!" he said confidently, "I gotta get big for wrestling." I couldn't believe what I heard. "Wrestling?" "Yea," he said. "I want to be really good at it so I have to bulk up." When he said "bulk up," he made sort of a mock most-muscular pose and let out a slight grunt. I chuckled to myself. "Well, you can't just eat to get big," I said. "You also have to do a little bit of lifting weights, too." I may not have been a jock, but I knew at least that. "I am!" JP assured me. "Every day." My eyebrows went up a little. "Really? Do you go to the weight room?" I imagined JP bench pressing the bar only. "Well, no." he said. I smirked. Then he said: "I have a weight bench in my basement that I work out on every night. It's my brother's, but he lets me use it." My eyebrows went up even further. JP continued: "I haven't been doing it very long, only since the summer, but I'm getting stronger and stronger." I had never heard him say so many words at once. "I may only be in the 103-pound weight class, but soon, I'll be the biggest wrestler in the school. In fact, I already have some muscle. Wanna see?" I then remembered back to the last episode when he showed us his "six-pack" and laughed to myself. "Alright." I said. Why not make the kid satisfied. "Check it out!" JP said roughly, as he turned with his left side facing me, lifted up his left shirt sleeve, (JP was a lefty) bent his arm, and flexed. My eyes must've widened or something because he smiled. He did have a skinny arm, but as soon as he flexed, a small but very noticeable bump jumped out. It wasn't very big, but it was definitely a very nicely developed bicep. It was as if someone stuck a golf ball in this arm and part of it was pushing out the skin. Of course, there was not an ounce of fat on this kids' body, so his muscle fibers in his arm were clearly visible and they twitched a little bit just before he unflexed it again. I couldn't believe that this was the same kid that I had laughed at a few moments earlier. JP opened one of his sandwich wrappers and took a huge bite out of it. Then, he made another prediction: "I'm going to be so big, I'll be able to bench press you like you were nothing." With that, he walked back into the band room.

After that, I couldn't help but look at him every time he walked past me and wonder if he had gotten bigger. Was his bicep bulging more than when I saw it? Did he have a six-pack yet? I did begin to notice things, though. His neck was wider than I remembered it, moving out more toward his cheekbones, and his shoulders didn't stretch out perpendicular to his neck, but sort of did more of a sloping thing, you know, the arched muscle between the neck and the shoulders. Every once in a while, he'd be wearing a shirt that was a little tight in his chest area and you could see the slightest suggestion of pecs. If the shirt was tight enough, you could see how the bottoms of his pecs were starting to pertrude a little bit outwards. I guess his chest was getting bigger, too. I couldn't tell if it was reality or just my imagination, but I had plenty of opportunities to experience JP's ever growing body. •