(eng) Nina Kiriki Hoffman - Red Heart of Memories 02 by Past the Size of Dreaming

Author:Past the Size of Dreaming [Dreaming, Past the Size of]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

TOLAND sat on the top step in the hall outside his mom’s apartment and watched the graffiti-streaked wall across from the stairs. Last week, he could have sworn he saw his music teacher Lia step right through it when she left.

Lia couldn’t come up the stairs without him knowing. His big sister Zette said leave well enough alone. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Zette always said stuff like that. But she liked to rattle Christmas presents before she opened them, same as anybody else.

Toland licked his lips and found a drop of syrup left from his waffle breakfast. Sweetness melted over his tongue.

Gift horse, what a thing to call his teacher. She did teach for free, and nobody knew where she came from, but she wasn’t anything like a horse.

Something clattered on the stairs below. Toland leaned over and peered down the stairwell. Was his music teacher using stairs, like most people?

“Did you practice this week?” his teacher said from behind him. He turned around and there she was, in the hall, small and dark except for her bright green dress, her black eyes sparkling, and in her hand her violin case.

“Where’d you come from?” he asked.

“No questions. Only I get to ask. Did you practice our waltz?” He stood up and brushed his hands on his pants. “Yeah.”

“Show me.

He led her into the apartment and got out his violin as she took out hers. Lia never said where she came from. He’d met her in the park—she heard him singing, and they talked about music. He told her what he really wanted, and she said she could help him. She loaned him the violin and came to give him lessons.

His mother and his sister had asked questions and watched and argued, but Lia still came every week, and after a month they decided she probably wasn’t going to hurt a ten-year-old boy, and they stopped bothering her.

As Toland and Lia tightened the hair on their bows and set up the music stands, Zette came out and sat on the couch to listen and watch the lesson, the way she always did. She brought her knitting.

Toland played the waltz. He had practiced. It sure made a difference in how well he played, and life was better when guilt wasn’t always gnawing on him. Free lessons. He should earn them somehow.

He had finally decided he really liked and wanted this music. Sometimes he woke up with it singing in him, and he had to jump up and grab the violin and play. Sometimes he’d struggle with math homework and get nowhere and play the violin for a while and then go back and the problems would stop squirming around and behave. Sometimes he heard music in his head and had to play until he could get it to come out of the violin. Sometimes he heard a song on the radio and he could play that.

There was a mute button on the violin so he could play it in his room as much as he wanted and nobody else heard.

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