Rosie and the Dance of the Dinosaurs by Betty R. Wright

Author:Betty R. Wright
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504013345
Publisher: Holiday House

CHAPTER 11

When Rosie and Angela had a picnic, they almost always went to the same place. Today they walked up to the corner nearest Rosie’s house and turned left without hesitating. The county highway and the Gabels’ farm were only ten minutes away.

“I’m not going to be in the recital,” Angela announced, after they’d walked for a while. She held out her bag of popcorn.

Rosie helped herself. “You have to be in it,” she protested. “Everybody has to be in it who takes lessons.”

“Wrong! Mrs. Kramer told me I was out this morning. If you don’t learn your recital piece by heart, you can’t be on the program. I only know the first page.” Angela stuffed another handful of popcorn into her mouth and rolled her eyes at the memory.

“What did your mother and father say?”

“They said it was up to me. They said if I didn’t work hard then I deserved to miss the Big Moment. That’s what my mother calls the recital—the Big Moment. Ugh!”

Rosie wondered if the same thing was about to happen to her. She thought about this morning’s practice session. With the help of the story she’d made up, and the dinosaur family ranged across the top of the piano, the memorizing had gone well. But that difficult run on the last page got worse instead of better. She couldn’t play it smoothly, no matter how many times she tried. Each time she started the final section, a scolding voice—Mrs. Kramer’s, perhaps—sounded in her ear.

Silly girl! With only nine fingers, you know you can’t play anything hard!

And then came Mary Jean’s shocked whisper—Oh, yuk! Your fingers—

“No!” The word slipped out before Rosie could stop it.

“No, what?” Angela asked.

“No, I don’t want to drop out of the recital. I don’t! I thought I might want to, but I don’t.”

Angela scooped out the last of the popcorn. “Nobody’s asked you to drop out, have they? You like playing the piano. I hate it. That’s a big difference.”

They walked on. The houses became fewer, separated by fields of grass and wildflowers. A breeze lifted the grass in waves. Rosie forced herself to stop thinking about “The Dance of the Dinosaurs.” The recital was six days away, and today was the picnic. Enjoy the moment, her father always said, when he lived at home.

“There she is,” Angela said suddenly. “Did you bring her treat?”

Rosie reached into her lunch bag and brought out an apple. Angela had two carrots. Waiting for them, as if she’d known they were coming, was the silver-colored mare who had lived in Gabels’ meadow as long as they could remember. The horse nosed the treats the girls held out and then lifted the apple from Rosie’s hand.

“She must be the oldest horse in the world,” Rosie said, petting the silvery neck. “And the nicest.”

The horse bobbed her head as if she agreed. Then she took Angela’s carrots and followed the girls as they waded through the grass to the huge oak tree in the center of the meadow.

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