Safe by Susan Shaw

Author:Susan Shaw
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2010-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

The afternoon of September fourth came clear and cool. I felt the breeze through the dining room window where I waited to see Caroline ride her bike down the hill to my house. It was a beautiful day, and I was afraid to go.

I’d promised, and I had to do it. Tomorrow, school was starting. Our hike had to be today if we were going to do it at all.

But this would be the end. I kept reminding myself of that. Otherwise, I was so nervous, I wouldn’t be able to make myself go. Just this, Tracy, I said to myself. Just this. You can do this last thing.

The last CarolinenTracy, TracyenCaroline thing. A good thing and a bad thing all at once. A good thing I didn’t want to do attached to a bad thing I didn’t want to do. Both, I had to do.

I watched, and here came Caroline down the hill, long brown hair flying behind her. She rode right up to the front porch where I met her.

“Are you ready?” she asked. She was pumped, I could tell.

“Listen to something first.” I gestured with my head for her to come inside.

She got off her bike and followed me. “What?”

In answer, I sat at the piano.

“Not again!” The eyebrows under her helmet made a straight line as they came together. “Not one more stupid piano note!”

“Please?” I asked. “So you can understand something.”

“I don’t want to understand anything,” she said. “I just want to go to Monkey Rock. You promised. You promised.”

“I’m coming,” I said. “But listen first. Please?”

Caroline slouched onto the couch. “Oh, all right.” She grabbed a throw pillow and bunched it up under her arms. “Go ahead.”

“It’s called Monkey Rock,” I said. She perked up at that. “I wrote it.”

I played the whole, entire thing for her, throwing her a glance once in a while to see how she was taking it, to see if she was going to stay mad the whole time. She was still, staring at some place over my head. I don’t think she moved the whole time.

I finished the piece and lifted my feet to swivel around on the bench. “Well?” I asked. “Did you like it?”

“Did I like it!” Caroline exclaimed. “I could almost smell Monkey Rock. That was great!”

I left the piano bench and flopped onto the couch beside her. “That’s what practicing seven hours a day does for a person,” I said.

“Seven hours a day! Are you crazy?”

“Only when I’m not practicing. That’s what I want you to understand.”

“But, Tracy, seven hours a day!”

“It makes me feel alive,” I said.

“Don’t you feel alive right now?”

“Sure.” I shrugged. “I’m breathing and talking to you, so I must be alive. But playing the piano and writing music make me feel it all the way through. The vibrations of the notes and the conflicts in the chords, the musical lines. They come apart and come together and travel through my blood veins and make my brain sing. Then it lasts for a while after I stop, sort of like a runner’s high.

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