by Dan Elish
“Make way for the winner!” Wilmer Griffith called, elbowing his way toward the door.
“Out of my way, you big lug,” Wanda Twiddles said. Though only in fifth grade and half his height, she had no compunction about elbowing him back. “It’s all me!”
“In your dreams,” Wilmer said. “No way you’re going to make it on Cody Meyers with a blueprint of a stupid bridge.”
“Better a bridge than a chart of the Andromeda galaxy! Talk about a snooze!”
By that point the large boy and the pug-nosed girl were nose to nose.
“You’re out of your mind!”
“Am not!”
“Are too!”
Arguments burst out like brush fires around the school yard. With Mr. D’Angelo and Mr. Yuri standing guard by the door to make sure no one got trampled, Daphna held back with Harkin and Cynthia to avoid the rush.
“I take it you’re going to work on Gum-Top?” Daphna asked Harkin.
“Shhhh!” Harkin said. “Remember: no one else knows about it. But come by for a test chew at the end of the day.”
“I’ll warm up my jaws,” Cynthia said. “And lucky me. I have to drop by Ignatious’s office to pick a date for him to see the show. I mean, if the Great Blatt speaks, we have to obey, right?”
Though Cynthia tried to act blasé, Daphna could see that she was excited. Who wouldn’t be?
“Anyway,” Cynthia went on, “gotta run. I’m almost done with my closing number, ‘Macbeth’s Mambo.’ It’s brilliant.”
Cynthia zigzagged and shimmied in and around the crowd toward the entrance.
“That’s my cue, Daph, dude,” Harkin said. “Catch you later for a test chew.”
“I’ll be there,” Daphna said.
Harkin took advantage of his short but sturdy frame to barrel his way to the door.
As her two friends disappeared inside the building, Daphna heard the opening strain of her rhapsody in her head, a rolled minor-seventh chord followed by a series of arpeggios that climbed higher and higher up the keyboard. It was certainly a stirring first few measures. But maybe there was still room for improvement? Closing her eyes, Daphna heard the music again, but this time she assigned the various piano parts to trumpets, violins, clarinets, and cellos. Orchestrated, the piece was even more vibrant. Daphna opened her eyes, her heart beating wildly.
All her pieces—even her opera—had been written for piano. Was her rhapsody the piece to stretch her musical imagination? If so, could she possibly orchestrate it by Monday? Daphna needed a second opinion and needed it now. That meant Mrs. Zoentrope.
At the door to the school, Mr. D’Angelo and Mr. Yuri were calling for the final stragglers to come inside. Daphna didn’t have to be told twice. She sprinted for the door.
Pushing through the orange back entrance, Daphna stood in the school’s main lobby. From the science labs in the lower levels came the usual thrum of beeps, clicks, pops, and hisses; from the hallways above came shouts of excited children. Daphna knew of no place on Earth so full of energy as her school. It was as if the building itself pulsed with life, feeding off the wild insanity of the students.
Standing before her, smack in the middle of the lobby, gazing approvingly over his creation, stood a life-size statue of the school’s famous founder. Like Ignatious himself, the statue was dressed flamboyantly in a light blue suit, polka-dot bow tie, and orange boots. To its right was the glass display case that housed samples of all of his greatest inventions, from Blatt-Global to the Hat-Top. On the statue’s left was a plaque that spelled out the Blatt School creed:
Daphna had read the words hundreds of times and thought nothing of them. In light of Ignatious’s unexpected appearance at the school, she found them newly inspiring. Why not shoot for the moon and orchestrate her rhapsody? It would be a lot to do by Monday, but shouldn’t she try?
Of course she should.
Daphna knew exactly what she needed to get first. A short time before her mother had disappeared—two days, in fact—she had come home with a gift wrapped in light lavender paper.
“This is for you, Miss Sadie P. Snodgrass,” she had said. “Use it for an extra-special piece.”
Inside the wrapping was a notebook of blank music paper. But what a notebook! The pages were a beautiful shade of creamy yellow. The music staves were not printed by a machine but etched by an expert calligrapher. On the front cover was a picture of Mozart at a harpsichord. As her mother had requested, Daphna had tucked it away, waiting to use it for an “extra-special piece.”
That moment had arrived.
The large bell situated in the very top of the school’s turquoise dome echoed down to the lobby. Daphna galloped up a sweeping circular stairway that led to the upper classrooms, going over the opening phrases of her rhapsody again and again, trying it out with different instruments. Her music carried her up three more floors, down a long hallway, past the main dining hall, then up another, narrower stairway. After that, she ran down another hallway, past a row of classrooms and the student lounge, and finally up another two stairways, these narrower still, until she reached a landing with a red carpet. Before her was a solid oak door: her office. On top of offering state-of-the-art science labs and classrooms, the Blatt School offered every single student—all one hundred of them—his or her own private work space to cultivate his or her own insane gifts.
Daphna barged inside and went straight to her bookshelf. She was so focused on retrieving her manuscript and getting up to Mrs. Zoentrope that she didn’t see the dim figure hunched by the console piano that stood against the window—not at first. As her eyes began to adjust to the half-light, she gasped. Her legs suddenly felt like two thin twigs.
Could it be? Had the antelope man followed her to school?
“Who are you?” Her heart pounded. Unlike in her apartment, there was no button to push to send a refrigerator flying across the room. “What do you want?”
Daphna stepped back to the door and steeled herself for another attack. The intruder stood. This was no antelope man! Daphna blinked, more confused than scared. In fact, the dark figure was no taller than she was. As her eyes fully adjusted, Daphna saw the yellow loafers. She gasped again—this time not out of fear but surprise.
“Myron?” she said.
The boy grinned.
“Boy, am I confused.” He chuckled. “I was looking for Mr. Yuri’s office. He’s my adviser. Maybe he’s a floor below you. Or maybe above you. I lose track in this building.” He wrinkled his brow. “What floor are we on anyway?”
Gathering her wits, Daphna eyed Myron. With all the winding stairways and long hallways, the Blatt School was notorious for being tough to navigate. More than once, Daphna had absentmindedly forgotten what floor she was on. Even so, wouldn’t Myron have realized he was in the wrong office right away?
“We’re on the eighth floor,” Daphna said.
“My bad,” Myron said. “Mr. Yuri is on the seventh.”
The boy moved to his left to try to leave. But Daphna blocked his path and stared him down. Though she couldn’t imagine that Myron had any connection to the antelope man, she was getting tired of snoops.
“How long were you in here?”
“Two seconds tops,” Myron said. “Honest. That’s how long it took for my eyes to adjust to the dark.” Out came another high-pitched giggle. “What do you think? I was trying to steal your music? Everyone knows I can’t read a note.”
Daphna frowned. Something didn’t add up. Then again, Myron had a point. Why in the world would he want her music? Before she could ask him more, the boy pushed past her.
“Later, Daphna,” he called, and hurried down the stairwell.
Daphna watched him go. Should she follow behind? Question him further? Daphna considered it but then held her ground. Maybe Myron had been up to something, but that still didn’t make him dangerous. Myron Blatt was no antelope man. Besides, she had work to do.
Daphna flicked on the light, dropped to her knees, and riffl
ed through her music. Her special manuscript paper was right where she had left it, in between a book of the Chopin waltzes and the Gershwin preludes. She shoved the notebook into her book bag and headed down the hall to a final staircase, this one the narrowest of all. Taking the steps three at a time, Daphna flew to the top floor of the school and pushed through an oak door. Before her on a large blue door was a sign that read: Music Department.
“Is that you, Daphna?” a bright, fluty voice called. It was Mrs. Zoentrope. “I’ve been waiting for you, my dear! Come in! Come in!”
Chapter 7
A Clue in the Music
Each time she set foot inside, Daphna was amazed by her teacher’s office. Every available inch of wall space was covered with music. Beethoven sonatas were taped haphazardly next to Schubert études. Debussy’s “Claire de lune” was upside down next to Brahms’s Rhapsody in G Minor. The entire second movement of Haydn’s Symphony no. 75 ran sideways alongside the far wall. In the corner of the office stood a small wood desk, piled almost all the way up to the ceiling with musty manuscripts. In the opposite corner was a dusty baby grand piano.
Daphna stepped over a pile of sheet music. Sitting in a small rocker in the middle of the room, the old teacher brushed a hand through her bright red hair and smiled broadly. There was little doubt that Daphna was her favorite pupil.
“Hello to you, Daphna dear. Do you have something to play for me?”
“It’s not completely finished,” Daphna said. She took off her book bag and reached for her music. “I still have a page to go.”
“Then I’ll hear what you have,” her teacher said.
Stepping over two more piles of music, Daphna took a seat at the piano. She dutifully spread the music to her rhapsody before her even though she knew the piece by heart. Still, looking down at the piano keys, some yellowed with age, Daphna hesitated. Never before had she written a piece of music with such powerful emotional underpinnings. Every note was an homage to her mother. Every note would remind her of her loss.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Mrs. Zoentrope said gently.
Daphna looked up to meet her teacher’s reassuring gaze.
“I was thinking of orchestrating this,” she said.
The teacher nodded and pursed her lips. “Orchestration? You’re more than ready to give it a try. But let’s have a listen and see. Go ahead, dear. I’m sure it’s lovely.”
Daphna looked back at the keys. With her teacher’s encouragement, she heard the opening phrase in her head and plunged right in. The first phrase reverberated happily through the small office, as if the great composers whose sheet music was taped to the walls were welcoming Daphna into their company.
Dee, duh, dee, brrring!
Daphna relaxed. Glancing up, she saw that her teacher’s eyes had begun to well up. Daphna played with even more passion, attacking the keys when the piece was loud and dramatic but caressing them during the slower, lush sections. In fact, Daphna was so moved by the power of her own composition that she felt tears in her own eyes. As the last chord rang through the office, Daphna reached for a tissue and dabbed her eyes. Mrs. Zoentrope was sitting stone still, totally motionless, staring straight ahead, brown eyes wide and glazed. A thin smile curved on her lips.
“Mrs. Z?” Daphna said.
To her surprise, her teacher didn’t move.
“Mrs. Z?” Daphna repeated, this time more sharply. “Are you okay?”
The teacher shook herself gently, as if waking from a dream, then closed her eyes for a moment to collect herself.
“Astonishing.” Her thin smile grew into a baffled grin. “I do believe I went into some sort of trance.”
“A trance?” Daphna said. “Sorry!”
“No apology necessary, my dear.” The teacher wagged her head in wonder, then looked at Daphna, eyes bright. “What a trance it was! I was transported to an extraordinarily lovely state. I feel positively renewed. As though all the bad thoughts and feelings that rattle around my mind have been collected in a paper bag and tossed out the window.” The old lady was practically shaking. “Daphna, dear! I’ve never felt better. Your music has the power to heal!”
“To heal?” the girl stammered.
“Yes, yes,” Mrs. Zoentrope said. “Never let anyone tell you that music can’t deeply affect the emotions. Your music especially.”
Daphna couldn’t have been more pleased. But it was all too strange.
“You’re really saying it was my piece that put you in a trance?”
Mrs. Zoentrope nodded. “What else could it have been, my dear? Has this ever happened before?”
Daphna shook her head. “Not that I know of. . . .”
She paused.
“What, my dear?” The teacher smiled. “You’re remembering something.”
Daphna swallowed hard. “I think it has happened before.”
Mrs. Zoentrope’s red hair seemed to stand at attention, arching even more severely upward.
“It has?” she asked. “Tell me!”
“I don’t know. I was so young.”
“Remember what you can. Speak. Speak!”
Daphna told the story—or what she remembered of it:
She was three, and she and her mother had been in their small apartment.
Daphna had sat at the piano to play “The Sad Sandbox” for the first time.
By the end of the piece, her mother was staring straight ahead, motionless, her eyes unblinking. Daphna remembered how terrified she had been. Why was her mother suddenly a zombie? Was she alive? Had Daphna killed her?
“Mom?” she had asked. Then again with more force. “MOM!”
To Daphna’s immense relief, her mother had smiled, then shaken herself and looked around the room as if waking from a dream.
“Are you all right?” Daphna had asked. “Where did you go?”
Her mother had practically glowed. “To a wonderful place, darling. It was strange. I knew you were here, calling for me. But your beautiful music touched me so deeply that I couldn’t move. My mind cleared completely. Bad thoughts turned to good. What an amazing feeling!”
“That’s precisely how I feel,” Mrs. Zoentrope said, rising to her feet. “I knew you were calling me, but I couldn’t respond. My mind was filled with such lovely thoughts and feelings.”
Daphna couldn’t believe it.
“And you still think it was my music?”
“Of course it was your music!” Mrs. Zoentrope exclaimed. She smiled, exposing a brilliant flash of white, marred only by a front tooth that was the same light yellow as her piano keys. She laughed, producing a sound like a witch’s cackle that might have been frightening had Mrs. Zoentrope not been such a kind woman. “We’ll just have to warn the audience at the assembly on Monday to sit down, won’t we? We wouldn’t want anyone to fall over and hurt themselves.”
Daphna was enormously gratified, but she still had one last question. “So you don’t think I need to orchestrate it?”
The teacher shook her head. “No, no, no, Daphna.” She took Daphna’s hand in hers. Mrs. Zoentrope’s fingers were long and thin. Daphna could feel the bones under the skin. “Sometimes less is more. You’ve written a gorgeous piano rhapsody that has the gentle spirit of your mother. Just finish it as it is, and you’ll have a masterpiece.” Then the teacher laughed, filling the room with another rousing cackle. “If you want to orchestrate something, write a symphony next!”
Daphna’s eyes went wide. “A symphony?” she stammered. “You’re joking.”
“Not at all, my dear!” Mrs. Zoentrope said. “Mozart wrote his first when he was only eight. What’s stopping you?”
Daphna let the thought settle in her mind. A symphony? One of music’s longest classical forms and greatest challenges, it was the style of piece that her favorite composers—Beethoven, Mozart, and Brahms—had all written so beautifully. But could she really do it? Did she have the talent? Then, like a gift, a melody came to her fully formed.
Baa, baa, dee, dah
! Baa, baa, dee, bum!
The perfect opening for a longer piece. Daphna turned to page one of the notebook her mother had given her and reached for a pen.
“I knew it!” Mrs. Zoentrope said. “You have an idea already.”
Daphna smiled. “I think I do.”
She wrote out the eight notes, then closed the book. As she did, a plain piece of cardboard fell out of the book onto her lap.
“What’s that?” Mrs. Zoentrope asked.
Daphna had no idea. At first she assumed it was part of the manuscript book—maybe a flyer advertising the store where her mother had bought it. When she turned the cardboard over for a closer look, Daphna lost her breath.
It wasn’t a piece of cardboard. In Daphna’s hands was a photograph.
With trembling fingers, Daphna held it close. Two men and a woman, probably in their early twenties, were posing by what appeared to be the entranceway to a school.
“Are you all right?” Mrs. Zoentrope asked. There was an edge of concern in her voice.
“It’s my mother.”
Daphna traced her mother’s face with her fingers. Her blond hair hung loosely down past her shoulders. Her smile was open and inviting. Her mom looked pretty, yes, but that was only part of it. Daphna had never seen her look so relaxed.
“She looks happy,” Daphna said. “So do the two men. I wonder what they’re laughing at.”
It appeared as though whoever had snapped the picture had just cracked a colossally funny joke. First there was the man kneeling next to Daphna’s mother. Eyes stretched wide, smiling broadly, he was slapping his knee. The man standing behind Daphna’s mom was craning his neck, laughing so hard, it was difficult to see his face. The man in back had jet black hair while the one next to Daphna’s mother was fairer. But both men had sharp, handsome features.
“They could be brothers,” the teacher said. “Or maybe they were just friends? The one in the back does look somewhat familiar, but . . . no, no, maybe not. Maybe not.”
Daphna’s mind was already racing. Her mother had to have planted it there on purpose. What did it mean? Was she holding a clue to her mother’s disappearance? Who were the two men? A moment later, she felt tears—again. It was a feeling she had grown accustomed to over the past two months. Tears and more tears.