The Sweetest Sound

by Sherri Winston

  “But I want to stay with you,” I whispered. My voice sounded very small.

  She gave me her understanding smile, but I wasn’t sure she understood at all. This was not what I had expected. I was really not a big fan of surprises.

  I followed Mei-Mei and Sophie out the door.

  Earlier, all anyone had wanted to talk about was Mr. Bassie and the upcoming Gospel Jamboree. Now ten of us sat in Mrs. Reddit’s music room, not talking about anything. Even Jones was quiet, which was almost as shocking as him being among the highest-scoring students on the pretests we’d taken back in September. Everybody in here had done a good job, Mrs. Reddit told us. Still, it felt like being punished for doing well. I mean, honestly!

  “I’m so happy to have you, students,” said Mrs. Reddit. She was a tall woman. Her skirts were long and straight like black pencil cases. Her tights were always black. Her hair, also black, always sat in a knot on the top of her head. Gold-rimmed glasses winked in the fluorescent lights, sparkling against her skin.

  She explained that even though she’d been teaching music almost her whole life, she had another love, too. Literature. Specifically, poetry.

  “I minored in literature in college and spent some time doing music therapy with children, incorporating storytelling and poetry,” she added.

  Everyone looked at her dully. I was sure they wondered what that had to do with us. I wrapped my arms around my body, trying to stop the shaking that crept into my bones whenever something new happened.

  She continued, telling us how the fifth-grade teachers wanted to expose their top students to poetry.

  “I love poetry and how it uses language,” she said. “I hope over the next several weeks, I can teach you to love it, too.”

  I sighed, deeply and maybe more loudly than I’d expected. I didn’t want to learn poetry. I wanted to write stories. I wondered if this was how Alice felt when she tumbled down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. Mrs. Reddit was starting to sound like the Mad Hatter!

  Not until Jones placed a hand on my arm and asked, “Are you all right, Mouse?” did I realize how badly I’d begun to shake.

  Razor-sharp pinpricks seemed to poke my face. I bit my lips, turning my mouth into a flat line, signaling I did not want to speak. Jones moved his hand away, but edged his seat close to me. I guess that made me feel better.

  Mrs. Reddit passed out copies of a poem. “Suspense,” by Pat Mora. We sat at a square table with hard chairs, away from the rows of instruments and the risers where we stood for choir, and the various instruments and sheets of music poking out of cubbies along the walls.

  She asked us to read the poem to ourselves and prepare to discuss it.

  My face felt hot, but my insides felt ice cold. I did not want to discuss anything. I did not want to talk. Out loud. In a group. No, thank you very much!

  I read silently:

  Suspense

  by Pat Mora

  Wind chases itself

  around our house, flattens

  wild grasses

  with one hot breath.

  Clouds boil purple

  and gray, roll

  and roil. Scorpions

  dart

  under stones. Rabbit eyes peer

  from the shelter of mesquite.

  Thorny silence.

  My paisano, the road runner

  paces, dashes into the rumble,

  race from the plink, plink

  splatter into his shadow, leaps

  at the crash flash

  splash,

  sky rivers rushing into arroyos and

  thirsty roots of prickly pears,

  greening cactus.

  The words rushed across the paper, forming their own meaning in mismatched lines, no rhyming and too many images to see at once. What I had always disliked about poetry was how sometimes you could read it but not have a clue what it was talking about.

  Now Mrs. Reddit came over. Her face was expectant. She dropped into a chair next to mine.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  No one spoke.

  The big hand on the clock ticked.

  Then it tocked.

  But no one spoke.

  And then…

  “I liked it!” said Jones.

  Groan. Groan. Groan.

  I was hoping everyone had hated it. If everyone hated it, maybe she would let us go back to writing narratives.

  She grinned at him. “What did you like about it, Mr. Jones?” she asked.

  He sort of hunched his shoulders up and down. “I don’t know,” he said. “I guess just the way the words felt like what he, the author dude, was saying.”

  When Jones called the poet “the author dude,” several kids chuckled, especially once Mrs. Reddit pointed out that Pat Mora was a woman.

  Then she told us the technique of using words that sound like what they describe is called onomatopoeia. My mind slid the word around, liking the way it felt. I tried it out in my head—on-o-ma-to-poeia. Onomatopoeia onomatopoeia onomatopoeia…

  Then I felt something else—panic. In Miss Clayton’s class, there were twenty-seven students. No time to focus on the one or two quiet kids not making trouble. Too many kids all too familiar with trouble, competing for a chance to win an all-expenses-paid trip to the principal’s office.

  Not so in Mrs. Reddit’s class.

  She eyed us, one by one. Her gaze paused on me.

  “Cadence? What did you think?”

  Everyone looked at me. The hot pinpricks returned to my cheeks, only now they felt electric. Jabbing. Jabbing. Jabbing.

  My throat felt tight and dry.

  I hated surprises. I hated change.

  Why couldn’t things just go back to the way they were?

  Jones poked me in the ribs with his bony elbow. “Aw, she liked it, Mrs. Reddit. Didn’t you, Mouse? C’mon. Didn’t you?” He was jabbing me, waggling his eyebrows up and down. He wanted me to laugh. The others around us looked amused, like they wanted to laugh, too.

  I even wanted to laugh.

  But I couldn’t.

  It felt embarrassing and overwhelming, being put on the spot like that.

  Disappointment washed over Jones’s hopeful expression. Even his ridiculous bow tie seemed to sag. I turned away, not wanting to see his eyes.

  Mrs. Reddit smiled and said, “Don’t worry, Cadence. We’re a small group, and I want everyone to feel comfortable.” When I glanced up, our eyes met. For a second, I thought I saw disappointment there, too. My insides sank even lower.

  Then she moved the keyboard over to the semicircle. “Grab the bench,” she told me. I did.

  “I tell you what,” she said. “Cadence, I want Jones to read the poem. You listen to his pace, find your key, and match his tempo.”

  I drew a deep breath, chewing my lips and not looking at anyone. Well, of course, Jones wasn’t afraid of anything. He jumped up, holding the poem. He glanced over at me. Cleared his throat. I rolled my eyes.

  Jones began slowly. I moved my fingers across the keys. Then he went a little faster and a little faster.

  Anyway, Jones was reading away, and I was playing away, and when we got to the end, my inner Aunt Fannie must have taken over because I whipped my hand along several notes in a glissando, which on a piano is how to end a song in a flourish!

  The class applauded, and Jones took a deep bow. Some of the fear melted off me. My heart pounded with relief. I’d felt the rhythm on the inside. And I smiled.

  “Thank you, Mr. Jones, and you, too, Miss Jolly,” Mrs. Reddit said.

  We talked some more about the poem, then Mrs. Reddit gave us an assignment.

  “Look for the personifications in the poem. Does anyone know what personification means? It’s when we give objects or other nonhuman things human traits.”

  I instantly loved the word. Per-son-if-i-ca-tion. And I’d loved onomatopoeia, too.

  Was it possible that I was going to enjoy Mrs. Reddit’s class after all?

 
6

  Make It Happen

  Never in the history of the Gospel Music Jamboree had a Youth or Children’s Choir performance been FEATURED—except for Joya and Terrance, and they’re amazing. Being featured was usually for the grown-up choirs. It meant getting your name in the program. Being treated like a star. Not that I expected or even wanted it to be us. Because, believe me, I did not. Really, I didn’t.

  Okay, maybe I did wonder about it—but just a little!

  Mostly, the idea of being the center of attention like that scared the sweet holy Mariah out of me. However, Faith had been barely able to sit still at school. For her, us getting chosen would be a dream come true.

  We decided to go to my house after school to practice. My nerves had been stomping around my stomach all day. All this time they’d been convinced I couldn’t sing. What would they do when they figured out I could sing, but was just too much of a mouse to do it?

  A huge braided rug covered the wood floor in my room. Faith stretched out on her tummy, busy searching the Internet for the perfect song. Zara came into the room, twirling and swirling.

  The way she twirled around made her look like a real mermaid. Light reflected off my walls, painting her in a watery glow. Daddy had painted them a cheerful blue. Never mind that my favorite colors were pink and red. One day a few years ago, I came home from school, and—voilà!—Daddy had painted it blue. He said he read in a book about parenting that blue was a calming color. Said blue would make me feel more secure than pink. Since my mother left, Daddy has read A LOT of parenting books. Sigh! He works so hard to fix me.

  I sat propped against a huge pillow, my legs stretching out, rereading the poem from Mrs. Reddit’s class. After, like, fifty times, I had to admit, there was something about it.

  The way the words

  moved. The way they looked

  on the page.

  Regular story writing didn’t look like that.

  Still, just knowing I’d have to leave my regular class every day made me feel dizzy inside.

  So when Faith cried, “I’ve got it! I know what song we’re going to record for Mr. Bassie!” it took a minute for me to understand. I felt like I’d been trying to breathe underwater.

  Faith jumped up on her knees, holding her tablet out in front of her. Zara, who’d been lying on my bed, and I crowded in. Faith showed us a music video with two female singers. The women were quite smiley. The song they were singing was up-tempo. A make-you-wanna-get-up kind of song.

  “It’s Mary Mary!” said Zara with a shriek. Zara loved all kinds of music. However, I happened to know that the gospel singers who called themselves Mary Mary (by the way, both had names that were not Mary…) were her absolute favorites.

  “‘In the Morning’ would be perfect for us to sing,” said Faith, talking about the song in the video. “Even though it’s one of their older songs, it’s fast and easy to learn, because we’ve been singing it along with the radio for years. And it’s the kind of song that just makes people feel good.”

  I chewed on my lip. When I saw they were both looking at me, I chewed harder.

  “You can do it, Mouse!” urged Zara.

  Faith tossed her waterfall of jet-black braids. She dropped her tablet onto my bed and stood.

  “You can do it! Yeah. You’re gonna do it, yeah! C-A-D”—clap, clap—“E-N”—clap, clap—“C-E”—clap, clap. She cheered. “She’s gonna do it, do it, do it, is gonna do it, YEAH!” Then she did a kick and a cartwheel.

  Well, I don’t know about you, but if someone does a cheer with your name in it, you feel sort of obligated to live up to it. I wonder if Junior and the rest of the football team feel like that, too? Hmm…

  Then the door opened and Aunt Fannie stepped into my room.

  “Girls? Everything all right in here? I can barely hear anything down on the first floor,” she said, looking around.

  Daddy insisted that Aunt Fannie come by and “sit with” me after school, even though I’d told him a million times that I didn’t need her to. I had to admit, though, having Aunt Fannie in the house made me feel better.

  She came over and placed an arm around me. Today she wore a royal blue skirt that hugged her round hips. Her blouse was hot pink, and her makeup was movie-star quality. She said, “Sugar, how do you feel about all that’s happening with the choir? Are you ready for so much change?” And before I could answer, she added, “And I think your daddy is sweet on that teacher of yours.”

  Aunt Fannie was carrying a tray with sandwiches, fruit, and sweet tea. She had lived in Mississippi for a long time. She served sweet tea with just about everything.

  Faith grinned. “Don’t worry, Miss Fannie. We’re helping our little Mouse.” When she said the “our little Mouse” part, her voice got scrunched like baby talk. It reminded me of Miss Sofine at the diner baby-talking to my hair. Sigh!

  The fiery needles poked at me, so I started counting backwards from a hundred. In my mind. Where no one could hear.

  “I’m fine, Aunt Fannie,” I mumbled.

  The worst lie ever. Lyra, who’d been sleeping in the corner, rose up and eyed me, and I swear she shook her head in pure agony for my too-shy ways.

  “Well, you know I love you, sugar. Anytime you need me, come see your old auntie,” she said. She closed the door, and Faith retook center stage.

  “Fannie is so nice,” Zara said. “You’re so lucky to have such a great aunt.”

  I couldn’t stop the next thought that popped into my head. Why couldn’t my mom be here being nice? I knew Zara was right about Aunt Fannie, but the questions tugged at my heart.

  Would I be better off if my mother were here?

  Would she be able to love me if she came home?

  Or did I even want her to come back at all?

  Turning to Faith, I could see she was all about the goal: getting a place in the spotlight at the Jamboree. She definitely wanted to get FEATURED!

  She set about putting us in our places. “We have to think about my girl Grace Pendergast,” she said. “She is amazing and just got a record deal, thanks to her videos online. If we can get good like her, I know someone will see us and want to give me a record deal.”

  “Me.” Not “us.” Zara and I exchanged glances but said nothing. Once we were settled into position, we tried singing the song through a few times. It didn’t sound great. Definitely not Grace Pendergast worthy.

  For one thing, I was sure Faith had underestimated the song’s speed. Playing the keyboard and piano, not to mention a few other instruments, one thing I’d learned was that songs might sound simple, but sometimes those were the hardest to play.

  Singing was that way, too.

  It was one thing to sing along with Mary Mary. It was another thing to sing along and keep pace.

  And sound good.

  And not get winded.

  Okay, I knew I might not be singing at my best because I was still scared to Pluto and back, but still… I mean, it was hard to sing well when your face was a raging, red-ant fire of embarrassment and fear.

  RAGING FIRE.

  So I accepted my responsibility. However, Faith didn’t hit all the notes the way God or Mary Mary intended. The sisters made the song seem effortless and fun. Trying to match them, however, left us sounding like we were running in the rain. Not to point fingers, but it left one of us more winded than the others. (Not me. Not Zara.)

  After fifteen minutes of frustration, Faith came up with an annoying observation, but a pretty good idea:

  “We don’t sound as good as we could. Probably because of you, Mouse. You can’t be fake singing. You’ve gotta do better. So, I’ve got an idea,” she said.

  She said we should all put in our headphones and practice singing with Mary Mary to get comfortable. After fifteen minutes or so of practice, we could try singing together without them.

  I swallowed hard. Took a long sip of iced tea. Popped an apple slice into my mouth. When I looked at Zara, her expression was gentle and encouraging.
She smiled and nodded at me. Faith narrowed her eyes.

  “You can do this, Mouse!” she said.

  We spread out, earbuds in place. I went to a spot that was as far away from the other two as I could get. I lay on my back and closed my eyes. I let the song move through me, from my head to my toes. Listened with all my heart and felt myself lifted into the story the singers were describing in snappy, dancey verses.

  My heart was banging its snare drum rhythm again. I felt absolutely positive my tongue would fall out. I gulped down the remaining sweet tea. Followed that with another glass, trying hard not to look at my two friends as I tiptoed across the room to the pitcher, then back to my little spot away from them.

  However, after a few tries, it got easier. And easier. I pictured myself in the video with Mary Mary. The first singer starts out telling a story. She’s telling someone who is having a hard time, “When it’s dark in your life, just wait for the daylight.” The background is darkened, yet tiny dots of light, like fireflies, are shining, showing the promise of better times.

  At first, I felt myself whisper-singing, a tight falsetto tickling the back of my throat. I cranked up the volume on my tablet and shut my eyes tighter. Shut out everything. Well, almost everything. Lyra plopped down beside me. I could feel her tail wag against my leg. Still, I concentrated on the words until I felt myself in my own video.

  The words painted a picture in my mind. Faith, Zara, and me, moving through a beautiful green space. Our faces are turned upward toward the sky. We are beaming like rays of sunlight. We are shining on someone who needs us—needs our song.…

  I was not aware of exactly when it happened. When I lost myself inside the song and began to sing. Really sing. But I did. My hands were stretched out above my head. I made a fist that pumped to the eighth notes. I felt the rhythmic changes in tempo shift inside me like a pulse. When I needed to climb the musical scale, I touched my hand to my heart, the same way Aunt Fannie did, and opened my mouth to push out all the air and song in my body.

  When I finished, I felt the warmth of the smile on my face. Felt the rush of adrenaline in my heart and fingers and toes. It was a beautiful feeling.