Duet, page 5
“Goldie,” he calls, walking toward the window.
I deliberately turn myself around on the branch and hop away from him, flashing my tail feathers.
“I don’t think she likes that name,” Emily says.
“What should I call her, then?” Michael asks.
This is my chance. But how can I tell Michael and Emily my name? It seems impossible.
There has to be a way. I rush at the window and flap my wings frantically to get their attention.
“What about Flap?” Michael says.
Oh my heavens, this is going from bad to worse.
Suddenly, I have an idea. The bell! I will show them the bell. At least that’s half my name. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if Michael started calling me Belle. Better than Goldie… or Flap. Quickly, I fly around the corner of the house to the front door. I’m a little worried that Mrs. Jin will be standing there talking to Mr. Starek, but the porch is empty—and it stays empty because Michael and Emily don’t follow me. I guess they just think I’ve flown away.
Ugh. Back I go to the music room, flying close to the window this time and hovering, the way I do at the bird feeder when it’s too crowded to land.
“Look, she’s back,” Emily says.
“She wants us to follow her,” Michael decides.
Good boy!
Now that I’m sure they’re watching me, I fly around the corner of the house to the front porch and land in the yew bush, waiting for them.
Their voices carry through the open window.
“Where do you think she went?” Emily asks.
“She flew that way,” Michael says. “Let’s find her before my mom says I have to go.”
They come to the front door and open it, as I had hoped they would. I can hear Mr. Starek and Mrs. Jin talking in the kitchen. I fly out of the bush, in front of them, and then land perfectly—if I do say so myself—on top of the large bell that hangs over the porch.
“Look!” Emily says, pointing at me. “She’s right there, on the bell.”
“Bell!” Michael says triumphantly. “Let’s call her Bell.”
Hooray! It’s close, and certainly better than the alternatives.
But I have another idea. I fly quickly to the side mirror of Emily’s car, which is parked in front of Mrs. Jin’s in the driveway. I land on top of it, hold tight with my claws, and tap the mirror with my beak. I can see my face up close in the glass, like another bird looking right at me. I know about mirrors and reflections because Mother is always afraid we’ll fly into a window or peck at our reflections thinking it’s another bird. I have seen birds do this, and believe me, it looks ridiculous.
“Now she’s on your car,” Michael says. “Do you think she wants us to call her Car?”
Honestly, for a stunningly gifted piano player, he is not very smart about names.
“No,” Emily says, “I don’t think so. I think she’s tapping the mirror.”
As soon as she says that, I rush back to the bell and land on it again. This is becoming exhausting, but they’ve almost got it.
“Bell. Mirror,” Michael says. “Bell-mirror. That’s a weird name.”
Oh, for heaven’s sake. Come on, people.
I fly back to Emily’s car, tap the side mirror, and zip over to the bell again.
“What if it’s the other way around?” Emily says. “Mirror. Bell. Mirror… bell. Wait! Mirabelle!”
I can’t believe it. They got it! They know my name!
I fly in ecstatic loop-the-loops through the air. Then I swoop down and land on a tree branch right above them.
“Mirabelle? Is that right?” Emily asks gently.
“If it is, she should come to us when we call her name,” Michael declares. He holds out his finger. “Mirabelle, come here.”
Am I really supposed to land on his finger? Mother would have a fit.
I hesitate for a second, thinking that I would be punished for a thousand years if my mother saw me doing this.
But I want so badly for them to know my name.
So I fly swiftly toward Michael and land for a second on his slim finger, gently closing my claws around it.
I have never felt human skin before. It is soft and warm under my feet, but the bone beneath it is hard and straight, as sturdy as a stick.
For an instant, the boy and I are looking right at each other.
Michael’s whole face shines with happiness. “Look, Emily! I have a bird on my FINGER! Mirabelle is letting me hold her.”
I stay there for one more second—that’s all—and then I take off, fluttering high above them. Too much excitement for one day! It is time to go home.
Now, I know you must be wondering: Am I really becoming friends with this boy? After the way things started out between us? I keep thinking back to the day Michael banged on the window, a few weeks ago… how frightened I was, and how I thought he was the cruel, rough sort of person who did that kind of thing without a second thought.
But now I know he’s not.
I think maybe he was just mad that he couldn’t take lessons with Emily anymore, so that bad mood spilled over onto everything else that day. He didn’t like the old man, he didn’t like the lesson, he didn’t like ME because I was at the window watching him.
Everyone is allowed to have a bad day once in a while. And it would be terrible if I based my whole opinion of the boy on that one bad day. People (and birds) deserve second chances, don’t you think? And now that I know what Michael is capable of, how passionately and thrillingly he plays the piano, I am happy to give him a second chance.
It’s funny… when I first met this boy—this bad-tempered, window-banging boy—would I ever have thought I could show myself to him and trust him with my singing? No, no, a hundred times no. But with our first duet, something changed between us.
I feel like we’re a team, and I can’t wait to see what we do next.
A Possible Pleyel
For two weeks, this is how we go on: the private warm-up, where the boy plays and I sing, and then the lesson, where Mr. Starek instructs him. Now, Mr. Starek is not the kind of teacher who yells at his students or bosses them around. He is very gentle—a listener, not a talker. He will sometimes play a piece himself, then have the student play it, while he sits nearby, watching and listening carefully. Afterward, he makes a few comments, says what they did well, says what they need to work on. And then the student usually plays the passages of music where they need the most help, over and over again. With Mr. Starek’s regular students, that was always the point in the lesson when I would fly off to the holly tree, because who wants to listen to the same fragment of music again and again? Boring, right?
Somehow, with Michael’s lessons, it isn’t. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I’ve been singing Chopin’s music, so when Mr. Starek makes corrections or suggestions for Michael’s playing, it helps me, too.
“Gently there, then more force with the transition,” Mr. Starek will say. “That is the emotional center of the piece.”
I listen carefully to his comments, and the next time Michael and I practice together, I know where to put the emotion in my singing. Some of the pieces are sad, some are serious and thoughtful, some are bright and merry. It matters to get the feeling right.
There’s another way that Michael’s piano lessons aren’t like the lessons with Mr. Starek’s previous students. Here, we are all working on something together. It’s not just Mr. Starek, Michael, and me. Emily is part of it, too. Even if Mrs. Jin comes to pick up Michael herself, so she can talk to Mr. Starek about his progress, Emily stays for the whole lesson. She does homework and talks to Mr. Starek and watches the way he teaches Michael. I begin to understand that learning how to do something is different from learning how to teach it. Emily tells Mr. Starek she’s learning so much from him, tips she can use with her best students.
And on top of all that, I know she loves hearing Michael play as much as I do.
To my brothers’ chagrin, I am perched outside the music room more than ever now. The competition is only six weeks away, and Michael has to choose three pieces to perform. I am trying to help, accompanying him as he performs Chopin’s nocturnes and preludes and sonatas. Some of these pieces are very difficult, requiring that he stretch his fingers so far apart over the keys, I think they might break! But the boy doesn’t complain, or give up. And for me, there is something delightful in the way that he and Emily call me by name.
“Hey, Mirabelle!” Michael says as soon as he sees me.
Or Emily will glimpse me among the clusters of pink silk blossoms and say, “Look, Michael, Mirabelle is watching you.”
I was a little worried, after Emily got involved in the name game, that Michael would confide our secret to her. I could picture him saying, Guess what—Mirabelle sings along when I play! Come listen to her. And if he told Emily, what would I do? Emily is so lovely and has such excellent taste, it would be a pleasure to sing for her. I would be sorely tempted! But I know in my heart that would be a mistake.
Because even though Emily isn’t entirely grown-up, she is too grown-up for this secret. It would mean something different to her than it means to Michael and me. She might want to do something about it. It was a big risk to include her in the naming adventure—I know that. But if I hadn’t, I might have ended up with the boy calling me Flap.
Anyway, Michael seems to feel the same way I do. He says my name, and talks about me, but he never tells Emily the reason he warms up alone. And both Mr. Starek and Emily have been so understanding of that, leaving him by himself at the beginning of each lesson, and showing such joy over the way he plays behind the closed door.
“It’s your process,” Mr. Starek says. “You must honor your process. These habits and rituals are so important to how we create art.”
Emily agrees. She tells Michael, “You never used to warm up alone when you took lessons from me—but it’s made such a difference in your playing! Honestly, Michael, when I hear you through the door, it sounds like you’re playing TWO pianos. It’s amazing.”
“I wish I could play two pianos,” Michael says one day as the lesson is finishing up. “This one, the Érard, and a Pleyel.”
Mr. Starek looks surprised. “A Pleyel? Ah… some people think you’ve never truly experienced Chopin until you’ve heard it on a Pleyel.”
“Does it sound very different?” Michael asks.
Mr. Starek smiles. “It’s the piano his music was meant for. It has a more delicate, subtle tone. Chopin’s music is not intended to be played loudly. But how do you know about Pleyels?”
“Emily told me,” Michael says.
“I saw one once at that museum of historical instruments near Fitchburg,” Emily explains.
“The Franklin Collection?” Mr. Starek asks. “That place is marvelous, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes,” Emily agrees. “So cool.”
Michael’s face is flushed and eager. “I want to see one! And I want to play one.”
Mr. Starek chuckles. “That would be quite a trick. They’re not made anymore. My sister—”
He stops. A shadow clouds his face, as it often does when he talks about Halina. What was the trouble between them? I wonder. Why hadn’t he seen her for so many years, when she lived close by the whole time?
“What?” Michael asks.
“Oh, it’s not important.” Mr. Starek crosses to the window, and I duck behind a cluster of blossoms, not wanting to distract him. “It’s probably not even true.”
Now Emily looks curious as well, but I can tell she doesn’t want to pry.
Michael hesitates, then persists. “What’s not true?”
Mr. Starek rubs both hands over his face, sighing. “Years ago, Halina told me she bought a Pleyel piano at an estate sale.”
“Wow!” Michael exclaims. “She did? Does she still have it?”
I flinch at his mistake, and Emily worriedly starts to correct him.
But Mr. Starek says quietly, “Halina passed away last winter.”
“Oh,” Michael says, his shoulders slumping. I can tell he doesn’t know what to say. None of us do. The old man looks so sad it breaks my heart.
“As I believe I told you, she was a collector,” he continues. “But her collecting became—well, it was an obsession. Her house was filled, top to bottom, with her things. She hadn’t let anyone inside for years.”
“Not even you?” Emily asks softly.
“Not even me.” Mr. Starek gazes out the window, but his eyes are unfocused, unseeing. “And as far as her owning an actual Pleyel, I thought it unlikely. She did have several pianos, I know that. But most of them were worthless.”
“Why?” Michael looks disappointed. “If they were old…”
“An old piano is really just a piece of antique furniture,” Mr. Starek explains. “Pianos don’t age well. They’re not like the string instruments—like a Stradivarius violin, for example. Pianos are mechanical, and the mechanics wear out and fail.”
“They can be restored, though,” Emily says.
“Yes,” Mr. Starek agrees. “But generally it’s not worth the money to do so. Unless the piano has some other significance.”
“Your sister,” Emily begins. “Did she restore any of hers?”
Mr. Starek shakes his head. “Oh, no. As I said, nobody was allowed in the house, and the last time I visited… well, it looked like a junkyard.” He is still staring through the window, lost in thought. “Halina was so convinced of the value of the things she collected. She was unable to see her acquisitions as…” It seems to pain him to finish the sentence. “A kind of sickness.”
Michael looks genuinely bewildered. “But what’s sick about that? Lots of people collect things. And she might have a Pleyel piano!”
Mr. Starek looks skeptical. “Perhaps.”
“Haven’t you gone to her house to check?” Michael asks. “What if it’s there?”
I can see that Mr. Starek is done with this conversation. “No, I haven’t. There’s an issue with the bank. Halina took a loan from the bank to pay for the house and she owed a great deal of money when she died, more than the house is even worth. I’ve been trying to sort that out. And to be honest, I am not sure I am… prepared to see what’s in the house.”
“I can understand that,” Emily says quickly, and she gives Michael a look that says, Don’t ask any more questions.
Mr. Starek stands at the window in silence, his face a wince of sorrow.
That is my cue. I know how to cheer him up. I hop out from behind the silk blossoms and flutter to the end of the branch, tilting my head at him.
Immediately, his lips curve into a smile. “Here’s that charming little goldfinch again,” he says. “She must like listening to you play, Michael.”
“Oh, she does!” Michael grins. “She’s here all the time.”
I fly down to the windowsill and alight just for a moment, as close to the screen as I can. But the lesson is over, and it’s time for me to head home. As I flap up, up, up into the blue summer sky, I wonder if Sebastian and Oliver have been missing me. I think about Halina, and Mr. Starek not seeing his own sister for years and years, not setting foot in her house. It is so strange and sad. It makes me want to be home, surrounded by my family.
But I also think about the piano. Might there really be a Pleyel somewhere in Halina’s house? Oh, how wonderful if Michael could play on it! And if I could sing along.
At the Bird Feeder
When I get back to the holly tree, Sebastian and Oliver are squabbling over a limp stalk of raspberries.
“Where have you been?” Oliver wants to know, momentarily dropping his end of the stalk.
Sebastian flies away and greedily devours the berries, dark juice streaking his breast. “She just sits around all day by the music room,” he tells Oliver with his beak full. “Boring!”
Boring? Oh, he has no idea.
“I’m not sitting around,” I protest. “I’m listening to music.”
Of course I can’t tell them what I’m really doing. They wouldn’t understand, and they’d probably make fun of me. Also, I don’t want them reporting anything to Mother.
Sebastian rolls his eyes at me. “You can listen to music anytime you want. Just open your mouth.”
Before I can answer, Oliver flutters over in a fit of outrage. “Sebastian! You ate all the berries! And I’m starving.” He turns to me, peevish. “Why don’t you ever do anything with us anymore?”
That makes me feel guilty. “What do you mean? I’ll do something with you right now.”
“Okay. What?”
“I don’t know. What do you want to do?”
We all look at one another blankly. We could ask Mother for an idea, but it would likely involve some chore at the nest.
“The bird feeder!” Oliver cries jubilantly. “The old man just refilled it. Let’s get some sunflower seeds.”
He flies recklessly in the direction of the bird feeder, and I have to swoop low and fast to catch up to him. Of course Sebastian comes, too, notwithstanding his recent feast of raspberries.
The bird feeder is a small plastic box that sticks to the kitchen window with rubber suction cups. A rounded heap of birdseed, thick with the large black sunflower seeds we love, overflows the rim.
A flashy red cardinal is perched there, but he takes off as soon as we get close. For all their brazen size and color, the boy cardinals are timid. Maybe with good reason: there are three of us.
“Yum!” Oliver says, his good humor restored. “Plenty for everyone!”
He begins to gobble the sunflower seeds, cracking them open with his beak and scattering a messy shower of dry casings. Sebastian quickly joins in. I land on one side of the feeder and bang a sunflower seed against the hard plastic edge till it splits open, munching the tasty seed inside.
Honestly, they are not as delicious as our favorites, thistle seeds, and they take considerably more work. But they are quite filling. We are diving into this grainy banquet with gusto when we hear a terrible, loud scrabbling against the house’s wood siding, and something large and fast launches itself at the feeder.
