Code Name Cassandra by Meg Cabot Page B

Then you can do me a very great favor.”
    I was still staring at Shane. I couldn’t help it. That music? That beautiful music? That had been coming from
Shane
?
    “Make certain,” Professor Le Blanc said, resting his hands on Shane’s pudgy shoulders, “that this young man understands how rare a talent like his is. He insists that his mother made him come to Wawasee this summer. That in fact he’d have much preferred to attend baseball camp instead.”
    ”
Football
camp,” Shane burst out bitterly. “I don’t
want
to play the flute.
Girls
play the flute.” He glared at me very fiercely as he said this, as if daring me to contradict him.
    I did not. I could not. I was still transfixed. All I could think was
Shane? Shane
played the
flute
? I mean, he’d said he played the
skin
flute. I didn’t know he’d been telling the truth … well, partially, anyway.
    But an actual
flute? Shane
had been the one making that gorgeous—no, not just gorgeous—
magnificent
music on
my
instrument of choice? Shane?
My
Shane?
    Professor Le Blanc was shaking his head. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said to Shane. “Most of the greatest flutists in the world have been men. And with talent like yours, young man, you might one day be amongst them—”
    “Not if I get recruited by the Bears,” Shane pointed out.
    “Well,” Professor Le Blanc said, looking a little taken aback. “Er, maybe not then …”
    “Is my lesson over?” Shane demanded, craning his neck to get a look at the professor’s face.
    “Er,” Professor Le Blanc said. “Yes, actually, it is.”
    “Good,” Shane said, tucking his flute case beneath his arm. “Then I’m outta here.”
    And with that, he stalked away.
    Professor Le Blanc and I stared after him for a minute or two. Then the instructor seemed to shake himself, and, holding open the door to the practice room for me, said with forced jocularity, “Well, now, let’s see what you can do, then, Jessica. Why don’t you play something for me?” Professor Le Blanc went to the piano that stood in one corner of the walk-in-closet-sized room, sat down on the bench, and picked up a Palm Pilot. “Anything you like,” he said, punching the buttons of the Palm Pilot. “I like to assess my pupil’s skill level before I begin teaching.”
    I opened my flute case and began assembling my instrument, but my mind wasn’t on what I was doing. I just couldn’t get what I’d heard out of my head. It didn’t make sense. It didn’t make sense that Shane could play like that. It just didn’t seem possible. The kid had played beautifully, movingly, as if he’d been swept away by the notes, each one of which had rung out with angelic—almost aching—purity. The same Shane who had stuck an entire hamburger in his mouth at lunch—I’d sat there and watched him do it—bun and all, then swallowed it, practically whole, just because Arthur had dared him to. That same Shane. That Shane could play like
that
.
    And he didn’t even care. He’d wanted to go to football camp.
    He’d been lying. He cared. No one could play like that and not care. No one.
    I put my own flute to my lips, and began to play. Nothing special. Green Day. “Time of Our Lives.” I jazzed it up a little, since it’s a relatively simple little song. But all I could think about was Shane. There had to be depths,
wells
of untapped emotion in that boy, to make him capable of producing such music.
    And all he wanted to do was play football.
    Professor Le Blanc looked up from his Palm Pilot at some point during my recital. When I was through, he said, “Play something else, please.”
    I launched into an old standby. “Fascinating Rhythm.” Always a crowd-pleaser. At least it pleased my dad, when I was practicing at home. I usually played it at double time, to get it over with. I did so now.
    The question was, how could a kid who could play like that be such a total and complete pain in the butt? I mean, how was it possible that the