Second Fiddle by Rosanne Parry Page A

handed it to me. It was well worn and the colors had all gone faintly orange. In the dim light from the door I could see that the girl was about ten and had the same nose and chin as Arvo. She wore one of those dresses that come with an apron that the German girls wear for Octoberfest. She wore a crown of daisies and cornflowers.
    “Pretty. How old is she?”
    “Eleven in this picture. She will be thirteen in a month.”
    I handed the picture back, and he put it in his pocket like it was a thousand dollars. My mom sent Aunt Cassandra new pictures of me and the boys every month. I had a whole bulletin board full of my favorite brother and cousin pictures. I couldn’t imagine having only one picture of my own brothers.
    “Does your sister have a choir? Does she have a good voice?”
    “Last time I heard her sing, she still had a little-girlvoice-all chirp like a bird. She will grow into a strong voice if she practices.”
    “Practice makes your voice louder?” I said. “I thought some people were just naturally loud.” I was totally thinking of Giselle.
    Arvo laughed. “Being bigger helps, but a strong voice takes practice. How about you? Are you in a choir now?”
    “Oh no, I can’t sing!”
    “Not sing? Bah! If you can breathe, you can sing.”
    “No, really, I’m not a singer. I’m a composer.”
    What on earth made me say that?
    “A composer?” Arvo looked at me as if I’d just claimed I was a movie star. “Tell me what you write. Sing it.”
    “It doesn’t have words. It’s classical music. It’s just the kind I know the best. I’ve got a lot to learn.” Usually when adults asked about my music, they were done being interested when I told them it was classical music.
    “I would love to hear something you have written. Will you play it at your competition tomorrow?”
    “No, we’re playing something traditional, Pachelbel’s Canon, but the piece I wrote is a canon, too.”
    “Show me.”
    “Seriously?”
    “Please.”
    I got off the backpack I’d been sitting on and took out my music notebook and the book light I used to read at night. I flipped through the first dozen pages to the openingmeasure of “Canon for Three Friends.” We both scooted so we were sitting side by side with our backs against the wall.
    “This is the part I play. The first violin for Vivian starts here.” I flipped ahead a half dozen pages. “This is Giselle’s cello part.”
    “Ah, cello,” Arvo said, “the man’s voice.” He looked over Giselle’s part, fiddling with the book light so that it fell on the page. “Tempo?”
    I tapped my hand on my knee for moderato speed. Arvo listened for two measures and then he started to sing the cello part—just dum, dum, dah, dee, dum—but it sounded exactly like it had in my head when I wrote it. I had been nervous when I wrote the cello part, because I couldn’t play the cello to check if my notes were correct. I closed my eyes to drink in the sound.
    “Let’s hear it together,” Arvo said. “You sing the violin part.”
    “I can’t sing.”
    “Everyone can sing. If you can breathe—”
    “—you can sing. Right. Okay, I’ll try.”
    “What is your starting note?”
    I closed my eyes, because I had the violin part memorized. I hummed my opening note, and Arvo hummed his. The notes fit together perfectly. I knew they would, but knowing it and hearing it are not the same thing. Arvo tapped his foot to the same tempo I’d just given him and we began. At first I was thinking, I hope he likes it. I hope he says it’sgood—I got distracted, and I was out of tune. But then I concentrated on my music, not just singing the right note, but singing the note with the right feeling. By the time we were all the way to the end, I didn’t need him to tell me anything. I knew.

woke up the next morning as the train slowed down on the outskirts of Paris. Vivian yawned and stretched in the window seat beside me, and Giselle got up mumbling something about a bathroom