AllFreeNovel
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Izzy will watch the show with us sometimes, but usually gets bored and leaves us. She wants to start competing this year, so she’s upped her piano lessons with Madam Elise to twice a day, and practices almost every free moment she has. Her parents tried to convince her to enjoy the summer, but she begged and begged and finally got her way.
She doesn’t seem to regret it so far.
Still, her parents are strict about how often she gets to play. So she usually saves up all her hours for after dinner, and that’s when I hang out with Jeremy.
While I’m kind of jealous at times about the whole competition thing, the idea of going against a bunch of people in packed auditoriums makes my skin crawl. I can barely play an entire solo in front of our families when we have recitals. I prefer to play with a group, like how we do it at school.
Maybe one day I’ll feel better about it.
But I’m still nowhere near as good as Izzy, despite how hard I try.
Sometimes I just wanna give up.
Maybe I’m just meant to be a listener.
Maybe the music is only supposed to stay inside me.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Momma?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“Can I have a brother?”
She whirls away from the washing machine, to look down at me with wide eyes. “A brother?”
I shrug, squeezing my teddy bear to my chest. “Or a sister. I wanna be a big brother.”
She laughs in a short, breathy kind of way. “Well…maybe someday.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where do babies come from?”
She laughs again, and says, “Oh boy.”
Turning around, closes the lid on the washer, and twists the dial before hitting a button. There’s a loud humming and whooshing sound, and then the machine starts shaking, knocking against the wall. Momma says it does that ’cause it’s old.
“Come here, little man,” she says, scooping me up and carrying me into our living room. When she sits me down on her lap on the couch, she tickles my sides, and I squeal. “You’re gettin’ way too heavy for that.”
“I’m big now,” I say. I just turned five.
She wiggles my nose with her fingers. “Yes, you are.”
“So where do babies come from?”
Shaking her head, she looks up at the ceiling. I do the same, wondering what she’s lookin’ at. All I see are cracks and yellow spots.
Momma goes on to tell me this story about a bird called a stork who drops babies off on front porches. It’s a funny story, making me giggle.
“How do I order one?” I ask when she’s done.
She laughs and tickles me and says, “Only Mommies and Daddies can order babies.”
“Can I ask Santa?”
