Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Practicing the Piano (But She Does Love Being in Recitals) (3 page)

“Where’s the note
from Ms. Killingher, Moxy?” Mrs. Maxwell said again. She said it so loudly that the hum in the house turned into a buzz.

“Note?” said Moxy casually. She said it as if someone had asked her to pass the salt. “Oh, you must mean the note from Ms. Killingher. It’s got to be here somewhere.”

Moxy called out
to her stepfather. “Ajax?” she said. “Did I give you that note Ms. Killingher sent home with me while Mother was in Africa?”

“The Elephant Bird, the Elephant Bird had nobody else to … Had nobody else to … Had nobody else to—”

“Hello, Ajax,” said Moxy. Suddenly she was standing in his doorway.

“The Elephant Bird, the Elephant Bird had nobody else to … Had nobody else to … Had nobody else to—”

“I’m sorry, darling,” interrupted Mrs. Maxwell. Now
she
was standing in the doorway next to Moxy. “I know your editor expected ‘The Elephant Bird’ yesterday. And you’ve been so understanding—taking complete care of the children and the house and everything else while I dashed off to Africa at the last minute. But Moxy is under the impression she gave you a note from Ms. Killingher last week.”

“Note?” said Ajax. He had heard the word recently—he just couldn’t remember where.

“I’m not absolutely, positively, one hundred percent certain I gave it to him,” said Moxy.

Mrs. Maxwell looked at her sharply. “Yes or no?” she said.

“Possibly,” said Moxy.

Here is the surprise
: Pansy arrived.

“I found
the note!”
she cried.

Pansy had been hanging out halfway down and halfway up the stairs when she heard Mrs. Maxwell ask Moxy where the note was. It had been easy for Pansy to find the note because Pansy
had
the note. Pansy kept everything Moxy lost, in case Moxy couldn’t find it.

For her part, Moxy was in shock—she was sure she’d lost the note way better than that.

Pansy proudly presented the envelope with the note in it to Mrs. Maxwell.

… and THE ENVELOPE, please

It was very scary
. The letters alone, as you can see from the photograph Mark
took, were quite black and thick, and the penmanship was nothing less than excellent. Even Mrs. Maxwell was nervous about opening it.

Inside THE ENVELOPE
was
the note
.

Let us read
the note silently to ourselves as Mrs. Maxwell reads aloud:

P.S. Would you also please see if you can do something about the pounding?

“Moxy,” said Mrs. Maxwell,
“do
you stop playing ‘Heart and Soul’ when you reach the end?”

“Well, ‘Heart and Soul’ is such a short
song,” said Moxy. “If I play it the regular way it doesn’t give me much time to be onstage.” “Moxy,
will
you
stop
playing your part of ‘Heart and Soul’ when you get to the end tonight?” asked Mrs. Maxwell.

“Saved by the bell
” means the phone rings just as you’re trying to think of a good answer for a tough question.

Then the phone rang. And Mrs. Maxwell, who was so close to it that the left ear of her right bunny slipper was flopped over the receiver, answered.

“Hello,” managed Mrs. Maxwell.

It was Ms. Killingher.

Mrs. Maxwell slid down the hall wall and came to a stop, stooping on her bunny slippers.

Instead of saying “Hello,” Ms. Killingher said, “We must have been disconnected.”

“I’m very sorry,” said Mrs. Maxwell. “But I just read the note. You see, I’ve been in Africa all week taking care of my sister. She fell off a ladder while she was feeding a giraffe.”

Mrs. Maxwell definitely sounded like Moxy, thought Ms. Killingher, not for the first time. Moxy often had odd reasons for not practicing the piano.

Naturally, Ms. Killingher said how sorry she was to hear about Mrs. Maxwell’s sister. And that she hoped she was on the mend. And all the sorts of things you say when someone’s sister has fallen off a ladder while feeding a giraffe.

Then Ms. Killingher said, “Will Moxy be able to stop playing her part of ‘Heart and Soul’ when she reaches the end tonight?”

Mrs. Maxwell
put her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and said, “Ms. Killingher wants to know if you’ll stop playing your part of ‘Heart and Soul’ when you get to the end tonight.”

“Yes,” said Moxy,
“but—”

But before Moxy could say
“but I’ve never done it before,”
her mother said, “She will!” to Ms. Killingher, thus putting an end to this chapter.

“Well then
…,” said Mrs. Maxwell after she hung up with Ms. Killingher.

“Well then,” Moxy sighed, “I guess I’d better get out there.” Moxy pointed toward the front porch.

“You aren’t going anywhere,” said Mrs. Maxwell, “until I’ve heard you and Pansy play ‘Heart and Soul’ the way it’s supposed to be played.”

“But we can’t play ‘Heart and Soul’ until the Big Dress Rehearsal.”

Moxy had experience with dress rehearsals. When she played the part of
Cottage Cheese in her second-grade Food Group play, they’d had a dress rehearsal just before the actual performance. And everyone had to put on their costumes. Then they practiced the whole play. Just as if the audience were in the room.

“Let’s have the dress rehearsal now!” said Mrs. Maxwell.

“But our outfits aren’t ready,” said Moxy. “We can’t have a
real
dress rehearsal without them.”

“Of course they’re ready,” replied Mrs. Maxwell. “I had your pink gobs-of-glitter dress pressed before I left. And Pansy’s yellow buttercup dress is in the hall closet.”

“I don’t mean our
dresses,”
said Moxy. “I mean the Surprise Part of our outfits.”

Mrs. Maxwell yawned. “When will the Surprise Part of your outfits be ready?” she asked.

It was an excellent question as far as
Moxy was concerned. It meant she got to go out on the porch and ask Granny George when the capes they had been working on all week would be done, which meant she got to leave the room.

“I’ll go ask Granny George,” said Moxy.

Granny George
didn’t need an extension cord for her sewing machine. That’s because it didn’t run on electricity. It ran on Granny George’s foot. So when Moxy walked out onto the porch and tapped Granny George on the left shoulder, Granny George took her right foot off the pedal and the sewing machine stopped.

“The cape is smashing,” Moxy said to Granny George. “May I try it on?”

The moment
she put the cape on, Moxy was glad she’d taken the time to do it—because two things were wrong:

1. The gold glitter that spelled out Moxy’s name in big letters across the back was starting to flake off.

2. Now that it was almost done, Moxy could tell that the whole thing would benefit from a bit of ermine fur trim.

In case you don’t know what real ermine fur trim looks like, here is a photograph of
the
real
Miss America cape so you can see for yourself. The girl in the picture is Moxy’s great-great-grandmother. She is standing on a crate. Her name was also Moxy, by the way.

Just then
Mark came out on the porch with a surprising message for Moxy.

“Mom wants you to start practicing ‘Heart and Soul’—
now!”
he said.

But Moxy wasn’t listening—she was mulling. She was mulling over the ermine fur problem. You see, Moxy believed it was wrong to hurt animals in order to make fur coats. The problem was that Moxy liked the ermine fur
look
. What she was trying to figure out now was how to find seven or eight yards of high-quality
fake
ermine fur this late in the day.

“Mom said
you have to get in there and play ‘Heart and Soul’
now
,” said Pansy when she stepped out on the porch. Pansy’s eyes were open very wide, though not quite as wide as saucers. They looked more like—no, they looked
exactly
like this picture Mark took of her:

“Eyes Not As Wide As Saucers,” by Mark Maxwell.

But Moxy wasn’t listening. Moxy wasn’t listening because she had just had an
important breakthrough idea
about how to manufacture fake ermine fur this late in the day. And it is a well-established fact that when Moxy Maxwell is having an
important breakthrough idea
, she can’t think of anything else.

“Pansy,” Moxy said
, “would you please run in and get the permanent black Magic Marker off Ajax’s desk? Oh, and on your way back, would you mind grabbing your pink paper-doll scissors?

“And Mark,” continued Moxy, “would you please go up to the guest room bathroom and get two of the old white guest towels and bring them down here ASAP?”

Pansy nodded, but her mouth said, “But Mom says we have to play ‘Heart and Soul’
now.”

Suddenly Mudd was
barking.

Mudd was Moxy’s very nice, not too bright, part German shepherd, part Lab, and part himself dog, and he was

“Stop barking!” commanded Moxy.

The reason Mudd was barking was that he wanted everyone to know that Sam was standing outside the porch door.

“Sam! Thank goodness you’re here!” Moxy called out.

“Is that your cape?” said Sam.

Moxy twirled around a couple of times so that Sam could admire it.

“Some of the glitter is coming off,” said Sam. He was only six. But he paid such close attention to details that you would have thought he was seven.

“It just needs a little fake ermine fur trim and it will be
très élégante
,” replied Moxy. (Mark had been teaching Moxy a new French word every day for the last three days and now she was almost 100% bilingual. She could work
“très”
and
“oui”
and
“non”
into almost any English sentence.)

“Have you had the Big Dress Rehearsal yet?” said Sam. Sam was a little worried. Each time Moxy practiced the piano, she played her part of “Heart and Soul” over and over. She never seemed to reach the end.

“I can’t start the Big Dress Rehearsal until our capes are ready,” said Moxy. “And our capes won’t be ready until they have a little fake ermine fur trim on them. And I can’t start making the fake ermine fur trim until
Mark gets the old white towels from the guest room bathroom. And Pansy gets her pink paper-doll scissors and Ajax’s permanent black Magic Marker.”

“I’ll get the old white guest towels,” offered Sam.

“I’ll help,” said Pansy.

Mark said nothing.

“Thank you,” said Moxy. “But please be very quiet when you go up. We don’t want to wake Aunt Susan Standish.”

“Aunt Susan Standish is
here?”
said Sam.

Moxy nodded solemnly. Sam had met Aunt Susan Standish once. She reminded him of how Moxy would be when she grew up. Neither of them seemed afraid of anything.