Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Practicing the Piano (But She Does Love Being in Recitals) (6 page)

Reader, I wish
a CD came with this book. That way you could hear for yourself what Mark and Sam and Mrs. Maxwell and Aunt Susan Standish and Granny George heard when Moxy played her part of “Heart and Soul.” But it’s probably just as well.

Moxy’s song went on so long that finally Mrs. Maxwell had to tap her on the shoulder.

“You can stop now,” said Mrs. Maxwell.

As soon as Mrs. Maxwell said she could stop, Moxy and Pansy got up and walked to
the middle of the living room. Then they held their hands together in the air the way heavyweight champions do and bowed and bowed. It was Moxy’s favorite part of the whole show. She and Pansy had rehearsed it at least a hundred times last week.

“You may clap now,” said Moxy.

Everyone clapped.

“How very
…,” said Mrs. Maxwell-she paused to think about it—“long. And what was all that pounding about?”

“That was the sound of the heart,” said Moxy.

“It was pretty loud,” noted Mrs. Maxwell. “And it never stopped,” she added.

“Well, a heart’s not supposed to stop,” said Moxy. “Unless of course it’s dead, and my heart isn’t.”

“No,” said Mrs. Maxwell quietly, “it isn’t.”

Moxy sat down in the rocking chair. She was tired. Playing “Heart and Soul” was hard work.

“Moxy,” said Mrs. Maxwell, “will you promise to stop playing ‘Heart and Soul’ tonight when you get to the end?”

“Of course,” said Moxy. “I mean, I can’t play all night. Other people have to play after me.”

“People like me,” said Mark, who was now sitting at the piano bench.

“Maybe Mark should practice while I go upstairs and warm up my voice. Ms. Killingher still might ask me to sing tonight,” said Moxy.

But Mrs. Maxwell was not convinced that Moxy would stop playing the piano.

“Pansy,” said Mrs. Maxwell, “can you stop playing the piano when your part is through?”

Pansy nodded.

“Moxy, will you promise to stop when Pansy stops?”

“But that will make it so short,” said Moxy.

“Promise?” said Mrs. Maxwell.

Moxy really thought about it. “I’ll do my best,” she said.

It was all Mrs. Maxwell could ask—all anyone can ask of anyone.

While Mark practiced
, Moxy, Sam, and Pansy went upstairs to finish getting ready. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to steam up her bathroom so Moxy could warm up her voice in case someone asked her to sing tonight. Instead, she sang “La la la la la la la la” over and over while she put on her stage makeup.

Moxy had stage makeup left over from when she played the part of Cottage Cheese last year in the Food Group play.

Stage makeup is very different from regular makeup. It is quite thick. And Moxy put on a little extra. Then she put some on Pansy. Then she put more on Pansy. But Moxy couldn’t cover up the black ermine dots.

Before Moxy and Pansy could even practice walking with their capes and crowns and tap shoes on (all at the same time), Mrs. Maxwell called from downstairs to say it was time to go.

Walking down stairs in slippery, silvery, somewhat high, high-heeled tap shoes while wearing a crown that keeps falling down in front of your face with every step you take is not as easy as it may sound.

By the time Moxy and Pansy reached the downstairs hall, everyone was already waiting for them out in the car.

“But we can’t go yet,” Moxy called out from the porch.

Mrs. Maxwell turned on the ignition in reply.

“Mark still has to take the picture of me standing in front of the trees with my cape and crown on!” shouted Moxy. “It’s for my Christmas card. I’m sending out my own this year.”

When Mrs. Maxwell still didn’t turn off the car, Moxy wobbled down the porch steps and over to her mother’s side of the car. Mrs. Maxwell rolled down the window.

“I’m going to look just like Great-great-granny Moxy in that picture of her in the Miss America cape,” said Moxy.

Mrs. Maxwell turned off the ignition.

Here is the picture Mark took of Moxy wearing her own ermine, towel-trimmed cape. You can hardly see the cardboard box she’s standing on. She looks a lot like Great-great-granny Moxy, don’t you think?

Everyone piled
into the car. Granny George was in the front seat. She was sitting between Mrs. Maxwell and Ajax. Ajax was reciting the second verse of his poem aloud. He was very proud and not a little relieved to have found the perfect word to rhyme with “spear.”

Ajax put a little extra emphasis on the word “fear” at the very end, and Granny George started to applaud.

“No applause yet,” said Ajax. “I still have to finish the last verse.” Then he began to mutter something about sixty million years.

Sam and Mark were in the way backseat. They were watching the front tires spatter slush from the melting snow. They were saying things like “neat” and “cool” and “nice one” whenever a big bunch of brown slush smacked the side of the car.

Aunt Susan Standish was sitting beside Pansy in the middle row of seats. Pansy’s tap shoes were off: She was wearing them over her hands like gloves. When Ajax had finished his poem, Pansy had tapped her hands together for a very long time.

Moxy was on the other side of Pansy.

Before Ajax began his poem, she had been singing “La la la la la la la la la” to
warm up her voice. And although she was happy that Ajax had found the perfect rhyme for “spear,” she was not quite happy enough to applaud when he finally shouted out “fear!” at the end. Her stomach suddenly felt a little funny.

Mrs. Maxwell was
just pulling into the parking lot of the Palace Theater in their 1989 Volvo DL station wagon when Moxy noticed that she was having a heart attack.

“Mother, I’m having a heart attack,” said Moxy.

Moxy’s mother said, “It’s probably just nerves.”

“What are nerves?” asked Moxy.

“It’s like stage fright,” said Granny George.

“Why would I be afraid of the stage?” said Moxy. “I love the stage.”

After Mrs. Maxwell parked the car, she gave Mark and Moxy and Pansy a good-luck kiss. Then she and Ajax and Granny George and Aunt Susan Standish and Sam went into the main entrance of the Palace Theater.

Ms. Killingher had said that everyone performing in the recital should meet backstage. So Pansy and Mark and Moxy headed toward the back of the Palace Theater. Pansy was so excited she was running.

“Look, Moxy,” called out Pansy. “It says
STAGE
next to the door. Just like you said it would!”

Even Mark was excited. Moxy could tell because he stopped and took a picture of the sign that said
STAGE
next to the door.

The Stage Door
.

Moxy didn’t seem to be as excited as Mark and Pansy. For one thing, she was not walking very quickly. In fact, when Mark was taking this picture of the stage door, Moxy was still back in the parking lot. Her stomach felt like it was purple inside.

“Moxy!” Pansy called out. “Hurry up!”

Slowly, Moxy hurried up—even though she didn’t feel like it. As she watched her silver shoes tap across the parking lot, she wondered what made people do things they didn’t want to do when there wasn’t a mother around telling them to do it. Still, she was moving.

As soon as
they got backstage and checked in with Ms. Killingher, Mark and Moxy pulled the big curtain back so they could see the audience. Aunt Susan Standish and their mother were standing together down in the front.

Everyone was admiring Aunt Susan Standish. She was wearing black kid gloves that reached all the way to her elbows and black very-high heels and sunglasses and a bright red swing coat with bell sleeves. Every time she turned to say hello to someone her coat moved in the opposite direction.

Mark took out the new super-duper-extra-extra-extra-strong telescopic lens that Aunt Susan Standish had brought him from Africa last Christmas. She said it was the kind of lens that
real
photographers used when they wanted to take a picture of the eye of a tiger out in the jungle. He screwed it onto his camera and took this very close close-up picture of Aunt Susan Standish from backstage.

“Aunt Susan Standish Looking Très Élégante,” by Mark Maxwell
.

The lens really worked. It got so close to Aunt Susan Standish that you could have counted her teeth if her mouth had been open.

Ajax and Sam were already sitting down. Granny George was between them.

Ajax was joyfully muttering to himself. He was working on the third and final verse of his elephant bird poem.

The average reader
might guess that Moxy was disappointed to discover that instead of the 2,400 people she was expecting to be in the audience, there were only 23.

But Moxy wasn’t all that disappointed. Her stomach felt purple. (If that’s the word for it.)

Ms. Killingher told everyone backstage to gather round. She had an announcement. “People,” said Ms. Killingher, “can I have your attention, please?”

Moxy and Pansy went tapping over. Mark followed.

“What are those?” said Ms. Killingher. She was pointing at the capes Moxy and Pansy were wearing.

“Our recital capes,” said Pansy. “They match our crowns.” Pansy put her crown on.

“Oh,” said Ms. Killingher.

Then Ms. Killingher made her announcement. “The Curtain Person is having trouble remembering when the curtain is supposed to go up and when it’s supposed to go down, so some of you may have to duck a little when you go out onstage.” She looked at Moxy and Pansy’s crowns. “Maybe you should leave them back here,” she suggested. “They could fall off.”

You might have expected Moxy to
protest. The crowns were, after all, an important part of the fabulous look that she had put together for tonight. But Moxy just put her crown carefully down on a nearby chair. Then she peeked through the curtain at the audience again. It looked like there were at least thirty people out there now. Her stomach still felt purple. And now her heart was beating hard.

Moxy had been sure there would be a vase with approximately 100 long-stemmed roses on top of the piano. But there was not. There was a goldfish bowl with one pink carnation floating around. She wasn’t very upset, though. She was beginning to sweat in the place where her cape was tied around her neck.