Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Practicing the Piano (But She Does Love Being in Recitals) (7 page)

Ms. Killingher
lined everyone up according to the order they were going to play in. Then she crossed her lips with her finger to remind everyone to be quiet. And the lights went down in the audience. And the lights came up on the stage. And Ms. Killingher walked out.

There was a lot of applause. Moxy thought it sounded like a lot more than thirty people were out there now. She grabbed Pansy’s hand.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Ms. Killingher said into the microphone, “welcome to the
Killingher School of Piano and Bass’s first annual recital.”

Since Moxy and Pansy were third in line to go on, they were standing close to the stage. And they could see Ms. Killingher from the side. She looked very calm.

Moxy cleared her throat. She had hoped Ms. Killingher would ask her to sing tonight. Now she was hoping Ms. Killingher wouldn’t. How could she sing when she could hardly swallow?

Ms. Killingher continued, “Elinor Hills will begin our concert. She will be playing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.’ Elinor?” And Elinor Hills walked out onstage.

As Ms. Killingher was walking off, she winked at Elinor. Elinor winked back. Then Elinor sat down at the piano and began playing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”

Moxy hadn’t learned to wink yet, though teaching herself to wink was on her
list of Ninety-nine Things to Learn before she turned thirteen. So Moxy wasn’t sure what she’d do if Ms. Killingher winked at her when she went on. No one had told her she might have to wink tonight. Otherwise she would have learned to do it. It was something a person her age should know how to do.

And why was she thinking about winking anyhow? It was almost time for her to go on. But what should she be thinking about? She wasn’t sure.
Maybe I should be wondering if I’ll trip in my tap shoes
, thought Moxy. She knew she should have practiced that part. Her legs were beginning to shake. She picked her crown up off the chair and sat down.

Her hands were cold.

Or maybe
, thought Moxy,
I should think about my part of “Heart and Soul” and what will happen if I forget how it goes
.

What if I forget how it goes?

What if I forget how it goes?

Moxy was having trouble breathing.

“Are you okay?” asked Pansy. Moxy’s hand was freezing.

Moxy shook her head. “Pansy,” she whispered, “get Mark.”

But Mark was last in line. That’s because “The Flight of the Bumblebee” was the hardest song to play.

In Moxy’s humble opinion
, Elinor Hills played “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” far too quickly. It should have gone on for at least an hour—maybe more. But suddenly Elinor Hills was offstage and standing beside Moxy again. And Ms. Killingher was back onstage.

“How was it?” asked Moxy.

“It was brutal,” said Elinor.

“And now
, Joan DeMayo, who has been a student here at the Killingher School of Piano and Bass for almost five months, will play ‘Chopsticks,’ ” Ms. Killingher said to the audience. And Joan DeMayo, who had been standing in line in front of Moxy, trotted out onstage. She seemed very happy to go, thought Moxy. She was almost running. Moxy couldn’t tell if Ms. Killingher winked at Joan when Joan went out, because by then Moxy had put her head between her knees.

As soon as Mark arrived
, he took this picture of Moxy with her head between her knees.

Then Mark knelt down. “What’s wrong?” he whispered.

But Moxy didn’t look up at him.

“I don’t want to go on,” mumbled Moxy.

“What!” exclaimed Mark. He said it so loudly that Ms. Killingher had to pretend to zip her lips to remind him to be quiet.

“But you love being the center of attention,” whispered Mark.

“I think maybe … I might be … just possibly … I’m afraid.”

“You? Afraid?”
Mark had never heard Moxy say she was afraid of anything.

Moxy nodded. “I might be afraid I’ll make a mistake.” She said it very quietly and more to herself than to anyone else.

Mark looked at Moxy. She didn’t look well. Her forehead was starting to sweat—even with all the stage makeup, you could still tell.

Pansy was looking up at him. “What’s wrong with Moxy?” she whispered.

“She’s afraid she might make a mistake,” said Mark.

“But Moxy couldn’t make a mistake,” said Pansy.

Reader, if there
is a faster song than “Chopsticks” I don’t know what it is. And Joan DeMayo’s interpretation of the beloved tune was nearly electric. She was on- and offstage in ninety seconds. Granny George timed it.

Ms. Killingher
sort of ran onstage (she hadn’t expected Joan DeMayo to finish “Chopsticks” so quickly).

“And now for a duet!” Ms. Killingher said to the audience. “Moxy Maxwell and her sister, Pansy Maxwell, will play ‘Heart and Soul.’ ”

The audience started to applaud. Ajax and Granny George and Aunt Susan Standish clapped very hard. Sam was even
louder. Mrs. Maxwell was so nervous she forgot to clap. We all know what Mrs. Maxwell was nervous about. She was worried that Moxy would start to play “Heart and Soul” and never stop.

But Mrs. Maxwell
didn’t have to worry. She didn’t have to worry because Moxy and Pansy didn’t come out onstage.

When Moxy and Pansy didn’t appear, there was a very loud silence in the audience. Then Ms. Killingher said again, “And now Pansy and Moxy Maxwell will play ‘Heart and Soul.’ ”

Then, instead of
Pansy and Moxy appearing onstage, Max Daks appeared onstage. Even though Max Daks was supposed to play right after Moxy, he could tell that Moxy didn’t look very good. And he was worried that if Moxy and Pansy didn’t get out there soon, the whole show might stop and he would lose his turn. Max Daks was planning to be a world-famous piano player by the time he was twelve. And he needed to practice playing in front of a live audience.

You could tell that Ms. Killingher was a little surprised to see Max Daks out there. But she remained calm when she said, “There’s been a little mixup. It seems that instead of Moxy and Pansy, Max Daks will be playing …” Ms. Killingher checked the program she was holding. “… will be playing ‘Glow, Little Glowworm, Glow.’ ” Ms. Killingher also forgot to wink at Max Daks when she rushed offstage.

“Moxy,” said Ms. Killingher when she got backstage, “what’s wrong? You and Pansy are supposed to be on.”

“I want my mother,” said Moxy. But Ms. Killingher couldn’t hear her. Moxy’s head was still between her knees.

“She wants our mom,” Pansy explained to Ms. Killingher.

The moment
Ms. Killingher announced that Moxy and Pansy were going to play “Heart and Soul” and Moxy and Pansy didn’t come out onstage, Mrs. Maxwell got up from her seat, walked to the back of the Palace Theater, and went out the door. Then she walked through the parking lot and went in the stage door. That’s because Mrs. Maxwell knew something was wrong—Moxy would never miss an entrance.

When Pansy saw her mom, she wasn’t surprised. Her mom always came when
she
needed her.

“Mom,” whispered Pansy, “Moxy’s scared.”

Moxy pulled her head from between her knees. She was so relieved to see her mother she almost started to cry.

Mrs. Maxwell knelt down and smoothed Moxy’s hair. “What’s wrong, darling?” she said quietly.

“I don’t want to go out there,” Moxy whispered.

Mrs. Maxwell had known Moxy for just over ten years now and she had never seen her like this. Moxy’s hands were cold. And her legs were trembling. And white sweat was starting to streak from her forehead down her cheeks.

As soon as
Aunt Susan Standish had seen Mrs. Maxwell get up from her seat and walk to the back of the Palace Theater, she had followed her. A twin often knows when something is wrong with the other twin.

When Moxy looked up
and saw Aunt Susan Standish standing behind her mother, she was so embarrassed, she put her head back between her knees.

“What’s up?” said Aunt Susan Standish. Aunt Susan Standish did not whisper when she said it. But it didn’t matter because Max Daks was making a lot of noise out there onstage.

“She doesn’t want to go on,” whispered Mrs. Maxwell.

“She’s afraid,” said Pansy helpfully.

“Well, of course she is!” said Aunt Susan Standish.

Moxy looked up. She hoped Aunt Susan Standish didn’t think that she, Moxy Maxwell, was
always
afraid.

“She’s afraid she might make a mistake,” said Aunt Susan Standish.

“How did
you
know?” said Moxy.

“I’m a Mistake Expert. I’m always making mistakes,” said Aunt Susan Standish. “The only reason I’m here is because I made a mistake.”

“What do you mean?” said Moxy.

“If I hadn’t been standing on a tippy ladder feeding a giraffe, I wouldn’t have fallen off. If I hadn’t fallen off, I wouldn’t have gotten that concussion. If I hadn’t gotten that concussion, your mother wouldn’t have brought me to your house to stay. And if I hadn’t been at your house, I wouldn’t have been able to come to your
recital today. I would hate to have missed all this.”

“But what if I don’t play?” mumbled Moxy.

But Aunt Susan Standish wasn’t listening. “And last September I made a huge mistake. I took ten tourists on a shortcut through the rain forest. It took me two extra days to figure out where we were.”

“Were you afraid?” interrupted Moxy.

“I would have been insane not to be,” said Aunt Susan Standish.

“Then why did you take the shortcut?”

“Well, I was curious, I suppose, to find out where the shortcut would go.” Aunt Susan Standish thought about it for a minute. Then she said, “I was more curious about where the shortcut would go than I was afraid of what would happen if I got lost.”

“Moxy,” said Mrs. Maxwell, “if you don’t
want to go on, it’s perfectly all right. We just have to make a decision.”

Moxy closed her eyes. She wished she were young again and didn’t have such hard decisions to make.

She knew that if she was afraid of going onstage now, she might always be afraid of going onstage. And if she was always afraid of going onstage, she would have to cross at least half the stuff off her list of 211 Possible Career Paths.

But what if she went onstage and made a mistake … what would she do?

Moxy turned to Mark. Mark was the smartest person she knew. “What will I do if I make a mistake?” she said.

“Do what you always do,” said Mark. “Just keep on going.”

Moxy remembered how earlier her feet had gone on walking across the parking lot toward the stage door even though the rest of her didn’t want to go.

She remembered how nervous she’d been the first time she dove into the deep end of the pool when she was practicing her water ballet routine last summer. But it hadn’t been that bad in the end (though the water had been surprisingly cold).

She remembered the time she sprayed Pansy’s hair with gold spray paint and how afraid she’d been that her mother would kill her when she got home and saw what she’d done. But here she was—still alive.

Moxy could hear Max Daks playing the end of “Glow, Little Glowworm, Glow.”

Moxy closed her eyes.

“Okay,” she said, “I’ll try.”

Moxy surprised even herself when she said it.

Max Daks was playing
the end of “Glow, Little Glowworm, Glow” for the second time when Ms. Killingher tapped him on the shoulder. Not a person to stop in midmeasure, Max Daks finished the song.

As he was walking offstage, he heard Ms. Killingher say: “Ladies and gentlemen, at long last, Moxy and Pansy Maxwell will play ‘Heart and Soul.’ ”

Reader, I wish I could say that Moxy’s legs had stopped shaking. Or that her hands had warmed up and her heart wasn’t beating
like a bird in her chest. Or that her stomach didn’t feel purple. But it wouldn’t be true. In fact, Moxy’s legs were shaking so much that her shoes were making extra little tapping sounds when she walked onstage.

But when the stage lights hit Moxy’s eyes—the lights were bright blue on the sides and very white in the center—Moxy felt much better. The lights were so bright she couldn’t see anyone in the audience. And the lights were warm. Their heat felt lovely on her hands.

After she sat down at the piano bench and just before she began, Moxy turned and looked at the lights again. For just a moment her eyes got lost in them. She felt like she was having a very pleasant dream. Then Pansy began to play her part of “Heart and Soul,” and without hesitating Moxy joined her.