Duet Read online

  “No, no, that’s not necessary,” the old man tells her. “Michael will be fine. Let’s keep it to half an hour today, just an introduction. Michael, why don’t you go into the music room? It’s that door on the left.”

  The boy glances back at his mother, his face stormy, and skulks into the house.

  Mrs. Jin shakes her head, her mouth a grim line. Now she seems more worried than mad. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “He’s not usually like this. He really does love to play.”

  Mr. Starek nods. “Emily tells me she’s never had a student like him.”

  Michael’s mother sighs. “It’s been a hard year for him. His father took a job with an enormous amount of travel, and he won’t be home this summer. I think Michael misses him, and he’s nervous about starting middle school in the fall. It’s… a lot of changes.”

  Mr. Starek studies her sympathetically. “I will be gentle with him.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

  Mrs. Jin turns to leave, and the door closes with a soft click.

  I can tell the old man is going to have his work cut out for him with this one. But I can’t help feeling curious. I want to hear the boy play.

  Michael

  Michael. It sounds a bit like Mirabelle, don’t you think? It’s musical in the same way, starting with a hum, ending with a trill. As I fly to my perch on the silk tree, I am wondering if this boy can live up to his musical name.

  There are basically three kinds of piano students, I’ve found. There are the ones who don’t want to be here, who come only because their parents make them. They may be good at the piano—sometimes really good—because the old man doesn’t teach anyone who isn’t, but they have no passion. They can learn how to play well technically, but they don’t really care about the music, and they have no drive to be great.

  Then there are the ones who want to be here and who try really hard, listening to the old man and watching his fingers move on the keys and doing exactly what he tells them to. They care, and they want so badly to play well. They put in the time, and they get better and better. But they still lack something… that magical spark of talent. Even when they play a piece perfectly, what you hear is the effort, how carefully and purposefully they’re playing it.

  The last kind of students are the ones who play naturally. They may not work as hard, and sometimes I can tell they don’t practice as much as they should, but when they’re at the piano, you can feel the difference: a shimmer of something thrilling in the air. What you hear is the music, not the playing. And the music seems to have a life and mind and soul of its own.

  That’s what the old man must have been like as a boy.

  And I wonder, because of what the mother said, is that what this boy is like? Right now, as I peer through the window, I see his glowering face and tense shoulders, the way he sits stiffly on the piano bench. He looks much more like the first kind of student, the one who’s only here because somebody forced him to be.

  But I won’t know for sure till I hear him play. So I wait on the lowest branch of the silk tree, with the soft pink blossoms frothing around me.

  The old man speaks softly to him. “Emily told me you’ve made great strides with Chopin over the last year, Michael. She says you’re almost ready to compete—is that right?”

  The boy doesn’t say anything. He nods, almost imperceptibly.

  “Would you like to play something?”

  The boy shakes his head firmly.

  “Well,” the old man says, “why don’t you take a few minutes and get to know the piano? This is an Érard. They’re wonderful instruments—Chopin often played on one himself.”

  I see a flicker of curiosity cross the boy’s face. But he sits unmoving, staring at the keys.

  The old man waits, one hand resting on the polished wood top of the piano. “Try it. It’s difficult to hit a wrong note.”

  Michael says nothing. His hands stay stiffly at his sides.

  This is hardly a promising beginning, I think.

  Finally, the old man says, “I’ll leave you to it, shall I? Take your time.” He walks into the hallway and closes the door behind him.

  Michael sits at the piano, frozen. Why, if he were in a park, I would think he was a statue and I might land on his head. He doesn’t so much as touch the keys.

  What new sort of madness is this? The boy is here for lessons, very expensive lessons (as I happen to know from hearing the parents of Mr. Starek’s previous students mutter about the cost). There’s a competition coming up! And he isn’t even going to play?

  Come on, I want to shout. What’s the holdup? Let’s see what you’ve got, kid.

  But do you know what? That boy does not play a single note.

  Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s not as if he stays sitting on the bench. Once the old man is out of earshot, in some distant part of the house, the boy looks at the walls of the music room. After a minute, he stands up and starts poking around.

  He’s got a lot of nerve, right? He spends a long time with the piano, peering at it closely, inspecting the keyboard and the pedals underneath, tapping the wood. Just play it, I want to tell him. But then he drifts over to the books on the shelves, takes one out, thumbs through it. He picks up a plaque, then picks up a trophy. It’s heavier than he expects and he almost drops it. That would be a fine mess, if he broke one of the old man’s trophies. Then I bet the lessons would be off.

  He walks around the piano, squeezing behind it, and I can’t see what he’s doing, so I hop a little closer to the windowpane to spy on him. Now, I have to tell you, I’m very small, petite really, but I weigh a lot more than the tree blossoms do. So when I hop, my weight on the branch makes the twiggy end of it scratch the window. Oops!

  The boy whips around at the noise. He stares in my direction.

  At first, I think he hasn’t seen me. But then his whole face brightens.

  What did I tell you about goldfinches? Guaranteed to make you smile.

  He comes out from behind the piano and walks straight toward me. I think about flying away—my shy routine—but something stops me.

  I want to see. I want to be seen.

  So I stay right where I am and tilt my head to one side, giving him my prettiest look: bright-eyed, curious. I am summoning all of my charm.

  And he just looks back at me, with his dark eyes and shining black wing of hair.

  And then what do you think he does?

  Bang!

  His knuckles hit the glass.

  “Go away, bird.”

  Back at the Nest

  I have never been so insulted in my life! Honestly. Who does he think he is?

  Of course, I immediately fly away. It’s an instinctive reaction—because it was such a loud noise! So startling and unpleasant. I promise myself that’s the LAST TIME that boy will get such a good look at me.

  Let me tell you something: there are plenty of kids who like nothing better than to throw rocks at birds or try to catch us. Can you imagine? It’s so mean. But this one… he should be different. He plays the piano. He’s a musical artist, like me! Or he’s supposed to be.

  Oh, I am extremely disappointed. It makes me think he will not be much of a piano player after all.

  I fly right back to the holly tree where Mother is building a nest.

  You might think a holly is too prickly a home for us goldfinches, but actually, that’s what makes it such a good choice. The sharp leaves don’t bother us, and they keep other animals away. Plus, in winter, the bush will have yummy red berries for us to eat. (Don’t try that yourself! Holly berries are poisonous to humans, especially if you eat a lot of them. But we goldfinches find them delicious.)

  “Mirabelle! Where have you been all day?” Mother says when I flutter down to the nest.

  “There’s a new boy at the old man’s house. He’s going to take lessons,” I tell her.

  “Is he any good?” Mother asks, not so much because she cares but because she knows I do.

 
“I can’t tell,” I say. “He refused to play anything.”

  She’s distracted, working on the nest, tidying up strands of grass and vines, smoothing them with her beak. Mother is about to lay a clutch of eggs, so the nest has to be ready for new babies. My brothers and I were born last year, in this very holly tree. Not far from where Mother is building the new nest, I can still see the broken remnants of the old one.

  There was a terrible thunderstorm two nights ago, and in the lashing rain and wind, one side of the new nest broke apart. That doesn’t happen often. Goldfinch nests are so sturdy and strong they can actually hold water! Like one of your human cups—just think about that—even though they’re only made of plants and thistledown and sticky spiderwebs.

  Here’s another thing humans often seem confused about: you think of a nest as a bird’s home. Actually, it’s just a place to lay eggs and hatch chicks. Once the chicks can fly, the nest is abandoned, which is why you sometimes find old nests, long empty, in trees or under the eaves of porches. A bird’s home—where we sleep at night—is called a roost. And it’s usually just a tree or a bush, where we sleep standing up, holding on to a branch with our feet.

  How many humans can do that? None, I bet. Goldfinches are very social, so we roost with our aunts and uncles and cousins and friends. And fathers too, usually, but our father happens to have what Mother calls a case of wanderlust, which means he takes off for long stretches to go exploring. I suppose it is a bit like Michael’s father, traveling far away. But it doesn’t bother me, because I’m not used to having my father around. My brothers and I sleep in this very holly tree so we can be near Mother.

  I try to help Mother repair the nest, telling her more about the boy. “I don’t like him,” I say. “He banged on the glass at me.”

  “What!” Mother looks alarmed. I’m immediately sorry I mentioned it. “I hope he isn’t that kind of boy, Mirabelle. You have to be careful. Remember what happened to Aunt Aurelia.”

  This is a story my brothers and I have heard many times. It happened before we were born, but it’s part of the family lore. One day, Aunt Aurelia landed on the old man’s bird feeder, the one by the kitchen window, and as she was munching away—sunflower seeds, delicious—the younger brother of one of the piano students ran up to the window and banged on it. Aunt Aurelia was so startled that she flapped into the air without looking, and she flew straight into the hedge where the old man’s cat was hiding.

  It was a terrible way to go.

  “I remember,” I say.

  “Well, I certainly hope so,” Mother says. “Would you like to do something for me? Take Sebastian and Oliver and fetch some spiderwebs. I need them to finish the nest.”

  Spiderwebs—or caterpillar silk, when we can find it—are a good addition to the nest because they make everything stick together. I know my brothers will be delighted with this assignment. They think it’s fun to scare the big brown spider that lives in the eaves of the garden shed. I, on the other hand, always feel bad about taking away part of her web, since we’re destroying something she made just to make something of our own. That doesn’t seem fair, does it? But Mother tells me not to worry; a spider can spin a web in a day.

  Still, that spider is never happy to see us.

  Where are my brothers? I fly over the holly tree, scanning the old man’s green, shrubby backyard for anything small and yellow.

  And there they are, in the birdbath, having a water fight. Sebastian is flapping through the water, drenching Oliver, who’s making a desperate, strangled chirping noise in protest.

  I swoop down, close enough to get their attention but not so close that they can spray me with water. “Hey!” I call. “Mother needs some spiderweb for the nest.”

  “Yay!” says Sebastian, flying up to join me.

  Oliver is too wet, though. He has to sit on the edge of the birdbath and flutter his wings to dry off.

  “Wait,” he whines. “Don’t go without me!”

  So Sebastian and I fly in circles above him until he’s fluffed his feathers dry.

  “I’ll get the spider’s attention,” Sebastian offers.

  “No, I will,” says Oliver, and they start to argue over it.

  I am not about to volunteer for this job. We need the spider out of the web so we can take as much of it as we want, but she is a big spider, with a bulging, hairy brown body, and even though she’s scared of us, truth be told, I am scared of her, too. First of all, she BITES. I have never been bitten, but it is supposed to really, really hurt. Second of all, unlike lots of birds, we goldfinches are mostly vegetarian. We hardly ever eat insects except by accident. And one of the problems with the spider’s web is that all sorts of little bugs fly into it. Once—I don’t even like to talk about this—a gnat flew into my mouth! Yuck! I clamped shut my beak, but it was too late. I had already swallowed the horrible little thing. It was disgusting, like eating dirt. And Sebastian and Oliver just laughed and laughed, as if watching me swallow a bug was the funniest thing ever. Since then, it makes me nervous to be around spiderwebs. I am perfectly happy to let one of my brothers get the spider’s attention.

  Oliver insists that he’ll do it, and that Sebastian owes him because Sebastian didn’t play fair at the birdbath. This is likely true; Sebastian is a bit of a cheat. He grouses but finally agrees, probably because he feels guilty. The argument ends and we all fly over to the garden shed.

  It is a little wooden building with one window and a peaked roof. The old man keeps rakes and shovels here, along with topsoil and mulch, and his noisy lawn mower. The shed smells earthy and warm from the sun. There is a wisteria vine climbing up one side of it, and the pale purple blooms droop in the late June heat.

  Sebastian and I settle on the roof, far above the spiderweb. If we crane our necks, we can see the spider, huddled near the center of the web.

  Oliver flies in innocent circles overhead. Then, without warning, he dive-bombs toward the web. He comes at it so fast, at such a precise and dastardly angle, that the spider shrinks back in surprise. At the last minute, Oliver swoops upward, but before the spider can recover, he dives again, straight at her. This time, she scurries up under the eaves, abandoning the silvery scaffolding of her web. It glistens in the afternoon light.

  “Quick!” says Sebastian.

  Together, he and I flap down to the web and start pecking at it, breaking the wet, sticky strands and grabbing the bulk of it in our beaks.

  “Look out!” calls Oliver.

  Uh-oh. That bulbous brown spider is creeping out from under the eaves, coming to protect her web.

  She is so close that I can see the long, wiry hairs on her legs.

  Yikes!

  My mouth is full of spiderweb, so I can’t speak, but I nod quickly at Sebastian, and he nods back at me.

  Just as the spider crawls toward us, we flutter up in tandem, with the web slung between us like a hammock.

  We leave that spider behind with nothing but a few tattered strands of her beautiful handiwork, blowing in the breeze.

  Oliver leads the way back to the nest. It is tricky to negotiate our path through the sharp holly leaves without losing pieces of the precious web.

  “Oh, wonderful,” Mother says when she sees us. “You’re just in time. Here, help me lay it along this wall.”

  Sebastian and I drop the web over the curved wall of grass and vines. Mother plucks the slender filaments with her beak and gently spreads them over the nest.

  “There,” she says. “That’s just perfect, much stronger than before. I won’t have to worry about thunderstorms now.”

  My brothers and I gather to admire her craftsmanship. Mother always makes things nice and cozy. I can see that she’s added more thistledown, to create a comfy blanket of fluff where she’ll lay her eggs.

  Sebastian, Oliver, and I perch on a nearby branch, settling in for the evening. I’m still thinking about the boy. When will I get to hear him play? Will he be as good as everyone seems to think he is? And why did h
e tell me to go away?

  You’d think he would appreciate having a bird for an audience, especially one as musically advanced as myself. I make up my mind to watch his next lesson, but this time he won’t see me at all.

  Emily

  Well, I can tell you are dying to know: Is the boy any good? Can he really play? Unfortunately, I have no idea. Because here is what happens with the boy and the piano: lesson after lesson after lesson, he refuses to play.

  He comes three times the first week, and the old man brings out new sheet music and even plays for him—Bach and Brahms and Debussy, lovely, haunting notes that ripple together like a crystalline mountain stream, sweeping over rocks and into lush pastures. And then Mr. Starek plays Chopin, and I am overcome.

  I can hear immediately how Chopin is different—more complicated somehow, a flurry of notes, with a depth and richness like singing. How can that be? These notes on a piano sound like a voice… the most beautiful, intricate voice I’ve ever heard.

  I stay hidden in the silk tree, but oh my goodness, the music enchants me.

  Do you think that boy says one nice word of appreciation? Nope. I want to flap some sense into him! Doesn’t he know how lucky he is? He has the old man for his teacher, the old man who is gifted and brilliant, who doesn’t even teach anymore, despite the long line of students who would give anything to study with him. And here is this boy—this bad-tempered, lazy boy—just taking up space in the music room and not playing anything.

  I retreat to the thickest cluster of blossoms, on a high branch of the silk tree. Am I imagining that the boy sometimes looks for me? The first time he came back, he stood at the window for a few minutes, peering out, but he didn’t see me. Now he occasionally glances my way, but he never approaches the glass.

  Toward the end of the fourth lesson, the boy’s mother, Mrs. Jin, arrives early. I hear her talking to the old man on the front porch while the boy is still inside.

  “Should we just give up?” she asks, her voice weary. “Michael is very stubborn. He won’t play unless he wants to, and he’s angry about a lot of things these days. The competition is only eight weeks away! I don’t see how he can be ready in time.”