Chapter Five
THEY DIDN’T tune the bell over the summer.
Not that I’d thought they would, especially with the whole world watching Armstrong take “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Plus, I was probably the only person in the history of Peterson High School to notice that the school bell clanged somewhere between an E—a slightly flat E, no less—and an F, which was, of course, slightly sharp.
I wasn’t bragging. Truthfully, I hated noticing these things.
I wished I could go about the school day and not have my teeth set on edge and my nerves jangled every fifty minutes.
What I wouldn’t give to be as oblivious to the sound as all the other students.
Sometimes I wondered why God had made me so different from all the other girls, those blessedly normal girls with their straight hair and glossy lips and short skirts, gossiping and hugging and caring for nothing beyond makeup and boys.
And I was always on the outside looking in.
I ducked out of the crowded hallway into the little alcove leading to the music classrooms and double-checked my printed schedule.
Yes. I had music theory next. Mr. Gilbert, our choir teacher, had finally convinced the administration to add it this year.
“The nuts and bolts of music,” he’d told us.
“Opening its hood and poking around underneath.” The analogy was meant to make theory more relatable to the other students, but I hadn’t needed any convincing.
It was music.
For me, that was enough.
I entered the choir room, cringing once more at the clanging, out-of-tune bell, and took a seat in the small section of desks beside the risers. Close to the back, so I’d be nowhere near the bell, but not so far away that I had to walk in front of everyone.
Not that there was much of a class. Despite Mr. Gilbert’s rousing recruitment speech, there were only five others.
No . . . make that four. A dark-haired girl in the front row stood suddenly, eyes wide, schedule in hand.
She wore a skirt so short that I’m surprised Principal Smith hadn’t sent her home to change.
“Oh. This isn’t Freshman Choir. I’m not supposed to be in here until next hour.” Blushing, she gathered her books and dashed for the door.
“Anyone else?” Grinning, Mr. Gilbert scanned the room. His spectacled gaze landed on me. “Iris Wallingford. Good to see you in here.”
Mr. Gilbert meant well, I knew he did, but I also knew what came next. Sure enough, everyone turned to look at me.
That was the only problem with sitting in the back. It was always painfully obvious when everyone was staring at you.
Most of the faces were familiar—Susan and Barbara from glee club.
Gary, who played drums in band. And a boy from the trumpet section.
Victor, I think. But their stares all converged on me like sunlight through a magnifying glass, intense and concentrated.
All my thoughts went up in smoke. My skin burned.
“Okay, class.” Mr. Gilbert clapped his hands, and mercifully the students turned toward him instead of me. “Good morning, and welcome to music theory. I’m so excited to teach this course. And while I do have an outline for what we’ll cover, I’ve left room for suggestions from all of you.”
My mouth had already gone dry. My stomach knotted.
“So I’d like each of you to tell me briefly”—his gaze darted toward Susan, known school-wide for her endlessly long answers to any question from a teacher—“why you enrolled in music theory and what you hope to gain from it.”
Susan’s hand, naturally, shot into the air. “I want to be a music teacher,” she said without waiting for Mr. Gilbert to call on her. “And since theory will be required in college, it makes sense now to get an early start, to learn as much as I can, so maybe I’ll do better in college theory and—”
“Thank you, Susan.” Mr. Gilbert was polite but firm, then turned to Barbara. “And what about you, Barbara?”
Barbara beamed at Mr. Gilbert. “You’re my favorite teacher, so why wouldn’t I want to take another class from you?”
Gary rolled his eyes. “You mean you just want another class with Mr. Gilbert because you think he’s a hunk.”
A hunk? Mr. Gilbert? Who on God’s green earth would ever think that about Mr. Gilbert? He was a teacher. Practically our parents’ age.
“Gary,” a red-faced Barbara hissed. “I cannot believe you just said that.”
“That’s enough.” Mr. Gilbert held up a hand. “Gary, you seem eager to contribute to the conversation. Why have you enrolled in theory?”
Gary shrugged. “Honestly, I needed another elective credit, and this is closest to the band room.”
“Well, I appreciate your honesty.” Mr. Gilbert glanced between me and Victor, and I knew he’d call on me next. I prayed he wouldn’t, but my prayer went unanswered.
“Iris? What about you?”
Because music is always running around inside me.
And I want to know everything I can about it.
I want to know how it works. Because there are songs I’ve never heard before that live in my head and my heart, and if I don’t write them down, I’ll burst. I want to know if what I’m writing is any good, because I feel closest to God when I’m writing, and I like what I write, but I don’t know if anyone else will.
And my parents don’t think music is an appropriate career choice for me.
They might be right, but I still want to learn everything I can about it.
I want to be the best composer I can possibly be.
Even if it’s only ever for God.
But I couldn’t say all that. Not in front of all these people. Not in front of anyone. So I shrugged and looked at the floor. “I dunno . . . ’cause I love music, I guess.”
“Thank you, Iris.” Mr. Gilbert’s voice was warm and rich. “And you, Victor? What about you?”
“Like Iris said, I love music.” The words sounded strong and confident coming from Victor, not weak and whispery like they had when I’d said them.
“I love everything about it. I can’t think of a single thing about music that I wouldn’t want to know, and that includes how it works.
The car guys want to poke around under the hood, the football team could talk about plays for hours . . . and I want to know about music.”
“Well said, Victor.” Mr. Gilbert’s mouth stretched into a warm smile. “And that’s a wonderful place to begin. Let’s start by discussing the types of music we like. What songs do we love? And what is it about them that makes us love them so much?”
The discussion continued, but I wasn’t paying attention.
I was studying Victor. I’d known him for a while, but we’d never spoken.
Not that I spoke to most people. But I wished I’d spoken to him earlier, wished I’d found out he loved music like I did.
Maybe if I had, I wouldn’t have been so lonely for all of high school.
He had a thick head of hair, somewhere between blond and brown, that covered the tops of his ears and most of his forehead.
Nowhere near as long as some of the boys’ hair, though.
He wore black plastic glasses like everyone else, but on him they just seemed .
. . right. He had a nice profile too. Nothing out of the ordinary. Simply a nice profile.
Then he turned toward me . . . and smiled. His lips were closed, but the smile made it all the way to his eyes. Curved lines bracketed his mouth, and the skin beneath his glasses bunched up.
I turned away, my face on fire. I had to focus on something else before I flipped out.
Like the hardwood floor between my shoes. That would do.
Hmm. Those lines on the floor looked almost like a staff.
G would go on that second line. And then a B on the line above it.
D on the line above that. A G-major chord.
A piano in my head sounded the chord, just as real as if the big black grand at the center of the room were playing it.
Then a choir took over, and the sopranos took the top note from a D to an A.
The lovely dissonance and soaring melody calmed me.
And frustrated me. Where was my staff paper? I needed to write this down before I forgot.
No staff paper, but I found some notebook paper. I scribbled a swirl of a treble clef. Wrote down what I heard. It was messy, but it worked.
The pressure in my heart released a little, like the steam from a pressure cooker, after I finished the phrase. With a sigh, I put the paper aside and focused on Mr. Gilbert. Not the music. Not Victor. Just the class I signed up to take.
The bell rang all too soon, and I clenched my jaw against the sound and gathered my books. When I looked up, there was Victor, smiling at me again.
“Y’know, Iris,” he said, hazel eyes twinkling, “I really wish they’d tune that bell.”