Chen and Milo were inseparable. They slept in the same bed, had breakfast together, and watched videos when Mother allowed. Milo wasn’t good at sitting or rolling over. His best trick was lying on top of the piano for hours — all morning, the afternoon and even at night — and listening while Chen practised. Such a good listener too, brown paws tucked under his chin, eyes a little sad under his floppy ears, and not a single frown when Chen’s fingers snagged on the wrong key.
Tuesday afternoon. Music satchel in one hand and Milo tucked in the nook of his elbow, Chen strolled down three blocks and turned into Dragon Fang Alley. Red and gold glittered on the steamed windows; noise and plumes of smoke towered taller than a house. The lesson room was quiet, though. Chen took his coat off and sat. His fingers were friends with the black-and-white keys and he let them say hello to each other. Milo curled next to Mozart’s head for a nap — he knew it was the teacher’s turn to listen. Chen adjusted his glasses, although he didn’t need to look at the music. Then he stabbed the two G-sharps with his index fingers.
The semiquavers raced around the belly of the grand piano, up and down, on a roller coaster like the one Mother had promised to take him to for his sixth birthday. Faster and faster he went, up to the sky and sliding down the scales, the wind in his face and Milo’s ears flapping back.
Suddenly, he was in a black, shiny boat and the river ran white and frothy around him.
He wasn’t in a boat. The piano was chasing him.
It was huge, running on its spindly three legs and snapping its lid. There was nowhere to go but into the red-and-gold street. The piano was getting closer, any moment now it would devour him with its huge black mouth, crunch him between its black-and-white teeth and send him into its belly where the wrong notes were, semiquavers and double sharps and all. And just as Milo bared his teeth, snarling and growling with a mighty deep voice from the low keys that were the hardest to reach, something grabbed his hand.
It was his teacher. Gripping his wrist, fingers hanging like a dead bird.
‘F-double sharp, Chen! On the G. Here!’
He banged the white key as though trying to break it.
*
Today was a special Tuesday. They were going to do a recording. Mother dressed him in black trousers and a white shirt that smelled of plastic. She snapped an elastic band with a red bowtie over his collar and folded it over. Chen had seen recordings of grownups in black suits, some wearing glasses like him, even the same bowtie, but he’d never had a recording done to him. Was he a grownup now? Had his fingers grown longer? He checked. They looked the same. Soon he’d find out, though, from that wretched G sharp octave in left hand. He went to get Milo.
There was another man with a camera at his teacher’s today. High on its tripod, the camera looked like a Martian machine from that scary old movie Milo loved. Chen rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses. The bowtie’s elastic band was choking him and he tried to take it off, but Mother brushed his hand away. His teacher adjusted the stool. The lid of the piano was propped open on the long stick. Golden, the strings stretched and vanished at the back, his red bowtie the same colour as the felt ribbon behind the dampers.
There was no place for Milo. Chen tucked him in his lap, but Milo refused to sit there and rolled onto the floor.
‘Naughty doggie,’ said Chen, ‘Sit here, next to me.’
‘For fuck’s sake, we can’t have a stuffed toy in the shot,’ snapped the man. ‘Millions are going to see this. That’s what you want, right? Millions. Let’s start already.’
Mother grabbed Milo off the stool like a chameleon swatting a fly. Chen peered into her eyes — he’d never played without Milo — but Mother just raised her eyebrows and stared.
The man clapped his hands.
‘Chen Pin, Fantasie Impromptu, take one,’ he said to no one.
Chen extended his pinkie and his thumb over the two G sharps. No, his fingers hadn’t grown. Forefingers ready, he found the right pedal with the tip of his shoe. Black-headed and frothy, the semiquavers ran wild.
Chen closed his eyes and tilted his head, listening. And like magic, Milo was there — perched on top of the piano, first napping beside Mozart, then chasing butterflies across the green meadow of D-flat major.
And for as long as he kept his eyes closed, Chen wouldn’t have to think of the open lid of the grand piano that could slam shut and devour him, or the Martian on the tripod that was about to feed him to millions.
What a beautiful trip into Chen's imagination. Smart kid!
Oh I want more of this. I really enjoyed the child's-eye view of the experiences. Thnak you. x