Near Miss

Chapter Twelve: Practice

"Hello, Oscar. I was hoping you could help me out with a project I'm working on."

The room Sylvie had just entered was clearly the center of a conflict between two wildly different personality types. Clothes, papers, and various toys were strewn across the floor in what was apparently a perfectly natural state. But as Sylvie looked closer, she noticed an interesting pattern: all the toys of a particular set were grouped together, the piles of papers seemed to share the same general subject matter, the shirts and pants were scattered on the opposite side of the room. Oscar was, in fact, organized; he just wasn't interested in cleaning up. He only needed to know where everything was.

Oscar himself, who was lying flat on the bed and staring indifferently at the ceiling, sprang up. "Who are you?"

"What exactly were you doing?" Sylvie inquired.

"I-" Oscar broke off. "None of your business. Why are you in my room?"

Sylvie let her eyes drag across Oscar's face. His jaw was set in a stubborn scowl, and his narrowed eyes squinted at her suspiciously. He was probably about nine, she decided.

"My name is Sylvie Stein. I'm a detective," she said briefly.

"You don't look like a detective," Oscar accused, rising from the bed with a hopeful attempt at menace.

"And you don't look like a violinist," Sylvie said offhandedly. "What are you working on? Something Paganini?"

There was a brief pause while Sylvie waited patiently for a response.

"How did you know?" Oscar gasped. "Yes, Paganini."

Sylvie pointed at the corner of a blue music book mostly hidden under a pile of socks. The letters NINI were just visible on the edge of the cover.

"Oh." Oscar looked disappointed. "And I guess my parents told you about playing violin."

"Oh, no, I haven't really talked to your parents. I wanted to talk to you first." Sylvie indicated Oscar's hand, still dangling rather conspicuously off the bed. "You have lines on your fingers, see? You've been practicing recently, I can tell."

"You noticed that?" Oscar said in disbelief.

Sylvie just stared. "I looked at you," she said after a moment. "Of course I noticed. It's not exactly hard to see."

Looking surprisingly offended, Oscar pulled his hand back. "You still haven't told me what you want, Sophie."

"Sylvie," she corrected. "I wanted to ask you a little bit about your aunt. She's asked me to look into something that happened recently, and I came here to see if you knew anything important." Sylvie gave a tentative smile.

"Aunt Maggie?"

"Yes!" Sylvie grinned. "Yes, her."

Oscar gave a dramatic groan and fell back on the bed. "I hate Aunt Maggie," he complained. "Why do you have to ask me about her?"

Surprised by Oscar's frankness, Sylvie felt confident enough to try another question. "Does everyone know that?"

"Obviously! I mean, we all know what she did."

Sylvie cocked her head. "What did she do?"

Oscar held up his left hand, the pads of his fingers sliced with practice marks. "This," he said darkly. "She made me practice, told me to work harder, and I hurt my hand."

"You... hurt your hand playing violin?" Sylvie realized. "Because of her?"

"The doctor says it'll take months to heal," Oscar said bitterly. "If it does." He practically spat the last three words, venom lacing his young voice.