Behind the Scenes of Life

Chapter 6

In the beginning of grade nine I had started taking piano lessons outside of school. In the middle of the year I changed to a different piano teacher. My lessons with her were on Tuesdays in grade ten. I enjoyed my piano class as I enjoyed music and piano was just another outlet for me. When I played the piano I could just forget about everything, literally. It was just me and my music then.

At half past five in the afternoon the next day, I arrived at Elizabeth Rudding, my piano teacher. She was shorter than me, but a really kind lady. She didn’t believe mistakes were made in music and always made you feel comfy.

I followed her to the piano room after entering the house.

“So how has school been today?” She asked me as I sat down on the stool by the piano.

“It was okay.”

“Any tests or tasks?”

“None today luckily.”

“That’s good. Now let me have a look at that big green book of yours.”

I handed her my piano book that she used to write what we worked on and what pieces I could start learning.

“So what are we going to start with today Jane?” she asked me.

She always asked me at the start of my lesson what I preferred to start with. I always chose theory and then we got into my piano pieces.

“I have some theory.” I handed her my music theory sheet to mark. It was one sheet that had to do with the grouping of notes and writing key signatures.

After that I played my piano piece, God Help the Outcast from the Hunchback of Notre Dame and then my half an hour piano lesson was over.

“So how is piano going?” Jessie asked me one day at school. Jessie did music at school and was in the grade ten music home class. In my opinion she was rather talented and we frequently spoke music. We also spoke about our favourite movies and songs. Right now our movie obsession was The Lost Valentine and our song obsession was Demi Lovato’s Give your heart a break. Sometimes if you want to understand a girl, you just need to listen to the lyrics of her favourite song or songs. I know a lot would be revealed about me if someone even just paid attention to my favourite songs’ lyrics.

“It’s going good. How’s music?”

“It’s amazing. You should see in the mornings during register period, Hendrick always comes up with beats and then pretty soon the whole class is singing along making up their own words.”

It was true, somehow whatever the music class came up with always spread to the entire grade and pretty soon there was a trend.

“Jane! Jane!”

I looked around to find who was calling me. By the sound of the voice and the craziness of the entire name shouting out, I could only guess it was Art. Sure enough, there was Art approaching Jessie and I from the field.

“Hey Jessie, hey Jane.” She greeted once she reached us.

“Hey Art.” Jessie greeted back.

“Jane, what do we have next?” Art asked me.

I thought about it. “It’s either Physics or Accounting.” I was hoping for Accounting.

“You have Physics because I have Music now.” Jessie said. “Speaking of, I have to go now or I’ll be late. Bye guys.” She waved as she walked off.

I turned to Art.

“We should go now unless we want to be late too. The bell rang a while ago.”