Allegro Vivace [PG version of Special Tutoring]

3. Clash of two sisters

The alarm clock sounded.

"Time to flip." Both Amy and I turned over on the beach mats that we had set out on the lawn outside my house. Even though we had driver's licences, both of us were too broke to afford the fuel to drive to the nearest beach (having blown all our money on prom dresses), and so had to rely on the resources available. We could hear Ethan's violin playing from where we were suntanning. Even though he probably knew that song by heart (I knew I did), it was obvious that he was taking pains to practice it over and over again, as he would keep playing a certain part for an hour, then another part, before he played the whole song. Over and over again.

"He's forever playing that song," I grumbled. Oops. I hastily dropped my sunhat over my face, hoping that Amy didn't hear me.

"Why do you care?" she mumbled, eyes closed. Her face wore her usual expression of being happy and at peace with the world. I wished I had half her peace of mind.

"I am his neighbor. Imagine listening to it repeatedly? It gets so annoying after a while." I tried my best to say the first excuse I could think of as calmly and nonchalantly as possible, so as to not pique her interest. "He hardly plays anything else."

"Maybe it has deep significant meaning to him. He plays it very well." Amy sat up and narrowed her eyes as she strained to listen. She shrugged her shoulders, falling back onto her mat. "I can't tell what it is either, except it isn't a contemporary song."

Duh.

Amy suddenly sat up.

"Wait a second, we can Sound Hound that song!"

"What?" I sat up too, watching her as she rummaged through her canvas bag.

Amy produced her iPhone with a "ta-da!" and fingered rapidly to the application she was referring to. Getting to her feet, she moved to the hedge separating our and Mrs Schmidt's garden, and stretched her arm upwards.

After a while, she came back, and plonked herself on my mat.

"According to Sound Hound, it's Salut d'Amour. Shows an album by this group called der Freak. Have you heard of such a lame name? Shall we  download the album for a listen?"

"Salut d'Amour?" I mumbled, ignoring the rest of Amy's patter. I immediately recognized the song. It was the name of the music score with that pretty handwriting. Now what were those words again?

"Yup, so now maybe you can get closer to him, you know, by saying, I like your playing Salut d' Amour. He will be like, oh my god Mai, you are so erudite. How did I not notice how sexy you are? Want to date? Weee cannt eat blackforest cake..." Amy interrupted my thoughts. Her mimicking an obviously terrible impression of Ethan's accent sent both of us into peals of laughter.

"No! No! He will be like, oh Mai, ve vill make sweet beautiful children together. Then we can all play Salut d'Amour after dinner," I laughed.

Amy looked at me curiously.

"Children? Aren't you thinking a little too ahead of yourself? He barely notices us as it is."

I was going to refute her statement, when I remembered that I hadn't told her about what happened. We were already three weeks into tutoring and yet I hadn't told my best friend about it. Yeah, what was I thinking? Major Sigh.

"I have a healthy imagination, what can I say?" I shrugged my shoulders."So I heard that Sam Rhodes invited you to the Homecoming Dance, what are you going to wear?"

"I was thinking of a lacy no-back. I heard from the seniors that Sam Rhodes has a weakness for lace. How medieval of him...How about you? I heard a few guys asked you, who did you agree to go with in the end?"