Music to My Ears

A New Beginning

Sabrina Esperanza Delgado Martinez was from southeast Albuquerque, and she lived with her parents, Elena and David. She was very happy, and she loved what she was blessed with. She enjoyed participating in sports, and she loved playing the violin. The family was rich, but at the same time, Sabrina was a very sweet girl.

Sadly, Sabrina's abuelo—her grandfather—had just passed away from lung cancer two weeks after her Sweet 16, and it was hard for her abuela, Carmen, to take care of the house by herself. Elena and David felt like there was no choice: they had to move up to northwest Albuquerque. Sabrina was sad to leave her neighborhood—and she was even sadder that her grandfather was gone—but she wasn't really leaving her hometown, so that was okay. She was happy to be living with her grandmother.

It was the day Sabrina and her parents moved northwest.

"Here's northwest Albuquerque," David said.

"It's not as country-like as southeast," Elena declared.

Suddenly, Carmen showed up. "Elenita!" she cried, hugging her daughter tightly.

"¡Mamá!" Elena exclaimed. "It's so good to see you."

"Hola, Carmen," David smiled.

"David, how are you?" Carmen smiled back, hugging her son-in-law.

"Just fine," David grinned.

Carmen turned to her granddaughter and exclaimed, "There's my beautiful nieta!" She hugged Sabrina tightly.

"Hola, Abuela," Sabrina smiled, baring breathing.

"Ready to see your new home?" Carmen asked.

"As we'll ever be," David nodded.

Carmen took Elena, David, and Sabrina to their new home, which was a manor house. Sabrina was in her new room, digging through her belongings when she found a picture of herself as a baby being held by Abuelo, who was wearing a sombrero. This made her think about the last time she saw him, and that made her sad. She put the picture on her bedside table when she saw a little wrapped package on that table. She picked it up and wrapped it to find a little box, inside which was a necklace that was somewhat similar to the necklace worn by Queen Arianna from the Tangled franchise. The beads were light pink and the teardrops darker pink.

Suddenly, Carmen came in. "Settling in okay?" she asked. Then she saw the necklace in her granddaughter's hand. "I see you found your belated birthday present. Your abuelo wanted to give that to you for your Sweet Sixteen, but he didn't remember because we were too busy worrying about him. Luckily, I remembered to get it for you before someone else did."

Sabrina was touched by this. She looked up at the ceiling and said, "Gracias, Abuelo." But then she said sadly, "I wish he was here."

"Of course, he is...in here," Carmen said, putting her hand over Sabrina's heart. "Once you love someone, they stay in your heart forever."

"Gracias, Abuela," Sabrina smiled.

"De nada," Carmen said, putting the necklace on her granddaughter. "Well, tomorrow is the open house at your new school, and next week, you'll be starting the new school year."

"That's right," Sabrina nodded.

The next day, Sabrina and her parents were at the open house at the new school, Mesa Grande High School, and they were in the music room.

"This place is beautiful," Sabrina gasped.

Suddenly, Sabrina heard what sounded like a snotty girl saying, "I'm glad you think so." She turned to find that it was, indeed, a snotty girl whose blonde hair was the same style as Beth from the classic Polly Pocket films.

"Hello," Sabrina waved.

"I don't think I've seen you here before," the girl said.

"I just moved here from southeast Albuquerque," Sabrina explained. "My grandfather died over the summer, so my family had to move in with my grandmother. I'm Sabrina Delgado by the way."

"Cute," the girl sniffed. "I'm Amber Bratt, the most popular girl in Mesa Grande."

"Nice to meet you," Sabrina said awkwardly.

"It always is," Amber said smugly. "It just so happens that I have wonderful fashion taste. When the first day of school comes, you won't believe what wonderful clothes I have."

Suddenly, a cute boy with dark hair came and said, "Of course, she won't believe it, Amber—you won't even be wearing casual clothes because we have to go to school in uniform." He turned to Sabrina and said, "Hi, I'm Harvard Prescott."

"Good to meet you," Sabrina smiled.

Then Amber noticed Sabrina's necklace. "Wait, I saw that necklace before in Crown Jewelry—it was one of a kind, and I told my daddy I wanted it, but he never got it for me," she fretted. "Someone beat me to it, and now I know that someone is you!"

"Oh, my grandmother bought it for me as a belated Sweet Sixteen gift," Sabrina said awkwardly.

"How cute," Amber muttered. "Well, I see you've met Harvard Prescott, the second most popular boy in school and my future Homecoming King."

"That's nice," Sabrina said, trying to hide her disgust.

Harvard himself was getting grossed out by Amber, and he seemed to like Sabrina more. "Anyway, Sabrina, I know you've barely been anywhere in this school, but are you interested in anything here at Mesa Grande yet?" he asked.

"Well, I love music," Sabrina replied.

"Then maybe you ought to consider signing up for music over there," Harvard said, pointing behind Sabrina.

Sabrina turned to find a bulletin board with a sign stating "Music Sign-Up", and underneath the sign were separate sign-up sheets with names of different instruments.

"There's a class for each of those instruments," Harvard said.

"Thanks," Sabrina smiled. "This is really fancy. My old school never had anything this big." She wrote her name on the sheet stating "Violin".

Amber was jealous that Harvard was nice to Sabrina like that. She wanted to impress him, so she signed up to learn how to play the violin, too.