The Piano Man

V. Memory

"The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it." Steve Jobs

----

V. Memory

Noah had never seen a more panicked and stressed woman in his life before seeing Sophie like that, and that observation included his mother on Thanksgiving.

He was raised better than to sit by and watch someone in need, and the least he could do would be to watch the kid while she coloured so that her mom could do whatever was so important.

"I'm Noah," he introduced himself. "What's your name?" he asked, knowing the answer already.

Maddie looked up at him with a curious, but oddly confident expression. "Maddie," she replied.

Noah was still entirely unused to the English accent. The sweet way that Maddie talked seemed completely angelic, but his instincts told him that this kid could be a little hellraiser.

Although, the fact that she was wearing two different flower patterns on her clothes, and a gypsy crown on her head was entirely deceptive.

"Is that short for Madison?" he queried.

Maddie shook her head. "No, Madeleine," she corrected. "But Mummy only calls me that when she's really, really cross."

Noah chuckled. "I bet you never get your mommy really angry, do you?"

Maddie shrugged her shoulders. "You talk funny," she observed nonchalantly.

"So do you," Noah countered.

"No, I don't," Maddie protested.

"You don't sound like any of the kids from where I come from," Noah continued. "But all of those kids are in school right now. Why aren't you?" Before he gave Maddie a chance to answer his question, he turned his back on her, and walked back over to the piano. A quick check over his shoulder saw him notice that Maddie was trotting along after him.

"Because I hate school!" Maddie cried after him. "I don't go to school anymore because I hate it."

Noah knew that all kids hated school at some point. There might have been a hard test coming up, or studying for finals was sucking, or you had your fitness test coming up in gym and you were going to embarrass yourself in front of the entire cohort.

But why would a kid her age hate school? Wasn't school at her age all cutting and colouring and eating paste?

"You've got to go to school, Maddie. It makes you smarter." Noah pulled out a chair next to the table that was closest to the piano.

Maddie immediately settled in it, unzipping her backpack in the process. "They all say I'm dumb," Maddie replied, pulling out the colouring book that she had been doodling in the day before.

Noah knew exactly how that felt. Today, he knew teachers wouldn't use those words. Kids might. Kids could be assholes. But teachers wouldn't.

When he was a kid, teachers did use words like 'dumb', and even worse, 'retarded'. Noah had crapped out on every test there was. He had been the dumb kid that was in all the bottom groups with modified work that even a monkey could do. He had been this close to be held back before anyone had even bothered to ask why he wasn't performing well.

"There are a thousand different ways to be smart, kid," Noah told her. "You've just got to find what you're good at."

Maddie organised her coloured pencils and began to diligently colour in her complex picture of an owl in perfect rainbow.