Libby's Got the Beat

by Robert Rayner

  “Let’s go to my house,” Etta suggested. “Bring your cello, Celery.”

  But as soon as they entered Etta’s house, her mother appeared and said, “Don’t even think about it. Your father’s on nights and is sleeping.”

  They grabbed Etta’s bass and amp and crept out the back door.

  “Can we go to your house?” Celery whispered to Libby.

  “Only if you want to hear Charlotte and Edwin bugging me about the test,” said Libby. “Anyway, there’s hardly room for us to play with all the junk Charlotte’s got in the living room.”

  Libby looked down the hill past her house and saw Ms. Cattermole in her garden. “Let’s see if we can play in Ms. Cattermole’s studio.”

  They started down the hill. Etta pretended to play her bass guitar as she walked. Libby walked lopsidedly beside her, carrying Etta’s little amp in one hand. Celery staggered behind them, his arms around his cello as if he was dancing with it.

  They found Ms. Cattermole bustling from tree to tree, filling her bird feeders. She always seemed to be in a hurry, except when she stopped to listen to the birds, or to the rain, or to Libby playing the piano — then she became absolutely still. She wasn’t much taller than Libby. She had bright blue eyes and thick, wavy hair that was a mixture of grey and black.

  Libby started, “Please can we —”

  “Of course you can,” Ms. Cattermole said, and waved them inside.

  Libby led the way through the kitchen and into the studio, which had a bare wood floor and was almost empty of furniture. Ms. Cattermole’s grand piano stood at one end and her desk at the other. A few wooden chairs were in between.

  Libby sat at the piano. Celery pulled up a chair on one side of her and sat with his cello, while Etta stood on the other side with her bass.

  “We have to be able to see one another to

  play together,” said Libby. “Move so we’re in a triangle.”

  “We’re in a triangle already,” Celery pointed out. He looked from Libby to Etta to himself. “We’re in a perfect equilateral triangle.”

  “But I can’t see you,” said Libby. “You and Etta move up a bit, so you’re the same distance from me, but a bit farther forward.”

  “You mean make like an . . . an . . . an isausages triangle,” said Etta.

  Celery looked at Etta over the top of his glasses. “You mean an isosceles triangle.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “It’ll be a triangle with very acute angles, but that’s perfect for me,” said Celery, as he shuffled his chair forwards.

  “Why?” asked Libby and Etta together.

  Celery grinned. “’Cause I’m a-cute kind of guy.”

  Libby and Etta groaned as Celery chuckled at his own joke.

  Celery played the Mozart minuet on his cello, while Libby picked out chords on the piano, and Etta made up a bass line. Then Libby played the melody, while Celery played long notes, and Etta tried a different bass line.

  “Sounds like we have a band in here!” Ms. Cattermole said, joining them in the studio.

  Libby, Etta, and Celery looked at one another.

  “A band,” Celery muttered thoughtfully.

  “Hey — cool,” said Etta.

  “If we’re going to be a band, we’re going to need a name,” decided Libby.

  3

  Professor Brayne Takes Over

  Libby sat between Etta and Celery in the school gym. They were in the back row. Mr. and Mrs. Meek sat a few rows in front of them, with Celery’s parents and Etta’s mother.

  It was Monday night, and parents were arriving with their children for the principal’s meeting. Mr. Knott had promised to reveal what the school planned to do about the results of the grade five test.

  Most of Libby’s classmates were there. She waved to Emma Binns, who was sitting with her mother near the front. She stuck her tongue out at Kyle Hanley, who mouthed “Snot face” at her as he trailed behind his father on the way in.

  At the gym doors, Mr. Knott was greeting parents as they arrived. He had a round face and round glasses and a round stomach.

  “Good of you to come,” he kept saying, shaking hands with parents.

  Libby, pretending to be Mr. Knott, murmured to Etta, “Good of you to come.”

  Etta answered, “Good of you to come.”

  The next time they heard Mr. Knott say, “Good of you to come,” Libby again whispered to Etta, “Good of you to come.”

  Etta gushed, “So good of you to come.”

  They repeated the routine every time Mr. Knott greeted someone. They got louder and louder, despite Mrs. Meek turning around and frowning at them.

  During a pause in the arrival of parents, Mr. Knott wandered over to Libby, Etta, and Celery, and said, “Good evening, children.”

  “Good evening, Mr. Knott,” they chorused.

  The principal smiled and said, “Good of you to come.”

  Libby’s face turned bright red from trying not to laugh.

  “I think I’ve wet myself,” snorted Etta, after the principal had moved away.

  Mrs. Meek marched to the back row and hissed at Libby, “If you don’t settle down, madam, you’ll find yourself sitting beside me for the rest of the evening.”

  “Sorry, Charlotte,” Libby said. But as soon as her mother turned away, she looked at Etta and rolled her eyes.

  Mrs. Meek stopped and, without looking around, said, “I know exactly what you’re doing, young lady, and it had better stop right now.”

  Etta’s mother, who was short and stocky, had the short sleeves of her T-shirt rolled up to show her thick arms. She caught Etta’s eye and threatened, “You better be quiet, my girl, or I’ll tell your father when he gets off work, and you know what he’ll do.”

  “What will he do?” Libby whispered to Etta.

  “He’ll say, ‘What did you do to upset your mother?’ And I’ll say . . .” Etta assumed a wounded expression, her sky-blue eyes wide. “‘Nothing, Daddy,’ and he’ll say, ‘That’s my girl.’”

  Celery was fidgeting in his seat on the other side of Libby.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Libby demanded.

  “I have to pee.”

  “You went when you got here,” said Etta.

  “I have to go again. I can’t help it.”

  Libby and Etta moved their legs aside. Celery hurried past them and along the row of chairs.

  “Poor old Celery’s in a state about the test, even though he got one hundred percent,” Libby whispered to Etta. “Remember he had to go to the washroom every few minutes when we were writing it?”

  Etta nodded. “Where does he get all the pee from?”

  “Emma’s getting herself worked up, too,” said Libby.

  They watched Emma. She was holding her stomach and rocking back and forth in her seat, while her mother held her arm around her shoulders and whispered to her.

  “Imagine getting so upset by a stupid test,” Etta commented.

  “Imagine,” Libby echoed around the thumb in her mouth.

  Libby was surprised to find that she was sucking her thumb. She put her hands in her lap and clasped them there, keeping her thumb firmly trapped.

  At 7:00 p.m., Mr. Knott walked to the front of the gym. “Good evening, parents and children. It’s good of you to come.”

  Etta kicked Libby, who pretended to cough as she swallowed a giggle.

  The principal went on “We’re here to talk about the grade five test, and what the school intends to do about the rather poor results.”

  “They weren’t rather poor,” Celery’s father called out. “They were awful.”

  Around him, parents nodded and murmured in agreement.

  Mr. Knott held up his hands. “I’m as d
is-appointed as you with the results, and I know the children are, too. Aren’t you, children?”

  “No,” called out Etta.

  Her mother turned and glared at her.

  “But the school has a plan.” Mr. Knott held up one finger, as if he’d just thought of it. “A plan to improve our students’ test scores! We have a special guest tonight, Professor Brayne, who wrote the grade five assessment. He is an expert on testing.”

  A tall, thin man with his hands clasped behind his back walked to the front of the audience. He had a narrow face and bulging eyes, giving him the overall look of a heron leaning forwards to strike out at unsuspecting fish.

  Professor Brayne eyed the parents and students in the audience. Then, suddenly and dramatically, he asked, “Are the children of Pleasant Harbour . . . underachievers?”

  “What’s he mean — underachievers?” Etta muttered.

  Celery, back from the washroom, whispered, “Underachievers is a term generally accepted in scholastic circles to mean students who are deficient in the knowledge and skills the educational establishment expects them to have at a given point in their learning careers.”

  “Uh, right,” Etta said, eyes glazing over.

  Etta’s mother growled at Professor Brayne, “Who are you calling underachievers?”

  Professor Brayne held up his hands apologetically. “It was a rhetorical question.”

  “What’s a rhetorical question?” Etta whispered.

  “It’s a question asked for effect that doesn’t require an answer,” Celery explained.

  “What sort of dumb question is that?” said Etta.

  “One like you just said.”

  “What?”

  “You just said a rhetorical question.”

  “I did?”

  Celery nodded.

  “Wow,” Etta said, settling back in her chair.

  Professor Brayne went on, “According to the grade five test, it seems that many of the young people of Pleasant Harbour are not achieving their full potential. This suggests they will . . . er . . . struggle in the future in life and at work.” His bushy eyebrows rose and fell as he spoke.

  A murmur of protest rose from the parents.

  Professor Brayne added quickly, “But I intend to prove that your children are just as clever as children anywhere in the province.”

  Mr. Knott took over. “Professor Brayne

  will spend the month at Pleasant Harbour Elementary, working with the grade five class. At the end of the month, the students will take the provincial test again.”

  Libby’s thumb flew into her mouth. She saw Emma rock even faster in her chair and Kyle Hanley start to tug at his hair.

  Mr. Knott was still speaking. “We are confident that, with Professor Brayne’s help, the results of that test will show improvement.”

  “I have to pee,” Celery said, and hurried out.

  “What’s the big deal?” said Etta. She grabbed Libby’s thumb and hauled it out of her mouth. “Lighten up. It’s just a stupid test.”

  From the front, Professor Brayne droned on about “standardized tests” and “benchmarks” and “total mean scores.”

  “During the month, students will concentrate on studying and practising for the test, without the distraction of non-essential subjects,” he concluded.

  Non-essential subjects? What’s he mean by that? Libby wondered. As parents raised their hands for the question and answer period, Libby tried to take her mind off the test by thinking about her and Etta and Celery’s band. She wondered what they could play in addition to the Mozart minuet and “I Love Lovin,’” which Ms. Cattermole had helped them with.

  How many tunes should a band be able to play?

  And they still needed a name. What could they call themselves?

  She was dimly aware of Professor Brayne again saying something about underachieving students.

  “Mom’s going to kill him if he calls us underachievers again,” Etta whispered, digging her elbow into Libby’s ribs.

  “That’s it!” Libby cried, smiling suddenly. “A perfect name for the band!”

  4

  The Underachievers

  Libby, Etta, and Celery met in Ms. Cattermole’s studio after school the next day. It was time for Libby’s piano lesson, and she’d called earlier to ask if Celery and Etta could come, too.

  As they trooped in, Libby announced, “We have a name for the band. We thought of it

  at the meeting last night. We’re . . . the Underachievers!”

  Ms. Cattermole burst out laughing. “What gave you the idea?”

  “Professor Brayne, who wrote the grade five test, said we were underachievers,” said Libby.

  “But only rhetorical ones,” Etta put in.

  “It’s a great name for the band, but you

  are definitely not underachievers,” said Ms. Cattermole.

  “The name forms an ironic comment on the way the school —” Celery began to explain, but he was quickly cut off by a groan from Libby and Etta.

  “Let’s rock!” said Etta.

  They played the Mozart minuet and “I Love Lovin’”, taking turns playing the melody and the backing.

  “Celery, when Libby plays quarter notes in the middle part of ‘I Love Lovin,’’ play sixteenth notes on your cello,” Ms. Cattermole suggested. “And Etta, play eighth notes on the bass.”

  They tried, but Etta quickly lost her place.

  “Think of fractions,” said Ms. Cattermole. “Imagine Libby’s rhythm is dollars, so Etta plays in fifty-cent pieces, and Celery in quarters.”

  They tried again, and the different patterns fit together perfectly.

  “What are you playing next?” Ms. Cattermole asked.

  “We’ve run out of tunes,” said Celery.

  “How many songs does a band need?” Libby asked.

  “It depends how long you want to play,” Ms. Cattermole explained. “Most pieces last about three-and-a-half minutes, but you need to allow an extra twenty seconds for announcing the next piece and getting ready to play.”

  “That means each piece takes . . .” Libby added in her head. “Three minutes and fifty seconds. And we’ve got two pieces so far . . .”

  “So if we play them both, we’ll play for . . . only 7 minutes and 40 seconds,” said Etta.

  “Start by learning six tunes,” Ms. Cattermole suggested. “That’s enough for about —”

  “Twenty-three minutes,” Etta concluded for her.

  Ms. Cattermole rummaged in her desk and brought out a pile of sheet music, some of it yellowing at the edges. She said, “Here’s a Beethoven bagatelle you can play. I’ll show you how to jazz it up a bit.” She leafed through a few more sheets. “And here’s an old rock ’n’ roll song called ‘Baby Baby Baby.’”

  “How does it go?” Libby asked, moving aside to let Ms. Cattermole sit at the piano.

  Ms. Cattermole played and sang, “Baby Baby Baby, Baby Baby Baby, Oooooh Baby Baby, Baby Baby Baby.”

  “Good lyrics,” said Celery.

  “That’s just the verse,” said Ms. Cattermole.

  “How does the chorus go?” Libby asked.

  Ms. Cattermole played and sang, “Oooooh Oooooh Oooooh, Oooooh Oooooh Oooooh, Oooooh Oooooh Baby, Oooooh Oooooh Oooooh.”

  “We could play and sing it,” said Libby.

  “Think you can remember the words?” Celery asked Etta.

  “Ha ha,” said Etta.

  They worked on the Beethoven bagatelle and “Baby Baby Baby” for half an hour. Then they took a break, and Ms. Cattermole went to the kitchen to get lemonade.

  “I think I should be the band’s stylist,” Celery announced.

  “Stylist?” Etta spluttered. “Stylist? You can’t be band sty
list.”

  “Why not?” said Celery.

  “Well . . . well . . . Look at you.”

  Celery looked down at his clothes. He was wearing a grey dress shirt with dark blue stripes, tucked into black shorts decorated with pictures of blue parrots. The shorts ended below his knees, nearly meeting the brown socks that he had pulled halfway up his calves. “What’s your point?”

  “The point is — you wouldn’t know style if it jumped up and bit you on the nose,” Etta scoffed.

  Celery glared at Etta.

  Libby quickly asked Celery, “How do you know about band stylists?”

  “I found a website about bands on the Internet last night. It lists all the jobs involved in running a band. I printed it out.” He pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket.

  “Let’s take a look,” said Libby, reading the paper. “It says here one of the most important jobs is band manager. It says the manager is ‘responsible for organizing gigs, and is in charge of all operations and members of the band.’” She looked up. “You’re good at organizing and stuff, Celery. You should be band manager.”

  “Would I be in charge of members of the band?” said Celery, looking out of the corner of his eyes at Etta.

  “That’s what it says here,” Libby confirmed.

  “No one’s in charge of me,” Etta muttered.

  Celery ignored her. “I think my future lies in band management.”

  “What else does it say?” Etta asked.

  Libby returned to the paper. “Musical

  director — that’s me, of course — and . . .”

  “Whoa,” said Etta. “Musical director sounds like me.”

  “Musical directors are always keyboard players,” said Libby confidently.

  “Are they?” Etta asked Ms. Cattermole, who was returning with the lemonade.

  “Often, yes,” Ms. Cattermole agreed. “But they’re often bass players, too.”

  Etta stuck her tongue out at Libby.

  Ms. Cattermole went on, “But in the case of a small band like the Underachievers, I think you need a musical director — that could be you, Libby — as well as a band stylist, which I suggest could be you, Etta. The band stylist is not just responsible for the image of the band, but also for making sure the music they play, and the way they play it, reflects that image. It’s a very important job.”