by Anne Nesbet
It was a bold, new building, that high school, and Gusta tried very hard to stand tall and look bold herself, even though there’s something about a French horn bobbing against your aching legs that makes it rather hard to feel tall or bold. Nevertheless, step by step she got up to the front door of the high school, and right into its new, still-shiny halls. There were a lot of very confident, very grown-up high-school students flowing past her and out the front door; she could feel them turning to wonder who she was, this little kid with the weird-shaped case swinging from her hands.
One older girl stopped and asked what she was looking for, and then actually led her the rest of the way to the door of the music room, which was a kindness. Gusta hadn’t realized how big the high school would be!
The music room itself was enormous, with risers stacked at the sides and what must be music stands punctuating the general blur.
“Yes?” said a voice, coming closer through the blur. “Are you looking for me, perhaps? Oh, look at that instrument! I think perhaps you are!”
The woman who appeared was not very old — perhaps a little older than Aunt Marion — and wore a very practical but tidy-looking suit. Her hair was a lovely dark-red color, pinned up on her head. And her voice was — the only accurate word for it — melodious. Miss Kendall was an entirely melodious sort of person.
“Who are you, dear? Perhaps the new boarder that Josie was telling me about? Surely you must be! Mrs. Hoopes’s grandchild from New York?”
“Augusta, yes, that’s me,” said Gusta, feeling her lips drying out from nervousness already. “Josie said Miss Kendall — I guess that’s you —”
“It is, it is! Come over here, child, and sit right down so we can talk. Josie told me you showed up on their doorstep with a French horn in hand! It’s such incredible good luck. It’s like a miracle, almost — just the very thing we need for our orchestra. Did Josie tell you I was wanting perhaps to buy it from you? She thought you wouldn’t want to sell it. I wasn’t entirely clear as to why. Perhaps because you would need your parents’ permission? Well, whatever the reasons are, of course I respect your feelings, if you don’t want to sell it.”
Gusta could see why Josie was so smitten with Miss Kendall. Her voice was very sweet, that was one thing. But still something twinged in horror in her at the word sell — sell? Sell?
In order to be brave, in order to forge ahead, Gusta had to make herself think about Uncle Charlie, sitting in his awful gloom.
“I was wondering what a horn might be worth, Miss Kendall,” she said. “What this horn might be worth, I mean. If a person were to sell it. Were to think about selling it.”
Miss Kendall gave her something of a quizzical look.
“Well, now, it depends on the horn itself, you know. May I take a look, Augusta?”
Gusta nodded. She made her hands undo the latches on the case, so she could pull the trusting, unsuspecting horn out into the bright light of the music room. It looked shiny and beautiful in this light, but Gusta could also see the collection of little scars, here and there, that it had gathered over its long life.
“How lovely,” said Miss Kendall, turning it this way and that in the light. Gusta wasn’t entirely certain Miss Kendall wasn’t just being polite, so she jumped in to defend the little dents and scratches.
“It’s old, of course,” she said.
“It belonged to your father, I believe Josie said? He was a horn player?”
“First his father was,” said Gusta. “And then my father, too, yes, but you see, he didn’t have time anymore.”
“Ah,” said Miss Kendall. “Well, too bad we don’t have one of them here to play something for us! I’d like to hear what it sounds like. Does it have all its pieces and parts? A good old European horn like this would probably cost more than a hundred dollars these days. With the war, Germany isn’t sending instruments this way anymore.”
A hundred dollars! Gusta’s heart took off like a rabbit. A hundred dollars! But that was exactly what Gramma Hoopes had said it might cost to fix up Uncle Charlie’s hand! For a moment she could hardly even breathe under the pressure of that coincidence, but Miss Kendall was still talking.
“Yes, yes, it looks fine. It does. But I’d like to hear it played. I could bring in one of our trumpet players, maybe, just to get an idea . . .”
“Or I could play something, Miss Kendall,” said Gusta, almost taking her own self by surprise. “I — well, I could show you, if you want. So you could hear it. It’s a good horn, really it is.”
“Oh!” said Miss Kendall. “Do you play a little yourself? It’s a very difficult instrument, I know. But let’s hear what you can do. It would be nice to hear a note or two, certainly.”
She did hand the horn back with grace and kindness, which was the only way Miss Kendall did anything, seemed like.
Oh, Gusta really did want her to understand about the horn. How lovely it truly was. She took a breath or two to settle her nerves.
And here’s how it went: when Gusta produced that first, unquestionably pure tone, a note that seemed to set her rib cage and the bell of her horn vibrating together in harmony, she saw Miss Kendall straighten up a little in her chair. When Gusta played several notes up and down in a row, just warming up, Miss Kendall clasped her hands together, as if she wanted to say something. And when Gusta then started running through all the little bits and pieces of things that she had learned from her father, Miss Kendall broke into an outright smile, wide and broad. The last piece of music Gusta remembered was the one closest to her heart — it made her feel so much larger than she ever was, outside of a song. It made her feel sadder and deeper and gladder, all at once. She forgot about everything else, all the dings and scratches and dents in her horn, in herself, in the world, when she was in the middle of music like that.
“Augusta!” said Miss Kendall a moment later, when Gusta paused to come up for air. “But that’s remarkable! That’s truly remarkable! Do you know what you just played, that lovely bit of music just now?”
It was embarrassing to have to shake her head, but Gusta did shake her head. “I think it’s by a Russian?” she said. “My father said —”
Then she found her merely human voice getting stuck.
Her father had actually said, as the horn balanced lightly in his strong hands, “Even a clever parrot like you, thingling, will have trouble with this one. Most famous horn solo ever.”
There had been another man, an organizer who worked with Gusta’s father, there in their room at the time, sitting over at their table and having a cup of coffee. He had a bruise on a cheek because a strike had gone badly a few days before, but he was one of those people who shrugs off bruises. He had leaned forward and said, “Bet the girl could learn it, August. She played ‘Yankee Doodle’ last month, didn’t she? Here, I’ll wager two whole silver dollars she can do it.”
And he had flung those coins onto the table. They made quite a heavy ringing sound as they hit the top of the table. Two dollars was a lot of money.
Gusta’s father and the bruised man had shaken hands on their bet, right then and there, before Gusta’s mother came back into the apartment, because Gusta’s mother would never have stood for it, putting Gusta at the center of a wager, one way or another.
It wasn’t just because her father had bet money she couldn’t do it that Gusta had had to learn that melody and show she could. The thing went deeper than that. It was to show her father she could do more than any ordinary clever parrot. To show that she could amount to something — though of course she hadn’t wanted to cost her papa money.
Anyway, she had done it. She had learned that lovely scrap of music her father had played for her, and he had lost his bet because of that, because of her, and had frowned when he had to pay up, even though he must surely also have been proud. And she couldn’t explain any of this now to the kind and melodious woman who had just clapped her hands together and bounced to her feet.
“Augusta! It’s by Tchaikovsky
. It’s a beautiful thing. But that’s not all. Have you heard this?”
Miss Kendall went over to something sitting in honor on a little cart by the wall, and Gusta followed her over so she could see. But she hardly believed her eyes when she got close enough to recognize what it was: an actual gramophone. In a school! But of course this was a fancy, new-built school. Perhaps anything was possible in a school like this.
There was a closet with records in it. Miss Kendall looked through it and came back to pop the disk in her hands onto the spinning part of the gramophone.
“Listen up, dear,” said Miss Kendall. “This is the Glenn Miller Orchestra, playing one of their biggest hits of 1939, ‘Moon Love.’ ”
What that had to do with Gusta’s horn or Tchaikovsky, Gusta had no idea. She knew who Glenn Miller was, of course. He led one of the most famous jazz bands in the world.
But as far as she knew, there was no French horn in that outfit. It wasn’t that sort of band. She listened closely now, and no — no French horn.
Miss Kendall was bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet. Even without looking very closely at her face, Gusta could tell she was smiling, smiling, smiling at her, as if Gusta were unwrapping a present Miss Kendall had just thoughtfully handed over.
“I don’t —” said Gusta.
And then it was a few seconds further into that song, and she did: the melody of the song was familiar! More than familiar! It wasn’t being played by a French horn, but it was Gusta’s own French horn solo, the one that had lost that bet for her father.
“Are you telling me Mr. Glenn Miller stole that tune?” said Gusta. “From the Russian guy, from Tchaikovsky?”
“When it’s musicians doing the stealing, we call it borrowing, and we admire it,” said Miss Kendall with a laugh. “And look at this, anyway: Glenn Miller’s perfectly honest about it. Tchaikovsky gets his name on the label.”
She showed Gusta the bright-blue Bluebird label on the record. If you squinted close, you could see the explanation: MOON LOVE — Fox Trot (Adapted from Tschaikowsky’s 5th Symphony, 2nd Movement) Glenn Miller and his Orchestra.
“How about that, Augusta? You’ve been playing a number-one hit! Pretty wonderful, yes? And you play so well already. How old are you, anyway? You simply can’t be as young as you look.”
“I’m eleven,” said Gusta, pulling herself up as tall as possible. “I’m in the fifth grade.”
Miss Kendall laughed again. “Oh, my!” she said. “Now, what are we going to do with you?”
And she paced about the room for a minute — her pacing was as melodious as her voice. It was almost more a dance than it was pacing.
This was clearly when Gusta should ask about that hundred dollars.
“Miss Kendall . . .” she said, and as soon as she spoke, she could feel herself wobbling, her love for the way her horn filled the world with a voice that was so grand and lovely, that sang out truths while Gusta’s own voice just tripped over secrets — oh, her selfish love was making her wobble, yes, it was. So she pulled herself up straight and made herself think of all those scars constraining Uncle Charlie’s poor bandaged hand. And her mother, working so hard, back in New York City. And her father, doing what he thought was right, even when that meant something as hard and scary as organizing a strike, or leaving your daughter behind so you could fight in a war.
“Miss Kendall,” said Gusta for the second time, a bit stronger already. “Is the horn really worth what you said, do you think? A hundred dollars? If I — sold it to you?”
“Oh, but Gusta!” said Miss Kendall, laughing and shaking her head. “We mustn’t take your horn away from you, now that I’ve heard what you can do! You must keep it and play it. In fact, I have a grand idea! At least, I think it could certainly be terrific. We have the spring concert coming up, and — oh! I see it now. A way to use my string players and give the band something to do as well. Tchaikovsky meets Glenn Miller. It’ll be great. You’ll have to learn the whole of that solo, but you played me almost half of it already. I’ll send music home with Josie. And can you come over for a practice session sometime, after school, do you think?”
“You want me to play with the high-school students?”
Gusta could hardly believe it. This whole conversation had gone in a direction she had not expected — like her great-grandfather’s boat, finding itself suddenly shipwrecked off the coast of Madagascar.
“Yes, isn’t that a fine idea? Think how surprised everyone will be! Won’t you say yes and play with us?”
Well, yes, of course, Gusta wanted to play — she wanted that with all her heart. It was like saying she wanted to “still be Gusta,” despite the price for remaining Gusta being so awfully high. But that was not necessarily the Gusta her father might have wanted her to be, when the storm arrived.
She tried to say something else, to get Miss Kendall back to the subject of prices and dollars and horns for sale, but Miss Kendall was too full of enthusiasm for her new plan, and Gusta’s voice, without the horn, wasn’t forceful enough to make a dent in that enthusiasm. Miss Kendall just waved Gusta’s attempts aside.
“Not a word, not another word, Augusta,” said Miss Kendall. “You’ll see — it will be wonderful! I’m so glad you came to Springdale. What a lucky chance for all of us. It will make such a lovely show!”
So Gusta found herself walking home with her horn still comfortably bumping against her shins — and no money in her pocket.
“Maybe afterward,” Gusta said to her shipwrecked self, so torn between disappointment and thrill. “Maybe after this concert Miss Kendall is so excited about, maybe then I’ll finally be able to get her to buy the horn.”
Up here,” said Josie, with the almost smug satisfaction of someone about to unveil a great surprise — or in this case, about to use a hook-ended pole to catch hold of a coordinating metal loop in the hall ceiling (that Gusta, with her bad eyes, had of course never noticed) and pull down, out of nowhere, a kind of magically folding ladder. “Up you get — there’s everything up there, you’ll see.”
It was a Saturday morning, and Aunt Marion was looking for another set of bedclothes she remembered there being in the house somewhere, so Josie had jumped at the chance to volunteer to search the attic; looking for something tucked away up under the roof was preferable — no doubt about that — to any of the other chores Gramma Hoopes and Aunt Marion had planned for this Saturday. Gusta caught the feeling from Josie’s quick grin: it was practically getting away with something, coming up to look for Aunt Marion’s sheets and pillowcases.
Gusta had read about attics in children’s books, and one year when she was much younger, she seemed vaguely to remember having lived with her parents in a house with an attic — which town had that been?— but this was the first time she had climbed into an actual attic by means of a magical ladder. Her first impression was of shadows, and of rows of objects waiting patiently in those shadows. Then Josie flipped some switch, and a lightbulb blared into life, making them both blink. It dangled from the ceiling — no lampshade nonsense, just a concentrated circle of bright light, casting funny shadows all around.
It was cold up in the attic this time of year, but it smelled secretly of summer, of many, many summers, of old wood cured over many long years and through all kinds of weather. Everywhere all around was the usual stuff that finds its way to attics: a slightly broken ironing board, forlorn little figures that must be abandoned dolls, and lamps that almost certainly no longer worked. There was also the tiniest edge of mildew in the air up there, and that made sense because along the whole length of that attic on one side were low bookshelves, just two shelves high, and on those shelves were old books with the spines out, and some newer ones more higgledy-piggledy, and a number of boxes containing who knew what.
“Oh!” said Gusta. All these BOXES on SHELVES! The hunt downstairs for the Wish had become discouraging; she had even taken half-hearted peeks into the sugar box and bean boxes in the pantry, but no Wish could h
ave lasted undisturbed in boxes people used every day — it was as silly as thinking a Wish could have waited quietly in a nest box for years, while hens, eggs, and straw came and went. Not very likely.
And then she said, “Oh!” again, because whether or not there was an actual Wish hidden up here somewhere, the shelves in this attic looked to Gusta like a wish come true.
So many books! There weren’t a lot of books downstairs. She had had no idea the Hoopes Home had a secret library under its roof.
“Those are the old captain’s books,” said Josie. “That’s what they told me, anyway. Go ahead and paw through them if you want. I’m looking for something that will make a nice noise for our band — seems to me I saw something like that up here once.”
Gusta sat on the floor by the bookshelf and started paging through the books. Some of them were ancient and uninteresting, but there were also children’s books with old-fashioned pictures, and dictionaries, and The Arabian Nights, and then she started opening up some of the big boxes, just to check.
No Wish rattling around anywhere — instead, notebooks. Not cheap notebooks that you might use at school. Nothing like that. Leather-bound tomes, very heavy, and when you opened them, sketch after sketch of wonderful, strange, beautiful creatures, and here and there, a landscape. It was hard at first to read the writing that explained and surrounded all those incredible pictures, but Gusta quickly became more used to it. It wasn’t the illegible zigzag scrawl of Mr. Bertmann’s ledger book.
It was the precise writing of an old sea captain, in love with all the strange and lovely things of the world.
“The old sea captain was an artist!” said Gusta to Josie, and she held up a picture of a strange-looking monkey-like creature, clinging to a tree branch with long, knobbly fingers and eyeing the world with suspicion. “Look how he drew all the little fluffy hairs along his back!”
