Smile Again

“I really hate this stupid instrument. I don’t even know how to play it. Those players sure have a lot of patience to play stuff like this. It’s annoying to have to move the strings and slide the long wooden thingy at the same time.”
Amanda dragged her violin case across the Wayside Falls Pachelbel Conservatory parking lot towards her mom’s car. She had just recently been forced by her “dignified” mother into the prestigious conservatory orchestra, and had a recital coming up, so was being forced to practice. “I should’ve gone with volleyball… but no, Mom had to absolutely force me into some jerk conservatory with an actual teacher from Germany and a bunch of nerds whose instruments are bigger than the geeks themselves.”
  “You know, you’re very lucky. I’ve always wanted to go to one of the very prestigious Pachelbel Conservatories nationwide, but they’re all too expensive…” This comment came from Hannah, who seemed to be disapproving of the way she treated her new music school and her instrument, yet at the same time, with slight jealousy. “I’ve always wanted to play the violin…”
  “Yeah,” retorted Amanda. “But I haven’t. I always wanted to be a volleyball player, but Mom wouldn’t let me try out for the school team… I consider myself very lucky to not have been forced to play piano. Still, I can’t decide which is worse: the piano, the violin, or my mother.”
I stood there, quiet, watching the dialogue and thinking about it all. On one hand, she was very lucky to be in one of the most expensive, old, and prestigious music programs in Wayside Falls; but on the other hand, it was very wrong of her mother to force her to do it and keep her from something Amanda really loved. When Amanda had first told me, it was very hard for me to believe that the kind, sweet, intelligent, and prudish Mrs. McMichael had forced one of my best friends into a fortunate yet undesirable opportunity.
Hannah seemed to be just as upset about it. With her nose stuck in books half the time, it wasn’t hard to believe that she had many things in common with Mrs. McMichael and that she was behaving with slight envy of the great opportunity to  learn to play the instrument with which many of her favorite classical pieces were played.
“Amanda!” Mrs. McMichael’s bouncy yet strict (how is that possible?) voice called anxiously.
“What now?” answered Amanda, rolling her eyes.
“I just got a phone call from Ms. Leper… She says that your class’s first ever orchestra recital will be in a month in the auditorium. Tomorrow when class is over, she will announce which songs your class will be playing for the recital—oh, this is so exciting!”
Amanda sighed nonchalantly. “Oh, yes. What a thrill… I’m about to have a heart attack from so much excitement,” she said sardonically, hoisting the violin case onto the back seat of her mother’s small car, as Hannah and I got in after her. We quickly shut the door, and as Mrs. McMichael went around the back of the car to get into the driver’s seat, Amanda quickly muttered. “Oh, fabulous, a string orchestra recital. Just what I needed…”








The next day at school, Amanda, Hannah, and I, who happened to have first period all together, sat in our seats in Algebra. All freshmen were expected to be in class by the time the last bell rang, and it was very early in the morning. The announcements came on through the intercom as I pulled out my textbook. After saying the pledges and a couple of announcements about a cooking club meeting and Honor Society, the announcer finally said something interesting.
“…Basketball tryouts will be tomorrow at 4:30. Please be there on time if you wish to be part of the team and make sure you have an up-to-date physical on-file with the counselors and have…”
Hannah glanced at Amanda and then quickly at me nervously, and shortly I found out why.
Forming across Amanda’s face was one of the most dangerous things that could appear on her face. It had appeared only a couple of times since fifth grade, when I met Hannah and Amanda, and it had had very catastrophic results. It wasn’t a handful of boils or chicken pox. It wasn’t a zit (although that could’ve been just as dangerous if any hot guys had been present), or even a booger (ew). It was a very sly and cunning smile that told anyone who knew her as well as me and Hannah that she had a mischievous plan. 








“WHAT!? You can’t cut violin lessons just to go to basketball tryouts! And without permission! Your mom will flip!”
Later at Amanda’s house, the moment we had gotten in Amanda’s room, Hannah shot off into a speech on how it is wrong to cut violin just to try out for the girls’ basketball team. “You don’t even like basketball! I thought you liked volleyball!”
“Well, considering my mom never let me try out for volleyball, I’ve kept my choices open and become very flexible. Besides, I’m an athlete. Athletes don’t pick favorites when it comes to sports.”
“Yeah, but your mom thinks you’re Mrs. Mozart! She might lose all trust in you!”
“My mom doesn’t need to know. I’m not asking her for permission this time. She’ll never let me go. Besides, I won’t be cutting. Tryouts end at 6 and my class at the conservatory starts at 5:30. I’ll only miss about less than half the class.”
“Oh, yeah, and you think Ms. Leper is going to be OK with you arriving in her class  45 minutes late and all sweaty.”
“I’ll pull it off. I’m just going to need your help. I’ve got the plan ready: Hannah, you’re the goody-goody, so you’ll seem the most credible borrowing my mom’s phone and then bring it up here and call a cab. I need to finish packing. Meg,” she said turning to me, “I’ll need your silent ability to sneak into the kitchen, get the TV remote, turn on the TV in the living room, and hide the remote. That’ll get her out of the kitchen and give us a chance to sneak out the front. Then we’ll keep the cab driver busy at school while the tryouts are over for the two hours and then have him take us to the Pachelbel Conservatory, give him a tip for all his troubles, and then go into the class. I’ll call Mom from the school phone to tell her that I had your mom, Meg, drive us to the conservatory. Then, once class is over, I’ll tell her to come pick us up, I make the first cut and nobody finds out, and everyone’s happy. Simple, huh?”
We stared in disbelief and Hannah was the first to speak. “What are you, CRAZY? We won’t pull this off! Your mom is going to wonder when you ever went outside to get picked up by Meg’s mom, and some random taxi driver will NOT be stupid enough to drive and be pushed around by a group of fifteen-year-old girls around at their disposal. This probably is the most flaw-y and faulty plan of yours yet, after that one in seventh grade that ended us up in a forest in Switzerland!”
“Well, like it’s my fault that that airport lady got the gate numbers mixed up…”
“If you hadn’t hit the man besides her with a water balloon that splashed onto us, the gate number on the ticket wouldn’t have smeared--”
“Guys!” I interrupted. “It’s 4:25. You’re going to be late for tryouts.”
“Meg’s right, Hannah… hurry with her downstairs or we won’t have time….”









“Uh… excuse me, is this the right address? 1313 Johann Drive… Uh… someone called for a taxi? Call me Al. Just making sure I didn’t get the wrong address like last time…”
The taxi pulled up in the streets in front of the McMichaels’ and a balding, thin man with sleepy eyes and a black jacket stepped out of the yellow cab.
“Take us Wayside Falls High School. It’s fifteen minutes away and I’ve still got basketball tryouts. And hurry, before my mom comes back from the living room!” Amanda pushed the nervous-looking man into the driver’s seat, shut his door, and we all jumped in. “Hurry!”
“O-Okay, okay, okay!” said the man named Al, putting his cap back on and pulling away. “Why the big hurry anyways?” 
“She’s having clandestine basketball tryouts,” Hannah cut across before anyone could answer, “and she’s also cutting part of her violin lessons at the Pachelbel Conservatory.”
“Oh, wow,” the driver said. “To go to that conservatory you either have to be a Beethoven genius or have a lot of money. I’ve always wanted to be a professional violinist, but it ain’t happenin’. Why on earth would you cut a class with all those music professor people…? ” 
“It’s just not my thing,” answered Amanda.
“Ugh, I hate lying to your mom, Amanda. I had to tell her I had to call our teacher for a Biology project…”
“I kind of feel bad for tricking her like that,” I said, regretting it in a way.
“Oh, come on guys, it’s all for the greater good. All to help a friend.”
We were silent for the rest of the ride. Once we got there and Amanda shot off to tryouts, Hannah looked at me worried. To our dismay, we had forgotten that the hard part was just beginning. We had to figure out a way to keep Al busy for an hour and a half.
“Okay, girls, we’re here. That’ll be—”
“Wait!” jumped Hannah. “We need you to take us to, uh, to…”
“McDonald’s!” I said.
“McDonald’s?” Al asked.
“Uh… yeah, um, that one McDonald’s by Glisten Forest Mall.”
“Glisten Forest Mall?” Al asked, perplexed. “But that’s forty minutes away!” 
“Uh… no it isn’t… it’s ten minutes away.”
“I’m a pro driver… I know for a fact that it’s over forty minutes away.”
“But I’ve been there with my parents… I go all the time… it’s ten!”
“It’s forty!”
“It’s ten!”
“I’m pretty sure it’s forty!”
“Ten!”
“Forty!”
“Ten!”
“Thirty!”
“Twenty”
“Thirty!”
“Ten!”
“Twenty!”
“Ten!”
“Ten! Okay, fine, whatever, I’ll take you! I won’t argue with some silly little girls like you!”
“You just did!”
“And we’re not silly or little!” 
On our way to Glisten Forest Mall, we stopped at every Wal-Mart we saw on the way, then we made him stop for gas, then we went back, by which time it was already 5:30 and Al was getting tired of us. When we got back to school, the sun had started to lower itself into the sky and Al seemed that he’d rather leave us stranded in the highway than keep on going. “You girls do know that the longer and further I drive you the more I have to charge you, right?
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Where’s Amanda? It’s five forty-five. I don’t believe that tryouts last such a long time ‘till six. I think she can give up a little of it for her violin.”
“Hannah, you do know she really doesn’t give one way or another about her violin, right?”
“Yeah, Meg, but I still—”
“—Want to take her place at the violin? I know. But it’s her life. Her choice. Our friend. It’s our job to help her, even if we think she’s not making the most of her opportunity.”
“Isn’t that her?” asked Al, pointing out his window. Sure enough, walking toward us was Amanda, grinning, as we all stepped outside.
“I did really well! And I’m done twenty minutes before expected, which means that when I get to the conservatory, I’ll call Mom, tell her your mom dropped me off and no one will notice!”
“This worked out better than expected…” I said.
“Al,” started Amanda, “take us to the conservatory.”
“I won’t do it.”
Everyone turned around to look at him.
“I won’t do it,” he said, this time a little more firmly. The somnolence in his eyes began fading, giving way to an angry look. 
“What do you mean you won’t do it?” I asked.
“I’m sick and tired of being pushed around by all of you! You’re not the boss of me! You’ve been wasting my time with a $100 cab bill you probably won’t even pay… How am I supposed to feed my family? I need this! Why, I should call your parents!” His ears were getting red and the color in his face was draining.
“But—but you’ve got to get me to my violin class!”
“Should’ve thought of that before you skipped!”
“But—”
“That’s it! I’m out of here!”
He started for the car. With a subtle gesture, Amanda nodded to Hannah, and Hannah knew what she had to do.
“I’m sorry for this, Al, but we have to help our friend,” she said, frustrated, and with one quick, smooth movement she had probably learned in her TaeKwon-Do class, she had him bent with his arm pinned behind his back in two seconds flat. She dragged him over to the driver’s seat and put her arm around his neck, in a lethal position as he moaned. “What the heck? Aren’t you supposed to not misuse martial arts?” he choked out.
“I’m not misusing it. This is an emergency…”
“Okay,” he groaned, “fine, I’ll drive you there. Now let go before I call the police!”
Hannah let go, we all stepped in and set off for the conservatory.










The next day, back in our Algebra class, we were talking about the previous day’s happenings.
“Hannah, I told you my plan would work. When have any of my plans ever failed? Besides, we were in Switzerland for two days only, and we needed a break anyways.”
“Lucky Hannah could speak a little bit of French that saved us...”
“Oh, you had me do so many bad things yesterday! You made me trick your mom and then stall and attack a defenseless man!”
“It’s all for the greater good… don’t worry. Besides, I made the first cut. The second tryouts are tomorrow, so we get a break. Tomorrow, we call Al to pick us up for the second cut, so I make the team. Tryouts are earlier this time, so I don’t have to skip violin. I’ll tell Mom I’m going to study at Meg’s or something…”
“Yeah, but then you have to go to basketball practice every day from 4 to 5:30…”
“So? I’ll tell her I have a lot of homework or something. It really can’t be that hard.”
“Aright then,” I began, “did you find out anything new about your violin recital?”
“Yeah,” Amanda answered. “Ms. Leper moved it up a week, so Mom says now that I have to practice extra hard on the violin part of the pieces we’re playing for the recital.”
“What are you playing for the recital?”
Amanda looked annoyed as she reached for her folder and pulled out about three or four pieces of paper.
“This? You’re playing this?” I asked. “The music notes are tiny and it’s, like, 50 pages!” 
“You think that’s a lot? That’s just the last song we’re playing…”
“Wow,” gasped Hannah. “This is no novice piece of classical music… this is Pachelbel’s Canon in D major…”
“So?”
“It’s one of the most beautiful and popular pieces of music ever composed! It sounds beautiful on a piano duet… it must sound even more beautiful with a whole orchestra! But…”
“But what?”
“Well, not to say you’re incompetent, but I don’t think this is the kind of piece of classical music that you should play for the first time… Look at this composition… it’s all so complicated to you… it requires timing and concentration… and practice! And you’re just learning to play the violin… you haven’t even been immersed completely into other easier pieces…I mean, it’s not an ultra-complicated piece, not a total expert’s piece, but don’t think you’re going to get it perfect on your first time at the recital.”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter, it’s not like I’m going to be the only violin playing…. There’s more! There are a couple of violas, some cellos, more violins, and a bunch other thingies. I can’t be the only one; if I mess up, nobody’s going to notice, anyways.”
“They will notice. For a harmonic piece like this one, each part has to be completely in sync.”
“Who cares about ‘sync’? It’s just a stupid recital, anyways.”
I joined in. “’Just a stupid recital’? That’s not what your mom’s going to say when she grounds you, takes away your TV and Internet rights, never returns your cell phone, and leaves you in complete isolation. And your little orchestra buddies aren’t going to be very pleased, either. I’m surprised you haven’t been jumped from every direction by the geeks already at rehearsals. And then there’s Ms. Leper, she’s—”   
“Okay! I get it! But how am I going to find time to practice between all this homework, violin lessons, basketball practice, and all those chores Mom always leaves for me?”
“Don’t worry,” I reassured her. “We’ll think of something,” I said, glancing worriedly at Hannah. 









The next few weeks were ambiguous when it came to progress. Mrs. McMichael wouldn’t always buy Amanda’s lies, so sometimes she’d miss basketball practice. Most of time she’d buy them, in which case we’d call Al to come get her. On game nights, Hannah would have to persuade Mrs. McMichael to let her “go over to study”, many times even to sneak out again.  Amanda rarely had time to practice her violin, which wasn’t really an improvement, until one day after school at my house, Amanda came bursting in through my door while Hannah and I were studying for marking period finals in World Geography.
“OH--MY--GOD,” she gasped, “WHY?!”
We started to worry. “Why what?”
“Why did they have to cut the season?”
“What do you mean ‘cut the season’?”
“The-the coaches! Th-they cut the season! The basketball season!”
“So?”
“That means the championship game is going to be on Friday!”
“What’s wrong with Friday?”
“They’re going to be on Friday and I have to be there at 6! And my orchestra recital... it’s at 7:30! And those games last an hour or two! I’m never going to make it... My teammates and my coach are going to be really mad if I miss it, because I’m the girls’ basketball team’s Star Player, but my orchestra classmates, my mother, and Ms. Leper will be just as mad-- and even more so-- if  I miss the recital for a secret basketball life that is revealed anyways!” She sank to the floor in frustration.
All Hannah and I could do was look at each other and wonder how we were going to get out of this one...








“I have an idea, I think,” I said after giving much thought to the matter for the then-past twenty minutes.
“Oh, do tell,” Amanda answered impatiently, “Any of your ideas are probably better than Hannah’s cold stupidity.”
“Stupidity?” retorted Hannah. “Is that what you say to a friend who gave you an idea? Excuse me if you didn’t like it… All I proposed is that you ditch the game and go to the performance. Face it; the stakes are higher at the recital than at the game. Big whoop, so you miss a game, big deal. You can always go out for next season or for another sport. It’s better to have a select group of people plus your coaches be mad at you than your mother—who could ground you—, your music teacher, and a much bigger orchestra group of people, after being revealed as having a double life. Oh, and don’t forget, you will lose your entire mother’s trust, plus that of your music teacher and fellow orchestra players.”
“Well, when you put it like that…  But do you have any idea how much this means to me? Not only will my teammates be mad at me, but it’s also supposed to be an adventure of self-discovery and identity…”
“Wait, wait! You still haven’t listened to my plan!” I piped up. “It’s far better than this conflicting gumbo. But of course, it will take a lot of effort from me, you two, and Al.”
“Is it simple?”
“I don’t know…”
“Is it risky?”
I thought about it for a second. “Very risky. But effective. If it works, everybody’s pleased. If it doesn’t…”
“We’re screwed,” Hannah bothered to complete. But the grim thing was that I wasn’t sure whether she was merely completing my sentence or making a true statement…











My multistep plan went into effect reluctantly but soon. It was fairly simple:
I would make copies of the sheet music that was to be played at the concert once Amanda provided me with them. Before school, Amanda would wake up an hour earlier than usual while her mom was off at work. At this time, she would practice her violin. Then, after school, Al would make the hand-off to Hannah and after school Hannah would practice Amanda’s pieces for the concert, seeing as the Canon wasn’t the only piece to be played at the recital.
Meanwhile, Al would drive me to the conservatory and the two of us would go into the orchestra main office, into the supply room, and swipe an adult-medium uniform.
At the night of the recital, Hannah would brush her hair like Amanda’s and get highlights like Amanda’s. Since they were about the same height, were blonde, and had light eyes (although Amanda’s were green and Hannah’s blue), at the first part of the recital, Hannah would pass for Amanda while she was at her game. Then, at intermission, Amanda and Hannah would switch out and play for the second part of the concert, and all live happily ever after.
Well, now that the plan was formed, how to carry it out was the problem. It wasn’t as easy as I thought. Al was sometimes reluctant at the “girls-pushing-me-around” thing, so it took some dealing with him. And Amanda was usually so tired from basketball practices that she could hardly read the notes on her sheet music.
Some of the previous issues also prevailed. Amanda’s mom usually got suspicious, in which case things had to go into lockdown mode and the plan would be stopped for a while. The only streaks of luck were that Al and I had finally managed to get ahold of one of the orchestra uniforms for Hannah to wear, and that for her first time playing, Hannah was very good at the violin—better than Amanda, even. But then again, I guess she was more motivated at the beginning.
We were really amazed at our progress. Our plan was going well. A little too well for comfort, in fact. It was the first time one of our totally whacked-out plans actually worked. Up to this stage, at least.
Sooner than expected, Thursday was upon us, and Friday was looming close. Hannah had mastered all the pieces, concertos, and sonatas down to the last rest, and after much work, so had Amanda (well, almost, at least). Al and I had absolutely all worked out transportation, time, attire, seating, and any other minuscule factors that might have proven harmful later in the plan. Amanda practiced free throws in the basketball court while Hannah went over the music one more time and Al filled his gas tank. We felt prepared. 









Friday.
The big day arrived. Hustle. Prepare. Bite your nails. Prepare. Double-check. Practice. Run. Call Al. Practice violin. Prepare. Free throws to clear your mind. 
School went by with the subtle yet nagging anxiety you might get when you’re about to find SAT scores in your last period class or when you have a club meeting after school.
It didn’t feel like it was a day any different from the others, but we were reminded of the risky plan every time Amanda, Hannah, and I exchanged glances.
Seventh period ended finally. Amanda was to go straight to the locker room, get her basketball clothes, and run off to her house to fetch her violin and let her mom know she was home. Hannah was to report straight to a salon and get some highlights done while Al filled his gasoline tank and picked up Hannah’s orchestra uniform from the dry-cleaner.
I was to make sure everything went smoothly. Kind of like a moderator or a stage manager. My job was to keep everyone from mistakes. A tiny mistake could let it all fall to pieces, like an untied shoelace.
On our way to Amanda’s house, Amanda got a call from her mom.
“Agents!” she squealed the moment she flipped her phone shut. “There are going to be scholarship and grant agents at the concert!” The worry arose and the stakes at being perfect went along with it.
Hannah was the first to calm down. “If we do this right, the conservatory may get a grant! Maybe we’ll get new cellos… I- I mean, ‘they’…”
“What about the scholarship money?” I asked.
“Well,” answered Hannah, “The scholarship money won’t be for college but for a full tuition at the institute. I think it’s going to be a check. Only a few orchestra players get it.”
“Oh…” Albert muttered. “I’ve always wanted to play the violin since I was little.”
“You already told us that,” Amanda pointed out.
“Actually, I could. I took classes in middle school,” he said. “But then I had to go into advanced math so I couldn’t continue with violin. My family was poor anyways, so we couldn’t afford a piano or a violin or an instructor.” He paused. “If I took classes, I bet I would be able to win that money right away and become a master and play in the city’s chamber orchestra.”
“Chamber? You need to be good to get into the Wayside Fall’s Chamber or even Symphony Orchestras,” said Hannah, very matter-of-factly. “From what I’ve read up, those musicians have had lots of music theory and music education beyond high school.”
“And I’ll need to be good to pull this off,” said Amanda.
“We’ll just have to see how it goes,” I sighed. 
At 5:30, Hannah and Amanda officially traded places. Hannah was dropped off at the conservatory before Amanda’s mom could get there and then Amanda and I rode in Al’s car to the campus where the district championships were to be held.
Al dropped me off at the conservatory so I could get backstage to make sure everything went well on Hannah’s side of the plan, and to avoid any untied shoelaces at the conservatory auditorium, where front seats were filled by 7 o’ clock sharp. I had to sneak a ten to the stage manager for him to extend intermission (when it came) about five minutes more, but I felt like those were some well-spent $10 for a well-meant plan.
After dropping me off, Al drove back to the game where he would keep his eye out for the very end. Then, I instructed him to call me on my cell phone when the game was over.
Unfortunately, that call came sooner than expected. Half an hour into the concert, my phone went off in the middle of Swan Lake, and intermission was about twenty more minutes away.
I had to do something.
Amanda and Al were already in the building and Amanda was on the way to change into the uniform. It was a hard enough job to keep Mrs. McMichael from sitting at the front, and I still had to deal with the stage managers and technical people and all witnesses to our plan. I was running out of money fast, and I couldn’t keep the real last violinist and an indigent-looking cab driver behind a backstage door to an auditorium for 20 minutes without being noticed by someone.
“What happened? Why are you here so early?” I asked the moment we met up behind the stage. Amanda looked sweaty and hasty and barefooted with her socks and shoes in her hand. “Intermission’s not until 8:25! And it’s 8:13!”
“Chill, Meg,” whispered Amanda, Al trailing behind her carrying her violin, “we won! We beat the other team by a landslide! And it was fast. Nothing to keep the game from going. It lasted barely an hour and a half. We were good. I didn’t score the winning shoot, but I did score most points, so I was a valuable player. And I participated. And I felt happy. ‘Cause I loved it!”
“8:18…”
We sat there backstage, staring hard at Hannah and then at Mrs. McMichael, making sure she wasn’t noticing anything suspicious about her daughter. It was a smart plan of mine’s to keep her from getting a front seat. All the kids in the orchestra looked the same from the seat I made sure she got. Hannah played one of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos very expertly for those five minutes of waiting agony.
“8:25!”
We heard the clapping and the violinists began filing into the backstage room, to get drinks of water and chat for about twenty minutes. Hannah approached from behind (so her peers wouldn’t notice it wasn’t Amanda) and very quickly, made the hand-off to Amanda.  “Ah, this is great! Greater than great! Beautiful! It’s going so well….”
“I know,” said Amanda, “I can’t believe it’s all working out as planned: Mom hasn’t noticed, none of the violas have noticed, and there are only four pieces left.”
“What’s so great about that?” asked Al.
“That three of the four pieces left are the ones I’m best at. We’re playing ‘Feliz Navidad,’ which is real bouncy and bound to strike a chord with the audience; then I’m playing a piece of Bizet’s ‘Habanera’ from ‘Carmen,’ one of the very easiest pieces; and after that, we’re going to be playing Beethoven’s famous Symphony No. 9. Let’s just hope it goes well with the Canon, our closing tune. I practiced, but I don’t seem to be quite getting it.”
“Wow,” I said with a chuckle, “you’ve gotten smarter with this whole violin thing, and you’ve improved at playing it, too. First time I heard you play I wanted to take the violin and snap it in half; but now, I think you don’t deserve that spot all the way at the back.” All of a sudden, I stopped myself in my tracks, as I saw that smile creeping up on Amanda’s face.  It was The Smile. The one Hannah and I had seen that day before our accidental plane to Switzerland as she got the water balloons out, and the one we had seen back at the classroom that ratted her plan out. It was dangerous. And once more, it turned out not to be a good idea.
As the stage managers began to usher all the players back onstage, Hannah—who had noticed The Smile—and I did not like what we both felt was going to happen next.
Amanda jumped onstage and into the concertmaster’s chair. Ms. Leper quickly glanced at her nervously as she also stopped in her tracks as she told the other kids to hurry up and grab their instruments and settle down in their chairs.
“What is she doing? She’s taking the chair of the first violin! She can’t do that,” Al gasped. “She’s not that good!”
“Well done, Meg,” Hannah whispered to me angrily. “Look what you did! You gave her the most ridiculous idea to usurp the chair of the fist violin!”
Thomas Zarro was the first violin leader. He was a tall, skinny, blond boy with heavily-rimmed glasses. He was fifteen years old and he tended to wear skinny jeans and the classic black Converse shoes (which were the only out-of-uniform garment he wore that day of the concert). And he was very snobbish, typical of people who are easily the best at something in their school or class.
Well, Thomas was a violin prodigy, and he had been playing since the age of five. Some cellists said that he was even better than Ms. Leper. He was the exclusive kind of jerk, like a rich girl with a beautiful voice or a popular guy who has a Picasso-like flair for art. He always got the solos, and Ms. Leper always praised him, even though he did little to suck up to her.
Everyone knew that he wasn’t from a rich family, and that he had gotten in the conservatory by a request from the director, who begged his parents for him to attend classes there and that he would get a fully-paid tuition and violin expenses all taken care of.  Since then, he had gotten the school more than $100,000 in grant money. No matter how much you hated him, you couldn’t’ help but be befuddled at how his bow and fingers flowed professionally as he played effortlessly as though he and his violin were one.
Therefore, you could imagine how Thomas felt about Amanda. He always treated her as though she wasn’t important enough or he didn’t want to waste his time talking to a novice such as her.
And he went from full-of-himself to angry when he went onstage to find Amanda sitting in his seat, a fierce look in her face. “What are you doing there? Get out of my seat, you pathetic musician,” he said with a chuckle, as though Amanda being compared to him in the slightest was the most absurd thing in the world. “And hurry up in getting to the back, intermission’s almost over and the concert is about to start.”
“You can’t talk to me like that!” Amanda retorted. “Just because you think you’re ‘Mr. Child Prodigy/Master of the Orchestra’ doesn’t mean that I have no right to take your seat!”
“Um…. Yeah, it does,” Thomas answered superiorly. 
“Children! Sit! Now!” Ms. Leper ordered, a little flustered. “The concert is about to start! All these people are waiting on you!”
“You heard her,” Thomas said, “so if you could just…” he made a shooing gesture with his hand.
Amanda looked at him angrily and then said, “Make me.” And she sat down.
“Take a seat everyone!” Ms. Leper yelled, beating her little baton on her podium.
“But Ms. Leper!” Thomas complained, “But she—”
He was cut off as the lights dimmed, signal for Mrs. Leper to start, and he had no choice but to sit at the back. When he sat, there was a ripple or murmurs and mutterings among the audience that quickly settled down as the cellos began “Feliz Navidad.”
By the middle of the piece, Hannah was commenting on how so far, Amanda hadn’t been any different from Thomas in her playing and quality, except that less in-harmony with her violin and less professional. “I know,” I told her, “she’s great, isn’t she? See that’s what you can achieve when you put your heart into something.”
“Well, it’s not like she had a choice,” Al pointed out with a smile.
We heard clapping, and then the orchestra got started with ‘Habanera’, which had that opera-y feeling to it.
“She is seriously not bad,” Al whispered as he peeked behind the curtain, “not as good as that Zarro kid, but she can pull this thingy off.” 
“Let’s hope she does,” I sighed.
But right into the song, we heard a voice behind us.
“Who are you? What are you doing backstage? This area is for performers and personnel only!” It was a very tall, muscular, and cold-eyed man, dressed in black pants and shoes and a tight black shirt that read “SECURITY” in yellow letters, and a walkie-talkie hanging from his belt.
“Wait!” I pleaded, “You don’t understand! We need to be here, i-it’s for our friend!”
“Ha! That’s what all the little neighborhood prank kids say…. Ever since last year, they’ve had to call up security to this place because some kid thinks that it’s fun to ruin a ‘nerd concert!’”
“Wait, no! Y-you don’t get it! We swear we’re not here to prank and ruin the recital!”
“Yes, yes, yes, sure…”  He held his talkie up to his mouth: “Charlie, we’ve got trouble children down here… yeah, like last time… get some security down here backstage.”
And before we could even turn around and start running, three more of the gorilla-like brawny men dressed exactly like the first one stood behind him.
“RUN!” Al screamed, but there was no need for him to say that, because almost immediately at their sight we ran from the security guards, ran like there was no tomorrow.
“Where do we run?” Hannah asked, “It’s a music building, not a football field!”
“Oh, crap,” Al whimpered, looking over his shoulder, “there’s four of them and three of us, and they’re catching up… and did you see how big they are?”
“Here! Turn at this hallway,” I ordered, leading them into a corridor to the right and then we crammed into a supply closet. We stood silently, listening.
“I think they ran into that classroom…”
“No, I think they went down there!”
“Check the stairs!”
“Look inside all the classrooms to the left!”
Their footsteps faded, and we quickly got out. “I think it’s better if we split up,” I suggested. “Al, go backstage and make sure all goes well with Amanda. Hannah and I will try to hold these suckers up.”
Al nodded and quickly returned to his behind-the-scene post.
“Oh, my God, this is insane! I mean, we’re just kids trying to help a friend, not murderers on the run!” Hannah and I ran the other way, but the moment we turned a corner we came face to face with one of the security guards, walkie-talkie up to his mouth: “Found them.” 
We stood frozen for a second, and then we turned around to escape, only to find another guard.
One of the two grabbed me by the shoulders and pinned me to the wall. “Hannah, do something!” I squealed. Hannah caught the other guard’s punch, twisted his arm, he was forced to bend and Hannah went with her knee straight into his nose, which began gushing blood. The man fell to the ground angrily, yelling, “What did you do? Crazy kid!” and when he tried to get up, Hannah struck him with his own walkie-talkie across the head, leaving him unconscious. She swiftly turned around to kick the guard holding me in the shin, which made him let go and gave us a chance to run. The man took the talkie: “Guys, we’ve got a man down! They’re headed for the Brass Instrument Hallway!”
We passed the Woodwind Rehearsal Room, the three guards chasing after us, and quickly made it into a supply closet. “They’re in here!” They tore the door open and dragged us out as we screamed. Hannah was a quick thinker for both of us, so she back-kicked a guard in the chest and sent him tumbling to a wall. She went into the tiny supply closet, grabbed a bucket and stuck it over his head.  No matter how hard the guard tried, he couldn’t get the bucket off as she beat it like a drum, leaving him almost unconscious.
I pried myself loose from the second guard’s hands, and I grabbed the first thing I saw. “I’ve got a mop, and I’m not afraid to use it!”
“Oh, I’m so scared! What are you going to do with that little mop?”
Good question. But I managed to think of something. “This!”
I swiftly dunked the mop into the dirty Clorox water and swept it under his feet, tripping and slipping him and making him fall on his butt.
“Aaaarggghhh! I’ll get you for this!”
“Oh, you won’t get me for that; you’ll get me for this!” I took the bucket with the dark brown Clorox water and did the only thing left to do: dump it all on him. “Three down, one more to go, Hannah!”
No answer. “Hannah?”
“MEG!” Hannah had been head locked and snared by the last security guard’s arms, and she couldn’t escape as she kicked and screamed. “Meg, help! I can’t—get—out!” 
“Let her go, you stupid… hunk of… something bad!”
“Not a chance, kid,” the guard said, “I’m not letting you ruin the show this year!”
“We don’t want to ruin it, you moron! We just want to be with our friend!”
“That’s what they all say…. You’ll be in more trouble with your parents when they find out you attacked and assaulted three adults.”
“After they attacked and assaulted us first!”
“MEG!” Hannah yelled, as the guard started to take her. I didn’t know what to do. I looked into the supply closet, but all I saw were a bunch of toilet paper rolls and soap refills in bags for the restrooms.
“MEG!”
I took a soap refill, tore it open, and squirted it into the security guard’s eyes.
“Oh, GOD, that BURNS!” He let go of Hannah and began looking for water. “Aaaarrghhh!”
The other guard (the one I’d dumped the mop water on) began to get up, his wet self angry.
“Meg, run!” We dashed off as the guards went behind us, bumping and slipping. “Meg, get into the supply room by the Brass Instrument Hallway!”
This supply closet was different. Instead of janitorial objects, it was full of instruments: trumpets, French horns, saxophones, trombones, and tubas.
“I think they went in there,” we could hear them say.
“Well, it’s your guess, I can’t see a thing with all this burning soap, and that girl threw a toilet paper roll at me.”
They kicked the door open, but Hannah and I were ready. The ambush went as planned: they came in, and without expecting it, they were beaten unconscious with tubas and trumpets.
We rounded all the guards up, cleaned up as much of the suspicious mess as we could, took their walkie-talkies, and locked them in that brass instrument closet.
We ran full speed ahead to the backstage area of the auditorium. Al was there waiting for us. “Girls! You’re fine! I gotta admit, I was getting pretty worried. Symphony No. 9 is almost over. Ms. Leprosy or whatever is getting kinda worried about Amanda being a first violin. You guys sure do look like you’ve been through an awful lot,” he said, picking strands of dried-up blood and soap off of Hannah’s hair. “What have y’all been doing? Washing vicious tigers?”
“Close,” Hannah sighed, relieved. “Don’t ask.”
“Let’s just say we gave those guys a lot to ‘slip’ about,” I said with a smile, and Hannah smiled back.









Finally, the symphony was over, and the clapping of the audience faded to give way to the Canon. Ms. Leper looked over all the players, praying that the grant officers and the agents would like the last performance. The violins got all straightened up, the cellos looked dismayed at having to play another repetitive tune yet, and the violas looked happy at their improvised pizzicato for the music.
This was THE Moment. For this ending piece and all of the recital, we had prepared, risked, practiced, beaten up people with instruments, lied, sacrificed, and most of all, changed.
The cellos and violas started out, the violas playing their pizzicato over the cellos’ deep sound. Since Ms. Leper had made the decision of dividing the violins into three instead of two, Amanda was supposed to be playing third violin part along with the rest of the kids that were divided into that group. But now she had to play first part because she was leader of the first violins.
“Oh,” Hannah whispered, “this can’t be good…. She practiced the part of third violin, not first… And I’m seriously not sure she’s that good of a sight reader to pull this off…”
The second violins came in, then the third, and I felt like nothing could go wrong then. Amanda seemed to be sight reading better than she looked that she could. But I wasn’t paying attention to her. I was looking at Thomas. Shortly after his violin part came in, he had stopped playing. All of a sudden, he bitterly stood up from his chair and stomped backstage. Since he was sitting at the back, nobody noticed he was gone in a grumpy stalk, and the orchestra kept playing as if nothing had happened.
“Ugh, she can’t do this to me!” Thomas screamed once he was offstage in the same room as us. He threw his violin and bow against the wall and ran away angrily.
“Well, somebody’s a sore loser,” Al said smiling.  We all brushed it off and ignored him, and went back to the orchestra.
The music was getting slightly stronger and intense.
“Oh, no,” Hannah said, “here come the sixteenth notes…”
And even if you hadn’t heard the piece before, you could feel the climax of the song coming in. The hardest part to play, especially for Amanda who hadn’t practiced them, was the sixteenth notes. If Amanda messed up, the rest went down with her since the firsts were keeping their tune with her.
I closed my eyes. Hannah closed her eyes. We held hands and Al was just staring hard at her. We felt it come.
We listened for silence, awkward squeaks or giggles, or an out-of-tune sound.

But it never came. 

All that we heard was the beautiful melodic rhythm and the fast melody being played. Hannah opened her eyes at the same time as I did, and we hugged. There she was, Amanda, playing the violin like she had been playing it for over a year, when she had been playing it for only four months or so. Her playing was very novice-like, but her sound was just as good as Thomas’. And best of all, her whole orchestra was beautiful. They were sure to get that grant because the people in the audience looked amazed that The New Person pulled it off, especially Mrs. McMichael. She looked prouder of Amanda than she had ever been before.
The music went smoothly for the rest of the piece. It wound down lengthily but expertly, and Ms. Leper was sweaty and relieved, and she looked as though she had sped through hell, run from cops, bungee jumped, and rushed over to direct an orchestra. The audience stood up to clap not for this piece only but for others too.
The lights slowly came back on and people began exiting the auditorium after Ms. Leper had thanked them all for attending the concert, and all the string players began filing into the backstage area, exhausted and relieved it was over.
All four of us hugged and squealed once Amanda joined us.
“You were great kid,” Al said to her.
“Oh, my God,” Hannah said, wrapping herself around Amanda, “You were amazing. I am so proud of you, we actually did it!”
“You have to admit,” I added, “That was pretty impressive.”
The first people to go into the backstage area after the players were the tuition-scholarship agents and the grant officers, who were dressed up and observant.
“Um, isn’t that her mom?” Al asked, pointing to Mrs. McMichael, who was making her way through the rest of the player’s parents.
“Oh, it is! Hannah, Al, let’s go,” I said quickly, and we ran off to another corridor, as Mrs. McMichael caught up with Amanda.












“Wow.”
“’Wow’ is right.”
We were sitting in Amanda’s living room the next afternoon. Mrs. McMichael had invited us over for some popcorn and a movie that Saturday, because she wanted to tell my mom and Hannah’s all about the concert the previous night. The three moms were outside in the garden sipping tea and watering plants, and the three of us stayed inside to “watch a movie” (talk about stuff).
“Wow,” I said again. “Ten thousand dollars is a lot. I mean, it’s all too good to be true. We pulled off this nutty switching stunt, we beat up a bunch of security guards, you managed to be concertmaster for twenty minutes, you got a ten-grand check from a music education agent for your performance, and your mother doesn’t suspect a thing out of our mischief.”
“So,” Hannah said, “what are you going to do with all that money?”
“Well…. I don’t know,” answered Amanda, “I mean, ten grand is a lot of money. Mom said I could do whatever I wanted with it, because it is my money. But I don’t know what I should do…” She suddenly blanked off and then thought of something. And then The Smile came. But this time, it didn’t seem as dangerous to us. It now symbolized adventure for the three of us. “I know what I’ll do with it! I’ll donate $4000 to charity, I’ll keep $1000.  Don’t worry, we’ll share, because I owe it to you guys that I achieved this.”
“What will you do with the remaining $5000?”
“Well… I know just the person to give it to.”
She dialed his number, and a couple of days later, Al attended the Wayside Falls Pachelbel Conservatory, at a special adults’ string class. He owned his own violin and would earn scholarships of his own in the future, just as in a matter of years he was going to play the violin at the Wayside Falls Chamber Orchestra.
“It’s the least we could do after all he did for us,” Amanda says.









“One last question,” Hannah said. “What should we spend our one thousand dollars on?”
“Well… I might just have a couple of suggestions, but we’re going to need Al to take us to Wal-Mart to buy more socks and then to the zoo to pick up a couple of things,” Amanda replied.
“I’m on it,” Hannah said, picking up the phone and dialing.
And there it was, The Smile. Again.
And I couldn’t help but grin too. “Bring it on…”