Mika and Max Page 2

  She stood behind the curtain, squeezing her hands together and catching her breath. The audience was silent, as though they thought maybe this was all a part of the performance, and they were waiting to see what would happen next. Mika sat down on a chair in the corridor and closed her eyes. She pretended to be sleeping, so she couldn’t hear the announcer making a joke and smoothing things over, or feel the stares of the girls in the tap dance troupe, lining up for their turn on stage.

  All the way home her mum and dad kept trying to make her tell them what had happened, but Mika couldn’t explain. Even thinking about the way her hands had looked so far away made her start feeling dizzy again, and so she asked for pizza instead. They’d stopped off at Joe’s on Pittwater Road, and she’d eaten five whole slices of margherita.

  Then, at her next piano lesson Matt told her mum he didn’t want to teach Mika anymore. He didn’t put it like that, of course. He said he had a lot of students and needed to cut down, and that he thought Mika should do something with less pressure.

  “Less pressure?” her mother said. “It was an amateur performance by thirteen-year-olds. How much less pressure could there be?”

  Matt knew better than to talk back to her mother when she was in this mood. Mika wished he had told her on her own while they were still having the lesson, before her mother arrived.

  “I’ll miss our conversations,” Matt had said to her when she was leaving.

  “Then why are you sacking me?” Mika asked.

  He’d flinched, and his eyes had widened. “I’m not sacking you.”

  “I can work harder,” Mika said.

  “It’s not that.”

  “Then what is it?” She was desperate to know.

  “It’s not worth it, the struggle you put into it, Mika. It’s just music.”

  Mika had thought about his words a lot since then. Just music. She’d never thought it wasn’t. It was how easy it was to make a mistake, which was the problem, and how terrible she felt when she did. But trying to explain that to Matt, or anyone, seemed impossible. Like explaining to her dad why, after he’d said he liked her hair the way it was, Mika knew she couldn’t risk getting it cut.

  She kept thinking about the way she’d felt up there on stage, though, every day now, and the way her fingers had started moving without her.

  “Slow down,” Matt was always telling her when she performed, but Mika hadn’t been intending to go fast. “Breathe, Mika! Breathe!” he’d say too, and Mika was pretty sure she’d forgotten to keep breathing. “Remember, Mozart wrote this music over two hundred years ago, and young girls like you have been playing it ever since,” he’d said that night of the school concert, just before she’d gone out on stage. Mika wasn’t sure how this was supposed to make her feel better, and when he said it to her again during her lesson she snapped. “And he began composing when he was five!”

  “Would you like to compose music, Mika?” he’d asked, turning around on his piano stool to look at her, and she’d felt shy, suddenly, and stupid.

  “No.” She knew she wouldn’t nearly be good enough, but she hoped one day he might ask her again. That was just before he’d told her that this was going to be their last lesson.

  Mika rolled over and looked out into the garden. Everyone else was in the kitchen. She could hear them through the walls. This house was old, and had been built by hand, Sam said, so there were personal touches everywhere, like the curly wooden scrolls over the doorways, and fancy decorations on all the doors. The bedroom she was in was small, but French doors led out onto the big front verandah, and another door led into the little study where Mika would be sleeping tonight. Next door was the living room, which led into the kitchen and a room with a baby grand piano in it, and more windows looking out onto the garden.

  She wondered what Matt was doing now. Surfing, probably. Or performing with his blues trio. Mika sat up. What if he was here now, at this music festival? It was for hippies, her father had said, and Matt was sort of a hippie. He wore floaty shirts and a knitted beanie and a patchwork scarf knotted around his throat, or tied to the strap of his bag.

  This was a hippie town. A hippie town and a farming town, her dad had said. His mum had grown up here, and her family had been farmers. But when they drove through town on the way here, all Mika could see were the hippies. They were everywhere! Dancing and playing music on the street and wearing crocheted pants and berets. She and her mum and dad and Franny and Arlo had all laughed at them. What if Matt was here, though? And what if she could prove to him, somehow, that she knew it was just music, and convince him that she should be his pupil again and learn how to compose music herself, the way he did? What if she begged him?

  Mika lay back down again. That would be intense, and just the kind of thing Matt didn’t want. Besides, he was too good for this festival. Matt played in real venues, with a real band, where people paid money to listen.

  But how could he not have told her that he didn’t want to teach her anymore before her mother came? How could he have sat there for that whole hour, helping her go over her scales and her pieces for the end-of-year exam, and talking about walking across Spain with a donkey, and not tell her that this would be their last ever lesson? Mika thought he’d looked forward to seeing her. She’d even once stupidly imagined that he counted down the days until Thursday afternoons, too.

  “I haven’t done as much practice as I thought I would,” Mika would always say when she arrived at his little brick studio above the dental surgery and the beauty salon.

  “It’s not what you haven’t done, it’s what you have,” Matt would reply, and that always made her feel better. Not just about piano, but about everything.

  “It’s just music, Mika,” Matt had said again when he said goodbye. But if it was just music, why was her family spending this whole weekend at a music festival? It was one of those things adults say that’s patronising and obvious at the same time. And also wrong. Nothing is just anything. Everything is a test if you make it one. And somehow, lately Mika had got caught in the trap of making everything one. It wasn’t that she wanted to come first – even if she could, which she couldn’t. She just didn’t want to come last.

  “Mika? Did you hear me?” Her dad’s face loomed over her. “Lunch.”

  “I’m not hungry.” She rolled over and looked up at him.

  “You must be. You didn’t have anything for breakfast.”

  “I’m really not.”

  “Please come. It would seem unfriendly for you not to be there. It’s our first meal together.”

  Mika got up off the bed, tugging down her dress, which had ridden up her thighs.

  “When are you going to wear one of those lovely new outfits your mum bought you?” her dad asked.

  Never, thought Mika, as she followed him out to the kitchen.

  The kitchen was two rooms, really, because a wall had been taken down in the middle. In one room were the rug and the piano, and in the other room was the actual kitchen. They were all sitting around the table under a window that looked out onto palm trees. Next to them was a wooden dresser with colourful plates and mugs on display, and matching blue ladles in different sizes hung above the stove. Max was wedged between his parents, and Arlo and Franny were snickering about something together on the other side of the table.

  “Who plays the piano?” Mika asked quickly, before she could talk herself out of it. Otherwise she’d be wondering about it all weekend.

  “I do,” said Colette. “When I have the time, which isn’t often these days. Do you play, Mika?”

  Mika could sense the tension as her whole family fell silent.

  “Not really, no,” she said. “Not anymore.”

  She was afraid someone might say something about the school concert, or ask her to play, but her father just said, “Let’s eat.”

  It was obvious that two very different people had prepared lunch. Her mother had peeled carrots and made peanut butter sandwiches. Colette had carved a roast ch
icken and made a salad with croutons. Mika wanted the chicken, but she felt as though she should pick her mother’s food, even though the carrots looked kind of weird and raw sitting alone on the plate like that.

  “Oh goody! Chicken!” yelled Arlo.

  That settled it. Mika grabbed a sandwich and took a big bite.

  “So are you looking forward to the festival?” asked Colette, smiling at Mika.

  “Not really,” said Mika, choking a little on her sandwich. It was very dry.

  “Don’t you like music, Mika?”

  “Only when it’s good. Watching a bunch of rank amateurs thirsty for attention just indulges them.”

  Colette’s eyes widened and she smiled again, for real this time, as though she was enjoying herself now, rather than just being friendly. “Whaat?”

  Her dad narrowed his eyes at Mika. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

  “Actually, I said that,” said her mum.

  “So I assumed,” said Colette, laughing. “It’s okay,” she said to Mika, who was blushing now. “I know what you mean. But most of the people performing in the festival are professional musicians. People pay to listen to their music.”

  Colette was still wearing her swimming costume, which showed how dimply her thighs were. She didn’t seem to mind, although Mika would. If she had big breasts or thighs like Colette she would cover them up, thought Mika. She couldn’t imagine having a mother who just sat around in her swimming costume like that. It would be embarrassing.

  “I hope you all have room for dessert,” said Colette as she cleared away their plates and put down a platter heaped with chocolate brownies. “I’ve been perfecting this recipe for a while, and Max loves them, don’t you, Max? See if any of you can guess the secret ingredient.”

  They each took a bite of brownie. It tasted good, thought Mika, but she couldn’t guess the ingredient. Nobody could.

  “It’s coffee!” said Colette. “Just half a cup, but it really makes the chocolate taste great.”

  Mika waited for her mum to tell Colette that they didn’t drink coffee, or eat sugar, for that matter, either, but she didn’t say anything, so Mika kept going, taking bite after bite. It was hard outside and gooey inside, and the chocolate bits were like little surprises of happiness on her tongue.

  As she ate, she watched Max out of the corner of her eye. He was forking up bits of his brownie, which Colette had cut into bite-sized pieces on his plate. Colette kept whispering in his ear and watching him, nudging his hand and urging him to use his napkin. “You’re just making him nervous,” Mika wanted to tell Colette, but she didn’t see how she could.

  Mika glanced at Max, trying to catch his eye, but he kept his gaze trained firmly on his brownie. He was shy, Mika realised. She glanced over at Arlo and Franny. They were watching him, she could tell. They’d be mean about it later. They’d make fun of Mika for her comment about amateurs, but they’d be worse about Max. Mika wished she knew how to stop them, but she couldn’t even stop them teasing her. She caught Arlo’s eye and he shrugged. Ever since she’d started high school, he didn’t seem to like her anymore, thought Mika, and neither did Franny. Well, too bad, she told herself. She didn’t really like them.

  “Mika?” Her mother’s voice just above her head startled her. “We’re going to a puppetry workshop after lunch. Would you like that?”

  “Is Max going to come?”

  Her father gazed at her quizzically.

  “No,” said Colette. “Sam’s going to take him to see some music, and then they’re going to ride on the Magic Bus. It’s the special festival bus, and Max just loves it. After that they’ll meet up with us for the puppet show and then dinner.”

  “What are you going to do?” asked Mika.

  “I’m going to have a rest,” said Colette. “Max and I were up early this morning, weren’t we, Max? We’ve been really looking forward to your visit.”

  Mika was starting to believe that all of Colette’s smiles were real. She had a full mouth, like Max’s, and clear skin. She seemed confident and kind of funny, as though she was smiling at a joke even when you hadn’t made one, in a smart kind of a way. And she seemed to be picking up on everything that was going on, too. Mika didn’t think Arlo or Franny would ever dare make fun of her.

  Max was looking at his dad, staring at him in the same way he had stared at Mika this morning when he wanted her to come to the swing.

  “You may be excused,” said Sam.

  Max stood up quickly, almost tripping on his seat. He took his plate and glass to the sink and then headed for the back door. He looked back at them all, as though saying goodbye, and then disappeared down the stairs.

  “What’s Max going to do now?” asked Mika.

  “He’ll play under the house until we’re ready to go,” said Sam.

  So he would be down there alone while they were all up here together, thought Mika. It sounded kind of lonely. It sounded kind of nice.

  “Max doesn’t read or watch TV,” Colette was saying. “He doesn’t really play with toys. He finds things around the house and plays with them instead.”

  “Can you imagine not reading or playing games?” said Mika’s dad, trying to include Arlo and Franny in the conversation. They shook their heads solemnly, terrified, thought Mika, at the prospect.

  “You can play a game without talking,” said Mika, thinking of the two of them at the swing.

  “That’s true,” said Colette. She was smiling differently now, as if this smile was just for Mika. As if she was thanking her for something. “That’s very true.”

  Suddenly there was a thumping sound from the living room. It sounded like something falling – like lots of things falling, in fact.

  “What the . . .’ said Sam, jumping to his feet.

  Mika followed the others to the doorway. Max was standing at the bookshelves, pulling the books off one by one and throwing them to the floor.

  He must have gone out the backdoor, around the side of the house, and come back in through the front.

  “Max! Stop that right now!” said Sam, walking over to him. Max stared back defiantly, his mouth set. He put his hand up, his eyes locked on Sam’s, and pulled down another five books, sending them thumping and tumbling across the floor.

  “That’s naughty!” Franny gasped.

  “Put those away right now,” said Sam, but Max turned and began walking away towards the front door. Sam caught him by the arm. “I mean it, Max. Put them away.” But even though he did as he was asked, Max did the worst job possible of picking up the books. Which was funny, thought Mika, considering how capable he’d been this morning, fetching towels for everyone and stacking up the pool toys in the pool area after their swim. Now he was fumbling and dropping the books, and making even more of a mess than when he’d started. “We’re going to stay here until you’ve put every one of those books away,” said Sam.

  Colette stepped in front of them and closed the door. “This could take a while,” she sighed.

  “What’s up with Max?” asked her mother as she and Colette cleared away. Franny and Arlo had gone with their dad to the bedroom to get ready to go out.

  “He’s just bored,” said Colette, but Mika didn’t think so. Something must have made him feel bad to make him act like that, even though she didn’t know exactly what. Maybe it was the way Arlo and Franny were ignoring him. She knew how that felt.

  After Colette and her mother had finished tidying the kitchen, they all went out onto the front verandah except Mika, who lagged behind to drink a glass of water at the sink. The piano in the other room glowered at her, giving off a kind of heat. She hadn’t touched the piano at home since Matt had sacked her, but this one was drawing her in somehow, and at the same time repelling her with its energy. What would happen if she tried to play it? If no one was around? She’d muck it up, thought Mika. She’d get to the second part of the Bach Prelude and get the chords wrong, or she wouldn’t be able to work out the timing of the Mozart Sonata wi
th the left hand. If no one was here, though, she could at least touch the keys.

  But it was impossible, like this, with everybody in the house, listening.

  The puppetry workshop was held in a shed in town, with a corrugated iron roof and big shady trees out the front. It was all pretty simple – you had to put a puppet together out of parts laid out on tables and in tubs. It took Mika ten minutes.

  “Finished!” she called out.

  The workshop leader picked up the glove puppet Mika had made and put it on his hand. “And who is this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean what is his name?”

  “His name is Monkey,” said Mika. You’d think she was seven the way this guy was talking to her.

  “Hello, Monkey.” He turned the puppet so it looked at him. “Hello,” he said back, in a normal voice. At least he wasn’t going to do a special monkey accent, thought Mika with relief.

  “If Monkey was going to tell me something, what would he say?”

  “That it’s too hot to make puppets and that we should all go and sit under the trees and read.”

  The puppeteer nodded slowly. Arlo and Franny and all the other kids were still absorbed in making their puppets, putting hair on them and testing out noses and eyes.

  “Are you bored, is that it?” he asked. He had come here from Switzerland, he’d told them, and he was going to be doing the puppet show afterwards that they were all going to see.

  “I’m just a little old,” said Mika.

  “I see.” He nodded again. “Listen.” He lowered his voice, stealing a glance at Mika’s mother, who was sitting behind Franny, helping her paint cheeks on her puppet. “This is meant to be fun. If it’s fun for you to sit in the shade and read instead, then that’s what you should do.”

  “The wind came up and the castle turrets stood still and stark against the looming sky,” Mika read. She couldn’t even remember what this book was about. She looked at the cover. This was Arlo’s book. She must have picked it up by accident when they were packing. It was about a magical glade on the far side of a cavern in a mountain, which you entered by finding a secret door. Luckily the main character finds the door, which was hardly a surprise, because it was hardly going to be a story about someone not finding the door in the side of the mountain, now was it? Mika let the book rest on her chest and leaned back to look up at the trees. The sky was bright blue and there were palm trees and bright flowers everywhere. It was like being on a tropical island. They were only an hour’s flight north of Sydney, but this place seemed very different from anywhere she’d ever been.