13 - Piano Lessons Can Be Murder (6 page)

“It’s creepy-looking,” I said.

Squinting through the windshield, she pulled the car into a narrow gravel
driveway, nearly hidden by the tall, snow-covered hedges.

“Are you sure this is it?” I asked. I cleared a spot on the window with my
hand and peered through it. The old building looked more like a prison than a
school. It had rows of tiny windows above the ground floor, and the windows were
all barred. Thick ivy covered the front of the building, making it appear even
darker than it was.

“I’m pretty sure,” Mom said, biting her lip. She lowered the window and stuck
her head out, gazing up at the enormous, old house.

The sound of piano music floated into the car. Notes and scales and melodies
all mixed together.

“Yeah. We’ve found it!” Mom declared happily.

“Go on, Jerry. Hurry. You’re late. I’m going to go pick up something for
dinner. I’ll be back in an hour.”

I pushed open the car door and stepped out onto the snowy driveway. My boots
crunched loudly as I started to jog toward the building.

The piano music grew louder. Scales and songs jumbled together into a
deafening rumble of noise.

A narrow walk led up to the front stoop. The walk hadn’t been shoveled, and a
layer of ice had formed under the snow. I slipped and nearly fell as I
approached the entrance.

I stopped and gazed up. It looks more like a haunted house than a music
school, I thought with a shiver.

Why did I have such a heavy feeling of dread?

Just nervous, I told myself.

Shrugging away my feeling, I turned the cold brass doorknob and pushed open
the heavy door. It creaked open slowly. Taking a deep breath, I stepped into the
school.

A long, narrow hall stretched before me. The hall was surprisingly dark.
Coming in from the bright, white snow, it took my eyes a long time to adjust.

The walls were a dark tile. My boots thudded noisily on the hard floor. Piano
notes echoed through the hall. The music seemed to burst out from all
directions.

Where is Dr. Shreek’s office? I wondered.

I made my way down the hall. The lights grew dimmer. I turned into another
long hallway, and the piano music grew louder.

There were dark brown doors on both sides of this corridor. The doors had
small, round windows in them. As I continued walking, I glanced into the
windows.

I could see smiling instructors in each room, their heads bobbing in rhythm
to piano music.

Searching for the office, I passed door after door. Each room had a student
and an instructor.

The piano sounds became a roar, like an ocean of music crashing against the
dark tile walls.

Dr. Shreek really has a lot of students, I thought. There must be a hundred
pianos playing at once!

I turned another corner and then another.

I suddenly realized I had completely lost my sense of direction. I had no
idea where I was. I couldn’t find my way back to the front door if I wanted to!

“Dr. Shreek, where are you?” I muttered to myself. My voice was drowned out
by the booming piano music that echoed off the walls and low ceiling.

I began to feel a little frightened.

What if these dark halls twisted on forever? I imagined myself walking and
walking for the rest of my life, unable to find my way out, deafened by the
pounding piano music.

“Jerry, stop scaring yourself,” I said aloud.

Something caught my eye. I stopped walking and stared up at the ceiling. A
small, black camera was perched above my head.

It appeared to be a video camera, like the security cameras you see in banks
and stores.

Was someone watching me on a TV screen somewhere?

If they were, why didn’t they come help me find the way to Dr. Shreek?

I began to get angry. What kind of school
was
this? No signs. No
office. No one to greet people.

As I turned another corner, I heard a strange thumping sound. At first I
thought it was just another piano in one of the practice rooms.

The thumping grew louder, closer. I stopped in the middle of the hall and
listened. A high-pitched whine rose up over the thumping sounds.

Louder. Louder.

The floor seemed to shake.

And as I stared down the dark hall, an enormous monster turned the corner.
Its huge, square body glowed in the dim light as if it were made of metal. Its
rectangular head bobbed near the ceiling.

Its feet crashed against the hard floor as it moved to attack me. Eyes on the
sides of its head flashed an angry red.

“No!” I cried, swallowing hard.

It uttered its high-pitched whine in reply. Then it lowered its gleaming head
as if preparing for battle.

I spun away, determined to escape.

To my shock, as I turned, I saw Dr. Shreek.

He stood just a few yards down the hall. Dr. Shreek was watching the enormous
creature move in on me, a pleased grin on his face.

I stopped short with a loud gasp.

Behind me, the creature was stomping closer, blasting out its angry whine.

Ahead of me, Dr. Shreek, his blue eyes glowing with pleasure, blocked
my
escape.

I cried out, preparing to be caught from behind by the silvery monster.

But it stopped.

Silence.

No crashing of its heavy metallic feet. No shrill whine.

“Hello, Jerry,” Dr. Shreek said calmly, still grinning. “What are you doing
all the way back here?”

Breathing hard, I pointed to the monster, which stood silently, staring down
at me. “I—I—”

“You are admiring our floor sweeper?” Dr. Shreek asked.

“Your
what
?” I managed to choke out.

“Our floor sweeper. It
is
rather special,” Dr. Shreek said. He stepped
past me and put a hand on the front of the thing.

“It—it’s a machine?” I stammered.

He laughed. “You didn’t think it was alive, did you?”

I just gaped at it. I was still too freaked out to speak.

“Mr. Toggle, our janitor, built this for us,” Dr. Shreek said, rubbing his
hand along the square metal front of it. “It works like a dream. Mr. Toggle can
build anything. He’s a genius, a true genius.”

“Wh-why does it have a face?” I asked, hanging back against the wall. “Why
does it have eyes that light up?”

“Just Mr. Toggle’s sense of humor,” Dr. Shreek replied, chuckling. “He put in
those cameras, too.” He pointed to the video camera perched on the ceiling. “Mr.
Toggle is a mechanical genius. We couldn’t do a thing without him. We really
couldn’t.”

I took a few reluctant steps forward and admired the floor sweeper from
closer up. “I—I couldn’t find your office,” I told Dr. Shreek. “I was
wandering and wandering—”

“I apologize,” he replied quickly. “Let us begin your lesson. Come.”

I followed him as he led the way back in the direction I had come. He walked stiffly but rapidly. His white shirt was
untucked in front of his big stomach. He swung his hands stiffly as he walked.

I felt really stupid. Imagine letting myself be terrified by a floor sweeper!

He pushed open one of the brown doors with a round window, and I followed him
into the room. I glanced quickly around. It was a small, square room lighted by
two rows of fluorescents on the ceiling. There was no window.

The only furniture was a small, brown upright piano, a narrow piano bench,
and a music stand.

Dr. Shreek motioned for me to sit down on the piano bench, and we began our
lesson. He stood behind me, placing my fingers carefully on the keys, even
though I now knew how to do it myself.

We practiced different notes. I hit C’s and D’s. Then we tried E’s and F’s.
He showed me my first chord. Then he had me do scales over and over.

“Excellent!” he declared near the end of the hour. “Excellent work, Jerry.
I’m most pleased.” His Santa Claus cheeks were bright pink beneath his white
mustache.

I squeezed my hands together, trying to get rid of a cramp. “Are you going to
be my teacher?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yes, I will instruct you in the basics,” he replied. “Then when
your hands are ready, you will be given over to one of our fine teachers.”

“When my hands are ready?”

What exactly did he mean by that?

“Let us try this short piece,” he said, reaching over me to turn the page in
the music book. “Now, this piece has only three notes. But you must pay
attention to the quarter notes and the half notes. Do you remember how long to
continue a half note?”

I demonstrated on the piano. Then I tried to play the short melody. I did
pretty well. Only a few clunkers.

“Wonderful! Wonderful!” Dr. Shreek declared, staring at my hands as I played.
He glanced at his watch. “I’m afraid our time is up. See you next Friday, Jerry.
Be sure to practice what I showed you.”

I thanked him and climbed to my feet. I was glad the lesson was over. Having
to concentrate so hard was really tiring. Both my hands were sweating, and I
still had a cramp in one.

I headed to the door, then stopped. “Which way do I go?” I asked. “How do I
get to the front?”

Dr. Shreek was busy collecting the work sheets we had used, tucking them into the music book. “Just keep going left,” he
said without looking up. “You can’t miss it.”

I said good-bye and stepped out into the dark hallway. My ears were
immediately attacked by the roar of piano notes.

Aren’t the other lessons over? I wondered.

How come they keep playing even though the hour is up?

I glanced in both directions, making sure there were no floor sweepers
waiting to attack. Then I turned left, as Dr. Shreek had instructed, and began
to follow the hallway toward the front.

As I passed door after door, I could see the smiling instructors inside each
room, their heads moving in rhythm with the piano playing.

Most of the students in these rooms were more advanced than me, I realized.
They weren’t practicing notes and scales. They were playing long, complicated
pieces.

I turned left, then when the corridor came to an end, turned left one more
time.

It took me a while to realize that I was lost again.

Had I missed a left turn somewhere?

The dark halls with their rows of brown doors on both sides all looked alike.

I turned left again. My heart began to pound.

Why wasn’t anyone else in the hall?

Then up ahead I saw double doors. The front exit must be through those doors,
I decided.

I made my way eagerly to the double doors and started to push through them—when powerful hands grabbed me from behind, and a gruff voice rasped in my ear,
“No, you don’t!”

“Huh?” I uttered a startled cry.

The hands pulled me back, then let go of my shoulders.

The double doors swung back into place.

I spun around to see a tall, wiry man with long, scraggly black hair and a
stubbly black beard. He wore a yellow T-shirt under denim overalls.

“Not that way,” he said softly. “You’re looking for the front? It’s up
there.” He pointed to the hall to the left.

“Oh. Sorry,” I said, breathing hard. “You… scared me.”

The man apologized. “I’ll take you to the front,” he offered, scratching his
stubbly cheek. “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Mr. Toggle.”

“Oh. Hi,” I said. “I’m Jerry Hawkins. Dr. Shreek told me about you. I—I saw
your floor sweeper.”

He smiled. His black eyes lit up like dark coals. “It’s a beauty, isn’t it? I
have a few other creations like it, some even better.”

“Dr. Shreek says you’re a mechanical genius,” I gushed.

Mr. Toggle chuckled to himself. “Yes. I programmed him to say that!” he
joked. We both laughed.

“Next time you come to the school, I’ll show you some of my other
inventions,” Mr. Toggle offered, adjusting his overall straps over his slender
shoulders.

“Thanks,” I replied. The front door was right up ahead. I was never so glad
to see a door! “I’m sure I’ll catch on to the layout of this place,” I said.

He didn’t seem to hear me. “Dr. Shreek tells me you have excellent hands,” he
said, a strange smile forming under his stubbly black beard. “That’s what we
look for here, Jerry. That’s what we look for.”

Feeling kind of awkward, I thanked him. I mean, what are you supposed to say
when someone tells you what excellent hands you’ve got?

I pushed open the heavy front door and saw Mom waiting in the car. “Good
night!” I called, and eagerly ran out of the school, into the snowy evening.

* * *

After dinner, Mom and Dad insisted that I show them what I had learned in my
piano lesson. I really didn’t want to. I had only learned that one simple song,
and I still hadn’t played it all the way through without goofing it up.

But they forced me into the family room and pushed me onto the piano bench.
“If I’m going to pay for the lessons, I want to hear what you’re learning,” Dad
said. He sat down close to Mom on the couch, facing the back of the piano.

“We only tried one song,” I said. “Couldn’t we wait till I learn more?”

“Play it,” Dad ordered.

I sighed. “I have a cramp in my hand.”

“Come on, Jerry. Don’t make excuses,” Mom snapped impatiently. “Just play the
song, okay? Then we won’t bug you anymore tonight.”

“What did the school look like?” Dad asked Mom. “It’s way on the other side
of town, isn’t it?”

“It’s practically out of town,” Mom told him. “It’s in this very old house.
Kind of run-down looking, actually. But Jerry told me it’s nice inside.”

“No, I didn’t,” I interrupted. “I said it was big. I didn’t say it was nice.
I got lost in the halls twice!”

Dad laughed. “I see you have your mother’s sense of direction!”

Mom gave Dad a playful shove. “Just play the piece,” she said to me.