placed his fingers on the keys, first caressing their smooth surfaces, touching the cream and then the black. “It is beautiful,” he said. “Why do you suppose she lends out such a beautiful piano?”
His mother stood staring deep into the polished grain of the wood. She looked up for a moment, as if she had come back from far away. “I don’t care, just play something.” Her voice carried a hint of anger, or maybe desperation.
Why she couldn’t press a few keys was beyond Lenny He positioned his body straight up, like he’d seen piano players on the telly, spread his hands wide and pressed down.
What happened next was initially disorientating, as Lenny’s fingers took on a life of their own and slid over the keys in a practiced manner. Sounds emanated from inside the wooden body of the piano, such sounds he had never experienced before. Fluid music, timed perfectly, flowed from his fingertips in a tune he couldn’t place. He looked up, not even needing to think about where his fingertips touched, to find his mother crying with a smile.
“Oh, Lenny! She was right, Miss Kellaway knew, she knew what you could do!” Audra clung to the side of the piano, as if her legs were ready to buckle.
When the melody finished, Lenny’s arms fell to his sides. He held his palms up and examined the fingers, curling them with controlled movements. Once again, he owned his hands.
“That was weird mum, like I wasn’t the one playing…” Lenny considered touching the keys again, but instead he gently closed the lid.
With a shake of her head, Audra followed the streaks of dirt out of the room and down the hall. “Oh dear, I suppose I’d better clean up that mess.”
Later, after his dad arrived home, as his parents poured wine into large glasses and relaxed in the last of the day’s sun, Lenny sat by the piano again. He didn’t pay much attention to the irritated way his father complained about the craters in the lawn, or the way his mother placated Tim with more wine and a kiss to his forehead. Compelled to take a seat, Lenny placed his fingers wide on the keys.
For a single second, he could still choose to walk away. Then as his skin came in contact with the silky ivory, his freewill dispersed. The music pulled him into the watery depths of the polished wood and released a heavenly masterpiece to be directed through his fingertips.
“Lenny,” Audra called from far away. “Lenny dear, you need to stop now, it’s late.” Someone clamped a hand on his shoulder and shook.
“What do we do if he won’t stop?” Tim asked.
“I don’t know…”
His mother’s voice trailed off, and Lenny’s shoulder jerked back and forth again. Lenny blinked, his eyes sticky and dry – as if they’d been open far too long. Like before, when he stopped playing, his hands slumped to his sides. They hung down, aching, a dull throb pounding in each fingertip.
Lenny turned quizzically to his parents, seeing worried frowns. His mouth refused to obey his question, and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. “What’s wrong?” he finally asked.
“It’s late is all, son. Time for bed,” Tim said, tapping his watch.
Lenny walked exhausted up to bed, crashing under his duvet still dressed. Downstairs, the anxious mumbles of his parents floated into his room. His last thought, before a rapid dark stole his consciousness, was why they could be upset.
Miss Kellaway arrived the following afternoon, early. Lenny, still dressed in his school clothes, grimaced as the fat woman swam through the hall and into the dining room.
“Lenny, Miss Kellaway is here,” Audra called, and Lenny straightened from his vantage point on the stairs and reluctantly came down. “Show your teacher what you can do,” she said to Lenny, then turning aside, “You were right, he can play the most wonderful songs, things we never heard before. Do you know, he played for five hours straight yesterday evening?”
Miss Kellaway raised her eyebrows into an I-told-you-so expression. “I would like a cup of tea – milk with one sugar.” Lenny glanced over, thinking how his mother normally wouldn’t abide someone being so rude, but then his fingers touched the piano, and the room melted away.
Deep into the composition, Lenny turned his head. Miss Kellaway raised a hand and stuck out one swollen finger, waving it in the air like a conductor in time to the rhythm. “Let the music in,” she said. “Don’t let it stop at your wrists.”
Lenny frowned, not understanding. He concentrated on her request, relaxing as his fingers worked the keys. Then, as if a door in his hand had opened, he felt sounds spring into his veins. They seemed alive, like salmon turned into musical notes and jumping upstream through his blood. He watched terrified as his skin grew constantly shifting images of notes. They prickled, living tattoos in a rainbow of colors. Their patterns increased in number and strength as they coursed up the skin of his arm, and out of sight under his shirt.
Alarmed now, Lenny looked back at his teacher. She had grown a healthy crop of scales while he’d been watching the music attack his skin. Her lips had solidified into a rubbery texture, and her hair had matted into an outcropping of skin. Yet still, her finger swayed in the air. Her arm had thinned and widened, and now resembled a fin. Her legs, once held primly together under her gaudy tent dress, were now one tail, the end flicking in time to the rhythms tumbling from his fingers. Fear filled Lenny, the music filled his mind, and he knew he couldn’t stop.
“Miss, what’s going on?” Lenny managed to say, words strange and foreign in his mouth.
“Relax, gaze into the piano,” Miss Kellaway said in drawn out, lulling words.
“I don’t understand…” He turned his head, suddenly seeing into the polished grain of the piano. Before his eyes, the wood turned to water that seemed far away. It waited for him, writhing with hundreds of strange shapes that swam restlessly just under the surface. Unable to stop himself, Lenny felt his way in, through the casing, and started to fall towards the water. He turned his descent into a dive, and entered with a satisfying splash. The shadow-shapes fled as he rolled down below the surface in a cloud of bubbles. And all around, beautiful music flowed, filling him, moving the water into well-timed waves as Lenny sank deeper under the turquoise surface.
At first, Lenny smiled as he descended, watching green plants welcome him with their slimy leaves. They seemed to wave at him in time to the music. Lenny waved back, marveling how everything kept to the beat. He’d forgotten about the shapes that had agitated the surface before he’d fallen in, and now, from all sides, above and below, dark shadows swam closer. The style of the music deepened with their arrival.
Lenny blinked, not to clear his vision, as the water was perfectly translucent, but because an amazing sight surrounded him. Boys and girls, some large, some small, all colors and appearances, crowded around him. They were all in various levels of transparency, and all bore urgent expressions.
“Hello,” Lenny gurgled, bubbles of air escaping.
The children all began to chatter at once, in irritating high-pitched chittering sounds. They indicated that he swim up. He couldn’t understand their desperation. He hadn’t drowned. Water filled his lungs as he drew each breath, with surprising familiarity and ease. Why did they want him to go up? Lenny wanted to explore this new underwater world. Without warning, several large boys heaved their shoulders under him, and forced him to the surface.
Breaking into the air was odd. Water spluttered from his lungs, and Lenny felt like he should be underwater, not breathing air. Up here, the piano was deafening, but as he couldn’t stay above the surface and hold hands over his ears, he squinted against the clamor and looked around.
When he fell earlier, he thought he’d landed in a river or stream. Now he searched to the horizon, and there was only water. The shadow children swam close, and pointed up. Slowly, he raised his head. He peered into the sky until he found what they were trying to show him. Lenny almost sank in surprise.
Up where the clouds should be, he saw himself, still playing piano; Miss Kellaway perched next to him. She had nearly completed her fishy
transformation, looking more like a giant codfish in a dress than a human. From on high, she peered down, winking one glassy eye.
“What’s going on?” Lenny shouted up to Miss Kellaway.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she said, her voice boomed back in her irritating over-posh accent. “But I thought I might help myself to a little of your youth. Unfortunately, that means you need to live the rest of your life down there. With the fishes.” She began to laugh in gulping breaths, holding one fin-arm to her chest as the other smacked what was once her knee.
“You can’t do that!” Lenny shouted, his other self continued to fill the air with the piano’s multileveled tones. He lashed out at Miss Kellaway, punching and kicking until he sank. Floods of water cascaded into his lungs. The sensation so right it scared him, he rushed back up, gurgling as he broke the surface. The air scratched his throat, and Lenny coughed and hacked.
“Give up, go and join your new little fishy friends,” she said, chortling now, almost falling off the stool his mother had provided for the lesson.
“No!” Lenny shouted, not sure what he could do.
Beside him, a child broke the surface and whispered, “You need to go back.” She dove back down and waited to his left.
“Go back,” A boy popped up on Lenny’s right. He struggled in the air as he