The Piano Man

XII. The Sound

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music." Friedrich Nietzsche

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XII. The Sound

Sophie always felt very judged by the other mothers at Maddie's school. They all seemed to collect together in cliques, drinking their designer coffees and teas from keep cups while wearing matching activewear sets.

She knew they all thought of her as the mother of the "problem child". They had observed Sophie fighting with Maddie outside school enough to judge them both. It didn't help that Sophie was at least ten years younger than all of them, which only added to her feeling of inferiority.

But she had something to take her mind off of their sideways glances. Today Maddie was having her first proper piano lesson. Maddie was excited about it, and anything that got Maddie excited made Sophie happy.

God, Sophie prayed that Maddie had had a good day at school today. She had been so good this morning. Sophie hadn't received a phone call, so she hoped that meant everything had been okay.

The school bell sounded at half past three, and the students began to spill out of the classrooms. Maddie's classroom door opened, and her classmates began to run to their mothers. Sophie then saw a flash of strawberry blonde hair as Maddie came rushing out alongside them.

"Mummy, Mummy, let's go!" Maddie demanded. "I want to play on the piano now." Maddie grabbed Sophie's hand and attempted to drag her away from the classroom.

"Wait!" cried Sophie. "We'll go in a minute. I just need to speak to Miss Forster."

Maddie let out a frustrated groan as she dragged her feet back towards the classroom with Sophie.

Sophie knocked on the door, and Judy looked up as she was collecting the students' books from their desks. She smiled as she moved her glasses onto the top of her head.

"Do you have a minute?" Sophie asked.

"Of course, I was going to send you an email," replied Judy. "I do have a staff meeting in fifteen minutes."

"Sorry," apologised Sophie immediately. "I won't keep you. I just wanted to ask if she had a good day today?"

Judy held up her finger and began to sift through the books that she had collected. She then found Maddie's book, which Sophie had painstakingly covered in Frozen contact in an attempt to interest her in her schoolwork. Until now, there had been no success.

Judy flipped open to the latest page and began to read. "On Friday, I played piano with Noah. It was fun. I am good at it. Today I am going to learn piano at Mummy's work. Noah is nice," Judy read, before she flipped the book around to show Sophie Maddie's weekend recount.

It was Maddie's work. She had written it. Of course, her handwriting was appalling, but it would be when she had written five words collectively in her entire school education. She had written sentences. And the words were spelled correctly!

Sophie looked down at Maddie, and into her wide, expressive brown eyes. She had so much in her head, Sophie just knew it. "Look at how wonderfully you wrote, Maddie!" Sophie exclaimed.

"I drew a picture of the piano keys," explained Maddie. "This key is middle C," she pointed at the key that she had labelled. Maddie had drawn a picture of a piano, and it was as accurate as Sophie could imagine. "If you know your ABC's, then you know which key is which, Noah says. I know my ABC's," Maddie boasted.

Sophie had only told Noah this morning that she cried at the drop of a hat, and goddammit, here she went again. She quickly caught her tears with her fingers.