The Last Holiday Concert

  Ed Farley, the king of the goofers, shouted out, “How come we have to do it?” and three or four other kids yelled, “Yeah, how come?”

  Hart Evans pulled himself up to his full height and glared at Ed, cold fury crackling in his eyes. Then Hart shouted something he had never said before—something he could never have imagined himself saying, not in a million years. “How come?” he yelled. “Because I said so! That’s how come! Now let’s get to work! Boys, over on this side of the room. Girls, over there. Ross, pass out the sheets with the words to ‘The Little Drummer Boy.’ NOW!”

  And the kids obeyed him.

  When everyone was in place, Hart turned and said, “Mr. Meinert, I need you to play the piano.”

  For the next thirty-five minutes Hart stood at the front of the room pointing first at the boys, and then at the girls as the chorus rehearsed “The Little Drummer Boy.” Hart had Kenny playing along on a snare drum. It didn’t sound bad, but it wasn’t great, either.

  The period ended, and the kids began to gather up their things. There was no laughing, no chatter as the room emptied. No one looked at Hart, no one went near him.

  Walking out of the room, Hart was right behind Shannon Roda. In the most cheerful voice he could manage, Hart said, “Hey, Shannon, that went okay, don’t you think?”

  She stopped in the doorway and turned to look at him. So did Olivia.

  Shannon said, “Are you talking to me? Because, don’t. You’re just like Mr. Meinert. Only shorter. And meaner. You know what you are?” Shannon narrowed her green eyes and hissed. “You’re a teacher!”

  Fifteen

  DEEP WATERS

  Another beautiful day. Cold, but bright and sunny. Perfect December day, don’t you think?”

  Hart nodded at his dad, and he tried to smile a little, tried to act like he cared about the weather. But he didn’t. It was only seven fifteen on Thursday morning, and Hart was already thinking about chorus, about the concert, about what a huge mess it was. It was all he could think about, all day every day, all night every night.

  Staring down at the blue-and-white plate, Hart took another bite of toast.

  Hart’s mom caught her husband’s eye, and then nodded toward their son, raising her eyebrows. The look said, “Go on, keep talking. Can’t you see he needs help?” Because it was clear to everyone in the family that Hart was going through some deep waters.

  Even Sarah knew something was up. Two days ago Hart had come into his room after school and caught her there, back at his workbench in the corner. She was sitting in his chair, actually holding Hart’s small high-speed electric drill in her hand.

  “Hey! What’re you doing in here?”

  That part had been pretty normal, when Hart shouted at her.

  Sarah gulped and held out her left hand. “I… I want to make a hole in this shell I found in Florida. I want to put it on a chain, like a necklace.”

  It was the next part that had tipped her off. Because instead of yelling some more and grabbing her arm and pushing her out of his room, Hart had said, “Well, be careful. That’s a diamond drill bit on that thing, and it’ll go right through your finger.”

  Then Hart had just flopped onto his bed, pulled a clipboard and a pencil out of his backpack, and started writing.

  The evidence was clear to Sarah: Something was definitely weird in Hartsville.

  His mom had begun to notice it right after Thanksgiving. Little things at first, like forgetting to stay after school and sign up for winter indoor soccer league. And spending more time on the phone, sometimes getting two or three phone calls a night from boys she’d never heard of—and girls, too. And why was he singing that “Little Drummer Boy” song in the shower every morning? Even more puzzling, after all Hart had said about the new computer games he was hoping for, she had had to ask him three times to make a Christmas list.

  Hart’s dad took a sip of orange juice and then said, “So Hart, how about a ride to school today? We can leave early and take the long way, even take a spin out onto the Parkway if the traffic’s not too bad. How about it?”

  That got Hart’s attention. The little silver sports car was not to be ignored, no matter what. “Yeah, that’d be great.”

  “Five minutes?”

  Hart nodded. “I’ll be ready,” and he was—a full two minutes early, with book bag stowed in the trunk and seat belt tight across his chest.

  His dad backed out of the driveway, put the car in first gear, and said, “Hold on.” He punched the gas and—zip—the car jumped to forty miles an hour in about a second and a half, pushing Hart straight back into the tan leather seat.

  He grinned over at his dad and said, “Sweet!”

  The car had some serious sizzle, and Hart loved the way the thing hugged the ground as they shot around the corner onto Oak Road. His dad kept the car right at the speed limit, cruising along on the winding back roads for about ten miles. Then he had to slow down when he turned onto a busy highway that led out toward the Parkway.

  His dad pushed a button and the small screen in the center of the dashboard lit up. At another tap, the screen showed a map, a grid of streets and highways, and it was littered with blinking red octagons. “That’s the GPS traffic advisory screen. See those little stop signs?” his dad asked.

  Hart nodded.

  “Those are traffic delays. We’d better not try the Parkway. So I’m going to turn around up there at the circle and head back the way we came.”

  As they worked their way through the crowded intersection, Hart kept craning his neck to see the drivers of the other cars, checking out the passengers, too, watching to see the looks on their faces when they saw how amazing his dad’s car was. And people did notice.

  Hart grinned. “Don’t you love how everybody looks at you when you drive around in this car? It’s like they can’t help it.”

  His dad gave a short laugh. “I almost didn’t get this car for that very reason.”

  Hart turned to look at his dad. “No way!”

  “I’m serious. I could care less what anybody else thinks about me, or this car, or me driving around in this car. That’s not why I bought it.”

  As they stopped at a red light, Hart nodded at a teenage boy driving a small pickup. He had two of his friends squeezed into the small cab with him.

  “See the kid in the truck next to us, the guy in the Yankees cap? He’s been staring at this car for two minutes, talking to his buddies about it, just wishing he could take it for a drive. And you don’t think that’s cool?”

  His dad smiled and shrugged. “No, because I really don’t care. I’m not trying to make people envy me. I just want to drive a beautifully engineered automobile. This car—it’s like driving a Swiss watch: Everything works perfectly, everything does exactly what it’s supposed to with no wasted energy, no wasted motion, and all that power under perfect control. It’s just a great machine. And that’s all I care about. Honestly.”

  Hart was quiet as his dad put the car through its paces again along the back roads, headed toward school.

  After a few minutes his dad said, “You haven’t seemed much like yourself in the past week or so, Hart. Something been bothering you?”

  Hart shook his head. “Nah. Just school stuff. Bunch of kids are kind of mad at me.”

  “Angry? At you? What about?”

  “Just some stupid stuff. In chorus. There’s a concert, and I’m sort of in charge of it, and it’s like I can’t do anything right. Everybody wants to do stuff their way.”

  “How come you’re in charge? What about the teacher … Mr. What’s-his-name?”

  “Meinert. Mr. Meinert. He’s there too, but I’m supposed to get the thing organized.”

  “Ah, so you’re the boss.”

  Hart gave a sarcastic little snort. “You could say that. Except nobody does what I tell them to.”

  It was quiet for another mile or so. Then Hart’s dad said, “I’ve had a little experience at being a boss, you know. It’s not easy. Beca
use you can’t just give orders. I spend a lot of my time listening. People aren’t going to do something—I mean, they won’t do it well—unless they really want to.”

  Hart looked out the window, watching the leafless woods fly by, a gray and brown blur.

  As the car swung into the circle at the front of the school, his dad said, “It’ll all work out, Hart. You’re a good boss, a good leader. Kids look up to you—they always have. Something’ll open up. Try listening a little more. That’s what always helps me.”

  He was about to reply to his dad, but when they came to a stop right in front of the main doors, Hart had a memory burst. He sat up straight as it jolted into his mind. He knew this moment! He had run this scene in his mind a dozen times. This was his big school drop-off scene, the moment to emerge from the very cool car, just the way he had imagined it.

  As his dad pulled the lever to pop open the trunk, Hart glanced around to check out his audience.

  The buses hadn’t arrived, so the front of the school was practically deserted. Pretty disappointing. But about thirty feet away four girls stood waiting near bus stop number two. It wasn’t exactly the admiring crowd Hart had pictured, but the flashy car had definitely caught the girls’ attention. So Hart decided to make the most of it.

  Hart could tell that all four heads turned as he made a smooth exit from the car, stepped to the trunk and pulled out his backpack.

  He walked back to the open door, leaned down and smiled at his dad. “Thanks for the ride. And for what you said.”

  His dad smiled back. “You have a great day, all right? See you tonight.”

  Hart pushed the door shut, and just as he’d imagined it, the little bullet car purred away from the curb, blinked, turned left, and then sped off down Highway 12.

  And now it was time to see the girls smile, perhaps nod or wave, maybe even hurry over and say, “Is that your dad’s car? It’s so cool!”

  Hart pivoted slowly, a generous smile on his face.

  The girls stood there. They glared at Hart a moment, and then, in almost perfect unison, they turned their backs and walked away.

  And as they did, Hart knew why.

  They were all members of the sixth grade chorus.

  Sixteen

  RESCUE

  On Thursday afternoon Carl Preston met Hart in the doorway of the chorus room, a copy of the concert program in one hand, a deck of cards in the other. He shook the paper and said, “This is wrong, Hart, can’t you see that? And it’s not what Ross said. Ross said I could be in the show. He said I could have seven minutes, and look—I’m not even on the program! It’s a great card trick, you should see it, Hart. C’mon, let me show it to you.”

  Hart shook his head. “Seven minutes is way too long. That’s like one-fifth of the whole time, Carl. Besides, I still don’t get why Ross told you this could be part of the concert at all. And he said you want to wear your magician costume? It just doesn’t fit … can’t you see that? It’s supposed to be a concert. Listen, we’ll talk about this later, okay?”

  Carl hurried to keep up as Hart kept walking. “But Hart, you should see—it’s such a great trick, and I learned it from my grampa, and he’s gonna be at the concert. He’d love it! Maybe I could dress up like one of the three wise men, you know, from the Christmas story? They were sort of like magicians, right?”

  Hart waved Carl off and walked down front to the chalkboard. He erased the number eleven and replaced it with the number ten, about six inches tall.

  Ten. That’s how many class periods were left before the concert. Hart turned and watched the rest of the kids straggle into the chorus room.

  Turning back to the board, Hart looked again. Still ten—a one and a zero.

  Hart could see what was coming. He could see it clearly now. Ten more class periods to prepare—only ten—and then … complete disaster.

  Hart Evans had been getting the cold shoulder all day. It was a new experience for him, and Hart didn’t like it.

  After the scene with the girls out front in the morning, he had walked up to a bunch of his buddies before school. Everyone stopped talking and scattered.

  When he had walked through the halls between morning classes, no one smiled, no one said hello.

  When Hart went to his usual lunch table, it was empty, and it stayed that way until Alex had dropped into the seat across from him.

  Alex glanced around and said, “Where is everybody?”

  Hart smirked. “Haven’t you heard? About me and the chorus? I’ve become an outcast.”

  Alex was in the orchestra. “Oh, that. Yeah, I heard.” He shrugged. “So what do you care about what a bunch of idiots think? Somebody’s got to be in charge. And if there are jerks around—and there are always jerks around—somebody’s got to tell them to shut up and get to work.”

  Hart smiled, and what Alex said made him feel a little better. But he still had some trouble swallowing his grilled cheese sandwich.

  After lunch Hart had waved across the cafeteria to Zack. Zack turned his back and began to walk away. Hart hurried and caught up with him in the gym. He grabbed Zack’s backpack and spun him around. “Hey! I wave and you walk away? What’s your problem?”

  Zack said, “My problem? What, are you dumb? Don’t you know what you shouted at Ed in chorus yesterday? I mean, it’s all over the school. You said he had to sing some stupid song, and he said how come, and you said, ‘Because I said so!’ You said that. To another kid. That’s like, so wrong. Kids don’t say that. Only moms and dads say that. And teachers. Catch you later.”

  And Zack was gone.

  A lot of kids go through school without being very popular, mostly because no one knows who they are. They pass unnoticed, unchallenged. Hart wasn’t simply unknown now. He was known and actively disliked. In less than twenty-four hours, the most popular boy at Palmer Intermediate School had become the least popular.

  And that’s why, twenty minutes later, standing at the front of the chorus room with that big number ten on the chalkboard behind him, Hart Evans had never felt so alone.

  The bell rang, and as the echo faded Mr. Meinert walked in from the hall with a huge smile on his face. He called down to the front of the room, “Hey Hart, it looks like a go!” And he gave Hart a big thumbs-up.

  Hart had no clue what Mr. Meinert was talking about. He smiled and nodded anyway.

  Mr. Meinert hurried through the jumble of folding desks. Looking around at the class, he said, “I checked something out for Hart, and it looks like it’ll be okay. The old gym is available for the chorus to use. Mr. Richards says he’ll pull some strings for us. That way the chorus can put on its own separate event. There’s the stage at one end if you want to use it, and there’ll be plenty of room for just about anything. And the custodians said they’ll set up the folding chairs any way you want. Plus there are the old bleachers on both sides. We can even get in there and set up three or four days before the concert. Then on the night of the concert, the band and orchestra will perform first in the auditorium, and after intermission everyone will walk over to the old gym for the chorus program. So it’s all going to work out. Such a great idea!”

  Looking at Hart, Colleen said, “You mean we can get in there and put up our decorations, and no one will even see them before the concert?”

  Going with the flow, Hart nodded.

  Colleen said, “That’ll be great!”

  Olivia jumped to her feet. “Does this mean there’ll be room for our ballet dancing?”

  Hart gulped. “Um … I don’t really know… yet.” Which was true.

  Hart’s mind was racing now, trying to understand what Mr. Meinert had said, trying to understand how a concert in the old gym might work, trying to figure out what to say and do next.

  But thinking on his feet was one of Hart’s best talents, so he gulped again and just started talking, giving his mind a chance to catch up, “Well … um … after yesterday, I started thinking … and what I was thinking … was … well…”
br />   And then, like a sudden puff of wind across calm waters, Hart got an idea. “I was thinking … that we should go back … like to the beginning. Because at the beginning there was an election. And everybody elected me to be the director—which was pretty crazy. But it solved the problem … sort of. Except now everybody’s got a million ideas about what the concert should be like … and that’s a new problem … like, which ideas to pick. And it’s a lot of pressure. On me.”

  Then came a stroke of genius. Hart looked toward the back of the room and nodded at Ed Farley. “And I’m sorry I sounded like such a jerk yesterday.”

  Hart paused long enough for Ed to give him a half smile and a shrug, and then he went on. “So I say we should all vote, about everything—like which songs to sing… what the whole concert should be like, which kids will do stuff. We vote about everything. But first we have to agree that no matter which songs or ideas win, everybody’s got to go along with the winners—the whole chorus. Okay? Anybody want to say anything else?”

  Kids began sifting the idea, and the room buzzed—some positive noise, some negative. Even the goofers in the back corner were paying attention.

  Ross raised his hand. “I think I know how the voting should work. It’s like Student Council elections. First come nominations—for songs or different parts of the concert. Then we make a ballot with all the nominated songs and everything. After the ballots are set, kids get to talk about which stuff they think should win—that’s the campaigning. And then every kid gets to vote, but only for six different things. And then the seven or eight things with the most votes win. Because the whole concert can only be about thirty-five minutes long.”

  Hart waited for someone else to say something, but when no one did, he said, “That sounds good to me.” And then he pointed over his shoulder at the big number he’d written on the chalkboard. “But there are only ten rehearsal periods left, so we have to do this fast—like today. Does what Ross said sound good to you guys? Show of hands for yes.”