Piano Lessons Can Be Murder

  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.

  I found it in the music book and propped the book in front of me on the piano. Then I arranged my fingers on the keys and prepared to play.

  But before I hit the first note, the piano erupted with a barrage of low notes. It sounded as if someone was pounding on the keys with both fists.

  “Jerry — stop it,” Mom said sharply. “That’s too loud.”

  “That can’t be what you learned,” Dad added.

  I set my fingers in place and began to play.

  But my notes were drowned out by the horrible, loud banging again.

  It sounded like a little kid pounding away on the keys as hard as he could.

  “Jerry — give us a break!” Mom shouted, holding her ears.

  “But I’m not doing it!” I screamed. “It isn’t me!”

  They didn’t believe me.

  Instead, they got angry. They accused me of never taking anything seriously, and sent me up to my room.

  I was actually glad to get out of the family room and away from that haunted piano. I knew who was pounding the keys and making that racket. The ghost was doing it.

  Why? What was she trying to prove?

  What did she plan to do to me?

  Those questions I couldn’t answer … yet.

  * * *

  The next Friday afternoon, Mr. Toggle kept his promise. He greeted me at the door to the piano school after my mom dropped me off. He led me through the twisting halls to his enormous workshop.

  Mr. Toggle’s workshop was the size of an auditorium. The vast room was cluttered with machines and electronic equipment.

  An enormous two-headed metal creature, at least three times as tall as the floor sweeper that had terrified me the week before, stood in the center. It was surrounded by tape machines, stacks of electric motors, cases of tools and strange-looking parts, video equipment, a pile of bicycle wheels, several piano frames with no insides, animal cages, and an old car with its seats removed.

  One entire wall seemed to be a control panel. It had more than a dozen video screens, all on, all showing different classes going on in the school. Around the screens were thousands of dials and knobs, blinking red and green lights, speakers, and microphones.

  Beneath the control panel, on a counter that ran the length of the room, stood at least a dozen computers. All of them seemed to be powered up.

  “Wow!” I exclaimed. My eyes kept darting from one amazing thing to another. “I don’t believe this!”

  Mr. Toggle chuckled. His dark eyes lit up. “I find ways to keep busy,” he said. He led me to an uncluttered corner of the enormous room. “Let me show you some of my musical instruments.”

  He walked to a row of tall, gray metal cabinets along the far wall. He pulled a few items from a cabinet and came hurrying back.

  “Do you know what this is, Jerry?” He held up a shiny brass instrument attached to some kind of tank.

  “A saxophone?” I guessed.

  “A very special saxophone,” he said, grinning. “See? It’s attached to this tank of compressed air. That means you don’t have to blow into it. You can concentrate on your fingering.”

  “Wow,” I said. “That’s really neat.”

  “Here. Put this on,” Mr. Toggle urged. He slipped a brown leather cap over my head. The cap had several thin wires flowing out the back, and it was attached to a small keyboard.

  “What is it?” I asked, adjusting the cap over my ears.

  “Blink your eyes,” Mr. Toggle instructed.

  I blinked my eyes, and the keyboard played a chord. I moved my eyes from right to left. It played another chord. I winked one eye. It played a note.

  “It’s completely eye-controlled,” Mr. Toggle said with pride. “No hands required.”

  “Wow,” I repeated. I didn’t know what else to say. This stuff was amazing!

  Mr. Toggle glanced up at a row of clocks on the control panel wall. “You’re late for class, Jerry. Dr. Shreek will be waiting. Tell him it’s my fault, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said. “Thanks for showing me everything.”

  He laughed. “I didn’t show you everything,” he joked. “There’s lots more.” He rubbed his stubbly beard. “But you’ll see it all in due time.”

  I thanked him again and hurried toward the door. It was nearly four-fifteen. I hoped Dr. Shreek wouldn’t be angry that I was fifteen minutes late.

  As I jogged across the enormous workroom, I nearly ran into a row of dark metal cabinets, shut and padlocked.

  Turning away from them, I suddenly heard a voice.

  “Help!” A weak cry.

  I stopped by the side of
the cabinet and listened hard.

  And heard it again. A little voice, very faint. “Help me, please!”

  “Mr. Toggle — what’s that?” I cried.

  He had begun fiddling with the wires on the brown leather cap. He slowly looked up. “What’s what?”

  “That cry,” I told him, pointing to the cabinet. “I heard a voice.”

  He frowned. “It’s just damaged equipment,” he muttered, returning his attention to the wires.

  “Huh? Damaged equipment?” I wasn’t sure I had heard him correctly.

  “Yeah. Just some damaged equipment,” he repeated impatiently. “You’d better hurry, Jerry. Dr. Shreek must be wondering where you are.”

  I heard a second cry. A voice, very weak and tiny. “Help me — please!”

  I hesitated. Mr. Toggle was staring at me impatiently.

  I had no choice. I turned and ran from the room, the weak cries still in my ears.

  * * *

  On Saturday afternoon I went outside to shovel snow off our driveway. It had snowed the night before, only an inch or two. Now it was one of those clear winter days with a bright blue sky overhead.

  It felt good to be out in the crisp air, getting some exercise. Everything seemed so fresh and clean.

  I was finishing down at the bottom of the drive, my arms starting to ache from all the shoveling, when I saw Kim Li Chin. She was climbing out of her mother’s black Honda, carrying her violin case. I guessed she was coming from a lesson.

  I had seen her in school a few times, but I hadn’t really talked to her since that day she ran away from me in the hall.

  “Hey!” I called across the street, leaning on the shovel, a little out of breath. “Hi!”

  She handed the violin case to her mother and waved back. Then she came jogging toward me, her black hightops crunching over the snow. “How’s it going?” she asked. “Pretty snow, huh?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Want to shovel some? I still have to do the walk.”

  She laughed. “No thanks.” She had a high, tinkly laugh, like two glasses clinking together.

  “You coming from a violin lesson?” I asked, still leaning on the shovel.

  “Yeah. I’m working on a Bach piece. It’s pretty hard.”