MOUNTAIN SOLO

"Mom, stop!" I said, as she smoothed my hair and reminded me not to rush the opening bars of my solo. I took a deep breath and walked quickly onto the stage.

And then I turned, and a spotlight came on so bright that I took a step back from it. My whole body seemed to go numb, and when the applause that had greeted me ended, my head felt squeezed by the silence.

"Fräulein?" the conductor whispered.

I nodded automatically. Yes, I am ready.

But I wasn't.

From the corner of my eye, I saw his baton's upbeat set a tempo and then swoop low, and behind me the orchestra's strings swept into the beginning measures of a Vivaldi concerto.

I raised my violin and fixed in my mind how my first notes should sound. I would play them just the way I had when I'd won the young artists competition that brought me here to Germany.

One more measure . . . there . . .Now!

I pulled my bow in a quick downstroke and heard a discordant tone tear our raw and wrong.

That's what I keep remembering. How once I'd played that note so badly, there was no way to get it back. And how that one mistake led to another and another--a missed accent, a hurried rest beat, an odd angle to my bow arm. One off note after another, after another, after another. . .

Tess has given up everything for this, and now . . .

MOUNTAIN SOLO by Jeanette Ingold

A novel for teen readers · Contemporary fiction at its best