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CASSIE RAN THE QUARTER of a mile from the bus stop to her house as fast as she could. Christmas was over, but the cold lingered, an unwelcome guest that would not leave.
She opened the front door and rushed inside, dropping her gloves and hat in a pile. “Ahh!” she exclaimed.
Her younger brother and sister burst in behind her, also shivering and shaking from the relentless cold. “I can’t take it anymore!” Emily cried.
“Me neither,” Cassie said. She trooped into the kitchen and put her backpack on the table. “Mom?”
“In the laundry room!” her mom called back. “Where did you put your gloves?”
Cassie knew what her mom was really saying: put your things away.
As the oldest of the four Jones children, she felt a certain pressure to set the right example. Sometimes she resented that feeling, but other times she appreciated the trust her parents showed her. Returning to the entry way, she picked up the discarded winter wear and threw it into the hall closet.
“It’s too cold,” she could hear Emily saying from the kitchen. “Can’t you pick us up from the bus stop?”
“Or at least take us in the morning,” Cassie said, joining the conversation. She took her turquoise-framed glasses off and wiped the moisture from them. They always fogged up when she came into a warm house from the cold.
Mrs. Jones looked up from the laundry. “It’s good for you. When else do you run?”
Running? Since when was that the goal? “I don’t like running,” Cassie said. “I do it every day before recess. I hate it.” She picked up an apple. “Do we have any brownies left?”
Her mom frowned at her. “No. But a brownie isn’t a good snack. Just eat that apple.”
Cassie took a big bite from it, trying to pretend the fruit had a chocolate flavor. It didn’t work. She set it aside and focused on her mom. A driving thought had been pushing at her brain all morning, and she couldn’t wait to bring it up to her mother. “Mom, I want to do something with music.”
Mrs. Jones hauled the basket of clothes into the living room and beckoned Cassie to follow. “Oh? What do you mean?”
Cassie sat down to help fold the towels. “I don’t know. In school, when we were practicing songs for the Christmas program, the music made me so happy. I wanted to spend all day singing. Now it’s over, and I miss it.”
“Well, do you want to do something with piano?”
Ugh, no. “I don’t think so.” She’d taken piano lessons for a year in Texas and hated it. Every practice had been agonizing, and she doubted she’d been very nice to the piano teacher. “It’s pretty boring. Besides, my fingers lack dexterity.”
“Dexterity?” Her mom giggled. “You’re funny. Give me that towel before you rip it from folding it so often.”
Cassie handed it over. “What other instruments could I play?”
“Well, I don’t know. I’ve never played any.” Mrs. Jones frowned as she considered the situation. “But you know what, your dad has played just about everything. Why don’t you ask him when he gets home?”
“Sure,” Cassie said, brightening. She grabbed her backpack from the kitchen table and went to her room, humming a song from the Christmas program they’d put on last month.
a
“So how was everyone’s day?” Mr. Jones looked around the table during dinner. “Annette?”
“Great,” four-year-old Annette said, her standard answer to just about everything. Except when she said it, it sounded like, “Grape.”
“Scott?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Fine.” Also the standard answer.
Mr. Jones took a bite from his meatball and then shook his fork at Scott. “Remember what we talked about? You need to use your descriptive words to answer the question.”
Scott sighed. “I was on yellow and missed five minutes of recess. But it wasn’t my fault. Miles was loud at lunch and I just couldn’t help it.” He raised his eyebrows and shook his head to express his helplessness.
Cassie rolled her eyes. Scott might only be in the first grade, but he had the conniving mentality of a con artist.
“Well, tomorrow you’ll stay on green, right?” Mr. Jones said.
“Right,” he grumbled.
“Emily?”
“Perfect,” she spouted, a smile on her lips. “I got a one-hundred percent on my spelling test. And Ms. Wright selected me to present for the third-grade assembly.”
“That’s great, Emily!”
Cassie forced herself to stab her food and stick in her mouth instead of making a negative comment. Emily excelled at everything she put her hand to. Of course she got perfect scores and was chosen to represent her class. Every day was roses and unicorns for Emily.
“And you, Cassie?”
Finally, her turn. Cassie adjusted her glasses on her nose and faced her dad. “I want to start playing an instrument, Daddy.”
“Oh, really?” His graying eyebrows rose above the piercing blue eyes. “What kind of instrument?”
“I really don’t know. Mom thought you could help me choose.”
He nodded, a sparkle of excitement in his eyes. “Well, let’s see. I played the saxophone, the clarinet, the piano, even the drums for a bit.”
“The clarinet sounds like fun.”
“Can I play one?” Emily asked. “I want to play the clarinet also.”
Cassie felt a flash of irritation and rounded on Emily, next to her at the table. “You already play the piano! You don’t need another instrument.” Though Cassie had bored of piano and moved on, Emily had taken to it like a fish in water. She was in the middle of her third year and mastering piano pieces that Cassie couldn’t even pronounce.
“Why not? Daddy played lots of different ones.”
So he had. Cassie glared at him for revealing that. “Can’t this just be my thing?”
“I want to do the drums,” Scott said. “That’s what boys do, right? The drums?”
“Hang on, hang on.” Mr. Jones threw his hands up and leaned back in his chair. “I think we might be on to something. How many other kids in the school do you think would love to play an instrument?”
Cassie had really no idea. She blinked and waited for her father to finish his thought.
“Let’s say most of them. They’d have this same conversation at dinner, and most of them would want to play.”
She drummed her fingers on the table, still waiting for the point.
“So what if. . . .” He pointed a finger at Mrs. Jones and grinned. “What if I started a band?”
