Free Second Fiddle by Siobhan Parkinson Page A

is what parents are supposed to be.
    And now, I am supposed to write to the school and say whether I am coming to the audition, by Wednesday of next week.
    â€œBetter tell them you’re coming anyway,” was Mags’s insightful advice.
    â€œI couldn’t do that,” I said. “It mightn’t be true.” I don’t like to tell lies. It makes me uncomfortable.
    â€œWell then,” she said, “tell them you ‘would be happy to accept’. That’s true, you would be happy to accept, even if you can’t.”
    I suppose I’ll have to do something like that, to keep my options open. I wish I didn’t have to deal with all this. I wish I could just concentrate on the music. That’s what’s important to me, not all this stuff with letters and e-mails and is this a lie and is that the truth and what will it cost and where the blazes is Dad when you need him? The music is the thing. It’s hard to explain to someone on the outside, but going into the music is like going to another place, where everything is different. Not always better, but different, because the rules are different.
    When I’m nervous or agitated, I pick up my violin for comfort, just like the way I used to hug my teddy when I was a little girl.
    â€œDid you have a teddy when you were little?” I asked Mags.
    She frowned at me.
    â€œListen,” I said, and I started to play “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic.”
    She frowned harder. “That’s so familiar,” she said. “What is it?”
    â€œIf you go down to the woods today…,” I sang softly, “dee-doodly, dee-doo, dee- doo. ”
    Mags grinned and started to pick up the tune. “Dee-doo, dee-doo, dee-diddly-dee-die,” we sang together, “dee-diddly-dee-die, dee-diddly-dee-die.…”
    â€œToday is the day the teddy bears have their pic  … nic!” Mags sang. “I haven’t heard that since I was about five!”
    Then I held the bow straight up in the air and used my fingers to pick at the strings. Ooh-ooh-ooh, eeh-ooh, eeh-ooh, went the violin.
    â€œPizzicato,” I said over the sound, in answer to Mags’s puzzled look. “It’s allowed.” Honestly, she knows nothing.
    She laughed. “Sounds like something you get in an Italian restaurant. Pizzicato with mushrooms.”
    â€œComfort food,” I said.

Mags
    It came to me in the middle of the night. That probably means I am some sort of genius; the sort of person who is struck by inspiration at the midnight hour. I try not to let the idea go to my head, but it is interesting to think about it all the same. People probably think Gillian is the genius around here, just because she can play the fiddle. They don’t know about my inspirations, or they might think differently. It’s just that some talents are more hidden than others. Some people are not such show-offs that they have to go wafting about the forest with a musical instrument.
    My mum doesn’t sleep well. She says she still hasn’t gotten used to sleeping by herself, and I often hear her creeping around making tea in the kitchen in the dead of night. Then I lie there feeling bad about her not sleeping. Or not so much about my mum not sleeping, but about what a useless daughter I am. I can’t bring myself to get up and go and say something comforting to her, the way a really good daughter would do. Or even just sit with her and say nothing. I really wish my mum and I got on better. We don’t fight, it isn’t that, but there is always this stiffness between us. I can’t remember when it started.
    I wondered what Gillian would do. I couldn’t imagine anyone sitting with Zelda in the night, but Gillian might sit with my mum, if she were her mum. At this point my thoughts became confused and I drifted into sleep. I didn’t hear my mother’s door shutting softly as she went back to bed.
    Later,