Free Being Teddy Roosevelt by Claudia Mills Page B

sax.
    That was the one for Riley: the sax. He had loved the sax ever since he had watched a program about Charlie Parker on TV. Now he imagined himself up on the stage, wailing away on the high notes, his fingers moving up and down the keys in a blur.
    Mr. Simpson beamed at the class. “I’ll let you look at the instruments today, and you can see which one you like best.”
    Riley already knew he liked the saxophone best. Maybe Mr. Simpson would let them take their new instruments home today!
    “How much do the instruments cost?” someone else asked.
    Cost?
    “If you don’t want to buy an instrument right away, you can rent one,” Mr. Simpson said. “Most rentals run about twenty-five dollars a month.”
    Riley couldn’t believe it. Twenty-five dollars a month? Every month? His mother never had extra money. His dad hardly sent them any money at all.
    If only someone would ask, “What if you don’t have the money?” But nobody did. And Riley wasn’t about to.
    Mr. Simpson played a short melody on each of the instruments. They all sounded great, but the saxophone sounded greatest by far.

    Riley moved closer.
    Then Mr. Simpson let the kids crowd around the table to look at the instruments close up.
    “First I have to be Gandhi,” Grant groaned. “Now I’m going to have to play a band instrument.”
    “Mrs. Eldridge just said we don’t have to play one,” Riley reminded him.
    “My parents will make me,” Grant said. “And then they’ll make me practice. Every time I sit down to play a video game, they’ll say, ‘Grant, have you practiced your instrument?’ Then there will be a concert. My dad will videotape the concert. They’ll show the videotape to my relatives when they come to our house. And then the relatives will say, ‘Grant, why don’t you play your instrument for us right now?’ Does that sound like fun to you?”
    It did, actually. Of course, Riley didn’t have any relatives who came over. And his mother didn’t own a video camera.
    And he wouldn’t have an instrument.
    “I want to do the flute,” Sophie said. “I already play violin and piano, violin since I was four, piano since I was five. But it’s not too late to add flute.”
    Erika wasn’t looking at any of the instruments.
    “Don’t you want to be in band?” Riley asked her.
    “Drums,” Erika said. “I want to do drums. And I don’t see any drums.”
    Mr. Simpson heard her. “They were too hard to transport today. But you can definitely play drums if you’d like. The percussion section is the heartbeat of the band.”
    Riley could picture Erika pounding away on drums.
    “What about you?” Erika asked Riley then. He wasn’t looking at the instruments, either. What was the point of falling in love with something you couldn’t have? “Don’t you want to do an instrument?”
    “I guess not,” Riley said.

    “Did you get your homework done?” Riley’s mom asked him as they drove out of the school parking lot at five-thirty. Because his mom had to work, Riley went to the after-school day care program in the gym.
    “Sort of.” He had done his spelling, but not his math homework, since he couldn’t find the math worksheet. It was odd how quickly a math worksheet could disappear into thin air.
    He thought of another title for his biography:
Riley O’Rourke: The Boy Who Made Homework Disappear
. It would be a best seller, Riley was sure of it.
    Or
Riley O’Rourke: The Boy Who Didn’t Get to Play the Saxophone.
    It probably wasn’t even worth asking, but he made himself do it. “Can we rent a saxophone?” he blurted out.
    “A saxophone?” She sounded as surprised as if he had asked for a pet elephant.
    Riley explained to her about instrumental music. “But you have to rent an instrument. And Mr.
    Simpson said it costs twenty-five dollars a month.”
    She didn’t answer right away. That gave Riley a ray of hope.
    “It’s a lot of money,” she said slowly. “But it isn’t just the money. You’re