Free Perfect Pitch by Mindy Klasky

dams of his eyes, flooding down his cheeks. His sobs were all the more pitiful because they were silent.  
    Without thinking, Sam gathered the boy toward her. The instant her arms folded around him, he started crying in earnest, shaking, and struggling to fill his lungs. He buried his face against her blouse, sobbing as if he were six, not ten.
    “Hush,” she whispered, rubbing his back. “It’s going to be okay. Take it easy…”
    Sam knew this type of tears. She’d cried them often enough, when her father came home and announced he’d been posted to yet another new base. She’d sobbed as if her heart would break every time she had to leave behind a new best friend, a new favorite teacher.
    That was why she’d finally thrown herself into her music. She’d never need to leave music behind, no matter how many times her father’s career cast the entire family into upheaval.
    But that had been years ago, when music classes were still funded.
    The only good thing about such a violent emotional storm was that it couldn’t rage for long. Daniel’s gasps slowed. He drew a shuddering breath. Another. He pushed himself away from her and, embarrassed, dragged his sleeve across his face. He looked at the door, as if there were no place he’d rather be than the now-quiet hallway.
    Sam forced her voice to sound cheerful, as if she spent every Friday afternoon with desperate pre-adolescent boys. “I’ll talk to your father,” she said. “I’ll explain to him that you want to do Musicall.”
    Daniel stared at her, the expression on his face aging him half a dozen years. Right , his gaze said. Like that will do anything. When he spoke out loud, he said, “Forget it. It was stupid for me to ask.”
    “It wasn’t stupid. It was very brave of you to ask me.”
    She could see the longing on his face, the desire to believe that she was telling the truth. But he shook his head. “I don’t have time for music,” he said. He raised his chin as he spoke, looking for all the world like a soldier facing discipline.
    “We can make time,” she said.
    He shook his head again. “It was a dumb idea.”
    And Sam didn’t have anything else to say. She couldn’t force Daniel to abandon Little League to join the music class. Instead, she followed his lead and climbed to her feet, dusting her palms together. “Well, then. Let’s call it a day.”
    The boy led the way down the aisle to the hallway. In the corridor, the school was eerily quiet. Sam could hear the squeak of gym shoes on a floor, somewhere far to her right. The light was on in the school office in front of her, but there wasn’t a student to be seen.
    Daniel looked guilty. “I think I missed the bus.”
    “That’s okay,” she said. “I can drive you home.”
    The boy said, “I can call my niñera.”
    “Your what?”
    He shook his head a little. “My nanny. She can come and get me.”
    “That’s ridiculous. My car is right here.” Sam didn’t realize until the words were out of her mouth, that it might not be appropriate to offer a ride to a child. But she wasn’t exactly a stranger.
    Daniel must have come to the same conclusion—she was safe. No threat at all. “Thank you,” he said, all proper and polite.
    Sam made short work of walking him out to her beat-up old Ford. The car was a far-cry from DJ’s luxury sedan, but the child didn’t make any comments as he buckled his seat belt. Instead, he gave Sam directions to his home like a pro, telling her when to turn left and when to turn right.  
    She soon discovered that her car wasn’t the only thing that wasn’t up to DJ’s standard of living. The neighborhood she turned into from the main road was a far cry from her own suburban enclave. Here, the houses were set far apart, each invisible at the end of a long, winding driveway. At Daniel’s instruction, she pulled up in front of a particularly magnificent house, stopping in front of a double garage.
    Daniel thanked her and got out of the car,