Polly Nolan, my extraordinary agent! I can’t thank you enough for all the belief and encouragement as we wrangle my books into acceptable shapes.
The whole team at Orchard Books! Special appreciation to my editors, Megan Larkin and Rosalind McIntosh, who turned The Boy Who Steals Houses into a book I am so proud of. And also many thanks to Sue Cook, Thy Bui, Alison Padley, Alice Duggan, Monika Exell, Georgina Russell, Naomi Berwin, Emily Finn and Sarah Jeffcoate.
I owe so much (more than an entire cake by this point) to my magical friends. Maraia, you are incredible and keep me sane and have read this book so many times. Thank you for shouting encouragement while I run about like a headless chicken. To Maria Kuzniar, Miriam “Finn” Longman and Daley Downing: you are brilliant authors who I’m proud to know as we tackle the woes and wonders of writing. Thank you for your advice and flails!
To the bloggers and readers who, after they finished yelling at me through tears, proclaimed their love for A Thousand Perfect Notes. You have been a mountain of encouragement. (Where would I be without you?!)
I also owe a moment to my parents who raised me on ink and books. And to my odd pile of siblings: no, you didn’t inspire the De Lainey family. Except you, Jemima. Remember that time I cracked an egg on your head when we were kids? I may have stolen the occasional wisp of inspiration from you for the sibling shenanigans in this book.
And to anyone reading this book who is searching for something like family or a home or friends who will wrap you up tight and keep you close: I hope you find what you’re looking for.
Read on for a peek at
A Thousand Perfect Notes
by C.G. Drews
What he wants most in the world is to cut off his own hands.
At the wrist would be best. That hollow tiredness that stretches from fingertips to elbow would be gone for ever. How sick is that? There must be something seriously – dangerously – wrong if he can lie on his rock-solid mattress at night and think about lopping off limbs and using bloodied stumps to write ‘HA!’ on the walls. He’d be a scene out of a horror movie.
And he’d be free. Because, without hands, he’s worthless to her.
To the Maestro.
His mother.
But the entire handless daydream would require action instead of fantasising, and he’s not so good at that. Even stupid small stuff – like spontaneously detouring by an ice creamery on the way home from school and treating his little sister to a double whipped fudge cone instead of keeping the strict time schedule the Maestro demands – is impossible. He won’t even try something like that. Why? A taste of fudge and freedom isn’t worth it?
No.
He’s just not made for rebellion or risks.
Fantasising is all he’s good for. Sick dreams of mutilation, apparently. Which hand would he even cut off? Right? Or left?
It scares Beck Keverich – the way he thinks sometimes.
His digital clock reads 5:12. Still dark. Still cold. It’s always easier to batter his way out of bed in summer, but now that autumn has wrapped bare, twiggy fingers around the universe, his alarm clock feels like it’s shrieking in the middle of the night. And he should’ve been up twelve minutes ago.
It’s surprising the Maestro hasn’t rattled his door to roar at his laziness.
Beck peels his head off the pillows. He wishes he could dissolve into them. Did he even sleep last night? His wrists ache like he’s been juggling blocks of cement. Did he quit at eleven? Midnight?
His fingers moan, it was midnight, you fool. They also say get us warm and let us rest this morning and even we’re going to curl into a fist and punch the wall until we shatter. His fingers are cantankerous like that.
Beck rubs his hands together, blows on his numb fingers and curses broadly to the universe – because it’s quicker than being specific about the depths of his loathing of the Maestro right now. Then he approaches the object of his doom, his life, his worth.
He slams the piano lid open.
The Steinway upright is the sole glory of his room. Not that there’s much else in the room. He has a bed that feels like snuggling rocks, broken blinds on the windows, a wardrobe of second-hand clothes and shoes held together with duct tape and hope – and a twenty-thousand-dollar piano.
As the Maestro says, ‘A good piano is all the hope I have that mein Sohn will improve his schreckliche music.’
Beck only spent his toddler years in Germany, but stayed bilingual by necessity – he needs to know when his mother is sprinkling burning insults over his head. Although her curled lips and glares also speak volumes.
Schreckliche means terrible. Awful.
It’s a summary of Beck.
You are an awful pianist. Your music has no future. You have no talent. Why don’t you play faster, better, clearer? Why do you hit the wrong notes all the time? Are you doing it on purpose areyouplayingbadlyonpurposeyouworthlesslittle—
‘You suck, kid,’ Beck says calmly to himself. ‘So work.’
It’s his routine pep talk to get motivated in the cold pre-dawn darkness. Now for staccato notes. Double fifth scales. Diminished seventh exercises. Fumbled notes. Trills for his iced fingers to fall across.
He’ll wake the Maestro – although she’s probably already awake and seething that he started late – and his little sister. He’ll wake the neighbours, who hate him, and he’ll start the local dogs howling. He’ll shake the sleep from the weeds strangling the footpath, and the broken glass from some drunken brawl, and the homeless who lurk in the dank non-kid-friendly neighbourhood playground.
By 8 a.m. Beck’s fingers will feel like flattened noodles and his eyelids will be coated in cement.
And all the time, he dreams of sawing off his hands or even his ears.
Of walking out and never coming back.
He dreams of utter silence – so then the tiny kernel of music inside him could be coaxed to life. It’s unbelievably noisy in his head, noisy with songs of his own creation. But since the Maestro will have none of it, it stays locked away.
Play the music on the paper. No one cares about the songs in your head.
His bedroom door crashes open and his little sister appears with a howl like a wildcat.
Joey is a tumbleweed of wire and jam stains, set on maximum speed and highest volume. She’s exhausting just to look at.
‘IT’S FIFTEEN MINUTES TILL WE GO,’ Joey bellows. She solemnly believes Beck can’t hear anything else when he’s on the piano. He can hear, he just can’t multitask and answer.
His cyclone of music fades and silence pours over Beck’s fingers. Relief. By this point, if Chopin walked into the room, Beck would throttle him with a shoelace. He hates these pieces the Maestro demands he learn.