A Thousand Perfect Notes(25)

‘Um, you do know how to work an iPod, right?’ August says.

Beck realises he needs to do more than put the earbuds in. He jabs the play button and gives her a withering look – even though he, truly, has no idea how to work an iPod.

She raises her hands in protest. ‘I’ve never seen you within ten feet of a computer! Or with a phone. Or even a calculator.’

‘So you assume I’m rubbish at technology?’

August rolls her eyes. ‘Focus on the song, Keverich. Embrace your Twice Burgundy education.’

But they’re at an intersection, which means pausing and taking one of Joey’s hands each and swinging her as they cross. Then Beck’s left with August’s favourite band in his ears.

Sharing music is personal because music speaks, it feels, it breathes. And it always says something about you.

Beck listens.

What did he expect? Drunk lyrics and panpipes? Instead there’s an acoustic guitar and voices blended in aching perfection. One minute they are fast and violent as a summer storm – and then they’re sharing a lullaby of bittersweet change and loss.

He’s never heard music like this before.

It’s not like he’s a contemporary music virgin. He’s listened to – stuff. Ads on TV for one thing. Shopping centre speakers blasting the latest chart-topping single. The neighbours playing a thumping bass tune for twenty-four hours straight to get back at Beck’s midnight piano practices. There used to be yelling matches over the fence about this, but you don’t win arguments with the Maestro. They eventually gave up and ignored their bruised, incessant piano-playing neighbours.

But August’s music tastes different. He wants more.

It’s been three songs and he hasn’t said a word and suddenly they’re at the preschool gate. Disorientated, he jerks the buds out of his ears and rushes Joey into school. Then he’s out, clutching the iPod, feeling breathless like he just woke up and realised his dispassionately grey existence is actually tinged with colour.

August’s lips twist in a smirk. It’s annoying, but he’s lost for words. His brain throbs entirely with music.

‘You like them,’ August says. ‘You adore them. You realise you haven’t been living without Twice Burgundy in your life.’

‘Are you kidding? I hate it.’ Beck wonders how he can get more of this. He needs more of it.

August snorts. ‘Of course you hate it. If you want, you can borrow my iPod for the day and continue hating it.’ With a flip of her hair and the hip-length necklaces she’s wearing this morning, August stalks off. ‘Don’t get it confiscated!’ She’s swallowed by a huddle of friends – odd friends with mismatched shoes or crutches or twitches, who hug her hello and lean close to share a story. Is August just magnetised to the broken misfits?

Beck holds the iPod like it’s his entire life and he wonders why his stupid feet don’t run after her and say something simple, something nice, like:

Thanks, August, these songs saved my life.



Beck decides to hide and avoid August – for the entire day. For someone who’s absconded with her iPod, it’s rude, but he wants to listen. Needs to listen. He loves the way her music drowns the études in his head. But he hates the way he craves it.

It’s really August’s fault, because she has thirty-six Twice Burgundy songs and he has to hear them all.

Beck hides out in the library over lunch – the absolute last place anyone would guess. He squishes between the rows of non-fiction and eats a tinned beans and jam sandwich, stuck together with toothpicks that nearly impale his throat. Thanks, Joey.

He even gets away with earbuds in class since the rain has sent everyone mental. Half the kids come in from lunch coated in mud from a footie game. Everything smells stale and wet. The teachers flap between giving suspensions and mopping mud and instructing that-kid-who-fell-in-a-puddle to stand below the heater – which turns out to be set on cooling and probably gives the kid hypothermia.

Beck watches dispassionately and inhales music.

August catches up with him at the preschool gate, when he emerges with Joey, a note to the Maestro about Joey’s worryingly violent behaviour in class, and a spaceship made from yogurt containers and painted hot pink.

‘If you carry it for me, I’ll love you for nearly ever,’ Joey says passionately.

‘Uh-huh.’ Beck hoists it up, one earbud still in.

She kisses his elbow and prattles on about her creation.

Some kids on the bus jeer as they exit the preschool with the pink catastrophe. He doesn’t care, but he wishes he could cover Joey’s ears.

August looks like a bedraggled bird. She’s taken her neon socks off and slipped them over her arms, which is probably warmer but terrible to look at.

‘Are you going to skip town with my iPod?’ Her eyes sparkle like his avoiding her is actually the most amusing thing of the day.

Beck hands it back, struggling with the spaceship. Joey trots behind him, clutching her hands together in anxious worry that he might drop it.

‘I forgot I had it,’ Beck says. ‘Just sat in my backpack all day.’

‘You were listening just now.’

‘Hm? What? No, I wasn’t.’

She gives him a playful shove and he has to leap over a puddle, clutching the spaceship as if his life depends on it. It does. An elbow-kiss can quickly turn into a shin-kick when it comes to Joey.