Chapter 1     Melody for Piano, Recorder and Drum

 

"No! No! No! D minor does not have an F sharp. Only a B flat and the seventh note raised to C sharp."

           

Annette sat staring at the keyboard, thinking that her teacher was being very unreasonable. Her third finger just naturally wanted to land on an F sharp, and she really didn't see any good reason why it shouldn't.

           

"Now, it's time to go, but before you go out to play, I want you to practise that scale over and over until you know it perfectly. Understood?"

           

The little girl put her fingers to the keyboard and began to play F natural instead of the sharp. She heard the door click behind her. Left alone in the music room she relaxed a little, and soon didn't think about whether she was playing any F sharps or not. After going up and down the scale a few more times she yawned, folded her arms on the keyboard and laid her head on them. She would have a short rest before going out to the back yard.

           

After about half a minute she began to listen carefully. She could hear some notes playing somewhere. At first they seemed a long way off, but they were getting louder and louder. Suddenly she sat up and stared at the keyboard. Black and white keys were dancing up and down all by themselves. "I've heard of player-pianos," she thought, "that can play all by themselves, but I'm sure our piano isn't one of them!"

           

As the notes danced they were playing a happy little tune which seemed vaguely familiar, but she couldn't remember where she had heard it before. And it wasn't like the sounds a piano usually makes; it was more like singing. After a while she could even make out some words. The keys dancing up and down seemed to have little faces and little mouths that were opening and closing as they sang sweetly. The words became clearer. Soon Annette could hear her name among the words. Then she knew that the song was meant just for her. The keys were singing -

                       

                        "Come little Annette, dance with us.

                         Come little Annette, dance, dance, dance."

           

It was such a pretty little tune that Annette really couldn't help dancing to it. To her surprise, she found herself up on the keyboard dancing on the notes - "Just like Kitty does," she thought, "when some one puts her up on the piano." But Kitty usually jumped off straight away. Annette stayed there. She enjoyed dancing on the piano keys, helping them to play their pretty tune. It didn't seem at all strange now, even when she noticed that either the piano had grown very big or she had grown very small. "And I'm still getting smaller," she said to herself, "smaller and smaller. It's getting so hard to jump from one note to another. If I become much tinier I'm afraid I'll fall down one of the cracks between the white keys.

           

Sure enough, it wasn't long before she found herself stranded on a single white key, unable to jump to the next one, when the ivory started turning cold and wet like ice and she began to slip around. "Oh, help me somebody, help me!" she called out, slipping all over the place. But if anybody had heard her it was too late. Like water going down a plughole, she slipped over the edge of the key into darkness, and fell and fell and fell.

           

Just when she began to think she would never stop falling, she landed on something soft, so soft she was not hurt at all. When she sat up, she found she was on top of an object which was something like a large flower and something like a tricycle. If it really was a flower it only had two petals. The petal she was sitting on was very soft, but when she reached over to the other one it felt very hard and shook for a long time after she touched it. "It's lucky I landed on the soft pedal," she said to herself as she climbed down. "Or is it the soft petal? I can't seem to remember the name properly." Then she thought, "It can't really be either of them, because the petals - or is it pedals? - are down the bottom of the piano, and I don’t think that's where I am. This is more like the inside of the piano!"

           

She looked up at the huge wires stretching into the distance, each wire thicker than the one before it. She wished she could pluck one, but they were too far away from her. There was a big gulf separating her from the wires, and no way of getting across. "They ought to build a bridge over things like this," she muttered, feeling very annoyed at whoever "they" might be. "If I could reach one of those thick strings, I believe I could climb up it. But now I'll never get out of this awful, dark piano." And she almost started to cry.

           

Before the tears could gather in her eyes, she noticed a little stream of daylight shining in the distance. If there was a hole in the piano she had never seen it before, but as she walked quickly towards the light, it grew bigger and bigger, until she realised it was the opening to a long passageway. It was so much brighter than the dark piano, so she entered it straight away, but she had some trouble walking along it, as it turned out to be shaped like a tube. All along the roof of the passage there were round letting in the sunlight, which made big round patched of light on the floor.

           

She walked unsteadily along the smooth curved floor towards a bigger stream of light coming through the other end, where the passage became narrower, when suddenly Annette was thrown against the wall - or perhaps the floor - it was hard to tell where one began and the other ended. The whole passage was moving upwards, and she could do nothing but roll about helplessly, as there was nothing to grab hold of. At last the movement stopped and Annette lay on the floor, a bit dazed, watching the stream of light she was heading for fade into darkness. She also saw some of the round patches of light along the passage disappear, and, looking up, saw that some of the big holes in the roof had gone, as if covered by giant fingertips.

           

"If it's going to get dark," she thought, " I had better try to escape while I still have the chance. I think it might be safer to go back the way I came, as the other end is so dark, and there is at least a little light coming from the entrance to the passage." But before she could get up, a big wind started to blow from the dark end, pushing her back towards the entrance. With this wind came a loud musical note, which gave way to another note just as some more roof-holes darkened and others appeared again. Quickly the note changed again, and again, so fast that the disappearing and reappearing of the roof-holes and their reflections on the floor became very confusing. She got so dizzy that she wouldn't know which way to go, if it was not for the strong wind which blew almost continuously against her, pushing her back towards the entrance. As she hurried along she listened to the tune that the notes were making. In fact, it would be very hard not to listen, it was so loud.

           

"Why, I believe it's the same tune the piano was playing before." And Annette could hardly resist dancing to it again as she was blown along. Again the notes were singing to her -

                       

                        "Come little Annette, dance with us.

                         Come little Annette, dance, dance, dance."

 

But she had no time to dance. She was too busy trying to get out of the frightening passage, and it wasn't long before she shot out of the passage, half running, half flying, into empty air. She was not in the piano, as she had expected, but instead she landed on a stretchy, rubbery surface, where she bounced up and down a few times before she lay still on the floor, which was vibrating uncomfortably underneath her.

           

"Where on earth am I now?" she wondered. "It's so dark I can't see a thing. Oh, dear, I wish I hadn't started dancing with the piano keys in the first place. I'm sure I'll never get home in time for tea. Anyway, at least it's quiet in here."

           

Poor Annette spoke too soon, for, just then, up above her, a loud thundering noise began, and the floor under her started to vibrate again. It was so loud that she just held her ears and ran as fast as she could, trying to find some way out of this dark thunder-room. Even her running seemed to add to the noise from above, so that she was surrounded by the racket. As she ran she realised that the noise had a regular beat 

- taa ta-ta / taa taa / taa taa / taa - 

- over and over again. It was beating the rhythm of the little tune which she had danced to, thundering the words at her this time -

                        "Come little Annette, dance with us.

                        Come little Annette, dance, dance, dance."

 

But this time she did not feel at all like dancing. She only wanted to escape from the din.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At last she saw a dull light, shining on what seemed to be the wall of the place. Running up to it, she saw by the light that the wall was curved and enclosed her in a circle. The light was shining dimly from a little glass box on the wall, with something inside it. There were some words printed on the glass, but they were very difficult to read because she was still being shaken up and down. Fortunately the vibration wasn't quite so violent near the wall. With a lot of trouble she made out the words, which said, in small black letters, "IN CASE OF POTATOES, BREAK GLASS."

           

"I don't think this is a case of potatoes," she said aloud, though she could hardly hear herself speak, "but it certainly is a case of something extraordinary, and there may be something behind that glass that can help me get out of here."

           

The glass box was quite low on the wall, so she lifted her foot and kicked the front of it. This sudden action made her fall over backwards, and it was some time before she managed to get up again. When she did, she saw a little shelf in the broken glass box, and, on that shelf, there lay a small vegetable knife, just like the one her mother used to peel potatoes. Carefully taking the knife in her hand, she stepped back to get away from the pieces of glass which were jumping up and down on the floor, as if they were dancing to the thunderous drumming, knelt down as well as she could, and stabbed the knife into the vibrating skin. To her relief it went straight through, making a hole for light to shine in. She drew the knife out and plunged it in again, making the hole big enough for her to squeeze through.

           

She was in such a hurry to escape from the noise that she threw the knife and jumped through the hole into the air without thinking about where she was going. Fortunately she landed on a soft hill covered in green grass. When she looked up all she could see was a clear blue sky.