Seth (Casella Cousins #2) - Kathryn Shay Page 0,18
nametag to the first little girl to enter her room at Westside Elementary. This summer, she’d met with all the families of children who’d be placed in music therapy. She got to know each child a bit, talked to the parents about her programs and left them some printed information.
“Hi, Ms. Ford.” Darcy slapped the plastic square on her shirt and walked inside. “Take a stool on the mat.”
Soon, all the students arrived and she closed the door.
“Where’s the desks?” a boy named Perry asked.
“Stacked over there in the corner. When we need a flat surface to write or draw on, we’ll use them.”
“So, wha-da-we-do today?” Junita wanted to know.
“We’re going to have a drum circle.” She pointed to six hand drums in the center of the mat. “We’ll use those.”
The purpose of this first lesson with her students was to encourage socialization, interaction and cooperation. It also inspired creativity.
Darcy frowned. “I don’t know how to play a drum.”
One child, Mackenzie, scowled but said nothing.
“No problem. I’ll show you how to do it. Everybody can pick one out now.” She waited until they each grabbed a drum, then returned to the circle. “The first thing to do is to hit the drum like this.” She simply patted the canvas of the one she’d saved for herself.
With various vigor, each child patted his or her drum.
“Next, do this.” She made three-pats. Stopped. Then one pat.
All of the kids were able to complete the pattern.
She made up another one, more complicated.
They followed suit.
After a couple more drills, she stopped and smiled at them. “See, you know how to use drums. Now listen to this.” She created a minute-long pattern.
“That doesn’t sound like nothin’.” Joel spoke up.
“It says how I feel.”
“It does?” Drew’s eyes were wide.
“Yep. Let me play it again and you can guess how I feel.”
The kids were wide-eyed but a few contributed guesses, that she felt happy, calm, good. “You’re all right. Now, I want you to bang out anything on the drums. You can stop when you get tired or if I hold my palm out like this.”
Nothing. Then Darcy started with gentle taps. Junita joined in with harder ones. Everybody played and the noise picked up…but Mackenzie. She let the girl observe the group. After a bit, she held up her palm. “Raise your hand if you drummed how you felt, like I did.”
Again, all but Mackenzie.
“That’s great, you guys. You expressed yourselves with the drums.”
After a few more exercises, class ended. Julianne rolled up the mat and put the drums away so she could leave the room in order for the next teacher to use. She’d successfully blocked thoughts of Terrance all morning, but now that she was finished here, it came back…
He said as he was leaving, What the fuck, lady. Who do you think you are?
I’m so sorry you were caught up in this, Terrance.
You will be. I could…never mind. You’ll see, Ms. Ford.
She left school upset all over again. She stopped to pick up a salad on the drive back to MusicWorks. Once inside, she headed to the back room, did a little paper work for the studio and ate her dinner. When she heard a knock out front, she hurried to the entrance, checked the window and opened the door. “Hey, you two.”
“Hi, Julianne.” Logan was smiling. “We’re not late this time.”
“No, you’re not. You want to come in?”
“I have a ton of phone calls to make tonight so I’ll just do it in the car. Have Maddie come out when she’s finished.”
“How’s the concerto coming?” Julianne asked Maddie when she sat in the instruction area.
“Slow. My mom was a teacher, and she was great when I practiced. Dad tries to listen too, but it’s not the same.”
“Do you miss her, Maddie?”
“Yeah. It gets better every year, though.”
To distract Maddie from sad thoughts, she said, “How about if we work on the concerto and play our duet the last ten minutes?”
Julianne tried to put something fun in each lesson for students. Some kids just wanted to play the song for their lesson. Some wanted to play with her. Others wanted to experiment with another musical instrument that she kept for that purpose. It made the time at the school more enjoyable.
When they’d finished a rousing violin duet, Maddie grinned. “That was fun.”
They both stood. When the girl went to gather her things, Julianne said, “I’m leaving, too, so if you wait one sec, while I get my stuff, I’ll walk out with you.”
Julianne