Beethoven in Paradise (12 page)

Authors: Barbara O'Connor

BOOK: Beethoven in Paradise

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“How MUCH DOES a brake job cost?” Martin asked his mother.

She looked up from her paint-by-number picture. “A brake job? Lord, you're asking the wrong person.” She dabbed her paintbrush in the paint and squinted at the tiny numbers on the picture. “Who needs a brake job?”

“What about a saxophone?” Martin said. “How much you think a saxophone would cost?”

His mother put the brush down and sat back on the couch. “You mind telling me what you're talking about.”

Martin told her about the shed and the saxophone and the deal he could work if he only had something to trade.

“Problem is,” he said, “I hadn't got anything to trade. And if I had the money to buy something to trade, then I wouldn't be needing to trade in the first place. Know what I mean?”

His mother nodded. “That's a problem, all right,” she said, and went back to her painting.

Martin finished cleaning out the shed in two days. Now Frank was going to pay him extra to help haul stuff to the dump. He took one last bite of cereal before heading out the door. When he got outside, his mother was slamming down the trunk lid. She looked up at Martin and waved a bag in the air. “I got something for you,” she called, grinning.

“What?”

She sat down on the steps. “Close your eyes and hold out your hand.”

Martin felt the same giddy excitement he used to feel when he was little, waiting for surprises.

She put something flat and hard in his hand.

“Okay,” she said.

Martin opened his eyes and looked down at the orange-and-blue license plate in his hand. Alaska, the Last Frontier.

“Hot damn!” he said.

His mother laughed.

“I got to go,” Martin said. He ran to the side of the house to get his bike, then stopped and ran back to where his mother sat on the steps. He kissed her on the top of the head and said, “You're the best.” He jumped on his bike, then turned to look at his mother one more time. She still sat
there, smiling, and for a minute Martin thought he saw that same peaceful face he had seen on that Bible-clutching little girl on the church steps all those years ago.

When he got to the Richardses' house, he went straight around to the back, swinging the bag as he walked.

Sybil straightened up when she saw him and smiled. She rested a basket of string beans on her hip. Her broad face was tanned, her nose sprinkled with freckles. She moved toward him in that slow-motion way of hers.

“What's that?” She pointed to the bag.

“Something for your dad,” Martin said. “Is he here?”

She pointed to the side of the garage. A beat-up Toyota was parked on the grass. Two skinny legs stuck out from underneath it.

“Hey, Frank,” Martin called. The legs moved, and Frank emerged from under the car. He squinted up at Martin. His cheek was smudged with grease.

“Well, hey,” he said. He stood up and tossed a tool into his toolbox with a clang. “What's up?”

“I came to work that deal.”

“I'm game.”

Martin opened the bag and took out the license plate.

“Hooeee,” Frank whooped. “Sybil, would you look here?” He held it up for Sybil to see. The three of them stood there, beaming at one another. Martin thought about that day he had looked back at Sybil and Frank standing in the garden and had felt like an outsider. Now here he was standing with them. On the inside.

It was Frank who broke the spell. He went to the shed and came back with the saxophone.

“It's all yours, buddy,” he said.

Martin took the saxophone and ran his fingers over the little dents on the side.

“Did Beethoven ever play the saxophone?” Sybil asked.

Martin laughed. “I doubt it,” he said, “but I bet he could have.”

He looked down at the saxophone. “Mind if I leave my bike here?”

Sybil shook her head. Martin put the saxophone in his mouth and blew. A puff of dust shot out the end. They all laughed. Martin blew again. A low, hoarse sound came out.

Martin started walking slowly toward the street. He held the saxophone to his lips and blew. The saxophone squawked. The squawk got louder.

Martin kept walking and blowing, squeaking and squawking, down the road and over the Rubicon toward Paradise.

Also by Barbara O'Connor

Me and Rupert Goody

SUMMERTIME,
words and music by George Gershwin, DuBose and Dorothy Heyward, and Ira Gershwin

All rights administered by WB Music Corp.

Used by Permission

WARNER BROS. PUBLICATION U.S. INC., Miami, FL 33014

HOW GREAT THOU ART
by Stuart K Hine

eISBN 9781466809949

First eBook Edition : January 2012

First edition, 1997
Sunburst edition, 1999

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

O'Connor, Barbara.

Beethoven in Paradise / Barbara O'Connor.â1st ed.

p. cm.

Summary: Martin longs to be a musician, and with the encouragement of two very different friends, he eventually is able to defy his mean-hearted father and accept himself and the talent within him.

ISBN: 978-0-374-40588-5 (pbk.)

[1. Self-acceptanceâFiction. 2. Fathers and sonsâFiction. 3. MusicâFiction. 4. FriendshipâFiction.] I. Title. II. Series. PZ7.0217Be 1997 [Fic]âdc20

96-17289

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