The Vanishing Violin Read online

  Leigh Ann beams. “I’m starting to get this detective stuff. Think about the janitor for a second, Becca.”

  “What about him?”

  “How tall is he?”

  “I dunno. Pretty tall. Definitely over six feet. So?”

  “Soooo, he wouldn’t need to stand on this shelf to reach the top one.”

  “Ohhhhhh,” we chorus.

  “Now can we get the heck out of here?” pleads Leigh Ann. “It’s going to take a gallon of Cleen and Shinee to get these cobwebs out of my hair.”

  As we backtrack through the basement, I give a secret wave at my whiskered friend and whisper, “We’ll be back.”

  Chapter 3

  Brainiac. Prodigy. Rock band manager. Object of clandestine admiration. Margaret’s résumé continues its relentless expansion

  There is a crowd at Perkatory, the coffee shop just around the corner from St. Veronica’s that is also our favorite after-school hangout, so we don’t get our usual cool-kids’ table. Instead, the four of us squeeze into a love seat covered with fabric that instantly makes me itchy and fidgety—fiditchety.

  “Stop wriggling,” complains Rebecca, who is halfway on my lap.

  “I can’t help it,” I say. “This couch is gross. Let me up—I’m gonna sit on the arm.”

  Rebecca claims my abandoned real estate. “And as long as you’re up, why don’t you go order for us?” She smiles sweetly and flutters her eyelashes at me.

  I bow deeply. “Your wish is my command, O Socially Challenged One.”

  Leigh Ann stands up and takes me by the arm. “Come on, Soph, I’ll go with you.”

  Leigh Ann and I got off to kind of a rocky start, thanks to my irrational, conclusion-jumping alter ego (who looks exactly like me). You see, there’s this boy, Raf, who’s been my friend, like, forever. But while we were busy chasing down the clues to find the ring, I started having these I-want-to-be-more-than-friends thoughts. Constantly. And then I just happened to see Leigh Ann’s cell phone with his number in it, and I basically totally freaked out. Trust me, if you could see the future supermodel that is Leigh Ann, you would understand why I lost it. But everything worked out—for me! (My knees still go a little weak when I think about how well it worked out.) She forgave me for my little journey to jerkdom, and in the weeks since the Unfortunate Misunderstanding, Leigh Ann and I have become great friends. In fact, it feels like she’s been part of our group for ages and ages.

  “Expect a little something extra in your cup,” I say, pantomiming a spit at Rebecca.

  The girl behind the counter is new; she has spiky black hair with a streak of orange, and she’s wearing a faded purple NYU sweatshirt. Leaning over the counter for a closer look at my blazer, she reads the crest.

  “Ah, St. Veronica’s. And the green ones are Faircastle. And maroon is Our Lady of Victory. I had no idea there were so many girls’ schools around here. It’s crazy.”

  While she goes to work on our order, I ask her how she likes NYU. One of my many dreams is to live in the Village, go to New York University, and play my guitar in all the cool clubs down there, so a girl in an NYU sweatshirt is a source of valuable information.

  She gives me kind of a funny look at first, but then she shrugs. “It’s okay, I guess. Is that where you wanna go?”

  “Yeah, but my parents are pushing for Columbia. We know a guy who—” I stop myself, deciding she probably doesn’t really want to hear about Malcolm Chance’s promise to help me get in.

  She leans over the counter. “Well, don’t go telling everyone, but right now my main ambitions are for this place.”

  I look around at Perkatory’s motley collection of furniture, its peeling paint and impressively grungy floor that is only slightly less sticky than a movie theater’s. The place is a dump, but it’s our dump—know what I mean? I don’t know how I feel about somebody new coming in on her first day and talking about making big changes. “They are?”

  “Oh yeah. I mean, this is a coffee shop, right? You’ve got to have music. Live. Real.”

  Leigh Ann puts her arm around my shoulders. “It just so happens that we have a band.”

  I elbow her and shake my head. Actually, what we have is an idea for a band. We’ve never actually played together yet. “We’re just getting started,” I say, which is only a little total lie.

  “Does this band of yours have a name? Gotta have a great name.”

  Leigh Ann looks at me. “Do we?”

  “Um, no.”

  The girl sets our drinks on the counter. “Well, how about this—the Blazers. Cool, huh? If you like it, it’s yours. A gift. You guys let me know when you’re ready for your first gig. I’m Jaz, by the way.”

  The Red Blazer Girls. The Blazers—I like it.

  Back on the couch, Leigh Ann tells the others about Jaz’s plan to add live music to Perkatory’s menu. “And she said we can play whenever we’re ready.”

  I see one eyebrow go up on Margaret’s face. “Who is ‘we’?”

  Leigh Ann looks at me for support.

  “Oh, you know, I’ve been talking about starting a band for a while,” I say. “Me on guitar, Becca on bass. And now we have Leigh Ann to sing. You should hear her, Marg. She’s awesome.”

  Leigh Ann tugs on Margaret’s sleeve. “What about you?”

  Margaret smiles. “Thanks, but I’m not sure a classical violin is a fit. You guys need a drummer or a piano player. Besides, I just don’t have time now that I’m in this string quartet.”

  My mom, who is Margaret’s violin teacher, recruited her to join a youth string quartet. Mom is prepping them for a big competition over at Juilliard in February—very serious stuff—and they have an aggressively ambitious rehearsal schedule.

  “Is that, like, short for Jasmine?” Becca asks, completely out of the blue.

  Leigh Ann’s head tilts to one side, a quizzical look on her face. “Is what short for Jasmine?”

  “Her name. Jaz.”

  Ahhhhh. Jaz-mine.

  Speaking of which, there she is, clearing tables and wiping them down. When she gets to us, she points to Margaret and Rebecca and asks me, “So, is this the rest of the band? Did she tell you guys the name I thought of?”

  “Noooo,” Rebecca says, looking confused.

  “Oh yeah,” I say. “Jaz came up with a really cool name for the band. The Blazers. What do you think?”

  “That depends,” Rebecca says. “Am I gonna have to wear my school blazer when I’m playing? Because that is definitely not cool. Art is supposed to be about expressing individuality, not worshipping conformity.”

  A month of art lessons in SoHo and suddenly she’s a rebellious near teen.

  “Jeez, Becca. Who peed in your orange juice this morning?”

  “Ugh. I really hate that expression, Sophie,” Margaret scolds, holding up her bottle of Orangina and grimacing.

  My goodness, aren’t we a sensitive and delicate bunch.

  I look up to see a Greek god towering over me. He is six feet tall, carrying a duffel, and wearing a school blazer with the St. Thomas Aquinas crest, which I recognize because that’s where what’s-his-name (oh, that’s right—Raf!) goes.

  “Hey, Leigh Ann,” the god says, the glare from his perfect white teeth nearly blinding me.

  And that clunking noise you just heard? That was three jaws hitting the floor as Becca, Margaret, and I all spin to stare at Leigh Ann for an explanation.

  “Alex! You’re back!” She jumps up and hugs him. “How did you find me? Oh my God, you guys—this is my brother, Alejandro, but everyone calls him Alex. He’s a senior at Aquinas. He’s been up in Cambridge for a week—some kind of math competition. He’s a genius.”

  “Your b-brother?” I stammer. “I guess you did say you had a brother, but you never said he was—”

  “Hi, Alex,” Margaret says. “I’m Margaret, and these two are Sophie and Rebecca. Math, huh? At Harvard?”

  “MIT,” Alex says. “There were kids from all over the count
ry. I mean, I guess I thought I was pretty smart, but the competition—”

  “Now you’re just being modest,” Leigh Ann says. “I can’t believe how much I missed you! You just can’t go away to college next year—unless I can come, too.”

  Alex takes a look around Perkatory and at the four of us. “Oh, I think you’ll survive. So, you about ready to head home? I’m starving, and Mom’s making red beans and rice. Nice meeting you guys—Leigh Ann’s told me about you all.” He takes his duffel and heads for the door.

  “Before you go, Leigh Ann,” I say, “can everyone make it to my apartment tomorrow for rehearsal? Becca, you don’t need to bring your amplifier; you can just plug into mine. This is going to have to be kind of an ‘unplugged’ rehearsal anyway. I don’t think the neighbors would appreciate us blasting the plaster off their walls.”

  “Just think,” Leigh Ann ponders. “One day, when they’re interviewing us on MTV after winning our first Grammy, we’re going to look back on this as the moment it all started. The Beatles. The Rolling Stones. Nirvana. Coldplay. The Blazers.”

  As C. Daddy Dickens would say, there’s nothing like having great expectations.

  Next door to and at the same slightly-below-ground level as Perkatory is Chernofsky’s Violins. Anton Chernofsky, the proprietor, grew up in the same town in Poland as Margaret, and the two of them Polish-dish away whenever she stops by. Even though her family left Poland when she was seven, her parents still speak Polish at home, and Margaret tells me that she still dreams in Polish most of the time.

  On the way out the door of Perkatory after the historic creation of the Blazers, Margaret pulls me down the steps to the violin shop.

  “Yippee,” I say with mock enthusiasm.

  “Two minutes. I want to tell Mr. Chernofsky about the quartet. He’ll be excited. And besides, you love Mr. C. as much as I do.”

  All too true. Completely guilty as charged. The guy is like everybody’s perfect grandpa.

  “And there’s always the possibility that he’ll have another amazing violin he’ll let you play, right?”

  “You never know,” Margaret says, grinning. Two weeks earlier, Margaret had one of those life-changing moments in the violin shop. Mr. Chernofsky came out from the workshop cradling a violin in both hands. “One day,” he said, “I hope to make a violin as fine as this.”

  Margaret’s eyes got all buggy when she read the tag hanging from the neck. “Is this really …”

  Mr. Chernofsky nodded. “He purchased it recently at an auction. He brought it in for a little work.”

  “Whose is it?” I asked.

  “David Childress’s,” Margaret answered, her voice all whispery.

  “Huh.” I was painfully aware that I should know who that was.

  “He’s first violin in the Longfellow String Quartet. He’s … incredible!”

  “Margaret, are you blushing?”

  “N-no. That’s ridiculous.”

  “What do you think, Mr. Chernofsky?”

  He held his thumb and index finger far enough apart to slide a single sheet of paper through. “He is very handsome.”

  “And this old thing is his?” I said. “Gotta tell ya, doesn’t look that great to me.” The varnish was rubbed off completely in some places, and there were dents and dings all over it.

  “Only the sound matters,” Margaret reminded me. “And this probably sounds like—Mr. Chernofsky, can I play it? Please? Just for a few seconds. I … I just … it’s so …”

  She faltered! Margaret! She was so flustered at the idea of playing her idol’s violin she couldn’t complete her thought.

  The wrinkles around Mr. Chernofsky’s eyes deepened as a smile slowly curled his lips, and he moved toward the door. After hanging the CLOSED sign in the window and locking the door, he handed Margaret the violin and chose a bow from a rack.

  She took a deep breath, played a couple of notes to warm up, and then glided ever so gracefully into Schubert’s “Ave Maria.”

  It is hard to explain just how beautiful the sound was that came pouring out of that dinky chunk of lumber, but I can tell you this: my geese were bumping and I saw actual tears in Mr. Chernofsky’s eyes.

  When Margaret finished, she just stared at the violin while we applauded.

  “So, Mr. C.—what do I have to do to make this my own?” she finally asked, laughing. “Sweep, polish, scrub—you name it. Heck, I’ll wipe the dust out of all the violins with a Q-tip. Honestly, I’ve never heard anything like it. Even your mom’s violin, Soph. Hers is nice—I mean, it’s a thousand times better than my violin—but this one’s in a different universe.” Reluctantly she handed it back to Mr. Chernofsky, who hung it on a wire strung across the workshop.

  “One day, Margaret Wrobel. One day,” he said, eyes twinkling.

  As we step inside the shop, the warm, inviting smell of freshly sawn wood greets us even before Mr. Chernofsky ambles out from the back room. With his bushy gray hair and beard, he looks a bit like a skinny Santa Claus. His denim apron is covered in sawdust that is the color of a perfectly poached salmon; a few specks always manage to embed themselves in his beard, and a nub of yellow pencil habitually peeks out from behind one ear. Pumpkin, the shop cat, who is the color of her namesake, rubs her wiry body around my legs vigorously enough to trip me. When I reach down to pet her, my white socks are covered in orange hair.

  “Thanks, Pumpkin. Go rub on Margaret now.” She does as ordered. The cat loves everybody.

  “Ah, Miss Wrobel, Miss St. Pierre! Welcome! So good to see you. Come in the back and have a cup of tea.”

  “Thanks, but no tea today, Mr. Chernofsky,” Margaret replies. “I just dropped by to tell you some news—starting tomorrow, I’m playing in a string quartet! Sophie’s mom is going to be coaching us, and I’m going to be first violin.”

  Mr. Chernofsky beams. “Wonderful! What does your papa say about this?”

  “He thinks we’ll be playing at Carnegie Hall by summer.”

  Mr. Chernofsky laughs so loud the small stained glass window behind him rattles in its frame. “And why not? He is very smart, your papa.”

  Margaret blushes a little. “Well, I don’t know.”

  “Oh, don’t be so modest, Margaret,” I say. “You know you’re good. Mom didn’t pick you because you’re my friend. You’re her best student. She says so all the time. Really, I have to beg her to stop.”

  “You see? Your friend knows. Your teacher knows. Your papa knows. I know. I have heard you play,” Mr. C. says. “And now a surprise! I have something for you. A package—it arrived this morning.”

  A deep wrinkle forms on Margaret’s forehead. “That’s strange. Why would somebody send something to me here?”

  From behind the counter, he pulls out a sturdy cardboard tube about three feet long and four inches in diameter and points at the label, printed neatly in all capital letters: MISS MARGARET WROBEL, C/O CHERNOFSKY’S VIOLINS, 158½ EAST 66TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10065.

  “I think someone sent you a telescope,” I say.

  “Or perhaps a salami,” Mr. Chernofsky suggests.

  Margaret turns the salami-telescope tube every which way in her hands, examining it from every angle. She shakes it. She listens to it. She even smells it. “Hmm. Kind of lemony. With no return address. Who would even know I come in here?”

  “I’m sure all that is explained inside.” Patience is a concept I’m not really fond of.

  “Wait, who delivered it?”

  “Oh, for crying out loud.”

  “All right, all right. I’ll open it!”

  She rips off the tape that holds a wooden plug in one end of the tube, and then uses the smallest blade on Mr. Chernofsky’s pocketknife to carefully pry out the plug. That is followed by wadded-up newspaper jammed into the tube to protect whatever is inside. After an eternity, she pulls out a thin object about two feet long, neatly wrapped in heavy brown paper. She tears the paper off, revealing a violin bow with about half of the horsehair missing
or broken. A note, typed on stiff white stationery, is curled around the middle of the bow, secured with a perky red ribbon, from which an ordinary house key hangs. Margaret hands the bow to Mr. Chernofsky while she reads aloud:

  Dear Miss Wrobel,

  The recent story in the East Sider that chronicled the exploits of your Red Blazer Girls in the successful recovery of the Ring of Rocamadour was of great interest to me. One day, I should like to congratulate you in person, but for now, and for reasons that will be revealed later, I must limit myself to written communication.

  Please consider the enclosed bow a gift, a much-deserved reward for locating the ring and turning it over to its rightful owners. You have proved yourself to be an honorable person, and I firmly believe that honor should—no, must—be rewarded. I apologize for the bow’s current condition, but I think you will find it to be worthy of your skill and well worth the expense of new hair. Perhaps your good friend Mr. Chernofsky will see his way toward offering you a discount?

  Now, a great bow without a violin on which to play it is like a key without a lock, so I offer you the opportunity to care for the violin that is its longtime companion. Note that I say “care for,” because no one truly owns a violin such as this; we are mere guardians, protecting it for a time and then passing it on to another worthy caretaker.

  When you are ready to take possession of the violin of your dreams, use the attached key to open the door that awaits you, and it will be yours, with no strings attached, so to speak. Read between the lines, and you will find all the information you need to begin your quest. Do zobaczenia. Powodzenia.

  Sincerely,

  A friend

  I hold the paper up to my nose. “You’re right, it smells lemony—like the dish soap my mom uses. What do these two words mean?” I ask, pointing at the two non-English words at the bottom of the page.

  “‘I’ll be seeing you’ and ‘good luck,’” Margaret says. “In Polish.” And then, with a knowing smile, she looks up at Mr. Chernofsky. “Ahh. This is from you, isn’t it?”

  For a second, it looks as if he’s going to confess that the letter and the bow are his handiwork, but then he turns his palms up and slowly shakes his head. “I’ve never seen this bow before, and I swear to you, I did not write this.”