THE HIGH NOTE

“My goodness! How terrible can you get?!” screamed Miss Harmopp.

Lilian sighed heavily. “Another thirty minutes to go,” she thought miserably, as she tried to play the offending piece again.

Lilian had recently started learning the flute. But she was regretting the whole idea, ever since ending up on Zoom classes with the venomous Miss Harmopp.

“Wrong!! Anna, show her how it’s done!” shrieked Miss Harmopp. Anna Playhart. The snotty teachers’ pet. Lilian loathed Anna. “Miss Harmopp! I need the washroom!” Lilian cried, any excuse not to listen to Anna’s terrible music.

“Just Go!!” Miss Harmopp snarled, but Lilian was already gone.

Lilian peered out her window wistfully. There was not a soul on the streets. Why would there be? They were in the middle of a worldwide crisis anyway. Everyone stayed indoors, and all classes were online. Lilian couldn’t meet her friends either. Just depressing.

Even the teachers were stuck at home. This just made Miss Harmopp angrier at students, because day by day she was slowly growing crankier. Just goes to show what the lockdown does to you.

By now, Lilian was bored out of her mind. She absolutely refused to spend the rest of her day listening to Miss Harmopp or Anna’s dreadful music. So she picked up her flute and started to play. No particular tune. Just a song she made up on her own. When she played, she thought of many things. Mainly Miss Harmopp. She closed her eyes, and wished with all her heart that something dreadful would happen to Ms Harmopp. Maybe a convenient accident or perhaps she disappears altogether?

“Ah!!!” wailed Miss Harmopp, jolting Lillian to attention. Peering into the Zoom screen, she could see Miss Harmopp, hopping around like a madwoman. “Stupid Thumbtacks!!” screamed Miss Harmopp.

Miss Harmopp had stepped on some thumbtacks! Was it possible that Lilian had done that? No, that was just coincidental! It can’t be…” she muttered.

Naturally, the class ended early, to Lilian’s incredible delight. But she still sat absent-mindedly playing her song on the flute. Uncertain, yet only slightly guilty, that she had possibly caused Ms Harmopp’s accident.

“Lily! Play with me!” wailed Lilian’s little brother, breaking her concentration. “Hush Liam!” barked Lilian. And just like magic, Liam’s lips sealed shut. Liam looked at her, wide-eyed and bewildered.

Lilian was dumbstruck! Did she just do that?

But an inner voice whispered, “Lilian! Your flute song makes magic. You know it to be true!!”

Lilian’s eyes sparkled. She had always imagined having magical powers. Now she had them! “Yes! I have magic! I am unstoppable!!” Lillian declared triumphantly. A devilish grin soon spread across her face.

The world was in a mess, her annoying brother couldn’t talk, and magic was bursting at her fingertips.

“This is going to be fun!” she thought, grinning gleefully. “And what a lovely way to end the day”, giggled Lilian to herself, as she settled into bed, dreaming about the endless possibilities.

The world would never be quite the same again.

Sahaana is a Primary 5 student who lives in Singapore with her family. She enjoys lots of things, from baking with her mother to playing badminton with her friends, but reading is one of her favourite hobbies and she escapes to her books wheneer she has some free time! And if she’s not nose-deep in a book somewhere, she is furiously penning down my many thoughts in one of my numerous notebooks. She was inspiried to write this story by the unprecedented circumstances many of us face today.