A Short Story By Giada Garcia

The black jeep rolled to a stop. I got out and saw the plastic snowman standing in front of my piano teacher's one-story house. I walked up to her doorstep which had a Christmas reef hanging on the door decorated with lights. I rang the doorbell and heard Ms.Roland’s voice say,” Come in!” I entered and walked over to the brown couch and sat down waiting for her to call my name so the lesson could start. After 3 short minutes, she said,” Hello Giada,” as I walked over to the light brown piano.

“Today we will be choosing a song to do for your Christmas recital”. I wanted to do a more challenging song for the recital because the more challenging the song is, the better it sounds. After we finished listening to all the songs I had to decide. “Which song would you like to do?” asked Ms.Roland. “I think I would like to do the “Carol of the Bells”, I replied. After I chose the song she gave it to me and let me look through it. When I started to look through it I was thinking that I could finish it. But Ms.Roland told me that the recital was coming up very soon so I didn’t have much time to practice.

Once the class was over I headed home in my black jeep looking at the song. Most of the notes looked like a foreign language. I didn’t even know them yet! Then my Mom said, “Ms. Roland said you are doing a song that is in the Nutcracker!”

My mom, Dad and I would always go to the Nutcracker every year, and every year she told me that all the musicians were at the bottom of the stage where you couldn’t see them. But I could see all the notes that they were playing as they would flow through my mind. I had always loved the Nutcracker and everything about it! Doing a Nutcracker song for my Christmas recital would make me ecstatic! Every day after school I had to do 30 minutes of piano which included practicing my piano song. Every time I practiced it always sounded a little weird. I didn’t know if it was my timing or if I was playing the wrong notes. Every time I played my hands would start to get sweaty. I put my hands on my forehead and looked at the song with confusion, my eyebrows scrunched together.

My next piano session came, and Ms.Roland and I eventually got to the point when she had to listen to my piano song so she could see how I was doing. “Okay so now we will go over your piano song”, she stated. As I started to pull out the paper from my bag my heart started to beat faster and faster. After playing for her she said, “Nice!... But there are a lot of corrections to be made.” With her help I was FINALLY understanding what I had to do to perfect my song. The next day after school as I started to play my song it started to sound more fluent than before. But there was still a problem… it was a transition part! For me, those were really hard to do. So, every day I would do an extra 10 minutes of practice at home, but every time something was missing. It was a week before the play I still hadn’t mastered the transition hand part. 

Two days before the play, I had an extra piano session. After all the warming up I breathed in the minty air and started to play. My fingers moved magically over the keys. I had finally done it! Ms. Roland and I did it over and over again. Perfection still needed more practice. The following day me and my mom went over the song until I had perfected it. 

Finally, the day of the piano recital came. I wore a dark sage green dress with a black coat. As I looked around I saw Isabella! Isabella and I went to the same piano teacher for our lessons. She walked up to me and said,” Hi Gigi!” I was surprised to see her because I thought she was in dance class. “Hello!” But then I heard Ms. Roland say, “Welcome everyone, all of these kids will be performing a song for you, so please enjoy!” I saw that there were multiple pianos all near an enormous Christmas tree. All of the kids were standing in a line waiting for our turn to perform. Finally, it was my turn. “Next up is Giada!” said Ms.Roland on the microphone. As I started to walk up to the black piano my heart started to beat faster and faster. 

As I started to play it was going wonderfully until… I hit the wrong note! But I kept playing and I had finally finished. I gracefully lifted my hands from the piano, got up, and took a bow as I breathed in the cold air. I skipped happily on my way to the car after the recital, knowing I had succeeded. In the future, I will always practice thoroughly because I learned that practice makes perfect - or close to it, and that can show.

Author Bio:

Hello, my name is Giada Garcia. I am 10 years old. One fact about me is that I am a competitive soccer player! I get a lot of my inspiration from the hobbies I do. Some of my hobbies include sketching, playing video games, and soccer. I also enjoy swimming, playing with my sister, and rollerblading. Lastly, a random fact about me is that I LOVE tomatoes. I can eat them like apples. Thank you for reading about me!