The metronome ticking away, feigning patience counted each second wasted on starts and stops. Lilah’s focus long left the room, replaying Snow White in her head from beginning to end. Her singing teacher, Mister Rogers as she called him, was unfortunately left with the lit vacant house,

“Now take a breath, use your diaphragm and try again”

The upright piano chimed her in and Lilah whose attention leaned ever closer to the seven dwarves dancing around her head, half-heartedly looked down at the sheet music for her first note.

It was the tie and cardigan; he never appeared to have any other outfit. It was ridiculous. How could a man his age not be able to dress himself? The thought had bothered her so much that it had taken her a minute to realise that she was frowning at him as she sang.

The first two or three bars were simple enough, a few odd pauses bought her some extra daydreaming time . . . until Mister Rogers would stare at her expectantly and raise his eyebrows like two hairy harbingers of disaster,

“Now, now! You can do it!” he would frantically whisper, but all in vain.

Merrily down

the scale

the black and white keys would scurry,

but descend the scale Lilah’s voice would not dare. Descending into the abyss of her insufficiency as a singer, plummeting to the depths of her nightmares as if she were the one to fall from that rocky cliff. A great lightning bolt just happens to be there to seal her fate and secure her demise.

She glided through the first note, confident and calm until she drew nearer to the next, where her voice waivered then halted as if afraid of choking. Occasionally she would lift her head to check Mister Rogers’ reaction then back down to her wristwatch, praying for six-thirty to magically arrive. She must have skipped a scene, she wondered as the dwarves were already chasing the wicked queen into the woods,

“Hello? Lilah!”

Lilah jumped back into focus, startled by her teacher looking at her quizzically and a little concerned,

“Are you okay?”

No. It was painfully obvious, was it not? Her math homework lay sitting on the dining room table with only a quarter of the work attempted. The words for her English essay refused to materialize no matter how hard she prayed to Saint Jude. Her mock exam unfortunately did not offer extra credit for knowing a film back to front. Her blocks of text messages remained sent but unanswered, as did the voice messages, and the missed calls. The beginnings of a new song kept interrupting the little princess in her head who kept singing of her dreams coming true – interjections childishly dismissing her dreams, painting a black alternate ending as if Lilah were the only girl her age who could possibly imagine such things.

But there was no way that she would let on to even her parents let alone Mister Rogers,

“Yeah yeah” she said at last, “Can we try again?”

Mister Rogers sighed, “Look, come over here to the piano, we can slow it down”

She readied herself to sing the phrase again until he raised his hand,

“Just hold on . . . listen first”

He crooned away effortlessly like Bing Crosby, long deep and full-toned yet with the skill and agility of a tenor half his age. Then he would signal to Lilah who was red and flare-faced, to repeat the phrase one note at a time.

Slow was fine. Why could it not be slow all the time? Then he would pick up speed and she stopped,

“Could we slow it down a bit?” The piano started again, she sang a little and stopped again as the note threatened to change in any way.

“I can’t do it – it’s too fast”

“Well too bad, Lilah!” Mister Rogers cut her off annoyed,

“You obviously haven’t been practising otherwise this would be finished by now” Lilah had neither the energy nor the will to contradict him, so she bided her time. He could not keep this up for long, even on a good day. At last he caved,

“Okay, why don’t we take a break? We can work on something else after”

“Actually, I’m kind of done for the day”, Lilah said sighing. The words slipped out before the rest of her could even catch up, and Mister Rogers indignantly responded, “Seriously?”

“Well, now that I’ve said it – yeah. I’m done. . . but same time next week?”

She was convinced that Mister Rogers growled a little as he slammed the piano lid shut, grabbed his sheepskin jacket then made a beeline for the front door.

Lilah making no effort to pursue him, overheard her parents plead with the offended singing teacher to come back. She assumed by the screeching Fiat tyres that this proved to be unsuccessful, and she happily amused herself with the final scene of the movie playing her up the stairs to her room. Homework could wait a little longer, right?