Keys and Strings

Chapter Three

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"You know what; I don't get that guy, Lucas." That was the voice if Channel, my best friend who's in France at the moment. She called me as I was on the way to school.

"You know I'm having a hard time here, FaceTime me." I said, struggling to keep my phone on my ear.

"Okay sure." She said as she ended the call. I placed my phone carefully on my personalized phone mount, and waited for Channel to accept my call, as soon she answered, her round face, round green orbs, and milk-pale skin (my skin tone's a shade darker than hers) appeared on the screen. She had her light brown hair up in hair curlers, as she would for everyday basis.

"Hey!" She said. Her bubbly demeanor never changes. "Going back to the subject, what's his deal? It was all just an accident, as what you have said, right?"

"I know, right? And he still had the nerve to talk to me as if I killed his dog or something." I said as I focused on the road. "And my brother still accepted him in his soccer team."

"Maybe your brother had a better reason why he did so." She said as she added a fresh new layer of lipgloss. "Whatever, though. How's that little friend of yours, Kara? Yeah?" She said then pursed her lips together to spread the color throughout her lips. But I hesitated. Channel never liked Kara, I don't know why. "She's fine, I guess." I said simply as I took a left turn.

"Iz zat. Alexandria?" I heard a girl's voice in the background with a thick French accent.

"Hello, Danni." I greeted, then a girl with big, round, blue orbs, and pale skin, dyed platinum hair with brown roots, and pointed nose, appeared on the screen, carrying an empty basket of hair curlers, waving her hand on the front-cam vigorously, as she smiled widely at me. The three of us had French blood coursing through our veins. Papa was full French, so it makes me half French. Channel's mother was half French. Then Danni was born in Paris, but grew up with English people. We met one snowy morning by the Eiffel Tower when I was just six, when we first moved to Paris for almost ten years. But the thought of the Eiffel Tower reminded me of someone else.

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I don't know what's happening with my family, everything happened so abruptly. We arrived here in Paris from America two hours ago, so that night, I managed to grab some clothes, a book, a bar of Galaxy Chocolate, my savings and stuffed them all in my satchel, I grabbed my cello propped on the corner of my room, its pink shiny cover made out of fiberglass, reflecting the dim yellow lights of the chandelier with gas lamps lighting up the room. I grabbed my cello and flung it behind me like a backpack and walked out my room.

It was a challenge in betting out the huge house of my father, with the guards and everything. But I managed. I remembered digging a hole months ago during our last visit, I manage to push a rock to conceal the hole, I got out through it. I wore a long sleeved, baby pink colored dress, white, snowflake patterned, translucent stockings with and black closed wedges. A huge bow was wrapped around the crown of my head and the base of my skull like a head band. I was all dolled up. I was running away, that all what was in my head, I wanted to go home.

I was eating the last of my Galaxy Chocolate, as I was taking a stroll, watching French people closing their shops, and closing their lights. I have no idea how to go home, I don't have any money, plus, I was alone. How do you expect a six year old to travel from a different continent to another all by herself? I finally realized that I ran out of chocolate, I sighed and placed the empty wrapper in my satchel. A familiar sound of a violin entered my ears in a familiar tune. Sonata No. 9 (Kreutzer) First Movement-Solo. I walked closer towards the person playing, squeezing into the people to get a better view. It was a guy, obviously older than papa, in ragged clothes playing the violin smoothly. A beret was placed down side up two feet away from his feet, as people were dropping coins and bills. As he finished the piece, the people surrounding him clapped and dropped down more coins and bills down the hat. People slowly left their places and the streets grew quieter, I walked away as well, but curiosity had me questioning why wasn't he performing with the symphony, or maybe performing solo on stage? I waited until we were alone, and as he was sitting on one of the benches cleaning the strings of his violin, I Then approached him.