Full Circle

Chapter 6. A PRIVATE PERFORMANCE

NEWS OF JENNY'S incredible performance spread through the school faster than any forest fire. It spread first through Year 11 and then made its way down through the school year ages to Year 7 until the whole school was awash with the musical genius that was Jenny Sullivan.

Jenny thought that the "magic" of the silver banana would wear off quite quickly. But the next day when the Headmistress surprisingly called her out of the general morning assembly to play for the school, she found herself playing Mozart and Debussy with ease before finishing off with her own, equally as good, if not superior, improvised impromptu creation.

She still had some confidence, but unlike her musical skills, she felt her confidence was rapidly subsiding. She used the last of her confidence to announce after her performance that she would be no longer playing the piano as she wished to concentrate on her schoolwork and wanted to be treated as just an ordinary everyday schoolgirl. The truth of the matter was that Jenny feared that her musical talent would also subside at any moment, and she didn't want to be put under the spotlight after it happened.

As for her adventures in the out of time and out of place street THIS WAY, she found it impossible to tell anyone—not that anyone would have believed her. She tried to tell Peter, she tried to tell her best school friends, she tried to tell her parents, but no words would come. And as she periodically played a tune now and again on her synthesiser and realised her musical keyboard talents were not going away, she put the fact down that she could not discuss the whole peculiar business down to the power of the silver banana.

And she never could, despite her every effort, find the street THIS WAY again. There was no indication of it on any Internet maps, and she even checked some of the paper maps from her local Station Road newsagents. Nothing. The poster of the handsome boy remained, but the existence of the peculiar street was no more.

Worse still, because she no longer played the piano for anyone and refused every request, no matter how earnestly it was put, the entire school, including Mrs Nikolayeva, began to think they must have imagined it all. The fact that Jenny seemed as daft as a doughnut again and because there were rumours that some hallucinogenic gases had escaped from a nearby underground chemical plant during the two days Jenny performed, helped to confirm their suppositions. Jenny did get to keep her 100% score as the administration of re-scoring and re-testing a reluctant Jenny would prove too much of a headache for Mrs Nikolayeva. To underline the whole peculiar affair, Mrs Nikolayeva announced three weeks later that it would be Alison Thompson receiving the school's music prize and not Jenny.

Weeks later, after a morning assembly, Jenny decided to pay Mrs Nikolayeva a visit as she had a free period. And as was often the case, Mrs Nikolayeva was in Music Room 2 playing what was effectively her own grand piano. Mrs Nikolayeva only taught twelve hours a week and ran the department for the rest of the time. Although exams could be attended during the first period after assembly or registration, Music Room 2 was always free. Jenny waited patiently outside the door until a natural break occurred in Mrs Nikolayeva's piano playing. Then she quietly knocked on the room's oak door.

"Come in," shouted Mrs Nikolayeva.

Jenny turned the dark brown porcelain doorknob and stepped into the room.

"Ah, Miss Sullivan. I'm sure you understand why I had to renege on my promise to you of the music prize. Is that why you're here?"

"No, Mrs Nikolayeva, not exactly. But I must tell you it is a huge relief not to be getting the prize. I'm not a particularly clever or confident person as everyone can see. But it breaks my heart for me to think you had something robbed from you and I decided to do something about it."

"There's no need to apologise, Jennifer. It wasn't your fault. Hallucinogenic drugs have been known to send people tumbling to their deaths from tall buildings, thinking they could fly. At least the only thing that came crashing to the ground in my case, was a few golden moments. Moments that after all, did not really occur. So there's no need to make anything up to me."