For the "little cello folk"
Once upon a time there was a cellist named Max. He was six years old and had a great mom, a neat room, an oak tree outside his bedroom window and lots of stuff. He also did cool things, like play the cello.
On the day our story begins, his mother had gotten quite tough with him about practicing. She told him that she didn’t want to see him come out of his room until he had finished his cello work. But, unfortunately, it was one of those outside days if there ever was one. All of his friends were climbing trees at the park.
Max wasn’t very pleased to have to stay in. He sat there staring angrily at his little cello, and the longer he sat, the madder he got. He just didn’t want to practice-----AT ALL! His arms felt so heavy! Oh, he loved the cello songs a lot, but when HE played, it sounded, well......“different” than his CD. And it was hard!
So he sat slouched in his chair swinging his bow, back and forth between his fingers with a sour expression on his face, until he remembered a wonderful dream he had a few nights ago. It was so real he could hardly believe it was only a dream. It was about a forest with huge trees, and amazingly, there were cellos hanging from the giant branches. They were all sizes, colors and shapes. Some were of glass, some of cloth, some of metal and wood. He wished he could go there. If only he could pick a cello growing from one of those fantastic trees, maybe the magical cello would help him practice. It would certainly “sound” special and couldn’t possibly be as hard to play as his own, he thought.
Time wore on as the clock ticked quietly and he sat alone in his room. He looked out his window at the great friendly oak tree, while NOT practicing, and suddenly an idea appeared in his mind. He sat very still. Max's mood could turn on a dime sometime “Yes siree, it has been quite a boring day!” said Max to himself in a strange voice. “But it sure isn’t going to stay that way! I’m taking a trip to the cello tree forest!”
He scrambled to his feet and rushed to the closet. It took him a long time to dig out an old rope he used for tree climbing. After untangling it, Max threw it expertly out the window and around the old oak outside. He had practiced that! In seconds he slid down the rope and was in the yard below! No sooner had his feet touched the ground, than he was off. He didn’t have a clue where he was after a short while but this didn’t seem important. He knew where he was going. The cello tree forest!
As he walked along the sidewalk, he imagined the multi colored cellos swinging in the breeze from towering trees in the bright sun. He walked and walked and walked. The shadows grew longer and the air turned a bit chilly. He could now see fields between the houses and the sidewalk had turned into a dirt path. As he reached the end of town and reached the countryside, he could hear grumbling in his stomach. “I’m hungry", Max thought, and started to wish he were back home. At that moment he noticed a strange group of trees across the road ahead of him. They gave off a funny bluish light -very strange he thought. He ran to get closer and was really surprised when he got to the edge of the woods. He heard music!
He stepped into the forest past the first line of trees, and immediately felt something special was happening. Things looked magical and shadowy. Now Max felt somehow sure that he was close to finding the cello trees.
He hiked on faster and the music got louder. It was cello music but it sounded oddly dollhouse sized. How on earth could there be such a thing as “tiny” music? He could hear the small cellos but couldn’t see them. How small were they he wondered. As he peered up into the trees he noticed mysterious colored lights moving in and out among the branches. Then he spotted it. He was flabbergasted! High up near the top of a tree, was the smallest cello player he had ever seen. His bow was moving furiously. It was a chipmunk! With a little laugh, he wondered if the chipmunk hated to practice as much he did.
As Max traveled farther down the path, he saw more little animals sawing away on their instruments up in the trees. They were certainly working hard and yet seemed happy.
Next he noticed rays of light shooting up from the ground at the end of the path ahead of him. It was the first time he felt truly surprised since beginning this trip, (which is strange considering there were tiny animal musicians playing in the tree tops). And .....streams of light shooting up from the forest floor? Was this a dream?
When he reached the source of the light he realized that it wasn’t coming from the ground because there was no ground. It was a drop off. (ask your mom or dad what a drop off is) He was basically standing on a high cliff looking down on a valley so far below that he may as well have been seeing it from an airplane. There were rolling hills, trees, and roadways. Here he was up above in a dark forest looking down into another world with trees dotting the hills and a beautiful stream winding through it. “Hmmmm.......I don’t get it” thought Max.
More surprises were on the way. This time he surprised himself. Max jumped.....weeee!!!! And the next instant he was floating the long distance down between the forest and the valley with no more fear than if he were jumping over a puddle. The air felt warm coming up to meet him and it carried a delicious mixture of smells, sort of like cello varnish and apples! It all happened so fast that he was on the ground with a soft comfortable thump in the blink of an eye.
All around him in the sunshine were the biggest green trees he had ever seen. The grass was very soft on his feet. Where had his shoes gone he wondered? Did they fall off when he jumped? Then Max heard something. The sound of chimes, sort of the ones dangling from his neighbor’s porch at home, rode the breeze from far off. He walked in the direction of their tinkling and suddenly heard first one cello and then another. Cellos in conversation! In a land of surprises, surprise is no surprise!
He walked on and when he reached the top of a very steep hill, he looked down and saw what he had dreamed about. It was a HUGE orchard. On the trees hung cellos of all sizes, colors, shapes and materials. There were golden ones with pearl edging, cellos of glass that you could see through, even tiny ones made of wood that you could hold in the palm of your hand. He was excited beyond belief. He walked between the trees hoping to find the cello of his dreams, when a booming voice came out of nowhere.
“MAX!! I know the secret to success!” He stopped abruptly, frozen with fear. Then silence. The cellos swayed gently from the trees. Click, clack....click...clack. The sounds they made as they gently bumped each other in the breeze were soft and pleasing. “MAX!!” trumpeted the voice again; “I know the secret to success!” This time, afraid, he let the words sink in and began to wonder what they meant. “It would be kind of nice to know the secret to success,” he thought.
“Max!!....” the voice rumbled on. Well, it continued saying the same thing over and over as the shadows of the cello trees danced along the grass in the sunlight. On and on the voice repeated the same thing. “I know a secret to success!” it roared now louder. Max slumped against a tree in a sort of daze, growing tired of the voice after a time.
Then in a weak little voice he asked, “What..... What is a secret to success?” The Voice paid absolutely no attention, but went on repeating the same message. Max got impatient. “What!!!!?” he asked angrily. “WHAT IS IT!?” Finally he was so angry that he stomped the grass and started to cry. His mother always answered his questions. This was an outrage! He thought about going home, if he could find his way back.
More time passed and he grew sleepy. The sound of the “Voice” rolled over him, over the trees, and up into the sky like waves. “Oh dear”, he thought sleepily “what a beautiful place this is, even with that stupid voice.” He fell asleep.
When he woke up, a new idea had taken shape in his mind. There was something about that voice. It said the same thing over and over and.........OVER!
That was it!
Max figured it out and had his answer in a flash. He knew the secret to success. “Over and over” ...that was it. After all, he was in a cello tree forest and it was obviously trying hard to tell him something. Just practice over and over until it’s not so hard. How amazingly easy. He had always been in a rush and never wanted to just sit with his cello or get into the work for very long. It was always rush rush rush. Everything in this place was telling him he could be great at playing the cello if he just took the time, repeated it over and over, and believed he could do it. The message was that he had lots of time to get it right. Max thought, “A long trip could be as wonderful as a short one!”
Somehow, the moment he learned the secret to success, he found himself back in his room. It was more magic. It happened with no time elapsing. He saw his cello next to the chair on the floor. He thought about music and flying fingers. With a new kind of excitement he picked the cello up. There had been so many different cellos hanging from the trees, and yet he had forgotten to pick one after all. He didn’t care. His own cello seemed lonely, so he sat down and picked it up. He liked it fine.
“Max!” called his mother. “Have you finished your practicing yet? Kyle wants to play outside.” “No”, answered little Max as he calmly arranged his music on the music stand. “And don’t rush me please, I’ve got work to do!” Max’s mother was shocked!! And very very pleased. She told Max’s friend he could come back later because Max wanted to practice.
The sounds that came from Max’s room were never the same from that day on. He still had problems and the notes were sometimes wrong, but every day he got better. His mind was in the land of music and he knew the secret to success.
TheEnd
By Suzanne Smith
