The One-in-a-Million Boy

by Monica Wood

He will ask this of his father, who will say to himself: You can’t make a simple D chord, how do you know about changing keys? I listened, he’ll answer, and his father will realize how ardently he’d paid attention all along, how carefully he observed, how hard he tried. He will tell his father that the morning chorus sounded like something rising out of the breath it took away. To which his father will respond, All right, then, my friend; let’s make some music. The ten parts of Miss Vitkus’s story will end with bird music in a key she can hear, a big surprise that he will present to her next Saturday, exactly nine months and twenty-six days before her actual birthday. Miss Vitkus will want to meet his father, who lowered the key of birds, and they will all become friends. He cannot know that the thing he thinks of as his friend’s amazing life, ninety minutes on tape, will momentarily break from his hand and slide down the street to be crushed beyond seeing by the first squad car at the scene.