Melody Llwellyn's Arc

Chapter 13 of 14

The morning after she won, Melody set up a desk beside the empty stage. She had promised to run it, and running it meant letting others sing. The parrot dragged a strip of kelp for a sign-up list. The starfish weighted the corners with shells. Melody smoothed the list flat and waited for the first voice to come forward. They came all morning. A crab with a drum. A clam who hummed. Each one stepped up, said a name, and Melody wrote it down. The salamander traded a chip of sea glass for a spot near the front, then settled to watch. Melody felt proud. The stage was open. Anyone could sing. But she never heard the three small birds. They stood at the far edge of the desk, wings folded tight, voices so soft they broke against the louder ones. Melody bent over her list and missed them. The starfish waved its arms at the crowd, and the birds shrank back. When the last name went down and the slots filled, the birds were still not on the list. Melody rolled up the kelp and stood. That was when she saw them. Three birds, small and gray, turning to leave. "Wait," she called. They stopped. "Did you want to sign up?" The smallest one nodded. "We tried," it whispered. "You didn't hear us." The words hit her like cold water. Her second rule was to hear the quiet ones first. She had done the opposite. She had let the loud ones crowd them out, exactly as she once feared crowds would crowd out her own soft song. She had broken her own rule on the first day. Melody knelt so her eyes were level with theirs. "I'm sorry," she said. "I know how it feels to sing where no one listens. I won't do that to you." She thought fast. The list was full for today. But the stage was hers now. "Come back tomorrow, at first light," she said. "You'll have the stage to yourselves. A solo, before anyone else sings." The birds looked at each other. The smallest one smiled. Then Melody reached into her shell and drew out the pearl-and-sea-glass bell. It had silenced a whole crowd for her once. She set it on the corner of the desk where anyone could reach it. "From now on, this stays here," she told the parrot and starfish. "If the chatter drowns you out, ring it. Then everyone hushes, and you get heard." The parrot tilted its head. "You're giving the bell to strangers?" "I'm giving it to whoever needs it," Melody said. The birds flew off lighter than they came. Melody looked at the bell shining on the desk. She had run the stage for one day and failed the quiet ones. Now she had a way to catch them. Tomorrow she would find out if it worked.