Venie Vonshweets's Arc

Chapter 1 of 5

Venie Vonshweets kept the small orange radio under her green hoodie, the dial turned to a dead channel that only hissed. In the town where she lived, music had been banned for a week, and her grandmother had locked the piano the same night and thrown the key in the trash. Venie was fourteen. The last song she had played was Clair de Lune, three years of practice held in her fingers with nowhere to go. She wanted a band. She wanted to press a key and hear it answer. She carried the radio so other quiet people would know her — a thumb on the volume wheel, two clicks, the signal she had taught herself. She walked to the old stage behind the empty lot because no one went there anymore. The boards were soft. The speakers on their stands had no cables. She sat on the steps and tried to think of a plan that didn't end with her grandmother's disapproving look across the kitchen. Every plan needed other people, and every other person was a risk. Her grandmother watched her hands at dinner. Her grandmother watched her mouth when songs used to play in stores. Getting word to anyone meant getting caught. A boy climbed up the other side of the stage with a guitar on his back and a red jacket pushed off one shoulder. His left arm was metal to the elbow. He stopped when he saw her, then saw the radio in her lap, the dial set to nothing. He clicked the volume wheel twice with his thumb. Venie clicked back. "Julian," he said. "Kalli. You play?" "Piano. My grandmother locked it." "My family voted for the mayor." He sat down a board away from her. "I was playing a song I wrote when the ban hit. I still know every note." "I memorized Clair de Lune from nothing," Venie said. "Three years." He nodded once, like that closed something. He unslung the guitar but didn't strum. He pointed at the dead speakers. "We need more of us. I know two. You?" "I watch for tapping fingers. I count four at my school." "Bring them here Thursday after dark. I'll bring mine. We pick a target — something the mayor wants quiet. We make noise on it." He looked at the radio. "That signal of yours. Teach it to them first. So they find us, not the wrong people." Venie thought about her grandmother's eyes on her hands at dinner. She thought about the locked piano and the key in the trash. She slid the radio back under her hoodie and stood. "Thursday," she said. Her plan had been to fight alone and lose alone. Now she had a place, a night, and one other person who knew the same song she did. Walking home, she practiced keeping her fingers still against her thigh, because she would need them to stay still a few days longer.