Angelic Voices
Deb Logan
Includes Bonus Story
Lilah's Ghost
and
Preview of
Smashwords Edition. Electronic edition published by WDM Publishing. Copyright © 2011 by Deb Logan.
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction, in whole or in part in any form. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Angelic Voices
Susie Emerson sucks. I can’t believe I ever admired her. Mrs. Davis gave that descant solo to me. My voice was supposed to lilt over the rest of the choir, float to the rafters above the sanctuary, maybe even soar right up to heaven and please God with its sweetness. Until Mrs. Davis reassigned the descant to Susie.
If Susie’s mother wasn’t the Director of Music at Valley Christian Church, I’d trap Susie in the alley and tear her hair out. Actually, I’d be doing her a favor. That fine, white-blonde, wispy stuff hardly qualifies as hair. If I pulled it all out by the roots, some decent, dark, thick curls might have a chance to grow.
Yeah, I know. Violence is never the answer, but it sure felt good to think about.
“Deanne Lawyer!” Mrs. Davis’ voice cracked over my head like a whip and forced my thoughts away from Susie’s destruction.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“I asked you to trade places with Susie. I want you to lead the soprano section.” She turned to face the other girls as I switched seats with Susie. Mrs. Davis missed the smirk Susie aimed at me, but I didn’t.
You are SO toast. I settled into her vacated chair. Your own mother won’t recognize you when I’m finished.
I plotted as I sang the melody line to our portion of the Easter cantata. Honestly, the soprano part was so predictable, even the eight-year-olds should be able to sing it without sheet music or my strong voice to lead. In spite of the ease of the part, I still heard Heidi waver off- key, so I turned my head and aimed my clear, perfect- pitch voice in her direction. She pulled into the key and held her own.
What to do about Susie? I wanted my descant back, but couldn’t fault her execution of that soaring counterpoint. If only, I’d had some warning about her backstabbing. I could’ve held my own in a fair fight, but when Susie Emerson, my fourteen-year-old idol, pulled in close to me and sang right in my ear...well...it’d take a stronger vocalist than I was at the moment to stand up to Susie’s voice and sight read at the same time.
Unfortunately, the same tactics wouldn’t work for me. My voice could blow the wax out of your ears, but Susie wasn’t sight reading. Like I said, her mom was the Director of Music. Susie had been studying that piece since before Mrs. Davis settled on it. She might’ve even talked her mom into insisting Mrs. Davis choose it. Score one for ‘Sucky’ Susie.
The soprano section sounded like a single voice by the time Mrs. Davis released us for the day. I ran to find my parents and did such a great imitation of a happy twelve-year-old Mom didn’t even narrow her eyes. Mom’s amazing. She always knows when I’m plotting something. Maybe she’s psychic. Or, maybe she just knows kids.
I’m the youngest of six, which has some definite disadvantages — experienced parents being a major one. Some of my friends get away with the dopiest stuff just because their parents don’t know any better...yet. Mom’s on a personal crusade to educate the adults in my sphere of influence. She’s determined to ruin all possibility of fun in my universe.
Anyway, I had her fooled for the moment. I giggled and teased Roger, my fifteen-year-old brother, all the way home, secretly longing to escape to my room to determine Susie’s doom.
I worried the problem that whole week — I can be a real bulldog when I get my teeth in something — but didn’t come up with a single usable tactic. After all, I wanted to live to sing that descant, and if Mom caught me doing anything really bad, life would end.
Then, Sunday morning, while my other four brothers piled into the van that masqueraded as our family car, Roger handed me the answer.
“Listen, squirt,” he said. “I know you’re friends with Susie Emerson,” Yeah, right. “so you might want to warn her. Jason Billings is a nasty piece of work.”
I let my eyes go wide in little-sister innocence. “What’s Jason got to do with Susie?”
“Word is they’re meeting in the hall behind the baptistery between services.” He stopped, reconsidered, and changed direction. I love watching Roger think; psychics need not apply. “Well, warn her not to go. I’d hate to see a friend of yours get hurt.”
I kept all understanding off my face as I allowed my I-don’t-have-a-clue expression to morph into my whatever-you-say-oh-godlike-brother smile. “Okay, I’ll tell her.”
Roger smoothed back his blue-black hair and climbed to his assigned seat. I stifled my desire to leap in the air and do back flips, and instead stepped daintily to my spot behind Mom.
“Everyone ready?” Dad asked.
Oh, yeah, this is going to be a GREAT Sunday.
*~*~*
I think the pastor’s sermon centered on “Love Your Enemies,” but I wouldn’t swear to it. I didn’t hear much since my obsession with catching Susie where she shouldn’t be filled my brain.
When the service ended, I escaped Mom’s chaperonage by racing to walk with Angie Cooper and her mom. Mom approved of Mrs. Cooper.
“Oh, no,” I said, infusing mortified horror into my voice.
“What is it, dear?” asked Mrs. Cooper.
“I forgot my offering for the starving children in India! I have to go find Roger. He’ll know what to do.”
“Do you need me to come with you?” she asked, as I wove through the parents herding children to Sunday School.
“No, thank you,” I called over my shoulder. “I know where he is.”
Free of supervision, I turned down an unused corridor and raced for the warren of halls behind the baptistery and choir loft. Yes! Deserted hall — now, where to hide?
I just managed to pull my camera-phone from my pocket, step behind the baptistery door and leave it open a crack before my quarry arrived.