Practice Makes Perfect

Practice Makes Perfect

   “I’m world-weary,” said Roxanne, sitting on the counter, “all burnt out really.”

   “Off,” said her mother with a swat of her hand. “Already, after only nine years? It took me a little bit longer. How ‘bout you play piano. I haven’t heard you in a long time.”

   “It hasn’t been that long,” Roxanne called as she sauntered out of the kitchen.

        The out-of-tune baby grand piano loomed in front of her. She had quit months ago—calmly shaking her teacher’s hand, “It’s been nice doing business with you, but I think I can learn on my own now.”

   Roxanne started on her least favorite song, but it was the only one she could remember now. To make it more fun, she sang along opera style: Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the- BANG. Roxanne stopped. She started over, but no matter how hard she pounded the keys, they would not sound any better.

   She walked back to the kitchen. “I’m done with Piano,” she said lightly.

   “Why?”

   “The keys stick and I’m not any good at it,” she complained, munching on a cookie. “It’s all very humdrum, and I’m still bored.”

   “You just need more practice honey, but you could jump rope.” Her mother said. “Here is my old Jump-Rope Rhyme Book and the jump rope’s in the garage.”

   Roxanne was willing to give it a shot. She pulled out the dusty, musty, and smelly jump rope, flipped to a random poem in the book, and started:

Down by the ocean down by the sea

Johnny broke a bottle and blamed it on me

I told ma, ma told pa, and Johnny got a licking so ha ha ha

How many lickings did Johnny get?

   Just then Roxanne’s foot caught the rope. “Rats” she said, “It’s more like: How many jumps can Roxanne miss?”

   Back went the jump rope. Back went the book.

   “Jumping rope is jejune. I’m not any good at it and the rope gives me blisters,” Roxanne said coming back into the kitchen. Her mother let out a big sigh.

   “Did you really try your best, Roxanne?”

   “Yes!”

   “I’m running out of ideas dear.”

   “But I’m still bo-” Roxanne stopped. Her father had just come in. She knew if he heard, he’d say, “I can fix that!” and then give her such a long list of chores that she’d be thrilled to play piano or jump rope.”

   “How about you write a story?” said her mother.

   “Okay,” said Roxanne, dashing out of the kitchen.

   She got all her sharp #2 pencils out. She rummaged for a notepad to jot down ideas and a notebook to write the story in. She stared at her pile of goods. What could she write about? She was no good at coming up with ideas. But her father was downstairs eating his supper. “I will write about fish because I love fish,” Roxanne said out loud, trying to give herself motivation.  “One will be named Bubbles,” she said, feeling the words give her power. She jotted this down. “The others will be Gilbert, Gill for short, Fin, and Sandra.” She jotted this down. Sandra was her favorite girl name.

   Then she wrote her story. She did not know how spell ‘awesome’. You can’t write a good story without knowing how to spell ‘awesome’, but she plunged on. She read her story over. It was not like any of the picture books she had ever read. It wasn’t funny or adventurous or even romantic.

   “I need comedy, suspense, and young love!” she declared. She jotted these down. Without this, her story would be awful. But it came to her after lots of doodles. Gill, Bubbles, Fin, and Sandra could fight Snappy the snapping turtle of the pond. Fin and Bubbles could fall in love. Gill could be the jokester. She jotted this down and proceeded to write.

   Now her story was almost perfect, but not quite. She looked up all her words in her dictionary and fixed them. She found her grammar book and added punctuation. She fixed her run-on sentences and found words she could replace with her favorites. ‘Mean Snappy’ turned into ‘vindictive Snappy’ and ‘funny Gill’ turned into ‘sidesplitting Gill’.

   She read her story again. It was almost perfect, but not quite. She knew she could fix the problems. “I have a natural talent for this!” Roxanne declared, without even realizing all it took was practice and perseverance.