Christopher Boucher - Golden Delicious

“Run you down in what ?” I said.

“A brown Plymouth Duster,” he said.

“A worm ?”

“A worm,” said the thought. “It shaped itself into different letters, and—”

“Driving a car?” I said. “That doesn’t make any sense!”

But then I started seeing the worms around town. I was standing in line at the Bagel Beagle one day when I noticed that the beagle behind the counter looked very wormlike. His ears and snout were clearly a costume, I saw when I got closer: you could see the chin strap of the dog nose running over gray skin.

I stepped up to the counter. The beagle’s name tag said, “Your Mom will die and then who will take care of you?”

“I’ll take a pumpernickel,” I said.

“Butter?” said the wormdog.

“Yes,” I said.

A few months later, a new student showed up at school. He had a Mohawk haircut and earrings, and when he introduced himself to the class he said his name was Everyone hates you. But you can call me Everyone,” he said.

“Welcome to the class, Everyone,” said the teacher, a beehive.

He was sitting right next to me, and I remember sneaking a look at his arm. “Know what?” said one of my thoughts to another.

“What,” said the second thought.

“That worm’s a sentence,” said the first thought.

“No shit,” said the second thought.

And then I remember going to the Bing with my Mom one day for a matinee — she took me every year for my birthday — when I noticed a gang of wormy sentences sitting in the far-left corner of the theater. They were whooping it up, really making noise. The movie was The Legend of Goggles Beaman , about a pair of goggles that is raised in the wild, believes himself to be wild goggles, and then must return to society.

In the middle of the film, though, something went wrong with one of the projectors and the screen went dark. All of a sudden the lights came on. “What the FUCK!” a sentence with long hair yelled at the screen.

“So weird,” I said to my Mom.

“Probably just a problem with the reel,” she said.

“I’m going to go get some more popcorn,” I said, and I walked out to the lobby.

As it happened, I was in line right behind two sentences — they ordered Jujubes and Fun Dip. When the second worm paid, he put his credit card down on the glass case and I snuck a look at the name on the card: “You will be left all alone.”

I went back to the seat and held my popcorn out to my Mom. She looked at the giant bag and smiled. “No thanks,” she said.

Just then the lights lowered and the screen lit up. The worms continued their chatter, but I tried to ignore them — I stuck my hand in the buttery mess and shoveled some popcorn into my mouth.

Sometimes it seemed like the pages of Appleseed would turn forever. At others, though, you could sort of hear the townspine breaking, smell the glue melting, see pages tear off into the wind.

One day when I was fourteen, my father heard a prayer about a free piano. This sounded meaningful, so my Dad prayed back that yes, he was interested. The prayer prayed back the name of the manufacturer — a name we didn’t recognize. Fine, my Dad prayed back. You have to move it yourself, said the return-prayer, and my Dad prayed that we would. But his truck had the flu, so we needed to borrow one. “Could we ask Joump?” I said.

“Let’s go see the Possum,” my Dad said.

The Possum was, or was not, a possum. Everyone called him one, though, because he was covered in fur. I don’t know if he was really hairy, or if in fact he was a possum with normal hair. One fact about the Possum? I’d never seen him eat anything but energy bars. Also, beer. Do possums eat energy bars?

The Possum had a shed at the edge of Appleseed, out near the Appleseed Library. Someday I’ll sow that story — the story of the Library. That library had secret books, books that I’d never heard anyone talk about or mention in conversation. (Not that people talk about books. But if they did.) Once I opened a page in a book and I saw that all of the words were naked. I’d never seen naked words before! For example.

I was standing at the door, lost on a road in my mind, when the Possum opened it. “ !” he said. “Ralph! Come in! I’m cooking — you want something?”

“We’re not hungry,” said my Dad, “but we were hoping that we could ask you for a favor.”

“Anything!” said the Possum.

We drove out to South Appleseed to see the piano. The owner said that she might or might not be home, but that the piano was easy to spot: she prayed it stood in a field about a hundred yards from a big blue house. “Why is it in the field ?” my Dad had prayed. “Because,” she prayed, “I just couldn’t take it anymore.”

We located the blue house and, a hundred yards away, the piano, vowing like a soldier against a backdrop of flat, electric green. The piano and bench stood all alone in that field, and it looked like they’d been there for some time — the piano was sunk up to its knees in mud. Moss grew over the instrument’s chest, and vines crawled up one shoulder. “It’s a part of the earth,” I said.

“Does it even work?” asked my Dad.

“Only one way to find out,” said the Possum, and he sat down at the bench. My father and I sat down beside him, and the three of us studied the keys.

“We’re here now,” my Dad said to the piano. “So you can play.”

The Possum looked at my father.

My Dad leaned closer. “Do it. Play!” he said louder.

“What are you doing?” said the Possum.

“I’m waiting for it to start playing,” my Dad said.

“It’s not one of those types of pianos,” said the Possum. “Is that the kind you were looking for?”

“I didn’t know there was a difference,” my Dad said.

“There is,” said the Possum. “There are automatic pianos and manual ones. This one’s manual.”

My father nodded — the Possum would know. Something that is surprising about the Possum? Is that he was actually a very good piano player — a child prodigy. He used to travel the world, playing music that no one else could. You were probably expecting that we brought along the Possum for his truck only, and it’s true that we needed his truck. But we could have asked Uncle Joump; we could have asked one of the Muir Drop Forgers. Of the three of them, the Possum was the only one who knew anything about pianos.

Which is why, sitting there on the bench in the field, I asked him to teach me something. “Can you show me a cord?” I said.

“Chord,” he said. “There’s a silent h .”

“C-hord,” I said.

“It’s been twelve years since I’ve played a note of music,” said the Possum.

I made my face pacific.

The Possum put his paws on three keys and let them rest there. He closed his eyes. I leaned in — I was expecting to hear something amazing.

The Possum pressed down on the keys, but I didn’t hear any notes — what I heard instead was a click, and the sound of the point of view shifting. Then the Possum and the Father and looked at each other. “Where’s the music?” said .

The Possum played another chord and the point of view shifted again: you were confused and disappointed.

“This piano is out of tune, or something,” said the Possum.

Just then a figure came running down the road. She was dressed in chartreuse green spandex and her face was hampden: bright but sad. She cut across the field and ran up to you. “You found the piano,” she said.