Someone had drawn a chair into the margin of the old score. On it sat a stick figure with an enormous ear. Eva, the youngest player in the pit, had an amiable disagreement with the conductor about it. (amiable: friendly, good-natured) He called the drawing banal. (banal: unoriginal, commonplace) She thought that nobody would draw the same ear on forty pages unless it had a job.
There was a hiatus in rehearsal while the stage crew rolled a staircase across the floor. (hiatus: pause, break) In that gap Eva heard a tiny wooden note, then another. The xylophone was under its cover. (xylophone: alternate name straw fiddle (historical), wooden clatter (historical)) She knelt to verify that nobody had touched it. (verify: check, confirm) Under the last chair she found a box of slats, each bearing a notch and the smudge of an old thumb. (notch: small cut, indentation)
The players began to jostle around the box. (jostle: bump against one another, crowd together) The stagehand gave a candid shrug. (candid: frank, straightforward) Their pitches seemed haphazard until Eva arranged the slats by length. (haphazard: unsystematic, irregular) A laconic stagehand tapped three of them and pointed upstairs. (laconic: terse, economical with words) The motif came straight back from the balcony. (motif: recurring musical figure, repeated phrase) It was the tune the heroine whistled when she had lost her way.
The quandary was who should play it. (quandary: dilemma, perplexing choice) The producer had promised to sell the unused chair. It took some tactful phrasing to broach a competing plan. (tactful: considerate, diplomatic; broach: raise, bring up) Eva wanted the seat in the balcony, where the echo could dovetail with the whistle onstage. (dovetail: fit neatly, mesh) The conductor called it an impromptu audition and sent her up. (impromptu: unplanned, improvised)
A zephyr came through a crack above the exit and lifted her first page. (zephyr: gentle breeze, light wind) Below her the heroine took an earnest breath. (earnest: sincere, heartfelt) Eva played. The whistle had sounded lonely all week. Its answer from yonder made every face in the stalls turn toward the sound. (yonder: over there, in the distance) Even the officious usher who had come to collect the chair sat on the stairs to listen. (officious: meddlesome, intrusively helpful)
The fledgling percussionist knew how easily one bad entrance could undermine the effect. (fledgling: inexperienced, beginning; undermine: weaken, erode) She marked her cue with the deft flick of a pencil. (deft: skillful, nimble) The conductor, who had a knack for taking applause, started to bow. (knack: talent, particular skill) Then he turned and pointed to the balcony. The chair stayed there. In the margin Eva drew a second ear, and a small gracious hand passing a pencil down to the pit. (gracious: courteous, generous in spirit) Her reluctant teacher signed underneath. (reluctant: hesitant, unwilling) The producer, ever shrewd, sold the two seats next to the music box. (shrewd: astute, sharp-minded) They carried a premium. (premium: surcharge, extra charge) Eva asked for a cut of it and got the first real laugh of the evening. The conductor put his wry reply in writing on page forty-one. (wry: dryly amused, gently ironic)