The Week Pip Wanted to Quit
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Pip had been practising the recorder for eleven days, and it still sounded, he thought, like a goose with a cold. On the twelfth day he put the recorder in a drawer and shut it hard. "I am just not musical," he announced. Gran took out the practice chart from the first day and set it beside one from the day before. On the first, Pip had managed three notes in a row before squeaking. On the latest, eleven. "You cannot hear yourself getting better," she said, "because you hear it every day. The chart can." Pip looked at the two rows of marks for a long moment. Then he opened the drawer.