Read A Crooked Kind of Perfect for Free Online Page B

class together. Wheeler Diggs is making puff pastry. In my kitchen.
    And on days when Mom calls and says she'll be home late, Wheeler stays and eats Mom's dinner. Which is most days.
    And after dinner, he stays and does his homework.
    I don't know what is weirder, Wheeler Diggs eating my mom's dinner or Wheeler Diggs actually doing his homework.
    I think maybe it's the homework.
    "Wheeler," says Dad. "It's nearly seven o'clock. Won't your dad be getting home soon?"
    Wheeler shoves his stuff into his backpack.
    "Do you want to bring him some Éclairs?" Dad asks.
    "Nuh-uh. Thanks anyway."
    "Do you need a ride?" says Dad.
    Ride? My dad is offering to drive?
    "Nuh-uh. I just live over on Loon, remember?"
    "Okay, then. We'll see you tomorrow?" says Dad.
    "Dad," I say, "tomorrow is Wednesday. I've got my lesson." I've been practicing "Forever in Blue Jeans"

for a week. I have to say I'm pretty good. Good enough, maybe, that Miss Person will declare me a prodigy after all.
    "Do you mind hearing her lesson?" Dad asks Wheeler.
    "I've heard her practice. It couldn't be any worse," he says.
    Dad laughs. "See you tomorrow."

If at First You Don't Succeed
    Miss Person puts her glass of ginger ale to her forehead, like she's trying to soothe a headache. "Wagner's Aunt Alice," she says. "Let's try it again, this time just the left hand."
    I play the left-hand part. Without the melody to cover it up, I can hear rotten notes popping up all over the place. They are clunky and awful and as far from prodigy as you can get without giving up entirely.
    "Hear that? Do that part again."
    I do it again.
    "Again."
    I do it again.
    "Again."
    I do it again.
    "Again."
    I do it again.
    "Once more."
    I do it again.
    "Better," she says. "Do it again."
    I do it again.
    Miss Person scribbles some notes on a yellow paper. "Okay," she says. "Here's the plan. All this week I

want you to play the left hand only—just the left hand. The following week, we'll put both hands together again. Then we'll add the pedals the week after that." Miss Person counts on her fingers. "That will leave us one more week to get you perfect for the Perform-O-Rama."
    She keeps on talking about practicing and how there 's a long way to go before I'm performance ready and that I haven't even added the real percussion yet.
    I don't say anything.
    If I do, I know I'll cry.
    The only person I ever let see me cry is my dad.
    And he is in the kitchen puffing pastry with Wheeler Diggs.

And That's When I Decide
    I'm going to quit.

Quitting
    It is no big deal that I am quitting.
    It isn't.
    It really isn't.
    It's not like quitting the piano.
    That
would be a tragedy.
    People in movies only quit the piano when their wife dies or they get amnesia or they lose their arm in the war.
    And even then, they don't quit forever, because one day they are sitting there thinking about the good old days when they still had a wife or a memory or an arm and they notice that there is a piano in the room and they walk over and they press a key, a single key, and then another and another and suddenly they're playing the piano again and they decide that life is worth living. And they are happy. And pretty soon they get a new wife and their memory comes back and they learn to play lots of songs written for one-handed piano players.
    I would play the piano if I had only one hand.
    If it was the right hand.
    Not the left hand, though.
    I can't play with my left hand.
    I would have to practice all the time if I only had my left hand.
    All the time.
    Which, if I was a prodigy, I wouldn't have to do because I would be so talented that all I would do is read the music once and then I would sit down and play and it would be perfect. Even the left-handed parts. Perfect.
    Which I can't.
    Which is why I'm quitting.
    Which is what I am going to tell my dad.
    If Wheeler ever leaves.

Go Figure
    Wheeler stays for dinner.
    Then he stays to do his math homework. We're learning units of measurement. How many ounces go into