The hachi-maki sat like a crown around my head. It made me feel braver.
And then it was our class’s turn.
13
A MIRACLE
I stood on tiptoe. Maggie Milsap walked onto the stage with her violin.
She started playing, the melody drifting up and out over the audience. Suddenly a screech came from the violin. I pushed my way forward. Maggie was frozen on the stage, her wide eyes staring in shock at her violin. She ran her bow across the strings again. It screeched again. Maggie dropped the bow onto the stage and her cheeks turned bright pink. The audience rustled in their seats.
Maggie Milsap stood there for what felt like forever until Ms. Sanchez went onstage while clapping. The audience clapped, too, but it was a polite clap, not a cheering type of clap. Ms. Sanchez picked up the bow and guided Maggie off the stage and then Tommy walked on with his yo-yo.
I thought I would feel happy seeing Maggie mess up, but I felt bad for her. She hadn’t kept playing, like Mom said I should if I messed up. I couldn’t believe Maggie hadn’t had a perfect performance! Everything about Maggie was perfect.
When it was finally my turn, Kat stepped onto the stage and set up my hira-daiko. My stomach dipped. I’d been practicing first on air, then on my bed, and then on the gomi-kan. What if I couldn’t play the hira-daiko anymore? If perfect, talented Maggie messed up, how could I, with my brand-new talent, play without mistakes?
There was no more time to worry. I walked onto the stage, squinting into the bright light. I remembered playing at Kat’s house. I remembered playing on the gomi-kan. I touched my hachi-maki for good luck. Then I took a deep breath.
“Ichi, ni, san, SO-RE,” I said with a little tremble in my voice.
I hit the hira-daiko.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!
I raised my arms and shouted, “HA!”
I hit the drum again five times and shouted, “HA!” once more.
My arms were strong. My voice was loud. My heart lifted. This was fun!
Without worrying or thinking, I kept playing. The drum boomed! My voice boomed! I played without any mistakes! I didn’t drop the sticks and I yelled all the right sounds at all the right times.
I hit the drum eight times slowly for the Big Eight.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!
Then I went into my Super Jasmine Drummer Girl Flamingo Pose. I held out my sticks and lifted my arms like they were wings, and I stood on one leg and yelled, “SAH!”
The audience clapped and I grinned. I bowed and walked off the stage.
When I sat down backstage, Linnie leaned over and gave me a big hug. “You did it, Jasmine!” she said, smiling. Tommy and Daisy waved to me. I sat back in my chair, joy and relief bubbling inside me.
I looked around and saw Maggie sitting by herself next to the exit door. Her hair hung down over her face and her shoulders slumped forward. My chest tightened.
I walked over to her, and when she saw me standing next to her, she made a face. “What do you want?” she asked, her eyes looking nervous.
“I thought you did a good job,” I said.
“Are you trying to be funny?” she asked.
I shook my head. “The violin looks hard.”
“It is.” Maggie clasped her hands together. “The best I’ve ever played it was at dress rehearsal, actually.”
“The song was pretty,” I said.
Maggie looked down at her shiny black shoes. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t play it perfectly. Now my parents won’t take me to get a hamburger and my favorite strawberry milk-shake.”
“Don’t you like playing the violin?” I asked.
Maggie shrugged. “It’s okay.”
“I love playing taiko,” I said.
“It does look fun,” Maggie said.
Maggie’s voice sounded different. Normally she was so loud. Normally I tried not to listen to her. But this was not a normally time. I remembered what Ms. Sanchez had said about being friendly to Maggie because she was new and didn’t have friends here yet.
“Maybe you can take taiko lessons, too,” I said, surprising both me and Maggie. “Maybe you can come with me to my next lesson.”
“Really?” Maggie said, smiling. “That would be cool!”
I smiled back. Already she sounded more like herself.
“I’m sorry for saying you wouldn’t be the best,” she said. “You did a great job.”
“Thanks!” I said. “I think you did, too. We tried our best.”
I thought about how awesome taiko sounded when Kat and I played at the same time. If Maggie and I played together, that was how we’d sound. Wowee zowee!
Maybe the real miracle wasn’t that I did a great job at the show or that I did better than Maggie. Maybe the miracle was figuring out that it was more important to have fun. And I, Jasmine Toguchi, love having fun!
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Taiko means drum in Japanese. The word refers to all types of Japanese drums. Taiko as an instrument has probably been around for thousands of years, used during times of war to motivate and energize troops, in temples and shrines during worship, and in theater for dances and songs. However, playing different taiko together in performance groups is a more modern development, starting in the 1950s.
Taiko are traditionally crafted from a single piece of wood, carved to be hollow, and covered with animal skin stretched tightly across the top. Making one is a very long process requiring great skill. Today’s taiko can also be fashioned out of wooden slats or barrels.
Taiko come in different sizes and have different names, like the medium-size barrel-shaped drum, called the nagado-daiko, and the smaller drum that Jasmine plays, the hira-daiko.
The sticks used to hit taiko are called bachi. In Japan, they are typically made from Japanese white oak, cypress, or magnolia. In the United States, bachi are usually made from maple. Different weights of bachi produce different sounds. Bachi also come
