The Rising Star of Rusty Nail

  To the real star of Rusty Nail;

  she knows who she is.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Part 1 - Moderato

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part 2 - Adagio

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Part 3 - Allegro

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  The structure of this book is modeled on that of Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto no. 2, op. 18, which is considered by many to be one of the greatest piano concertos of all time.

  By definition, a concerto is “a composition with three movements, in which one instrument stands out against the orchestra to display the performer’s musical skill.”

  In other words, there can only be one star in a concerto. Not two or three—just one.

  Part One of this book, like the first movement of Rachmaninoff’s concerto, is called “Moderato.” It is fast and spirited, and sets the stage for what’s to come.

  Part Two, “Adagio,” is named for the concerto’s second movement. In it, tension slowly builds, leading up to big excitement in the third movement.

  And finally, Part Three is called “Allegro.” Swift and riveting, it is the dramatic culmination of the entire performance.

  Franny, you throw like a girl,” said Sandy with disgust as she expertly tied the end of a water-filled balloon into a knot.

  “I do not,” scowled Franny. “I got Rodney the jail janitor right on the back of the head, and you haven’t even hit a single person.”

  “Oh yes, I did. I pegged ole Norma Smitty when you ran downstairs to get more water.”

  “Really?” said Franny suspiciously. “I didn’t hear her yelling or anything.”

  “Oh, she yelled all right,” boasted Sandy, tossing her balloon onto a gurgling pile of water bombs. “She said, ’Sandy Anne Hellickson and Frances Hansen—I know that’s you up there! You ain’t foolin’ me! When I tell yer fathers that you was throwin’ water bombs off the top of that buildin’, yer gonna be sorry you was ever born!’”

  The girls doubled up with laughter. They were stationed on the top of the two-story building on Main Street where Franny lived with her parents and two older brothers. With its wooden false front jutting five feet above the roof, the building was practically a skyscraper in their tiny town—if Rusty Nail, Minnesota, could really be described as a “town” at all. In reality, it was little more than a bunch of dusty houses and stores clumped together in the middle of nowhere. For miles and miles, a seemingly endless carpet of cornfields surrounded the community. Cows and rust-colored barns dotted the countryside, and tractors drove slowly along the dirt roads.

  Long ago, Rusty Nail had been a pioneer outpost. But when the winters proved too harsh for the settlers, they took apart their makeshift wooden houses and piled the planks into their creaky covered wagons. No one knows where they went next, and the only thing they left behind was a pile of old bent nails. The next homesteaders who plunked along and settled in the area found these artifacts, and dutifully named the town Rusty Nail in 1879.

  These days, in 1953, Rusty Nail’s countryside was inhabited by weatherworn farmers, with a few store owners and regular folks mixed in. In the middle of the town square stood a sign, dulled by years of exposure to fierce summer thunderstorms and howling winter blizzards. It proclaimed:

  WELCOME TO RUSTY NAIL! FORMERLY THE AMERICAN COOT CAPITAL OF THE WORLD!

  The American coot was a bird that looked sort of like a duck. Like the pioneers, one year they’d decided to just up and leave. Rumor had it that they found Iowa more to their liking, and as a result, Rusty Nail was left with only the fond memory of the Era of the Coot.

  The sleepy town had only one of everything: one grocery store, one church, one lawyer, one doctor, one bar, even one old drunk who shambled aimlessly around the town square. There was even only one stoplight, which hung desolately on a thick wire over the intersection of Main Street and Church Street. Sometimes the light worked, and sometimes it didn’t. But in any case, most of the townspeople drove their rusted Ford pickup trucks so slowly that it didn’t matter one way or another.

  Time dragged in Rusty Nail and nothing ever seemed to happen. Even the flies in the air seemed to stand still, as though suspended inside honey-colored amber. The slow passing of time showed itself by the rising and falling of the sun, the changing of the seasons, and children growing up and then growing old and replacing themselves with a new generation of children to grow up and grow old in Rusty Nail.

  But most of the time, this didn’t bother Franny and Sandy. To them, Rusty Nail was the center of the universe. They had been lifelong best friends, for ten whole years. Sandy was the undisputed ringleader, even though she was several months younger than Franny.

  On this day, the last of summer vacation, Franny and Sandy were playing their favorite game: “Invasion of the Commies,” as Russians were popularly known in those days. Inspired by a war movie the girls had seen at the rather shoddy Hauser’s Movie Palace at the end of Main Street, the game involved throwing water balloons at people on the street below, pretending that they were looting-and-pillaging Russian soldiers. Franny and Sandy, of course, pretended to be American soldiers defending their home-town.

  Only the day before, Sandy had received an extra-large mail shipment of water balloons from the Finkelstein Prank & Curiosity Company of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This meant that the game could last until well after sunset— provided, of course, that they didn’t get caught.

  Sandy stood on a rickety metal stool, poked her head over the top of the false front, and surveyed the street below. A few farmers in dirty denim overalls lumped up the sidewalk and disappeared into the Arflot Saddle and Harness Store. The shredded, dirty screen door to Elmer’s Bar slapped open, and Old Bill Codger shuffled out, scratching his rear end and blinking dimly in the late-afternoon sun.

  Suddenly something caught Sandy’s attention.

  “Oh, goody,” she said excitedly. “Stella’s on her way up the sidewalk! Quick, pass me that balloon—I mean, that grenade.”

  She shoved a handful of cinnamon Red Hots into her mouth as Franny scrambled over with a water bomb. Stella Brunsvold owned the old-fashioned popcorn stand in front of Hauser’s. A mean old gossip, she spent her time spitting out corn kernels at children and chasing them away from the theater.

  “Here’s the grenade, Lieutenant!” shouted Franny. “Let ’er rip!”

  “Take that, Comrade!” Sandy yelled with glee as she tossed the balloon over the edge of the building. Comrade, according to the movies, was what Russians called each other. A few seconds later, the girls heard a satisfying splat! followed by a loud squawk.

  “Quick—look and see if you hit her,” said Franny urgently.

  “Dang,” Sandy said, peeking over the false front. “I missed Comrade Stella—but I did get the Snurrs.” An ancient pair of spinsters who ran the five-and-dime store, the Snurr sisters still wore long black pioneer dresses that covered their wrists and ankles.

  “They don’t count,” Franny scoffed. “They walk so slowly that a blind man could hit them.”

  “Fine, if you’re such
a good shot, then you hit Comrade Stella,” said Sandy, tossing Franny a balloon. “Hey, Franny.”

  “What?”

  “This is a lot more fun than practicin’ the piano all day, huh?”

  Franny paused. “Sure,” she said, since that was clearly what Sandy wanted to hear.

  “Boy,” said Sandy, eating more candy. Her lips and tongue were turning fiery red. “I’d go crazy for sure if I practiced as much as you do. You’re lucky you still got any fingers left.”

  “Go on and laugh,” said Franny, a little embarrassed by Sandy’s teasing, because there was more than a kernel of truth in it. Indeed, she was a good pianist—a far better one than anyone would ever expect to find in a place like Rusty Nail. And she did spend a lot of time practicing at the old upright piano in her family’s living room. She went on: “Laugh good and hard, but I have a plan, you know.”

  “What kind of plan?”

  “Well,” Franny said, juggling the plump balloon in her hands. “If the Commies came for real, I’d save my family with our piano.”

  Sandy looked skeptical. “How’d you do that? By pushin’ it off the roof on top of the Russians?”

  “No-o,” Franny said, annoyed. “I’d play it. The Commies would bust into the town and go door-to-door with their guns, just like in the movies. They’d round everyone up and send them over to the square. But when they got to my apartment, I’d be ready. When they kicked down the front door—there I’d be, sitting at the piano. And I’d start playing some Tchaikovsky.”

  “What’s that—some kinda hypnotist song?” Sandy asked.

  “No, dummy—Tchaikovsky is a Russian composer,” answered Franny. “And when the soldiers heard me play Russian music, they’d be so moved to hear it, so far away from home, that they’d spare me and my family. That’s why I have to practice all the time.”

  “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” said Sandy. “I’d just work on your aim if I were you. And if you don’t hurry up, Comrade Stella’s gonna get away.”

  Franny helped herself to some of Sandy’s Red Hots, stood up on the stool behind the false front, and looked down at the sidewalk. The damp Snurrs still stood there, squinting in confusion at the sky, as though expecting it to rain doughnuts next. Stella prowled around the building like a hungry alley cat, looking for the culprits who’d drenched the ancient sisters. Then a new person came into view, and Franny’s heart pounded with wild excitement.

  It was the girls’ classmate and official Number One Class-A Enemy: Nancy Orilee.

  She was, without a doubt, an infinitely hateable creature. Her father owned a seed plant and was the richest man in Rusty Nail, and her mother had won second place in a beauty contest at a dairy fair once. In addition, Nancy got straight As and was always the teacher’s pet. And, to top it all off, her father paid a special piano teacher to drive from a town forty miles away to give Nancy a weekly lesson.

  Franny, on the other hand, was far from perfect. Schoolwork bored her. Her family struggled to make ends meet, and no beauty awards hung on the Hansens’ living-room walls.

  In short, Franny simply could not compete with Nancy Orilee—except when it came to playing the piano. In fact, music was the one area in which Franny might have been even better than her rival. And, of course, this made Nancy hate Franny, for the Orilees were famous for detesting anything that resembled healthy competition. Sandy, on the other hand, couldn’t keep up with Nancy in any department, and had to settle for loathing her from the sidelines.

  Needless to say, Franny and Sandy were thrilled to see Nancy trotting up Main Street.

  “Lieutenant!” Franny yelled to Sandy. “It’s the big one—the one we’ve all been waiting for! Comrade Orilee at three o’clock!”

  She hastily pitched her balloon over the side of the building, and Sandy, squealing with glee, threw an extra bomb for good measure. They hunkered down and waited for Nancy’s shriek.

  Instead, to their horror, they heard the sound of squealing tires, a blaring car horn, and a crash, followed by a chorus of shrieking chickens. A flurry of feathers swirled up into the air.

  Sandy’s face went white. “What in Sam Hill?” she said as she leaped up on the stool and looked down at the street below.

  “Oh boy—are we gonna get it,” she said in a shaky voice as she sank down behind the false front.

  “What happened?” Franny gasped.

  “One of the balloons hit Mayor Reverend Jerry’s windshield, and he ran his car right into Mr. Klompenhower’s chicken cart!” Sandy exclaimed. The Red Hots fell right out of Franny’s mouth. “And of course, it all has to happen in front of Prancy Orilee—it’s just not fair! Oh boy, oh boy—are we goners. Quick—we gotta hide these balloons! Stamp on ’em!”

  The girls threw all of the balloons onto the rooftop and leaped up and down on them. One after another, the water bombs exploded until the girls were soaking wet. They were snatching up the scraps of rubber when loud footsteps pounded up the stairs to the roof. The metal roof door banged open. In the doorway towered Franny’s father, Wes Hansen, whose accounting office occupied the first floor of the building.

  Sandy stood there, a dripping balloon wrapped around her shoe. “Hi, Mr. Hansen,” she said as sunnily as possible. “What brings you up this way?”

  Looking like he’d just been shot out of a geyser, Wes stormed onto the roof.

  “Fran-ces,” he said in his most terrible voice. “You are grounded for the rest of your life. Downstairs—now. Both of you.”

  And that was how Franny and Sandy ended their summer vacation.

  Later that evening, Franny lay like a board on her bed in the family’s second-floor apartment, awaiting her doom. Of course, she’d been sent to her room without supper (which, in the Hansen house, wasn’t necessarily a punishment since Franny’s mother, Lorraine, was a famously awful chef). Still, her stomach grumbled as she heard the clink of the silverware against the plates from the kitchen mixing with the murmur of The Bob Hope Show coming from the big, clunky radio in the living room.

  “I swear, Lorraine,” Franny heard her father say to her mother, “I’m lucky that I still have teeth after sixteen years of your cooking. You could pave a road with this meat-loaf.” Franny’s older brothers, Owen and Jessie, snickered.

  Franny’s mother giggled. “Oh, it won’t kill you, Wes,” she said. “And if it’s really that bad, you know where to find the apron and the pans.”

  The boys laughed again. Owen was fifteen and Jessie fourteen, and they’d eat anything put down in front of them.

  Wes sighed. “Just give me some coffee, please. I don’t have the energy to saw this into little pieces anymore.”

  Franny’s stomach flip-flopped when she heard this. She knew that once Wes finished his coffee, he’d come down the hallway to give her the Talking-To-Of-All-Talking-To’s. Five minutes later, when he opened her bedroom door, Franny squeezed her eyes shut and pretended to be asleep.

  “Cut it out, Franny,” Wes said. “That’s the oldest trick in the book.”

  Franny sat up straight as an arrow and blurted out the first thing that came to her mind: “Sandy made me do it.”

  Wes pulled a chair out from under her wooden desk and sat down.

  “You’re just lucky that you and Sandy aren’t spending the night in jail—do you know that?”

  Franny nodded glumly.

  “You girls are going to earn back the money that it costs to repair the mayor’s car and Mr. Klompenhower’s chicken cart. I don’t care if it takes months of odd jobs during the afternoons and weekends. And then I want you to write a note of apology to every person that you hit. And that includes Nancy Orilee, since I assume that you intended to hit her with that last balloon.”

  This was simply too much. “Da-a-a-d!” Franny wailed. “Please don’t make me! She’ll never let me forget it!”

  Wes gave her a stern look. “Franny—I know that you’ve disliked Nancy since you were little girls, but you’re getting far to
o old for these kinds of shenanigans. Let me tell you this: you might think that it’ll put Nancy in her place if you hit her with a water balloon—but in reality, it only makes you look like a hooligan.” He sighed. “I want you to start letting everyone in Rusty Nail know that you’re someone special—a fine, talented pianist—not a little roughneck.”

  “How come no one ever tells Sandy to be special?” Franny asked grumpily. Sometimes she hated that word, since it set her apart so starkly from everyone else her age, like having a clubfoot or an extra finger. “Or Owen, or Jessie?”

  Her father frowned at her. “Because you’re different from them, whether you like it or not. You’ve got a gift and a chance that very few people have, and they don’t. It could be your ticket to the top, you know. I had a chance to be a big-deal musician once—did you know that? Did I ever tell you about the time Duke Ellington came to town?”

  “Only about a thousand times,” groaned Franny. Long ago, Wes had played the trumpet, but these days he rarely took it out of its case. The brass instrument lay silently smothered in the black-velvet lining of the coffin-like case. But even though he didn’t play anymore, he still liked to regale everyone in Rusty Nail with his Duke Ellington story several times a year.

  “I was eighteen years old,” Wes continued, as though he hadn’t heard Franny at all. “I spent all of my days working on your grandpa’s farm and my evenings studying to become an accountant. And then, late at night, I’d take my trumpet out into the cornfields, so no one could hear me, and practice under the moon, sometimes till dawn. By God, did I get good! And guess what happened then?”

  “The legendary Duke Ellington and his big, famous swing band drove into Rusty Nail during one of their small-town tours and gave a big concert at the school gym,” Franny recited automatically. “And you brought your trumpet in and played for him, and he asked you to join the band and travel all over the world, but you couldn’t go because you were already engaged to Mom.”

  Wes rubbed his jaw and stared at the bedroom wall.

  “Now, that was an exciting night,” he said, clearly in another world. “You should have seen it. That man rolled into town with three buses of instruments and musicians, and people drove in from all over the countryside. And Duke and his boys played hard into the wee hours, and folks were dancing like it was their last night on earth. It was hot as blazes in that room, and then I got up on the stage with my trumpet and …”