Hana Hashimoto, Sixth Violin

When Hana Hashimoto announced that she had signed up for the talent show and that she would be playing the violin, her brothers nearly fell out of a tree.

“That’s just loopy,” said Kenji. “You’re still a beginner.”

“Stop kidding,” said Koji. “You can barely play a note.”

“It’s a talent show, Hana.”

“You’ll be a disaster!”

Hana squared her shoulders and took her violin and bow inside, leaving her brothers laughing like monkeys in the tree.

She pulled at the strings, letting them twang. It was true that she was still a beginner. She had only been to three lessons. The first time Hana held a real violin had been that summer, while visiting her grandfather in Japan.

Long, long ago, her grandfather had been part of a great symphony orchestra in Kyoto. Ojiichan had been Second Violin and once played in front of the Imperial Family.

Ojiichan played every morning. From his study, the clear, bright notes would drift upstairs, through the shoji screen doors to where Hana slept on sweet-smelling tatami mats, and coax her awake as gently as sunshine.

Ojiichan usually played classical pieces by Mozart or Mendelssohn or Bach. But in the indigo evenings, while Hana and her brothers ate ice cream and oranges, Ojiichan would sit on the veranda and play requests.

Hana always asked for a song about a crow cawing for her seven chicks. Whenever Ojiichan played it, Hana would feel a shiver of happy-sadness ripple through her.