The Secrets of the Sheets of Music

Beneath the floorboards, Ivy and George discover a nearly 200 year old music score book, but it’s the blank pages that hold the musician’s ‘greatest treasure’… 

By Jovana, age 15

1832

Even though just a boy, Jack Edwards was an excellent composer and pianist. Now he decided to use those skills to hide his greatest treasure. His family was moving, and he wanted to leave the most valuable part of his possessions to be found by someone from the future. However, he wanted that person to be worthy of his treasure, so he decided to hide it and leave a clue leading to it. He took a new sheet of music and wrote a couple of simple compositions to fool the eye of an unworthy observer. After that, using lemon juice instead of ink, he wrote a composition that held the key to finding the treasure. On the margins he left a short instruction for the finder. Shortly after the juice dried, Jack flipped through the sheets one last time to make sure he had done the job well. There was no trace of the secret composition. Instead, only apparently empty sheets remained. Jack smiled in relief.

“Hurry up, Jack!” his mother called him from the ground floor.

The boy left the sheets and went downstairs.

 

2022

“How are you getting on?” Mum asked.

“Okay. But we need more money,” answered Ivy.

“I’m sure you'll have enough soon.”

“I hope so,” sighed Ivy. Raising the money to buy a horse turned out to be more difficult than she expected. She and George, her best friend since kindergarten, rode horses at the same club, so when they heard that their favourite mare, Zara, was for sale, they firmly decided to buy her. That was a month ago. Since then, both Ivy and George had pooled their pocket money, the money they received for their birthdays and from some extra housework. That, however, was not enough.

“I’m going to the loft, mUm,” said Ivy as she was walking upthe stairs. She wasn’t in a particularly good mood at that time, and she would always find something in the loft to cheer her up. There were always some old and interesting things up there. Ivy was rummaging around in old chests on the floor looking for something interesting, when she tripped and fell. She glanced at the floorboard that made her trip. It looked as if someone had shifted it out of its place and then put it back. She tried to lift it, which she did with a bit of effort. There was a hole under the board, and inside she found some incredibly old looking sheetsof music. The pages were stained and frail to the touch.

“Where did this come from?” she asked herself.

She went to the lamp in the corner, better to make out the sheets. There were not many compositions there. Lots of pages were blank.

“Boo!”, someone shouted just as she was examining last composition. Ivy flinched and dropped the sheets on the lamp.

“George! You scared me,” she said to her best friend.

“I’m sorry. What are you doing?”

“I found this,” she said, reaching for the sheets. She sighed in surprise when she saw that another composition and text on the margins had appeared on the pages that had been blank just a moment ago.

“This was not here before,” she said.

“It looks like invisible ink,” George replied.

Ivy glanced at the note in the margin.

“Dear finder,” it read, “Congratulations on finding the secret composition. I created it as a key to finding my greatest treasure. All you have to do is play it on my piano. However, there is a catch; you will have to complete the last line of the composition. If you do it right, the treasure is yours. Good luck. Jack Edwards.”

Ivy read the message twice to make sure she got it right.

“Can you believe it?” George said, “We have to find that treasure.”

“How do we even know if it exists?” Ivy asked sceptically.

“It’s worth a try, isn’t it? Maybe it will be just as much as we need to buy Zara.”

That convinced Ivy to give it a go.

“At least I know where that piano is,” she smiled as they walked down the stairs, “Mum says that the piano in the hall is incredibly old and has been there forever. Jack left the sheets here, which means this was his house, which means the piano probably belonged to him too.”

“Excellent, but don’t you think we’ll struggle to finish that composition?”, asked George.

“Let’s hope not,” Ivy said, trying to sound more optimistic than she really felt. She had taken piano lessons two years ago, but still wasn’t confident enough in her composing skills.

They reached the piano in the hall. It was obvious to the eye that it was old, but that it was also once exceptionally beautiful. Ivy sat down on the chair and placed her fingers above the keys. She started playing Jack’s secret composition. It was a beautiful and energetic tune. Repetitive in certain parts. It was obvious that it wasn’t finished because the end came rather abruptly.

“Can you finish it?” asked George, who had no clue about music.

“I believe I can.”

Ivy tried all afternoon to compose the last line. She studied the layout of notes and rhythmic figures in the composition, so she was constructing the ending accordingly. During that time, George was flipping through a book and every ten minutes would ask: “Have you done it?” which was not particularly helpful. Ivy had already tried fifty variations by the time George had to go home. She was sitting and composing at the piano until midnight. She was about to try out another combinationwhen sleep overcame her, and she dozed off on the piano stool.

In the morning, someone started shaking her, so she startled and woke up. It was George.

“And have you succeeded?” he asked. Ivy just shook her head. She wanted to get down to work right away, but her mum told her that she would have to eat breakfast first. As soon as she finished the last spoonful of porridge, she ran to get the sheets of music.

“I think I have an idea,” said George after ten unsuccessful attempts.

“Let me try just one more time,” she said, then studied the rhythms again and put together a new combination. As that too turned out to be a dead end, Ivy sighed and turned to George.

“Okay, let’s hear that idea,” she said.

“Here’s the thing. I am aware I don’t know anything about music, but Jack seems to be very fond of it. He wrote from the heart. Unlike yourself, who has been doing it as if it were a mathematical formula. I think you should just give in to yourself and play it from your heart.”

“I think you are right.” Ivy said quietly. How could she be so stupid? She started playing the composition from the beginning and when she got to the end, she let her fingers finish the work. She played a captivating melody, and as soon as she hit the last key, a strange sound came from the guts of the piano. Ivy quickly stood up and backed away.

“You think this means you’ve done it?” George asked.

“We are about to see.”

A small door had opened on the right side of the piano. Ivy slowly walked over and put her hand through the opening. From there she pulled out a black wooden box. George sighed in surprise.

“You’ve done it,” he whispered.

“I wouldn't have succeeded if you hadn’t opened my eyes. Thank you,” replied Ivy. She was looking at the box in her hands. She slowly lifted the lid to reveal... another smaller box.

“What are you waiting for? Open it!” said George, while she hesitated in surprise. She carefully opened the box when a lovely melody filled the hall.

“It’s a musical box.” Ivy couldn’t hide her disappointment. She had struggled so much with composing, and in the end, it turned out that they still didn’t have enough money for Zara.

George wasn’t too thrilled either. He stared at the little cylinderand muttered something about crazy musicians. They both sat on the sofa in the living room and looked at the closed box on the table.

“Why are you two pouting like that?” Ivy's mum asked when she saw the expressions on their faces. Then they both told her about the sheets of music, the composition and the treasure, which turned out to be a disappointment.

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” said mum, but seeing that it didn’t improve their mood, she added: “Why don’t you two take it to an antiques shop? It might be worth something.”

Both children beamed at that. Soon they were riding their bikes towards an antiques store, the musical box safely in the basket of Ivy’s bike, along with the other box and the sheets of music.

The antiques store they found themselves in was a truly picturesque place. There was vintage jewellery and crockery everywhere. Old, framed maps and pictures hanging on the walls, and the shelves were filled with bound books. Ivy and George approached the counter, behind which stood a grey-haired gentleman with a friendly face.

“How may I help you, children?” he asked with a smile. He was told the same story as they had told Ivy’s mum. The longer he listened, the more his eyebrows rose in surprise.

“We were wondering if you would like to buy this musical box,”Ivy said finally, taking the box out of the larger box along with the sheets of music.

The man took the musical box and examined at it from all sides.

“I’m afraid it’s not valuable. There are many like this all over the world. I’m sorry,” he said, putting it down. Ivy and George found themselves extremely disappointed for the second time that day. They were just about to pack everything into the box when the grey-haired gentleman picked up the sheets of music. He flipped through them and looked at the compositions.

“However, this is definitely valuable, if you wish to sell it, that is.”

“Um, yes, we want to,” said Ivy, confused. It never occurred to her that the sheets could be worth anything.

“To whom should I make the cheque payable?” asked the man, writing on a piece of paper.

“Isabel Johnson. That’s my mum,” said Ivy. She glanced at the figure the man was writing down.

“This will be more than enough to buy Zara!”, she told Georgeexcitedly. They both started jumping and rejoicing.

“We’ve done it!” said George.

“We really have.”