Anna joins her around nine. "Good morning, Molly!", she says with a smile.
Molly stops in mid-scale, which shows you that she likes Anna. Ordinarily, Molly would not stop in the middle of a scale if there were an earthquake, a tornado and a fire in the living room. "Did you sleep OK?" Anna nods. "Do you want me to get dressed before we start?"
"No, that's OK", says Anna. "It's good to be comfortable."
Molly thinks that she and Anna will get along just fine. This was a concern; she wasn't sure she liked the idea of working together with a vocalist. Molly is accustomed to playing solo, and sometimes with instrumentalists, but vocalists are supposed to be so temperamental. Anna, however, is lovely.
Molly is also accustomed to practicing while nude.
"OK, then," says Molly. "Let's begin." She plays the opening bar of the Fanny Mendelssohn song.
Anna listens, breathes, and begins to sing:
Ach, um deine feuchten Schwingen,
West, wie sehr ich dich beneide:
Denn du kannst ihm Kunde bringen
Was ich in der Trennung leide!
Molly stops. "Wow!" she says. "You have a great voice."
Anna blushes. "Thank you."
Meanwhile, Mary Bloom dresses in her long white dress, braids cornflowers into her hair, makes breakfast for the family, takes some food to Mrs. Peabody, and reads aloud from Elsie Dinsmore novels. At nine-thirty, the Blooms depart for the Church of Nothing, leaving Molly and Anna behind to practice.
Today's sermon at the Church of Nothing: "Speaking Out is for Losers, So Shut Up."
Later that afternoon, Roderick, Molly, Anna and Megan all sit at the dining room table with Mr. and Mrs. Smith. On the menu tonight: roast pork, applesauce, smashed potatoes and little green things.
"Yum, honey, delicious pork", says Mr. Smith, taking a second helping.
Mrs. Smith is curious. "Anna, are you related to the Zemlinskys here in Beauneville? They live right behind us next street over."
Anna smiles. "Mrs. Bloom asked me that, too. I don't know."
"They have a daughter your age...Roderick, what is her name?"
Roderick is working on a large piece of roast pork, which he swallows. "Natasha. Natasha Zemlinsky. She's an artist."
"That's right!" says Mrs. Smith. "Natasha."
"Also," says Roderick, "she's a Kulturpunk."
Anna noodges Molly, who sits to her right and whispers: "Excuse me...what is a Kulturpunk?"
Molly -- who is now fully clothed -- whispers back: "The Kulturpunks are a global movement of youth disaffected by their parents' bourgeois values, simple-minded commitment to pop culture and cheap leftism; they reject all that and, inspired by the life and work of Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, pursue Bildung."
"Oh!" says Anna. "We didn't have such things at Ecole Vevey."
Now Megan is curious. "What is Ecole Vevey?"
"Where my parents sent me to school, in Switzerland. It's an all-girls boarding school."
Megan makes a mental note to discuss this further with Anna. For her novel, she needs source material on the kinky stuff that goes on at such places.
Dinner complete, Mrs. Smith stands up. "Roderick, why don't you and your friends drop in on Natasha tomorrow?"
"Good idea, Mom." There are no classes tomorrow, so Roderick, Molly, Megan and Anna plan to stay an extra night.
Molly and Anna depart for the Blooms just as a thunderstorm moves in.
Roderick says goodnight to Megan, who is staying over another night, retires to bed and reads for awhile, then turns out the light. The storm is a doozy -- thunder, lightning and pouring rain.
After a particularly loud crash of thunder, Roderick hears a knock on his bedroom door. Donning his bathrobe, he answers the knock. It's Megan, in her bathrobe, white as a sheet.
"I'm scared of lightning," she bleats. "Please -- can I sleep with you tonight?"
"Um -- OK."
Roderick returns to his bed, still wearing his bathrobe. Megan follows him to the bed and pauses. "Um...I'll feel more comfortable if I sleep naked, do you mind?"
"Um, no, that's fine."
The bathrobe slips to the floor and Megan slips into the bed. There is another loud clap of thunder. She cuddles close to Roderick.
The storm seems to die down a bit, but Roderick can still hear rain falling on the roof outside his window. He wonders if Megan is sleeping yet.
"Roderick?" Apparently not.
"Yes, Megan."
"Am I really your girlfriend?"
"Of course, Megan. Try to get some sleep."
That night, Roderick is sorely tempted to break his pledge to Molly. But he doesn't.
