Something Changed: Day 14

Word Count: 84,550

Summary of Events:

Luke's parents gave him a waiver form they'd filled out so he could go to the amusement park with the Domino Group, and insisted he should change his plans when he told them he didn't want to go, but wanted to hang out with a friend instead. Luke was upset and hurt by their insistence that he needed to become more extroverted like them, and ready to give in to their demands, but Ella convinced him to sneak away from the group before they could leave for the amusement park and carry on to her house instead. Luke wasn't sure it would work, but surprisingly went unnoticed as he walked through the crowd of waiting kids and on to Ella's house, where he showed Ella his clarinet, which he'd brought along to play for her . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

“Can I hear you play something?” Ella asked.

Luke felt nerves come over him. He’d not actually played his clarinet for anyone other than Finn’s dad since the time he’d gotten the stupid idea to share it with Mom and Dad.

Nonetheless, he had hoped she’d ask, so he opened the case and fitted the pieces together before tuning it with the app on his phone — which Finn’s dad had recommended to him as one of the best and most accurate.

“It does sound cool,” Ella said.

Luke nodded, keeping his mouth on the reed, and started to play one of his most favourite pieces that he’d ever learned on the clarinet. He’d memorised it because he loved it so much.

Even though he had it memorised, however, his nerves at playing for Ella prompted him to stumble a couple of times, but he forged ahead and refused to let himself get flustered.

Once he was done he lowered it from his mouth and looked up at Ella, sure heat was radiating off of his face owing to how hot his cheeks felt.

“That was beautiful,” Ella said. “It has such a cool, kind of creepy sound.”

“It wasn’t as good as it could’ve been,” Luke said. “I was a bit nervous.”

“That’s no big deal,” Ella said. “You didn’t hit any super bad notes, so it still sounded lovely.”

Luke was glad she thought so, because he certainly felt like he should’ve done better.

Springing up from her bed, Ella went over to her desk. Luke set his clarinet aside carefully on the duvet and watched as Ella collected up an artists’ notebook full of heavy paper.

“These are what I’ve been drawing lately,” she said, opening the book.

If Luke was honest, photos didn’t do justice to them, they were even more incredible, detailed, and nuanced than Luke would’ve ever imagined. They looked like they could leap up off the page and be touched.

“These are amazing,” Luke said, turning the page to find rough pencil sketching of a rabbit.

“Thanks,” Ella said, taking the book back and closing it before going over to her closet and drawing out a larger piece of heavy paper. “I’m not done this yet, but because of its size it takes a lot longer.”

Luke’s eyes widened as he looked at the image, which was of a dragon, rather like Smaug as rendered in the Hobbit movies, with a long, serpentine tail, two powerful, somewhat birdlike hind legs, and long, clawed fingers reaching out from the wings, which even had small folds of flesh between them.

The dragon was in a position rather like a bird coming down to land, its hind legs forward, its wings back, its long neck and head drawn up. Only the head, neck, and wings of the dragon were completely coloured, while the rest of the body looked like it had early touches, and the rocky cliffs it was landing on being nothing more than pencilling.