David Nicholls reads his own story Every Good Boy, in which the gift of a piano has unexpected consequences for a nine-year-old boy.
Listen to Every Good Boy by David Nicholls
Read Every Good Boy, a short story by David Nicholls
"It's a piano!"
The black lacquered monster loomed in the doorway, my father and Uncle Tony grinning from behind its immense bulk, red-faced from exertion and lunchtime pints. "They were going to throw it away so I said we'd have it."
My mother looked as if she might cry. "Take it back, please, I'm begging you."
"But it's free! It's a completely free piano!"
"What are we going to do with a piano, Michael? You can't play it, I can't play it – "
"The kid's going to play it. You're going to learn, aren't you, maestro?"
At the age of nine I was remarkable for being entirely without ability. My sister was a gifted and influential majorette, my older brother could dismantle things, but at that time of my life I could – and this really is no exaggeration – do nothing well. Graceless, charmless, physically and socially inept, I lacked even the traditional intelligence of the nerdy. "But there must be something you can do," my father would sigh as I fumbled the ball, fell from the tree, bounced clear of the trampoline. "Everybody can do something."
And what if this piano was the answer? Mozart was composing concertos at nine, and surely the only reason that I hadn't followed suit was because I didn't have access to the same tools. With the piano still on the doorstep, I lifted the lid and pressed a key. It boomed, doomy and industrial, like a sledgehammer striking a girder. I smiled and decided that I would become a prodigy.
