Carmine successfully completed the Auditions portion of the entrance exam. Now, there were three more tests he had to survive: The written exam, instrumental performance, and dance tryouts.
In order to excel at the exam and ensure he made it to the third day, Carmine studied every book and website on every bit of information on music. Musical history, famous artists, instrumental anatomy, rhythmic analysis, styles of music and dance, etc.
There was no telling what would be on the test, how it would be done, or how much it affected who made the final cut, but Carmine heard that it was like the musical version of standardized tests.
Carmine walked into the hallway and followed the directions of various faculty members assigning all the testees to various classrooms.
Each child was asked for their name and current grade level. After their identity was verified by the security droids, they were given a special badge that identified which classroom they were in and which desk they sat at.
Finally, it was Carmine's turn.
"Full name." said the teacher.
"Carmine Amadeus Jinn."
"Grade level?"
"Incoming ninth grader."
The security droid scanned Carmine and confirmed he had clearance to enter. And then, Carmine was presented with his badge that placed him in Classroom 5, Row 3, Desk D.
Carmine entered the classroom and found his assigned desk, where he found a data tablet on which he would be taking the test. Each tablet also came with a set of headphones.
There were three portions to the written exam: Multiple Choice, Short Answer, and Essay.
It sounded simple at first. The first ten questions were about matching the names of instruments with their families, identifying the types of notes and identifying the treble and bass clef. But then, they got trickier as the test went on.
There were so many questions about historically important musicians, dancers, and composers, questions about the history behind different styles of music, and questions where he had to listen to a piece of music in the headphones and either name what genre it was from, name the instruments used to play the song, or identify the name of the piece.
Carmine had to listen very carefully and concentrate really hard to not get nervous or start answering randomly. He took deep breaths at least every five questions he answered, and especially when he found one that took a little more thinking time.
Before he knew it, he was at the essay question. And it was a question that surprised Carmine.
What is music to you? That was the question.
Carmine thought about it for a moment and started to write the first thing that came to mind and heart, just like he did whenever he wrote lyrics to a new song.
To some, music is just something we listen to on our headphones or whenever we turn on the radio. A sound that we enjoy hearing when we feel like dancing or lazing about and tuning the rest of the world out. But to me, music is much more than a sound or a combination of many sounds. Music to me is a magical blessing, a gift bestowed upon the world, an art that is never truly completed.
As many may know, music is performed in many styles, and each song serves a different purpose. Some songs make people want to get up and shake it up to the beat, while others help people to relax when they are stressed or need help falling asleep. There are even classical pieces that some studies have found to be beneficial to improving focus and increasing intelligence. But for some, music is the very heart and soul of their life.
In my experience, music has been the one thing that kept me going during the hard times. As a child who grew up with almost nothing, I was accustomed to other kids making fun of me for not having much and living with my grandmother instead of living a higher-class life with a mom and dad. Sadly, my father was always away, and even with his help, Grandma and I could not afford to move to a higher Coruscant level. It didn't help that I didn't have many friends at school either. Sometimes, I felt like I could disappear, and no one would care, and that I might as well do so. But then one day, for my fifth birthday, my late father gifted me a very special music box that played the melody to a special lullaby he would always sing to me before the end of his visits, and every night after that, my grandmother would sing it too.
Every night, I listen to that music box, and I can hear my father and grandmother's voices singing their song of love to me. Since then, I continued to learn everything I could about music through experimentation and what I could dig from holo-net videos. That lullaby was one thing that I would always have of the little family I had, and something that could never be taken away because I do not require a musical instrument to know the song or to hear it, because that music stays in my heart.
The magical thing about music is that once you have heard i.t, the music stays with you forever. It makes people feel things they might not have imagined before, and it can be used to express feelings as well. Everyone feels something different every day, and the possibilities to the songs that can be written out of those feelings are infinite. Thus, the art of music will never be truly finished, because the possibilities will always continue to grow, and as new songwriters come about, the beauty and magic of music's power to inspire, invoke, and entertain will continue to spread. It is my dream that I will have the opportunity to be one of those great songwriters to inspire the next generation of musicians and people in general to follow their dreams and express themselves in a way that they feel heard and that they have found their voices.
Soon, time was up and everyone had to turn in their tests.
The next day, Carmine got ready for the Instrumental Performance part of the exam. In this portion of the exam, students had to play music without any singing at all.
Carmine had a hard time choosing only one instrument to play, and he decided not to play just one instrument.
He started out playing Vivaldi The Four Seasons on the violin, then Fur Elise on the piano, then Ode to Joy on the cello, followed by a beautiful song on the sitar, then a drum solo cover of what would eventually become a song called Super Bass. He even played a jazz song on the trumpet (I imagine "When We're Human" from the Princess & the Frog), the harmonica, and then he played a guitar cover of the lullaby "Lavender's Blue," an instrumental cover of Bella Notte from Lady and the Tramp on the accordion, and for a great finishing song, he played the song Beauty & the Beast on the harp.
Each time Carmine played a different song, he placed a lot of passion into it, and each time he did, magical things happened. Magical sparkles and lights appeared when he played classical music, fireflies appeared when he played jazz, and lots of dahlia flowers grew when he played the sitar. Ms. Susy began to take notice of this.
The judges all thought it was just special effects Carmine gained access to due to his job as a cleaning assistant, but Susy was smart enough to know that none of those things were made by machines, nor did Carmine have the necessary experience to work them, especially considering most of them would take more than one person to put together in a short amount of time.
So, after the musical performances were done, Susy asked Carmine to come to her dorm to speak privately.
"Carmine... is there something you haven't told me about yourself?" Susy asked the boy.
"Uh... what do you mean?" Carmine asked.
"Don't try to hide it. Do you expect me to believe a thirteen-year-old boy working as a cleaning assistant would be able to afford and work ten-thousand credit costing special effects on his own?" Susy said. "You wouldn't happen to be a Jedi, would you?"
Carmine's eyes widened at that. Did Ms. Susy suspect that he was using some kind of Jedi mind trick or something to cheat his way into getting a scholarship? His grandmother told him never to reveal his magic unless it was an emergency. And while Carmine knew that his grandmother, by 'emergency,' meant life-threatening situations. But in his eyes, this was a life-threatening situation. If he didn't get into this school, he may never have a chance at a scholarship to a university, which would mean he would be stuck in debt and never be able to lead a good life.
Carmine knew it would be useless to try to lie, and it would be against everything his family taught him.
"I'll tell you the truth, but I need you to take a special oath before I say anything, as the information I hold could put you in danger."
"What do you mean by that?" Susy asked, sounding concerned.
"Look, I'm not using any kind of Jedi trick or anything else to cheat or anything. My family raised me better than that, and I want to get into this school because I have genuine talent, not by cheating. If I'd wanted that, I wouldn't have accepted your tutoring."
Susy still was a bit suspicious, but she agreed to go through with the oath for the sake of hearing the truth.
Carmine held Susy's hand and had her repeat after him that she would keep what he was about to tell her secret from anyone else, and that she would not share it in any manner. And as they held hands, a ribbon of magic wrapped around their arms and glowed, sealing the contract.
Carmine explained to Ms. Susy that the reason all those things were happening was because of his magical powers, and that he was still learning to control them. He also told her that he did have a Jedi heritage, but was never classically trained in the Jedi arts, as his father had given him to his grandmother to keep him safe from those who wished their family harm.
"She warned me never to use magic unless it was a life-threatening situation." Carmine said. "I would never use Jedi arts or magic to cheat. I want to come to school here, and I intend to complete it without using magic, just like I've been doing from the beginning."
Susy could see in Carmine's eyes that he was begging her not to disqualify him, to let him continue on with the tests. He'd worked so hard to get here today, and he did have a point. Why would he have accepted her tutelage and persisted through every single exercise if he was just going to use magic to cheat? Carmine had only been around for a year, but Ms. Susy and many other faculty and staff members knew Carmine was a very honest young man. So, for the time being, Susy decided to let Carmine continue with the test. He still had one more to go.
"If I find you even tried casting one spell during the next test..." said Ms. Susy.
"As far as I know, there aren't any dancing spells." Carmine said. "I'll have the sweat from the workout to prove it."
So, the next day, Carmine got into his leotard and pants and began warming up at the barre before the test began.
He practiced lots of stretches and gentle movements to get the blood flowing so he would be as mobile as possible for class. And soon, in came Madame Lorraine, the coach for this class. She was a famous choreographer, dancer, and dance teacher from the most elite ballet school in the galaxy.
"Silence, gentlemen." said Lorraine, clapping twice.
All the guys lined up at the barre to begin.
"First position," called the teacher. "Second position."
As Madame Lorraine called out the positions at the barre, the dancers got into each position. At first, she did them in order, but then she started calling them out at random to test the dancers' skills.
Carmine followed each position as best he could. But when one dancer missed a step.
"You're out!" Lorraine said, kicking the young dancer out of the class.
Carmine immediately got scared. One wrong move and his chances at a scholarship to Melody Academy were kaput!
Madame Lorraine soon eliminated another dancer. And then, they moved on to the floor, where after each section, Lorraine would eliminate the worst dancers. There were three sections to this class on the floor: leaps, turns, and combinations.
Carmine knew that part of becoming a great dancer would be facing difficult teachers. But he remembered one thing Ms. Susy told him about facing a tough teacher: focus not on the teacher, but what you as an individual put into your dance.
So, as each part came about, Carmine gave it his all in every leap, every turn, and every combination from the simplest glissade to a triple pirouette and landing a grande jete and finishing in an arabesque.
And before he knew it, the bell rang, signaling the end of the final test.
"Fifteen of you entered this room," said Lorraine. "Only eight of you have survived to the end. Therefore, you may have some talent in you. But be warned that if you should be lucky enough to even receive a pamphlet to an elite dance university, you will be in for a whirlwind of torture."
Carmine gulped as Lorraine walked off after getting up in his face during those last nine words.
Now, all Carmine could do was wait. Everyone would be receiving their acceptance or rejection letters in the mail.
Carmine continued his cleaning job for the next few weeks, but also continued to dance and sing while he worked. He hoped so much that he would make the final cut. He'd worked so hard to get in, and there were a lot of other talented students too.
As every day passed, he got more and more nervous as he awaited his letter.
And then one day, when he woke up in his dorm in the morning, he found something on his nightstand that he didn't recall putting there.
There were two envelopes. One small white one with the Melody Academy logo on it, and a big yellow one.
Carmine first picked up the small one and looked at it. He was so nervous. In this envelope, surely, was the answer to whether or not he was granted a scholarship to Melody Academy. This was it, the moment he'd been waiting for for what felt like forever.
Carmine's hands were shaky as he started to rip the envelope open very slowly. His teeth chattered with nerves as he took the paper out, and he shut his eyes and looked away as he unfolded it, afraid to look.
"Okay... okay!" Carmine breathed. "On the count of three, I'm gonna look at this paper in my hands."
Carmine took a breath and counted one... two... three!
He opened his eyes, but found the paper to be blank!
"What?!" Carmine said, sounding panicky... until he spotted the writing on the other side. "Oh, I was holding it backwards. Silly me."
Carmine laughed for a bit and turned the paper around and finally got to read what was on it.
And to Carmine's great shock, this was what the paper said:
Dear Carmine Jinn,
After observing every bit of your work during the audition process here at the Musical Educational League of Dynamic Youths Preparatory Academy, we have determined that your skills go beyond that of the typical beginning music student. Your vocals match the musical key of a meadowlark, your dancing is as graceful as that of a butterfly flying through the breeze of a warm spring's day. The number of instruments you play is impressive and your skills on each one has shown great potential. And the manner in which you add special effects to each performance demonstrates a myriad of creativity within you. Not only this, but it was a terrific shock that out of all our students here, you were the only one to receive a perfect score on the written exam.
Therefore, it gives us great pleasure to announce that we would like to officially enroll you on a full two-year scholarship which shall begin this coming fall. If you accept, please reply using the information provided.
Sincerely, the M.E.L.O.D.Y. Prep Academy Admissions committee.
A huge smile immediately formed on Carmine's face as he finished reading this, and he found himself cartwheeling all over the place as he cheered that all of his hard work had paid off.
But then, Carmine realized something. What was in the other envelope?
Carmine picked up the bigger envelope and opened it up, and inside he found papers from Child Protection. But what was the biggest shock was that on the papers was the word "adoption," and then he found the name Susy Lamura, the name of the very teacher who'd tutored him.
Carmine exited his room and ran into Ms. Susy.
"Carmine. Good morning." Susy said.
"Is it true?" Carmine said, showing his teacher the papers that he'd found in the envelope.
Susy looked at Carmine with a smile. Over the time she'd gotten to spend with Carmine, she grew to have a special bind with him. Watching him progress as a dancer and seeing him grow over the last year, she began to feel something she'd only heard about from a friend of hers who'd adopted a child a few years earlier. That feeling that she wanted to be there to watch that child grow, to help them to grow, that desire to guide and nurture them and love them even though they weren't of the same bloodline or even the same species.
"It hasn't yet been finalized," said Susy. "I wanted to check with you to see if you would-"
Carmine hugged Susy and had happy tears in his eyes. He thought he was going to be alone throughout his time at the school, but now someone wanted not just to foster him, but to adopt him. Ms. Susy was single, but she was a hardworking, devoted woman, and Carmine had seen for himself how great she was with the other kids at the school. Any kid would be lucky to have her as his or her mother in his eyes.
With it being summertime, Susy saw no need for Carmine to live in the faculty dorm anymore.
So, a week later once the adoption was finalized, Susy brought Carmine to her apartment. There, Carmine got a nice bedroom of his own with a comfy, cozy bed for him and Fluffy.
"Welcome home, Carmine." Susy smiled at her new foster son.
Things were finally turning up for Carmine. He'd just gotten accepted into the school of his dreams, and now he'd just gotten adopted by a loving new mother with a safe and lovely home like Miranda always hoped she'd be able to give him someday.
Carmine placed a framed picture of him and his family on his nightstand that night as Susy tucked him into bed.
Susy pulled the blanket over Carmine and kissed his forehead. "Your first day of school will arrive before you know it. For now, starting tomorrow, we will enjoy summer vacation together."
"Goodnight, Mother." Carmine said as he drifted off to sleep.
"Goodnight, my little prince." Susy said, turning out the light and leaving her son to rest.