A/N: In a bio of Anthony Burgess that I read recently for a different project, I found out that when he was a teenager he wrote a piece for his band based on Debussy's Prelude à l'après-midi d'une faune and called it "Afternoon on the Phone"! "Après-midi" does mean afternoon, but "faune" is faun, not phone – like in Narnia. What does Narnia have to do with this story? Nothing... but not only is our narrator a former criminal, in my story he's also bad at geography. He might think Narnia's next to Egypt...

4. Telephone Prelude to Wishy-Washy Debussy

I took the phone from Harmony-Harmeet, and who but old Pete was on the line. "Hello, hello, Alex my friend," Pete went, in his new like gentlemanly goloss. "I hope your new roommate didn't mind me looking up his number—I asked your friend Dave from work how to contact you."

Dobby starry Pete, thinking Dave was my friend! "Hello, old droog," I went.

"Remember when I saw you at the Chekhov Café?" he govoreeted. "And Georgina was there? And I told you about Greg's parties? Well," he went on, not waiting for Your Humble Narrator to answer, "Greg's other friends are away but he still wants to have Scrabble night this Friday at seven. It's like a tradition, you see, Scrabble nights on Fridays, but it's dull with just the three of us, so we were wondering if you'd like to come. We'll have a bit to eat and drink..."

"Milk-plus?" I asked, with a grin. Harmeet, coming out from the kitchen, looked confused, poor veck, but said nothing.

"Oh no," came Pete's voice real skorry, judging me to be serious. "Some tea, some coffee. Probably a bottle of wine. Greg collects wine—he's a bit of a connoisseur."

"Yes yes yes," I replied. I was curious to viddy this Greg veck, from what I'd heard before.

"Oh well then, it's settled! All the best, then. See you later."

Harm has gone back to the kitchen so I followed him with him phone, but it rang again, right in my rooker. I held it to his ooko and he listened, then went, "Hi Melody... what?" He shook his gulliver in like amazement. "She wants to talk to you."

So I took it back and there was Melody's melodious goloss, a bit nervous: "Er, um, hello, Alex. I hope you don't think it too forward of me, but my mum likes to have the family all together for dinner on Mondays, and she was wondering if, if, if you'd like to come too."

Harmeet was in the kitchen again. I let myself grin a real horrorshow grin at that kind and dobby invitation. I was becoming quite popular again, brothers, and more—Melody herself wanted to viddy me again. "I would be delighted," I said in a very refined like goloss.

"Good," said Melody, like relieved. "You can go with Harmeet, he'll show you the place. Could I talk to him?"

I didn't quite kopat this change of tone. Suddenly I felt that Melody didn't really want to viddy me. Probably she was just obeying the soviet of her Em who thought me so poor and starving. With that messel in my mozg, I tried to give Harm the phone but he was too intent on slicing lomticks of cheese and like grunted at me to wait. So I gave my appy polly loggies and asked her one more question. "One more teeny tiny malenky question—does thy mother always act this nice to vecks she doesn't know?"

"All the time," said Melody, quite skorry. "Especially when they're Harmeet's friends." Then Harm wanted the telephone so I let him have it, brothers. After that we shared some humble but nourishing pishcha, pea soup and kleb with grilled cheese.

...

On the Sabbath I got together my new veshches: pencils, pens, notebooks, music paper, and a very horrorshow like briefcase to put it all in. I tried on my new platties, a grey suit with boxy pletchoes and a blue fractal-patterned kravat, the heighth of fashion among bourgeois-type young vecks. I combed my luscious glory to one side and put on a starry watch that I'd gotten from Pee. My room did not have a full-length mirror so I ittied out to the vaysay. But Harmeet, at the kitchen table with his little compy-ooter veshch, smecked at me and said, "You look like you're from the nineteenth century."

"Old Ludwig Van was from the nineteenth century, Mr. Harmony, sir, so this should be fine for music skolliwoll tomorrow," I govoreeted with dignity, and went to smot at myself in the mirror. I must confess I was a handsome veck all dressed up in my dress platties, nineteenth century or not.

...

GEOFFREY PLAUTUS MUSIC CONSERVATORY, the sign above my gulliver read. My heart went thump thump thump thump like a gromky one-two one-two military march. I slooshied traffic noise behind me; Winterson Street was a busy sort of mesto, with tall buildings all around. In front of me now stood this bolshy red brick building that reminded me a malenky bit of a prison, but only a very malenky bit. In fact I was poogly because I hadn't been so skorry catching the autobus. I'd thought of crasting an auto just to get here, but I decided to be an honest lewdie and wait for another bus. Old Harmony hadn't waited for me, which was very rude of him.

"Hurry up," came a malchick's goloss behind me. This malchick had red frizzy hair and wore jeans. He said again, "Hurry up. I'm late for Harmony."

"Harmony?" I asked, puzzled. "I thought he was in class too."

"Not Harmony 2, Harmony 1. I didn't take Harmony last year, just Melody and Counterpoint."

"Melody?" I was very very puzzled.

"This is silly!" declared the malchick and pushed past me. "Maybe you're in the wrong place. Winterson Tech and State Marine Insurance are across the street."

I opened the door and goolied after him. "No, no, no, I am a student of this school. I am on my way to—" I checked my inked-on palm, trying to viddy the sweaty letters—"F-24."

"That'd be Comp 1. Old Geoff's going to give you a right lecture. The usual drill. How motivated and hardworking you have to be to even think about passing his course. Like at medical school, you know, all the blood and guts you'll have to deal with. Only, you know, the music version. Well, it's just down the hall. I'm going the other way. See you."

"Thank you," I said, but he'd already ittied off. The hall had malenky lockers down one side, like in grammar school. They were very small lockers. I reached the end of the hall and my heart started to beat thump thump again, this time like a bezoomny drummer. From inside came the shoom of music. I opened the door.

Twenty faces smotted at me, including a very short, very bald and very starry veck standing at the front who stopped the music with a tap of his finger when I ittied in. This was the composer Geoffrey Plautus, only he looked older than in pictures. In fact he looked like my boss Mr. Cordwell, only black and with a pair of thick otchkies and American. That is, you could not tell he was American by smotting, only by slooshying his accent when he opened his rot and said, as he did now, "You're not to be late for class. Sit down. We're listening to Debussy."

"But sir," I like bowed my head, "I very much apologize. I am very sorry. The bus happened to leave before I could reach it..."

He waved his rooker, like conducting me to a desk. "Doesn't matter. Just sit down. We're listening to Debussy."

And we were slooshying this Dee Buh Zee again once he'd pressed the button. I sat on a chair between a beefy anxious-looking veck scribbling notes and skinny Dave Purcell from work. I had not known, O little brothers, that Dave went here too. He sort of smirked at me and went back to doodling exploding autos on a piece of paper. I closed my glazzies and let the music like wash over me. It was like waves lapping against a shore on a lonely beach.

The Professor composer veck, Mr. Plautus, dealt it the off all of a sudden. He looked around the room and his glazzies landed on me. "Your name?"

"Alex DeLarge, sir."

"Give me your impression of Debussy's Prelude, the one we heard just now."

I caught the glazzy of Melody in the front row. Her voloss fell like silk around her face as she smiled at me and I felt more like confident. I said, "Well, sir, it was very watery, like water. Very... very wishy-washy."

"Wishy-washy!" Dave beside me mimicked, and soon all the grazhny lewdies were laughing. Melody didn't laugh, but the ptitsa beside her, the only devotchka besides Melody in the class, laughed hee hee hee in a soprano like descant over the lower ho ho hos and hu hu hus all around. This ptitsa was more malenky than Melody, with short blond voloss and bolshy black sunglasses, and I viddied she was the sharp in Harmeet's picture. Even if she was blind and could not viddy anything, that was no excuse to smeck at me.

Even Mr. Plautus smiled. "Interesting, Alex. What you gave us is a valid sensory impression. Keep in mind that Debussy is often considered a musical Impressionist, though I doubt his contemporaries would have called him, uh, wishy-washy. Yes. Young lady in black. Sonya? Yes, Sonya."

The blind ptitsa spoke up, her goloss sladky but sort of boastful too. "I also noticed that he switches between musical modes using pivot tones, and at some points this frequent use of pivot tones destabilizes the prominence of any one mode."

"Yes," nodded Melody, very likely the only one who'd ponied her slovos besides Mr. Plautus himself, "it reminds me of Indian music in some places."

Dave leaned over and whispered, "And Pocahontas would know, wouldn't she?"

"Not that kind of Indian," I hissed back. I didn't like the way he smotted at her. "She's govoreeting about the country India, which of course is next to Egypt."

Then Mr. Plautus told us that pivot tones were notes common to different modes, and that a mode was a key that could have a different scale than just major or minor. I didn't quite pony this part. But he went on, "As you can see, I am open to many approaches to music: emotional, technical, sensory, psychological, analytical, even spiritual, and preferably many of those combined. It is important that we learn to experience music with our whole selves, or else how can we write it? All I ask of you is attention, commitment, and willingness to experiment. Class dismissed."

People started to gather their vesches and itty out. That had not been a very terrifying lecture, I realized, and it had ended early, or so my pee's watch told me. But still I felt very small. Dim, even.

After that I had two more classes, Melody and Counterpoint (with the devotchka Melody and her little droogie Sonya, whom she helped through the hall, but no hound-and-horny Dave) and then Ear Training 1. After that I found old Harmony coming out of some class with an eemya like Sound Mixing, and he showed me to a different autobus, saying that we might as well go to his parent's domy now. I'd almost forgotten—Melody or rather her em had invited me for dinner this nochy.