Although Charlie Brown never considered himself an avid Beethoven enthusiast — but then again, who could really claim that title when a fanatic lived just down the street? — he never turned down an invitation to Schroeder's annual Beethoven Day party, even in middle school, where most of the student body outside of their friend group found it weird, even dorky, to celebrate a dead composer every year. Charlie Brown was rarely invited to parties, and Schroeder's faithful hand of friendship was a big morale boost, so when Schroeder invited him to his house during the first week of December to help him prepare the festivities, Charlie Brown dutifully put on his jacket and headed over.

"See, I usually play the Ninth Symphony," Schroeder told his friend as he knelt to pull out a portion of his record collection from a low cupboard in his living-room wall, "but should we shake things up this year? Maybe we could organize our own orchestra, or maybe Snoopy could conduct a performance of 'Elegy on the Death of a Poodle'?"

"A little dark for a birthday party," Charlie Brown pointed out, settling on the carpet beside him, "and Snoopy might not like the subject matter. He almost married two different poodles, remember?"

"Then we'll file that idea for a different occasion." Schroeder laid one album to the side. "Or how about we put on a production of Fidelio, Beethoven's only opera?"

"I don't think any of us can sing a full opera with less than two weeks to prepare," Charlie Brown countered, "though if you planned for next year's party, maybe."

"Not a bad idea." Schroeder brightened, laying another album down. "That would give us plenty of time to find our leading lady. Someone who can convey the strong will and bravery of Leonore, but also her tenderness and her deep loyalty for her imprisoned husband."

Charlie Brown nodded along, but he spotted a small flaw in the plan. "You know who might try to play the lead role, right?"

Schroeder looked sharply at him, then deflated.

"Well… maybe we don't have to tell Lucy," he suggested flatly.

"She'll find out. The moment one of the actors needs a psychiatrist to help them with stage fright, Lucy will get the whole story."

"And then she'll butt in and try to get the best part," Schroeder muttered, "and then try to get me to play the part of her husband." He sat back on his heels, exhaling. "We haven't even started production, and she's already ruining it."

Lucy's crush on him had long been a source of annoyance for Schroeder. For years, Lucy pestered him, dreaming of them being married or pulling stunts to get him to notice her. Charlie Brown knew Schroeder sincerely liked Lucy as a friend, often going to her when he needed psychiatric advice or voicing a random thought about music and poetry; when the Van Pelts briefly moved out of town years ago, Schroeder had been noticeably down, and he cheered significantly up once Lucy returned to bug him. As for the question of a romance with Lucy, however, he sometimes acted as though he still thought girls had cooties.

Schroeder brooded in silence until at last he grabbed his well-worn album with Symphony No. 9 and pushed the rest of the collection back.

"Well, we shouldn't break with tradition," he said briskly, standing. "At least the usual guests know most of the words by now."

He laid his album on the bookshelf for the present and went over to his small, wooden piano, his prize since he had turned ten. He immediately began playing what sounded like one of the many Beethoven pieces which he could perform from memory. Charlie Brown sauntered over, taking the ottoman which Lucy often placed beside the instrument so that she could simultaneously lounge against the piano and talk to Schroeder while he played. She had moved it so many times that Schroeder and his family had stopped returning it to its original place by the sofa.

"Don't feel bad about the opera, Schroeder," Charlie Brown advised, resting his elbow in the vibrating frame. "There's always a chance that having Lucy involved will work out. She's great at organizing the other kids and getting all the details in place. If you offer her the position of a producer, she wouldn't cast herself in the lead role. Probably."

"Well, we have a year to come up with a Lucy-proof plan in any case," Schroeder returned wryly.

"I wouldn't say Lucy is that bad. …These days."

"But she still doesn't really care about Beethoven," Schroeder retorted. "She doesn't like his music. She doesn't care for his accomplishments. She doesn't care that his mother died when he was a kid or that his father exploited him for money. She doesn't care that every woman he gave his heart to refused to marry him. Lucy only celebrates Beethoven Day for self-centered reasons."

Charlie Brown could not entirely disagree with Schroeder, but he also wanted to be fair to Lucy. As someone who was typically frank about her opinions and rarely sugar coated anything, she could have easily resorted to criticizing Schroeder about his Beethoven parties in an effort to quelch his enthusiasm for the composer, but instead she chose to help him almost every year, even though she considered Schroeder's musical interests as competition for his affections. Even if she only came to the parties to be with Schroeder, she no doubt wanted to support him on some level.

"At least she celebrates, right?" Charlie Brown offered helpfully.

Schroeder looked like he wanted to argue the point, but perhaps Charlie Brown's reasonable tone helped to curb his annoyance. He jerked a shrug before he all but attacked his keyboard, belting out some movement from a Beethoven work that Charlie Brown felt he really should have remembered the name of by now.

Schroeder played for a while in his usual silence, but then he stopped, slumping slightly. "Do you think Beethoven would have liked my quiet little parties for him, Charlie Brown?"

"As much as someone born in the eighteenth century could enjoy a party thrown by a boy from the twentieth century, I suppose."

Schroeder grimaced. "Do you think he would like me though? Could we have been friends? Or would he have told me to get a life and stop bothering him?"

Even though Schroeder had matured in many ways since the start of middle school, his hero-worship of Beethoven had stayed strong in the same way Charlie Brown's regard for Joe Shlabotnik had endured the test of time. Naturally, the question of whether Schroeder would be accepted by Beethoven had popped up now and then in his conversations with Charlie Brown. The great composer did not always get along with people, and Schroeder occasionally worried about what his inspiration would have thought of him.

"I think you two might have reasonably gotten along," Charlie Brown assured him. "After everything Beethoven went through, a positive reception might have been welcomed."

"Even during his irritable moments?"

"I think you can get along with an irritable person just fine," Charlie Brown said. "After all, Lucy likes you, doesn't she?"

Schroeder's head snapped up. "Where does that come into this conversation?"

Charlie Brown shrugged. "I only meant that Beethoven was crabby and ill-tempered at times, right?"

Schroeder slowly blanched. "Yes…"

"And Lucy is crabby and ill-tempered," Charlie Brown returned, "so if Lucy likes you, then probably Beethoven would have at least tolerated you."

"But… Lucy isn't like Beethoven…" Schroeder whispered.

"You don't think so?" Charlie Brown looked at him in surprise. "I thought that's the real reason why you put up with her, because she's like a female Beethoven."

Schroeder sat up, his white face turning first green, then pink. "You take that back!"

Charlie Brown held up his hands. "What? I thought it made sense. She's your living link to what it would have been like to be friends with Beethoven. She has her mood swings, but she's also has her moments of kindness, and so if you can be friends with her, then it's almost like you're friends with Beetho—"

"Stop talking," Schroeder charged him. "Please."

Charlie sat up, studying him. A cold sweat drenched his friend's skin, and he seemed to be shaking.

"Wait," Charlie Brown realized. "You mean you never noticed?"

"Notice what?" Schroeder returned in a strained voice, gripping his stomach. "There's nothing to notice. Lucy isn't remotely like Beethoven."

Charlie Brown leaned forward, wondering if he was going to have to slap his friend if he went into shock. "Look, Schroeder, I'm not trying to upset you. I was just being honest with answering your question."

"Being honest and being dead wrong are two very different things, Charlie Brown."

"I only meant Lucy has some coincidental similarities to Beethoven. Sure, she doesn't compose music—"

"An important point!"

"—But Beethoven could be blunt and honest, so that people found him rude, just like Lucy. If he heard people murmuring in his concerts, he would leave in a rage, kinda like Lucy. In fact, I always thought it was funny that they have the same first two letters of their first name, so we could start calling her 'Lucy van Beethoven' as a joke—"

Schroeder's pupils shrank before he dropped his head onto his piano keys, which groaned out a discordant cluster of notes in protest. He wrapped his arms over his damp hair.

"This can't be happening," he mumbled. "This can't be happening…"

Concerned, Charlie Brown leaned forward and patted his friend's arm.

"Deep breaths, buddy," he advised. "Really, this might be a good thing. You always said that if you lived back then, you would have tried to be nice to Beethoven, so now you can be nice to Lucy—"

"Ugh!" Schroeder gripped his head.

"No, really!" Charlie Brown pressed, trying to help Schroeder see the bright side. "And remember how you always get so upset about Therese Malfatti? And Guilietta Guicciardi? And whomever else Beethoven wanted to marry?"

"Don't say it!"

"I only meant that if Lucy is Beethoven, then that would make you—"

Schroeder sat up, covering his ears. "Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!"

Charlie Brown watched him in alarm. The last time he had seen Schroeder this discomposed, Lucy had thrown his toy piano into the kite-eating tree. He stood, wearing a nervous smile.

"Look, it's no big deal—"

"No big deal?!" Schroeder shot to his feet, his eyes flashing. "Beethoven was a musical genius! If he had gotten married, then he could have been like Johann Sebastian Bach and raised sons who went on to be great composers in their own right! Beethoven was already the grandson of a composer, so picture all the music that could have come from him continuing the family line if one of the women he admired had picked him! But I shudder to imagine the kind of crabby kids which Lucy would bring into this world! Her future husband should do us all a favor and think twice before saying 'I do.'"

Charlie Brown frowned. Although he usually avoided interfering with Lucy and Schroeder's odd relationship, he felt that was not entirely fair to Lucy. He pointed a stern finger at his irate friend.

"Now, just picture Beethoven's girlfriend saying something like that," he scolded. "You would have called her insensitive."

"It's not the same, Charlie Brown!" Schroeder yelled, stamping his foot. "I'm not anything like those women!"

"How?" Charlie Brown challenged.

"Because—well, I mean—if a girl ever liked me as much as Beethoven liked—" His face drained of blood once more as realization dawned in his eyes. "I need to sit down…"

He staggered toward the sofa but did not quite make it, flopping onto the carpet while his upper body dropped onto the cushions. Charlie Brown crossed over to him. A part of him thought he ought to shut up then, but another side wanted to help Schroeder put things into perspective.

"Don't think about the mushy part, pal," he advised. "You want to be good friends with Beethoven, so now you can be good friends with Lucy. And it's not like you are completely adverse to being around her, as a friend. She's been a big help when you celebrate Beethoven Day, right?"

Schroeder did not answer. He looked dizzy.

"And when she sits next to you at the lunch table, you don't roll your eyes anymore, right? And when she moved away for that short time, you missed her, right? And when we were kids, you used to tell me you thought Lucy had beautiful eyes—"

Charlie Brown knew he had said the wrong thing, yet again. Schroeder threw back his head and screamed.

"AUGH!"

"What's going on here?!" a voice demanded.

Charlie Brown jumped. He had been so focused on Schroeder that he had not heard the front door open, and Lucy stormed in, still in her hat and coat. Schroeder groaned when he saw her, covering his eyes. Lucy noticed and rounded on Charlie Brown.

"What have you done to Schroeder?!" she seethed. "If you hurt him—!"

"We were just talking about Beethoven!" he cried, holding up his arms. He turned to Schroeder. "Who, incidentally, was super protective of his friends too, right?"

Schroeder buried his face into the sofa. "STAHHHP!"

Lucy pushed up her sleeve, clenching her fist.

"Okay, I don't know what you've been telling him, Charlie Brown, but if you're making Schroeder dislike hearing about Beethoven, then you must have crossed a line!"

Charlie Brown tried to stammer out a protest, but Lucy grabbed his arm and hauled him to the front door, having remarkable strength for a girl her size. She flung open the door, grabbed Charlie Brown by the collar and his belt, and threw him clear over the stoop, right into a pile of snow. A moment later, his coat and hat landed on top of him, and the door slammed.

Charlie Brown rolled onto his side and pushed himself up. Dusting off the snow from his long yellow sleeves, he called back, "I hope this doesn't mean I'm uninvited from the party, Schroeder!"

THE END

A/N: To be clear, this story is not saying, "Because Schroeder thinks Beethoven's girlfriends shouldn't have rejected him, Schroeder is therefore obligated to return Lucy's feelings." Rather, I wanted to write Schroeder's humorous reaction to finally seeing the parallels between Lucy and Beethoven.