Meet Miss Flickerfingers

By Beverly D Harris

Jeannine Hiller is excited about moving from Washington to her parents' hometown in California. She is also sad about the move because her mom is not alive to watch the building and finishing of the house her mom designed. Jeannine's joy is in looking forward to living so close to both sets of her grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Her loving dad helps her get ready for the move and then this dynamic father-daughter duo are on their great adventure of hauling their household goods and a Wurlitzer pipe organ to their new hometown. Jeannine meets people of all ages through her joy of playing different theatre style organs and her clarinet, watching her house get built and helping her dad select things for their home and playing in a Wurligig. Her maternal grandparents own an art glass company and have a small theatre pipe organ in their showroom. Her grandaunt and granduncle own the Palace Theatre where they have recently installed a very large Wurlitzer theatre pipe organ. Jeannine's paternal grandparents own and operate Ice Cream Palace in the Palace Theatre building and manage the café and air club restaurant at their town's private plane airport. This interesting and talented 9 year old girl earns the nickname of Miss Flickerfingers from one of her new friends and musician mentors.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Beverly D Harris
• Release date: Sep 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311007230

Beverly D Harris

Beverly D. Harris is a writer and musician. She plays clarinet and bass clarinet in her church and two concert bands. She also plays theatre organ for fun and has been a teacher, raptor handler and was caregiver for her disabled Mom. She enjoys reading many genres of books, gardening, painting, needle crafts, origami, stamp collecting, mineral collecting, collecting vintage Fisher Price toys, photography,playing instruments in groups and jamming with friends. Bev lives in Sacramento, California with her mischievious cat.

Book preview

Meet Miss Flickerfingers

By Beverly D. Harris

Copyright 2015 by Beverly D. Harris

Smashwords Edition

This eBook is licensed to you for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it to your favorite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction and the environs of Rosedale, Fruitvale and Hillman Lake are a fictional locale set somewhere in Northern California. References to other cities are real.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1—Boxes

Chapter 2—Last Play

Chapter 3—Packing

Chapter 4—Farewells

Chapter 5—Road Trip

Chapter 6—Landmarks

Chapter 7—Nana’s House

Chapter 8—Ice Cream Palace

Chapter 9—Palace Theatre

Chapter 10—Surprises

Chapter 11—Brown Sugar

Chapter12—Wes Hawthorne

Chapter 13—Theatre Things

Chapter 14—Organ Jam

Chapter 15—House Paint

Chapter 16—Organ Rehearsal

Chapter 17—Trading Music

Chapter 18—Birthday Party

Chapter 19—Jeannine’s Garden

Chapter 20—Wurligig

Chapter 21—Wall Art

Chapter 22—Paint & Friends

Chapter 23—Finishing Touches

Chapter 24—Moving In

Glossary of Organ Terms

AboutTheAuthor

Author’s Note

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1—Boxes

Jeannine Hiller had dreamed about her new house in California, for a year, since her mom had finished drawing the plans. Her parents had bought the property for building the new house before Jeannine’s mom had died from a yellow jacket sting that had caused her mom to have a fiery plane crash. She sighed heavily and closed the house plan binder and parked it on her desk. The week after school was out her dad finally got serious about getting ready to move. The house had been sold a few weeks ago and the new family was not quite ready to move in yet.

She wasn’t going to miss her too small room. It had seemed big enough when she was smaller. But now she had more books and needed to use a desk, her room was too small. She smiled a little when her dad asked her if she had the house plan binder and her mom’s album of house pictures. She fetched the binders from her desk and said, Daddywur, I’ve been thinking a lot about our great new house while I have been sorting stuff to donate to the church yard sale. These boxes are stuffed and ready to go.

Paul smiled and said, Let’s take those to the front hall. He made a face when they heard the doorbell and phone ring at the same time. I’ll get the phone. Mrs. Walling might be at the door. She and Brent said they were going to get us the packing supplies we need. They raced to the front of the house and Jeannine opened the front door and hugged their best neighbors.

Mrs. Annie and Mr. Brent, we’ve been busy sorting the stuff to donate to the church yard sale. They hauled the packing supplies to the music room while Jeannine said, Andy, Marcie and Lindy promised they’d be over tomorrow to help me pack. She saw her dad come out of the kitchen after the packing supplies were stacked in the music room. She heard her dad say he had found enough wooden crates for packing organ pipes.

Paul said, Most of the crates from the Turner’s move are good enough for us to move Dancing Orca. They will get us the bubble wrap, paper and other materials to wrap the organ parts. The crates have been stored in the theatre’s basement in case anyone from the club needed to move an organ.

Jeannine knew it was going to be a lot of work to pack over a thousand organ pipes that were as small as pencils to ones that were 16 feet long. There were also the drums, cymbals, marimba, piano, xylophone, chimes and other things that needed to be packed with care. A couple of years ago she and her parents had helped the Turners unpack a larger Wurlitzer pipe organ. She avidly listened to her dad and neighbors talk about their move then said, Mrs. Annie, you got us file boxes with lids.

The file boxes will work very well for you to pack art supplies toys, books and clothes. We are so glad to help you and your dad have the right kinds of boxes for everything.

I will ride to California with Daddy in Whitey and the trailer hauling the console, pedalboard, bench and blower. My stuff will be safe in the camper shell. I’m glad Ronnie, Mary and Tom can help us drive Blue to Rosedale. Blue will be carrying a bunch of stuff too. Then while I stay with the grands Daddy will come back here with Hiller & Sons trucks to pack the organ pipes and the rest of our house things. A couple of our relatives will be here later in the week to fly Bluebird to Rosedale, when we are ready to truck.

Jeannine sighed heavily when she saw her dad set some cat toys on the coffee table. She tearfully said, Brown Sugar has been gone for three weeks. You know how he’d get into cars with open windows and take naps. She brushed tears away then unfolded a box while Mr. Walling recalled the cat going to his box store a few times. She recalled other adventures of Sugar going to school with her in the car, riding to church and hanging out with the Wallings. A lot of strangers came to look at our house. They didn’t know about checking their backseats before they took off. What if one of those people thought Sugar was too nice to give him back?

Mrs. Walling hugged Jeannine and softly said, Sweetie, maybe your cat went for a ride in your realtor, Charlotte Moore’s convertible.

Jeannine wrinkled her brow and moaned, But, that might mean Sugar could have bailed out in another neighborhood and he’s lost forever.

Paul stroked his daughter’s cheek and said, We have done posters and other things to let people know about our lost cat.

Mr. Walling unfolded a large box while he said, Kiddo, Annie and I will watch for Sugar. If he comes home after you’ve gone to Rosedale, we’ll put him in his carrier and drive him to California for you.

Jeannine pulled away from Annie and mumbled, I’m going to my room for awhile. She grabbed two boxes and ran before anyone saw her tears. She missed her cat and she seriously missed her mom. She dumped the boxes on her bed and recalled the horrible way her mom had died last fall. The medical examiner’s report about the airplane crash showed that a yellow jacket had stung her mom to death before her mom lost control of the plane and crashed at the end of the runway. On that terrible day she had been called out of her third grade class to meet her dad at the office.

She twisted the gold medical bracelet around her wrist. They had waited weeks for the medical examiner’s report to say it was the insect stings that killed her mom, instead of the crash and fire. Several weeks later they had gotten the NTSB and FAA reports saying the crash was caused by the pilot’s anaphylaxis, not the plane’s mechanical stuff. Jeannine was also deathly allergic to insect stings.

She sighed heavily then looked at her bookcase stuffed with books. Many of those had been her mom’s favorites. Some of the books had been her dad’s. The newer books were ones her parents and other relatives had given to her. She filled her boxes and ran to get a couple more. She ran back to her room and filled the next box with her collection of handmade scrapbooks.

Mrs. Walling brought more folded boxes, labels and a marker and sat in the doorway. She quietly opened out the boxes and pushed them in the girl’s room. Hon, I can print labels for you.

Okay. Thanks. I need one for photo albums. I need a label for the scrapbooks and one for scrapping supplies. She tucked some hair behind her ear and plopped papergoods in the supplies box. She had been two years old when her mom made her an alphabet scrapbook. They had hunted for pictures of things that started with each letter. Every year the construction paper scrapbooks of good things had gotten more sophisticated. She carefully packed them in the next box.

She opened the album with pictures of her parents at their high school’s senior ball and their wedding. She dreamily looked at the pictures until she heard her dad start playing their Wurlitzer. He had said he was going to record some favorite songs in his last play before the organ was taken apart. She hummed along with the songs and stacked the photo albums another box. She watched Mrs. Walling tape filled boxes closed.

Jeannine started to fill a box with her collection of cutout shapes, letters and envelopes of pictures. Mrs. Annie, I need a label for cutouts and another for rubberstamp stuff. She smiled a little when she saw her friend mark the labels. She loaded the boxes while she said, I almost can’t wait to get my excellent new desk. I’m going to have more drawers that will have trays for my rubberstamps, punches, fancy scissors, brush markers and all my other art supplies. I hauled all the little bins in here to organize things better. She and Mrs. Walling packed all the art supplies. Then they got busy with packing clothes. Almost an hour and a half later she heard the organ get quiet.

Paul knocked on the doorjamb. Wurligirl, it’s your turn to play. I recorded two disks of my favorite songs. I have left the recorder ready for your good play.

Okay. I have some good ideas for things I want to play. Jeannine picked up three of her organ orcas from her bed. Bourdon Big Flute, Vox Humana and Furry Flute want to be my organ buddies.

Chapter 2—Last Play

Jeannine watched her dad put the orcas on top of the blue and gold console and arrange her binder on the music rack. She noticed her dad had already set the bench so she had a comfortable reach to the pedalboard.

Mrs. Walling said, We’ve enjoyed hearing you grow into a good organist. I really like the way you close your plays with Lost Chord. You made me really happy when you made me a copy of that song’s words.

Jeannine lightly stroked the keys while she said, I really like that song, because it’s about someone playing the organ and thinking about what the music does for the organist. She tucked some hair behind her ear and looked over the slope