The Missing Sheet Music
A free B1-level English story for language learners, readable online in 4 languages, with an option to listen via the free Storyteller app.
The librarian of a community orchestra investigates why pages of music vanish before every rehearsal.
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Lucian had been the orchestra's librarian for six years. His job was simple: before each rehearsal, he put the right pages on every music stand. For years it had worked perfectly. Then, in October, pages began to vanish.
The first time, two pages of the second violin part were missing. Lucian blamed himself and searched the cupboard twice. The next week, three pages of the cello part had disappeared. The week after that, some viola pages went missing. He was sure now that it was not an accident.
He started to keep a list. The missing pages were always the hard ones, full of fast runs and tricky rhythms. Whoever took them had left the pens, the stands and even the chocolate in the drawer. It had to be a player who wanted something specific.
"Maybe somebody is selling them," joked the flute player. Lucian didn't laugh. Nothing about the pages looked valuable, and he was beginning to feel like a very bad detective.
On Thursday he arrived at the hall an hour early. He hid in the storage room with the door open a crack. At six o'clock, a young woman slipped in. She took a few pages from the cupboard and tucked them carefully into her bag. Lucian stepped out of the shadows.
"Excuse me," he said. She turned bright red. It was Fiorella, the new viola player, who had joined in September.
"I'm so sorry," she said. "I'm not a fast reader. I was afraid everybody would notice I was behind. So I took the hard pages home to practise. I always brought them back. Well, almost always."
Lucian sat down on a box. He felt relieved and a little silly. "You could have asked me, you know," he said. "I would have made you copies on the first day."
"I didn't want people to know."
"Half of this orchestra practises at home," he said. "That is exactly what we are supposed to do."
The next week, a thick folder with Fiorella's name on it was waiting on her stand. Inside were clear copies of every difficult page, a full week early. She opened it, found the first line, and played the opening bar softly before anyone else arrived.
