The Musical Stones

After writing prose and poetry, probably my greatest love is teaching creative writing. I always jump at the task to take writing courses for children and university students.

I gave my writing classes the beginning of a fantasy story I wrote, called Ricky and the Musical Stones
There once was a small island off the coast of Cape Town. It could still be there if you look carefully or if you think about it in the moments before nodding off at night. What will help is to leave your bedroom windows open on a clear evening. The stars and the moon will shine into your room and your curtains will start to whisper in a wind coming off the island.

Long ago on this island, after a long hot day of walking through the forest near his home in the Pennons Valley, a boy called Ricky went down to the beach to listen to the music of the surf and the waves. As he sat hypnotised by the sound, the tide washed up a set of large, remarkably shaped stones. He stooped to examine them more closely. They were in the shape of a perfectly formed set of musical notes.

Because he had tried to play the piano before, Ricky could recognise them. One was a quaver, two were crochets, one was a semibreve and the other a minim. Their polished ebony gleamed. The semibreve was not a ring, but a bowl, the hollow there to help you recognise what it was. The minim had its base emptied out too, like a ladle.

Ricky could not believe his luck. He often had wondered if there were any real musical notes — ones you could hold, squeeze, turn around, sniff and rub — not just the pictures of ones on a musical page, all hung out on a few lines to dry. They often looked so miserable!

He carefully touched one, then picked it up. It was surprisingly light. The stone — if that is what it was — had a smooth, fleshy feel, like the skin of the dolphins he has touched whilst swimming in the sea. Like the others, it was bigger than the size of both his feet — the size of a stepping stone. It glistened more as he held it in his hand.

As he moved it around to look at it from different angles, he heard the faint sound of a violin. Vooooo-eeeeee… He looked around to try and see where the sound was coming from. He suddenly realised the stone he was holding was making the sweet noise.

Eventually he put the stones into his knapsack and strolled on. As he walked he heard from time to time what sounded like a full orchestra tuning up inside his knapsack. Bu-lung-kwoooo-rrrrrr yooooohhhooo vooooo-eeeee… Some of the instruments he could not recognise, but their noise was strange and wonderful. The sounds came from his rucksack, and it seemed as if the stones were talking to each other. Maybe they also could not believe their luck.

As Ricky walked back into the forest he saw a rabbit. What was strange is that it did not dash off in a rustle of leaves as they normally did. There were heaps of rabbits in the forest, mostly brown and grey in colour. This rabbit was grey and hardly moving. He was lying on his side and panting hard.

Ricky crouched next to the rabbit and whispered softly, “Are you hurt?” The rabbit looked up at him, whiskers trembling with fear and pain. He had been badly hurt in a fall of some kind, Ricky thought.

Ricky patted the rabbit. The shivering ball of grey fur knew Ricky would not hurt him. In fact, he sniffed at Ricky’s knapsack, which the boy had thrown down next to the rabbit. Ricky realised the rabbit had broken legs.

Ricky chewed a knuckle, not knowing what to do. If he left the rabbit, he would die. He then heard a wonderful sound. Pululululuuuuluuuluuiuu… It was like water streaming from an impossibly high place, and it warbled like a flute.

Ricky realised it was coming from his knapsack. So did the rabbit, because now he was very curious, in spite of his pain. The rabbit pushed his head into the knapsack. Ricky realised he should tumble the stones or notes out onto the grass.

Now the rabbit just wanted to get closer to the notes. Even though he could hardly move, he was trying with all his might to get near them. Ricky pushed one of the notes, the long quaver, closer to the rabbit. What surprised Ricky was that the quaver had gained enormously in weight. And it made the same warbling sound over and over. Pululululuuuuluuuluuiuu…

The rabbit pushed his nose deep into the quaver, whose flesh softened until the animal’s nose was buried in its flesh. The sound of the flute stopped.

After a minute, the rabbit looked up at Ricky, his eyes much brighter. He got up and bounded away. All his bones had been mended. He paused at the top of a hill. With intense green eyes he took one last look at Ricky, and was off.

Ricky stood in the sunlight, holding up one of the notes, amazed afresh at his discovery. He carefully looked at the five stones, or notes, turning them over and over. They were truly as smooth as hairless skin, with a deep black shine, and with no joints or seams. He also noticed that the quaver was lighter now. Musical stones, he decided. That was the best way to describe them — the musical stones.

‘What happens next?’ I challenged my intrigued students. ‘You write the rest of the story. Don’t worry. I don’t want more than half a page from you.’

In my version of the story Ricky goes to find out who the owner of the Musical Stones is, and this means many adventures before finally finding the owner, who turns out to be his long lost father. I gave the students hints as to how the rest of my version of the story proceeds.

A fourteen year old girl called Jin Liyan wrote the following:

Ricky lived in a small village with his mother. They were poor. One day Ricky’s mother was seriously sick. She would die in a week. Her last wish was to hear music because she liked music very much but she never heard beautiful music. Ricky found some music here and there but failed. His mother’s life had only a little left. Ricky was very sad and didn’t know where can he find music. He walked to the sea and shouted. At this time, God was moved and God cried. The tears fell down into the sea and became musical stones. Ricky was very happy and took them to his mother. After his mother heard the music she died with a smile.

This continuation of Ricky and the Musical Stones came from another girl, also fourteen, Yao Xin Cheng.

Ricky showed the musical stones to his mother. Then his mother gave him a necklace; it was broken and there was nothing on it. His mother told him that five years ago his father went to an adventure island to find some special stones to put them on the necklace. He said he would be back in two years. But five years later there was no news about him. “Ricky, I want you to find him,” his mother said. “And you must come back safely.”

Then he went to the adventure island. He met a lot of lions, tigers and many other animals. He went to some forests and deserts.

Finally he reached the island. Then he heard the musical sound again. The stone made the sound. The sound took him to a tiny, old house. It was near a river. There were some fishermen. One of them was Ricky’s father.

He said to Ricky, “I made the necklace three years ago. I put it on the river. It was magical. It could find your mother and you. But I didn’t know the stones were lost. Now you found them. Let’s go back to our home.” So at long last they lived happily together. The musical stones were always with them.