The first thing that Monica Kendall did upon exiting the drawing room was tug on her hair, releasing it from the stupid and constricting knot it had been in. Upon doing so, her long, snowy-white locks fell freely about her head. Much better.
She had just been released from yet another hour’s worth of her most dreaded time of the week: Mrs Simpkins’ piano practice with her sisters. Elizabeth and Cynthia may have enjoyed it, but she certainly hadn’t.
Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven… it made her want to scream.
But it was over now, and she was free to do as she pleased.
The second thing she did was enter the big living room. She plopped herself down onto one of the large - and admittedly very comfortable - sofas and turned to face the television.
The young panda picked up one of the squishy black cushions, unzipping the cover and plunging her hand into it.
A little smirk lit Monica’s face as she withdrew the TV remote controls from within the cotton cushion cover - the Kendall girls weren’t allowed to watch the TV by themselves, but she had figured out where their parents had hid the controls ages ago!
The enormous square screen, mounted atop a wooden stand with the speakers built into it, clicked into life when she pressed the on button.
In two seconds, she was once again confronted by her old nemesis: a solid blue screen with four little white boxes in a row in the centre and a message atop them:
Enter code to disable Parental Lock.
Attempting to get past this screen was one of Monica’s favourite pastimes, and she had been at it for at least a year. But she had recently read that there were a whopping 10,000 different combinations when guessing 4 numbers!
Her fingers punched in another random code: 2363.
Incorrect.
She tried again: 6266.
Incorrect.
It had become a sort of rhythm to Monica’s thumb - four numbers on the number pad, then the enter key, and repeating when her latest entry inevitably failed.
0265, 0565, 5225, 6345, 6253; These all garnered her the Incorrect screen.
7777, however…
Correct. Welcome, Hugo!
Monica nearly fell off of the sofa in surprise as the channel select screen presented itself to her, a sight that she had never seen without an adult present before!
But now, they were all hers to peruse at her leisure; there were the terrestrial channels, like BBC, ITV and Channel 4; all of the Sky Sports channels with football, basketball, baseball and all of the other ‘balls’; the QVC shopping channels with nothing that anyone could possibly want to buy…
But, with this newfound televisual freedom, and considering what she’d been through this afternoon, Monica found herself scrolling down into the music channels, hoping to cleanse herself of her Pachelbel purgatory.
It didn’t take long to find what she was looking for: MTV & VH1.
The panda’s brown eyes glistened as she used the TV remote to highlight the current programme on MTV: ‘The Rock Block’.
It sounded amazing, and Monica was eager to hear it, so she hit the ‘Select’ button and readied herself!
She wasn’t ready.
And I know what you like I know you like dancing with me Yeah, yeah
It was deafening.
Clearly, someone had left the volume up when the TV had last been shut off, because the music came blasting out of the speakers beneath it, catching Monica off guard.
Her eyes were greeted by the strange and amazing sight of a woman with massive blonde hair - she wore a leather jacket with all kinds of studs and rings on it, playing a spiky guitar amongst columns of ice and flame!
Kiss me once!
Monica couldn’t remember standing up on the sofa, but there she was, bouncing up and down on the big cushions to the rhythm of this incredible music!
Kiss me twice!
The woman and her rock band jumped and played around the flaming, icy landscape and the panda girl mimicked them in her living room, the windows rattling with the noise.
Come on pretty baby, kiss me deadlyyyyyy!
“What the devil is going on in here?!”
Her good time couldn’t have lasted forever.
Monica’s father, Dr Hugo Kendall, burst into the living room, hands folding his ears down against his head to shield them from the noise. He took in the sight of his youngest daughter bouncing wildly on the sofa to the appallingly loud sounds of Patti Smith and Scandal.
Father and daughter stared at each other for a moment, both frozen in time, until Hugo started towards the TV.
Before Monica could even make any sounds of protest, her father pulled the plug for the TV station out of the wall, blackening the music video and cutting out the sound instantly.
“Dad-!” Monica began, but her furious father cut her off:
“Monica Kendall! I have had it to my back teeth with your outrageous behaviour! Why can’t you be more like your sisters?”
“And why can’t you just leave me alone?!”
Monica’s loud and shrill response seemed to take both pandas by surprise, leaving them in silence for a few seconds.
“This is why.” Hugo said finally, folding his arms. “You will be grounded for this - you will leave your room only for school and for mealtimes and you will forget about the absolute rubbish you saw on that television just now!”
His daughter didn’t shout, nor did she scream - instead, she fixed her father with a hateful glare, before jumping down off of the sofa and striding out of the room, fists clenched and jaw set.
--------------------------------
Up in the silence of her bedroom, Monica contemplated her situation as she lay sprawled out on her bed.
This was clearly the greatest injustice that planet Earth had ever played host to! She had received a few minutes glimpse into an amazing new world: a world without dull old piano music, a world where girls didn't have to conform to rules or do what they were told.
And then her father, as he always seemed to do wherever she was actually having fun for once, had interfered with her happiness and shut it down completely…
What had hurt most of all was that she hadn’t even managed to identify the artist’s name before the plug had been literally pulled on her!
She quietly sang the chorus to herself, trying to keep it fresh in her mind for as long as she could, though, like chewing a bit of gum, she couldn’t help but feel like it was beginning to fade already…
But there was one crumb of comfort for her - one wafer-thin silver lining to the dark cloud that had gathered above her:
“At least I won’t have to attend Mrs Simpkins' piano recital next week.”
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Lita Ford saves a young girl from classical music, more at 11.
