Character analysis and development in literature

Zoe: A Crooked Kind of Perfect

Dear Pen Pal:

Lately, my life has just been out-of-tune. I guess things could be worse. I mean, Beethoven became deaf, right? That's worse. My mom could lose her job instead of being a total workaholic and my father could be never home instead of being always home. I wonder if Vladimir Horowitz could have suffered through what I have had to suffer these past couple of weeks. It's not always easy being a ten-year-old girl.

I mean, sometimes I can't help saying: 'what else could go wrong?' For example, most parents have to beg their children to take music lessons. I had to beg for my own piano instead! I had dreams of becoming a famous concert pianist. I could see myself in an elegant gown, playing Beethoven in Carnegie Hall, with people clapping and shouting 'Brava, Brava.' All I needed was the instrument, preferably a shiny black piano with ivory keys. And some pretty red shoes to complete my outfit wouldn't hurt, either.

Instead, my father arrives home with a Perfectone D-60 -- an organ! My father hardly ever leaves the house, and the one time he does do something daring (like change his routine), he gives me a strange-sounding instrument that would make even Beethoven's 9th sound like disco -- if I could learn to play Beethoven, that is. My teacher gave me lesson books entitled Hits of the Sixties and Hits of the Nineties, so you can imagine what they sound like -- like the worst radio station, ever!

I'd love to complain to my best friend Emma about the Perfectone. But Emma's not my best friend anymore. Over the summer, she changed. People say she's getting 'older' and growing up, but I don't see how staring in the mirror all of the time and obsessing about clothes and makeup makes you a grown-up. Now, according to Emma, I'm a total loser because I wear socks. Somehow, I just didn't get that memo. So, instead of Emma, I have Wheeler Diggs following me home from school to hang out with my dad.