Some kids play piano.  

Some kids play violin.  

Some kids play guitar or recorder or drums.  

But from the time she was one year old, little Maggie Sawyer desperately wanted to play the cello.

She cut out pictures of cellos from newspapers and stuck them to her bedroom walls.

Her favourite song was “Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor”, even though nobody else knew what that was.

Every Christmas, she wanted to ask Santa for a cello, but her parents said it probably wouldn’t fit on the sleigh, so she settled for stuffed animals instead.

Finally, one day when she was three, Maggie’s mother brought her to the music store to get her a cello.  

The man at the store went into a back room and after seven minutes of BING BANG BOOM he came out with an instrument that was just a little bit smaller than Maggie.

“That’s not a cello!” Maggie said to her mother, “A cello is as big as you and twice as fat.  That is a violin with a pin on the bottom!”

The man from the store tried to explain that there were all different sizes of cellos, and you got bigger ones as you got older…

But Maggie just said “La la la, I can’t hear you saying silly, silly things!” and stomped around the room like a crazy little elephant.

The man just sighed and gave her the giant cello like she wanted.

On the way home from the store, two old ladies ran screaming down the street, shouting:

“Ahhhh!  There’s a big fat cello with teeny little legs on the loose!  Run for your lives!”

The cello was so big, they couldn’t see Maggie underneath.  But she didn’t mind at all.  She loved her cello just the way it was.

The next day, Maggie’s mother brought her around the corner for her very first music lesson.

The second the music teacher saw the size of the cello, she fell off her chair with a BOOF BANG BLOMP!

“That’s not a cello, that’s a whale!” she gasped, “I can’t even see you back there!  How did you get such a gigantic instrument?”

The teacher explained to Maggie that to play the cello, you need to be able to “hug” it between your knees.  Maggie couldn’t even hug it with her arms stretched out as far as they could go.  The teacher insisted this cello was too big!

But Maggie just said “La la la, I can’t hear you saying silly, silly things!” and shook her head like she had a bee in her brain she had to knock out.

The teacher sighed and did the lesson anyway.

At the end of the lesson, when Maggie was doing her bow, the cello tipped over and squished her onto the floor!  The teacher ran around in circles yelling:

“Help!  A giant cello just ate my student!  Somebody call the police!”

Maggie felt a little flat underneath the cello, but she didn’t mind at all.  She loved her cello just the way it was.

The next day at preschool was Show and Tell, and of course Maggie brought her new cello for everyone to see.

When she walked into the classroom, the case was so big and heavy that she knocked over the painting centre by accident, and the paint went GLOP GLOOP SPLATTER!

“Maggie brought a bus to school!” the other kids yelled, “She’s going to squish us all like bugs!”

The teacher said maybe this cello was too big for preschool, since Maggie couldn’t even reach around the side to pluck the strings, and the bow was as tall as Emily.

But Maggie just said “La la la, I can’t hear you saying silly, silly things!” and sat on her head and blew bubbles from her nose.

The teacher sighed and let Maggie show the cello anyway.

When she was done showing her friends all the different parts of the cello, a little boy named Gus asked her if she could actually play the cello.

Maggie tried and tried and stretched and squeezed… but even on the tallest chair in the class, she couldn’t play her instrument!

That afternoon, she went home feeling quite sad.

At dinner time, Maggie kept plopping her face in her mashed potatoes, so her mother asked her what was wrong.

“I can’t play my cello at all!” Maggie cried, “It’s so big I can’t reach around it, and when I used the bow, I poked Justin in the ear by mistake!”

Maggie’s mother wiped the potatoes off her face and said:

“Why don’t you just try a smaller cello, and see how it goes?  You can always get a bigger version when you’re ready.”

Maggie didn’t like the idea, but she said yes anyway.

At her next music lesson, Maggie had a 1/16 cello that fit her perfectly.  She could sit on a normal-sized chair and reach the neck and use the bow without poking anyone’s ear.

And before long, she was playing “Twinkle Twinkle” so beautifully that all the old ladies on the street came to listen, and they said to Maggie’s mother: 

“Your daughter is so talented, it’s a good thing that monster cello didn’t eat her!”

Maggie was happy, too, and one night after practising, her mother asked her if she thought the smaller cello was a good size after all.

“Yes,” said Maggie happily, “It’s a very good fit.  And I’m going to keep on using it, day and night…

“Until I turn four, when I should be old enough to get the big one back!”