Rain was cutting a November morning as Maja slipped into the school cloakroom. The smell of wet jackets and damp rubber hung low, like an embarrassed whisper. She squeezed her backpack into a metal locker, slammed the door and heard a quiet crunch. A sheet of paper slid out from inside, bent exactly into four equal parts. No one was standing next to it, only the echo of footsteps spilled across the tiles. Maja unfolded the paper, feeling her fingers tremble slightly despite her thick sweatshirt. On the paper was a sentence that no stranger should know. "You are afraid to solo, but your silence sings." - proclaimed the even stranger character. Maja didn't tell anyone about the competition or her stiff throat in front of an audience. She only wrote it down in a notebook she hid under her bed, next to an old metronome. Her heart became as heavy as a wet sleeve, then suddenly light, almost empty. - This is from whom? - Tola asked, appearing with a rubber band in her hair. - 'Probably a choir advertisement,' lied Maja, tucking the trembling note into her jacket pocket. Tola shrugged her shoulders, but her eyebrows hovered, as if sensing a storm under her skin. Maja tried to laugh at the solfège joke, but the laughter wouldn't come out. During the break she checked her phone, her passwords, even the broken mirror over the bathroom sink. The next page was waiting in the library, tucked into the middle of a novel about a runner. "Instead of running, teach your heart to take steps" - Maja's heart trembled until her teeth clacked against each other. On the back was a note: "Room thirteen after lessons. Come alone, please." Anger, curiosity and shame collided in her like trams on a curve. If it's a silly joke, she'll just leave, without a word and without tears. If not, maybe someone really understands how courage crackles inside her. At sixteen she pressed the handle of room thirteen, hearing the muffled ticking of the metronome. The light turned on gradually, revealing chairs, a piano and something covered by a dark blue curtain. The door closed behind Maya with a quiet click, and the metronome sped up, as if impatient. A sentence of white laser dots flashed on the chalkboard: "Don't be afraid of your voice". Then a whisper came from behind the curtain, familiar to the point of pain and yet unrecognisable. - 'You've come at last, Maya,' someone said, and the material began to slowly move away.