Extensive Reading Programme Personal Narrative

Question 5(a)

“No way! I don’t want to teach Cousin Benny how to play the piano.” I stood and folded my arms, giving my mum the dirtiest look I could muster for even suggesting such a thing.

“I would have less time for my studies and my other commitments if I were to teach Cousin Benny to play the piano…” I said imploringly, making a genuine effort to sound more pleasant this time round.

“Jenny, dear. It won’t take up too much of your time. I’ll take it that you’ve agreed,” Mum said firmly. I knew it would be futile to attempt to change her mind, and I turned away huffily.

I sighed. I hated Cousin Benny. Mean, spoilt, and a horrible whining crybaby to boot. Why would somebody like him want to learn to play the piano? I still remembered the time when he stepped on my music player on purpose and denied spoiling it.

The next day, Cousin Benny came over to my house for his first piano lesson with me. I had spent a whole half hour beforehand planning what to teach him. As usual, he was grinning all over his cheeky face. I was greeted by a shout of “Cousin Jelly!” as I went to open the door for him. I scowled. Things did not look good at all.

I made him sit down on the piano bench, before shuffling to the kitchen to get him a cup of water. When I came back, I found him looking through all the music books on my shelf, although I had not given him any permission to do so. I dragged him away and proceeded to teach him the basics, like how to read notes and interpret time signatures. It was not long before his attention started to wander and my words started to fall on deaf ears.

“Hey, Cousin Jenny, why don’t we play Monopoly?” he said, pointing to the game set in the corner.

I sighed. “Okay, but only for a while.”

He got bored of Monopoly after merely ten minutes and decided that he wanted me to teach him how to play “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” on the piano instead. I taught him the position of the notes slowly, going through them over and over again to make sure he could remember them. A short while later, he seemed to have gained enough confidence and started playing the main melody. He played many wrong notes and was content to laugh off his own mistakes and try again, even giving me tiny winks from time to time.

As I stared at Cousin Benny, I realized that he was not as bad as I had thought. Furthermore, there were many things I could learn from him. He was not afraid of failure, and would try repeatedly till he achieved his goal. I envied him for his happy-go-lucky nature.

From then on, my relationship with Cousin Benny improved greatly and I continued to teach him to play the piano. He taught me to have a more positive outlook in life and I became a much happier person under his influence. At the end of the day, all I could say was that my mum had certainly made the right decision in forcing me to teach him.

(Number of words: 546)