Tip-tip-ti-tap-tap-sssscrape-tip-tip!

Then Mr. Bryan would stop her, shouting, "Okay, okay, not quite! Give it more of a lift, like this ..." His dancing sounded like clackety-dack-click . . . stomp-stomp!

It was pretty obnoxious. But after awhile I was able to tune it out. I returned to work on the Twinkie and managed to give it a kind of personality. I began feeling better. After: twenty minutes or so I switched over to the Milk Duds drawing.

By that time the sounds from downstairs had grown awfully loud. Rosie was singing at the top of her lungs, not at all as nicely as she had sung the day before.

"Rosie dear, get it up into the mask!" Ms. Van Cott was shouting. "The soft palate! Lift the soft palate!"

"It's shuffle-shuffle-/flZflp-step!" Mr. Bryan added.

"More head, less chest!" said Ms. Van Cott.

"You're getting behind on that double time step!" said Mr. Bryan.

Whoa. Poor Rosie! I never thought I'd feel sorry for her, but I did. The two teachers were getting carried away.

Fortunately (for Rosie), the lesson seemed to end soon afterward. I could tell because the music stopped and the teachers' voices grew quieter. Ms. Van Cott was telling Rosie to "warm down" (whatever that means), and Mr. Bryan kept saying, "And stretch . . . and stretch!" (Even with my small brainpower, I figured that meant he was leading her in stretching exercises.)

Before long the teachers bounced happily out of the house, calling good-bye to me.

I listened for Rosie, but I didn't hear her. For a moment I thought she might have collapsed with exhaustion.

Finally I heard her footsteps on the basement stairs. "Rosie?" I called. "How did it go?"