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"Lucy, I need your advice."
Lucy van Pelt narrowed her eyes like a predator.
A quarter clinked into the tin.
"Shoot, Charlie Brown. Make it fast, I’m on my lunch break."
"Right... Lucy, I... well, there’s this girl. She used to really like me, and now I’ve started to realize that I like her back, but she doesn’t like me anymore. What do I do?" Charlie Brown tried not to look at her. He just rattled it off under his breath.
"You?" she repeated with a note of disgusted amazement.
"What?"
"A girl was head-over-heels for... you? Charlie Brown, did you hit your head on something?"
She didn’t believe it. Not for a second. Charlie could see it. He already cursed this whole situation; it was so incredibly stupid. Now, anyone might wonder why Charlie Brown would seek to ask Lucy van Pelt for advice about his love life in the first place. Well, the thing was, he didn't want to.
What's more, this love life wasn't exactly his. Or rather, it wasn't his at all.
"I came for advice, not insults, okay?! I... uhm... look, there's this girl! She used to... she was always around me, and now... she stopped. And I suddenly realized that... I sort of... like her too."
"What do you mean, 'suddenly realized'?" Lucy curled her lip, tapping her pen on the desk.
"Well... she sort of... stopped trying to spend as much time with me as before and I..."
"Only after she cooled off?! What's next, you're gonna be jealous of every lamppost she walks past, huh?!"
"What? Lucy, what are you even—"
"Are you jealous?"
"Well, uh..." Charlie didn't know how to answer. "I guess? Look, it doesn't matter, I—"
Lucy van Pelt let out a professional sigh, scribbling something in her notebook with an air of self-importance. "Charlie Brown, you’re hopeless! You’re just possessive. You don’t need her; you need the attention. Forget her and find someone who will appreciate, uh..." She looked him up and down carefully, as if trying to find even one thing worth appreciating in this embodiment of worldwide sorrow and universal failure, "appreciate your stupid zigzag shirt." Van Pelt finally exhaled, with a slight grimace.
Charlie Brown blinked dumply. Then he looked at his shirt. Then at Lucy.
And then he left without a word, his face a little twisted.
Walking into the music room, he was still trying to process this information.
And Schroeder was still sitting on the bench by the piano, staring at the door. His posture seemed exactly the same as when Charlie Brown had left him there. Even though that long, awkward conversation, during which Schroeder, sounding as out of tune as a poorly adjusted instrument, had stammered out his feelings, had been a good 15 minutes ago.
Schroeder hadn't said her name. Not once. But Charlie Brown knew exactly who the pianist was talking about. From the description, it was far too obvious.
Schroeder had told him everything: how she used to follow him everywhere with that dreamy look as a kid... how she stopped after eighth grade... how now, every time she walked into class or laughed at some nonsense during a lesson, his stomach did a somersault as if he were listening to the beginning of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
And now... now Schroeder was probably sweating under his shirt.
When Charlie returned, Schroeder snapped, "Well?!"
Charlie gave a weak shrug. "Well... I mean, no, not well. You see, she said that if I... I mean, if you, like I... I mean. You get it. You've got problems on your end... since you only realized you needed her attention after she cooled off, that makes you possessive and not cut out for a healthy relationship... and you should just move on. Yeah, something like that."
Schroeder’s face fell. He blinked slowly, stupidly. The color drained from his pale cheeks.
Possessive? Unhealthy?
He didn't even know how to ask someone on a date, and she thought he was... what? Some kind of emotional mastermind villain?!
"Because..." Charlie continued slowly, sitting on the bench beside him. "Maybe she thinks your feelings only woke up because she stopped paying attention to you and you’re... well... jealous?"
Schroeder slowly turned his head toward Charlie Brown. In his whole life, he'd been jealous maybe three times, tops! And one of those times might not have even been real...
His lips parted slightly, but no words came out.
A minute passed. Then another.
And finally. "...She said that." A flat tone.
Then he frowned slightly and started to simmer. He looked at Charlie Brown.
"But that's not true! You know that's not true, Charlie Brown! Why didn't you tell her it was a different situation?"
"I tried!"
"Not hard enough!" Schroeder ran his fingers through his hair in despair, mussing it up. "Go back to her. And tell her... tell her it’s not jealousy! That I... I mean, you... Argh! I need help here!" He grabbed Charlie by the shoulders and spun him toward the door. "Go to her and tell her everything again!" He began shoving Charlie toward the exit, stuffing another quarter into his breast pocket. "And do it right this time!"
"But..." Charlie Brown began weakly.
Schroeder didn't care about "buts."
He pushed Charlie toward the door with surprising force, or rather, a desperate shove. His breathing was ragged, his hair a mess, and he frantically ran his hands through it again.
"Go! Get back there and tell her that I... I mean you... it's not jealousy or possessiveness! That I just..."
He paused, clenching his teeth.
"Just ask her what to do! What do girls like? And make sure she knows... that it's not because she liked me first! Not because she stopped– Tha..That's not why this is happening!"
Charlie stumbled, flailing his arms to regain his balance as Schroeder practically threw him into the hallway.
The door slammed shut behind him instantly.
Charlie Brown went back to Lucy. Her psychiatric booth (not really a booth anymore, just a small desk with a sign on it now) was one floor below.
Right... talk to her again.
"So... I thought about what you said and I just realized that... Well, I like her... but I’m not possessive! I just realized that I fell in love too late! It's not because she cooled off... it's just, well... that's how it is." Charlie nervously tried to formulate his thoughts correctly, sitting in front of Lucy's psychiatrist's booth.
Lucy drummed her fingers lightly on her notebook and glanced pointedly at the tin. Charlie dropped the money Schroeder had given him.
The daylight filtering through the blinds cast thin golden lines across Lucy's face. She looked calm, even professional, but there was something suspicious in her eyes.
Charlie Brown fidgeted like a guilty puppy.
She listened in silence to his rambling explanations. Just... feelings. All jumbled up.
When Charlie finally went quiet on the words, "I just don't know what to do," Lucy exhaled slowly and folded her hands.
"...So, you never reciprocated when she liked you?"
Lucy tilted her head, studying Charlie Brown, the way his shoulders slumped, the way he couldn't meet her gaze. He looked genuinely lost and a little heartbroken. But certainly not manipulative. Not clingy or obsessive.
But also not entirely honest. And completely confusing.
"And now that she's moved on? You realize you feel something... and it's already too late?" Her voice wasn't harsh, but it carried weight. Like she'd been through this kind of emotional math before.
Charlie nodded weakly.
"Hmm," Lucy sighed. "Tough break, Charlie Brown. First of all, I find it hard to believe anyone liked you, but let’s set that aside."
He blinked. "That was uncalled for," he muttered.
Lucy didn't apologize. She just leaned back, raising an eyebrow, no longer mocking but merely assessing. It was as if she were mentally scrolling through every awkward moment Charlie had ever had: tripping in the cafeteria... failing math... crying when his mom forgot his lunch money on his birthday.
And yet, he claimed someone liked him? Yeah, sure. She crossed her arms.
He hissed a sigh through his teeth. "Look, one person actually did like me! Okay! I know for a fact that it's true. So... come on... help me out! What do... uh... what do girls like?"
Lucy stared at him for five seconds, expressionless, without blinking. Then she exhaled through her nose, as if she'd just been asked the stupidest question in human history.
"What do girls like?" She leaned forward slowly, resting her elbows on the desk. Her dark eyes narrowed. As if Charlie Brown had asked her how water works. Or a perpetual motion machine. Different strokes for different folks, as they say...
"Well, yeah! Look, she used to like me, but now she's cooled off… so I need her to like me again. So tell me what I need to do." Charlie just nodded to himself.
Lucy raised an eyebrow. "All girls are different, blockhead! And… since you're asking for advice, I need the real story. Come on. Tell me why you didn't like her before, huh?"
"Uh…" Charlie thought for a moment and blinked stupidly. He had no idea why Schroeder hadn't liked Lucy, but he guessed it was for the same reasons Charlie himself shuddered with fear at the mere sound of her name. "Uh… I guess it was her personality. She's crabby. Loud. She… um… treated my friend badly, and she's, well… too bossy."
"And what's wrong with a girl being loud and bossy?!" Lucy flared up, but then fell silent and thought. She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Okay. But now you like her, right? Did something about her personality change? Did she get, like, nicer?"
"NO! Not at all! She’s still..." Charlie Brown pursed his lips, fighting the urge to start pointing at Lucy. "I don't know!" He threw up his hands and stood up in frustration, walking away. "You know what, forget it! Just forget it!"
Lucy just rolled her eyes.
Back in the rehearsal room, Schroeder was still sitting like a statue. His fingers had gone numb; he wasn't even playing. He just stared at the same three notes as if they held the answers to life’s mysteries.
The door burst open with a bang. Charlie Brown stormed in, face flushed with annoyance.
Schroeder jumped so hard his piano bench slid back an inch. "Well?!"
"Nothing!" Charlie shouted back. "She started asking how I know I'm starting to like her and why I didn't like her before! How was I supposed to know that, huh, Schroeder?!"
Schroeder’s face darkened. Shoot.
He hadn't thought that far ahead. He assumed Charlie would just... say something vague and sweet. But of course, he didn't. Of course, Charlie Brown, the guy who probably cried when his sandwich hit the floor, didn't have an answer.
Schroeder shook his head to get the hair out of his eyes. "Oh, good grief! What difference does it make?! Couldn't you have just said something vague?"
Schroeder pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration and disappointment, and then started pushing Charlie towards the door again. Once more.
"All right. All right! Go back to her and remember this. I didn't like her because I was interested in music, not girls! A hobby. You get it? Girls didn't concern Beethoven, so... You get it?! I realized I liked her when she stopped coming around because I miss the way she used to sit on my piano! BUT! That's not possessiveness and.. aughhhh. Get it?! Now GO!"
Charlie started to protest. "I’m not a carrier pigeon!"
But Schroeder simply stuffed a few more bills into his breast pocket and shoved him out the door. Charlie Brown stumbled into the hallway again – this time with a groan, rubbing the shoulder Schroeder had been obsessively pushing.
"Ugh! I am not your carrier pigeon!" he hissed to himself.
Hunched and defeated, Charlie trudged back to Lucy’s booth. He rehearsed the lines in his head: Schroeder didn't like you before because Beethoven took up all the space in his brain... but now he misses you sitting on his piano...
It sounded stupid.
It sounded awful and stupid. And... good grief! He had to say this in the first person! Like he was Schroeder! Charlie took a deep breath, trying to rephrase things a bit. He approached the psychiatrist's booth again.
Lucy looked at him almost mockingly.
Lucy watched him with the same skeptical half-smile, one eyebrow still raised, as if she'd already decided this would be funny before he even opened his mouth.
Charlie Brown clenched his fists. He cleared his throat loudly and stood straight, like a soldier delivering classified intel. He threw the money into the tin, hoping he looked sufficiently nonchalant (it came off more as pathetic) and took another deep breath.
Then, with forced confidence (and a complete lack of acting ability), he blurted out, "I… uh… I never used to like girls. At all… wait, that's came out wrong. I mean, not that I didn't like girls like, you know, like not girls, but I mean, like, music was the only thing that interested me."
Pause.
Lucy winced. "Since when are you so into music? I don't recall you ever giving it a second thought."
Charlie Brown froze.
Oh no. Oh no.
He'd messed up.
Schroeder was obsessed with Beethoven, everyone knew that. But Charlie Brown? The boy who only played the piano in class under duress and missed half the notes? The boy whose greatest musical achievement was not crying during "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"?
His cheeks burned.
In a panic, he tried to pivot. "I... I misspoke. I... uh... I wasn't interested in girls the same way I wasn't interested in music. Exactly! I... uh... I had a different hobby. Yeah, that's it!" Charlie started inventing a lie on the fly. "I only cared about baseball. And I really liked Joe Shlabotnik. That’s right. And... Joe Shlabotnik never had annoying girls around, so I decided it was better to ignore her. And then she stopped coming to lis... I mean, watch! Watch me play baseball... yeah... And I realized I missed her presence... And I realized I liked her..."
Lucy stared.
And stared.
Then, slowly, her expression shifted from skeptical to deeply confused. As if someone had just told her the sky was made of mashed potatoes.
Joe Shlabotnik?
This boy was claiming he'd been obsessed with Joe Shlabotnik all his childhood… and that's why he ignored girls? Ignored? But what about the little red-haired girl? What about other, multiplies...
Her brain short-circuited.
Then she processed the rest: "I missed her being there… I realized I liked her."
It sounded sweet. Romantic, even.
But coming from Charlie Brown, sweating like a sinner in church? Heaven forbid.
Lucy eyed him suspiciously. "I never noticed you being that fanatical about Shlabotnik. And I don't remember anyone besides my brother coming to watch every single one of your games." She leaned in, a predatory glint in her eyes. "Charlie Brown, are you... lying to me?"
Charlie’s breath hitched. His eyes darted left, right, up to the ceiling. Linus went to the games. Not some girl. Not anyone else. And they both knew it.
And now she probably has all the pieces of the puzzle together. Or, at least, she suspected with terrifying accuracy.
Charlie looked guilty as sin on Sunday morning.
Lucy looked at him predatorily, then smiled innocently. "So, Charlie Brown, why don't you tell me the situation in more detail. Tell me everything you know, every little detail."
Charlie Brown's blood ran cold.
That smile. That sweet, innocent, frighteningly calm smile.
Lucy had switched modes. She knew. She had already figured it out.
He swallowed hard. There was no way out. He kept mumbling the story as Schroeder had told it, even trying to endow himself with pianist's character traits, and still trying to speak as himself, hoping, against all odds, that maybe, just maybe, Lucy still didn't understand. That maybe she was still the same dumb fussbudget he’d known since childhood.
Though, judging by her look...
When he finished, Lucy smiled benevolently. "So… and now you need to know what girls like? To try and win back her affection?" She grinned mischievously. "Then listen closely. Better yet, write this down… in case it comes in handy for someone else…", she batted her eyelashes innocently and started listing a bunch of nonsense. "Okay! So! You say you’re a 'dry' person, incapable of grand gestures? Fix it! Surprise her! For starters, buy a giant bouquet. And a huge box of chocolates. You could also buy jewelry... oh yes, girls adore jewelry! And... oh, right! Write a song for her! Yes... a song. Compose it and... mmm... play it. Like a serenade! Under her window! In the middle of the night! Better yet, climb through her window like a real knight! It’s romantic. Especially if you do it all at once. Girls definitely like that!"
Charlie Brown blinked and nodded. Slowly.
He could already picture Schroeder’s reaction.
Bouquet? Chocolate? Jewelry?!
Schroeder didn't even buy himself snacks. He seemed to spend almost all his allowance on sheet music and record stores. And a song? A serenade! Under her window. At night. Like some dramatic opera character from the 1800s? Oh, he would never!
But when Lucy added the "Climb through her window" part... Good grief.
The image of Schroeder, pale and nervous, climbing through a bedroom window like some sort of... Romeo, if Romeo wore a striped shirt and loved Beethoven probably more than anyone else, was so absurd Charlie almost burst out laughing.
Charlie Brown handed the list to Schroeder, muttering with complete detachment, "Here it is. This is what girls like."
Schroeder's eyes scanned the paper.
His mouth opened slightly. Closed. Opened again.
But he didn't say a word. He glanced at the piano. The only thing that made sense in a world full of chaos and weird romantic expectations from equally weird girls.
His eyebrows slowly crept up, reaching his hairline. His fingers, which that morning had touched the keys with reverence, now nervously fidgeted with the edge of the paper.
"This is meaningless," he said to the emptiness of the room. His voice echoed off the walls and returned, offering not a single coherent argument. "Charlie Brown. You're a blockhead."
"What."
"She's making fun of you. Of me. Really. She's just making fun of me!" The pianist frowned.
Then he turned back to Charlie Brown.
"I'm not doing this."
Charlie Brown gave a crooked shrug. To be honest, he didn't care anymore. They both had called him a blockhead today, plus, he'd been shuttled back and forth like a personal mailman. He rolled his eyes.
"Well, then it wasn't meant to be. It happens. Not everyone gets what they want. It's no big deal."
Schroeder looked at him, arching an eyebrow. For a second, Charlie sounded surprisingly mature. No sarcasm. Just quiet acceptance.
The atmosphere in the room shifted. It was just… life, full of hardships for emotionally stunted pianists who liked girls but had no idea how to show it without looking like a clown from a romantic comedy.
Schroeder exhaled slowly, his shoulders relaxing for the first time since this whole mess started. He and Charlie Brown stood in silence for a few minutes. Actually, Charlie wanted to leave, but abandoning Schroeder seemed wrong. So he stayed.
Finally, Schroeder turned to him again.
"Do girls really like this?"
Charlie Brown gave an awkward shrug. "Man, I haven't the slightest idea."
Schroeder stared at him. Intently.
He decided to try approaching the question analytically.
1) Bouquet – function of aesthetic impact.
2) Chocolates – gastronomic pleasure.
3) Jewelry – demonstration of status.
It could all be broken down into components and the logic was understandable... Lucy always said she wanted presents. That made sense. Yes. Girls like presents.
Though, thinking about bringing Lucy, say, flowers, Schroeder could only picture a potted cactus. Which, actually, suited her.
But a serenade under the window? Why play music outside, where the acoustics are... terrible, where sound dissipates, where the wind could throw off the rhythm? Besides... he's a pianist. A grand piano isn't some little guitar. Where would he even get a grand piano for a serenade? Hiding in the bushes?
And most importantly – why climb through a window when there's a door? Doors are architecturally sound solutions for entering a building. Doors generally exist for that very purpose.
"No. She's definitely making fun of me," Schroeder exhaled. "Lucy van Pelt decided to have a joke. Hilarious. Very witty."
That evening, at home, Schroeder forced himself to sit down at the piano in the living room. He would write a song. He was a musician, after all. He'd play her something so beautiful that all those stupid bouquets would seem like trash. His fingers touched the keys.
C-major.
Chord.
Another one.
And.
And...
Nothing.
He tried to pull a melody out of himself that would express everything: how she used to sit on the lid of his piano, swinging her legs, how that tapping used to distract him, but now in the silence of the classroom he missed that irritating sound. How he missed even that silly chatter. How beautiful her eyes were. How he'd caught himself watching the door when he heard her voice in the hallway. How everything inside would clench into a tight knot when she walked past. How after every time they bickered, he found himself in a surprisingly good mood. Lots of things, actually.
His fingers played scales. Then arpeggios. Then flawlessly memorized passages from Beethoven's concertos.
No, that wasn't it.
That was Beethoven's music. He needed his own.
And suddenly he'd lost all sense of how he sounded, feeling like nothing more than a conduit for someone else's genius.
"Augh!" Schroeder slammed his palms down on the keys. The piano let out a dissonant wail that perfectly described his internal state. For a minute he felt ashamed and silently apologized to the instrument.
He dropped his head onto his arms. This is difficult. He didn't know how to express himself.
Schroeder looked up. His gaze fell on Lucy's list, which he'd brought home and propped on the music stand.
"Climb the window."
No. That was complete idiocy. That was beyond the pale.
Schroeder shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut. And why do girls like this? Are they crazy? Well, one of them certainly was.
Lucy van Pelt was definitely crazy.
And a girl.
And if she said girls liked this… Well. She ought to know. If she says girls like it when you climb through their window… then it must be true.
Schroeder sighed so deeply he seemed to be preparing to dive into icy water. Maybe his state was influenced by extreme drowsiness and the late hour.
He looked at the list and swallowed hard. The thought was so foreign that his brain refused to process it.
The window.
Wait. The window?
The window part needed separate consideration.
The next night at 9 PM, he stood behind a tree across from her house, making mental notes. The room was on the corner, second window from the right. He knew this, but he’d never considered the layout as a tactical objective.
A branch of the old maple stretched towards the window, almost touching the eaves. The distance from the trunk to the sill was about a meter. The branch looked thick enough to hold his weight. Probably.
Schroeder didn't climb trees. The only other time he’d tried was a disaster when Lucy tried to throw his toy piano into one. Mentally he grumbled something about how this crazy woman was making him do this kind of thing for the second time. How humiliating.
He tried to calculate the trajectory mathematically. Gravity — 9.8 m/s².... Branch angle, probably about.... Coefficient of friction between shoe and bark... Schroeder realized he was wasting his time. He was being ridiculous.
He went home and stared at the wall for a long time, absently plunking random keys. He decided to think again: did he really need this stupid window? He suddenly started wondering when his life had taken such a turn. Should he have thought about this sooner? And how was he even supposed to…
Then he stubbornly started thinking that he wouldn't go anywhere at all. Yes, he was probably just denying what he had already decided in his head. Yes, he was probably not handling it well. But give him a break – who actually good at handling such situations these days? Schroeder is no different.
So at 2AM, when the moon hid behind the clouds and the street fell asleep, Schroeder slipped out of his house, mentally cursing himself, his ideas, Lucy, Lucy's ideas and Charlie Brown along the way.
He approached the maple. Looked up. The branch awaited.
Did Beethoven climb trees?
And if so, did it feel this humiliating?
The bark was slippery from the night dew. His shoes slid. Schroeder hissed, swore under his breath, and kept climbing.
Hanging by one arm, trying to grab a higher branch with the other, Schroeder was just glad no one could see him now.
The branch trembled. His heart pounded in his throat. An obsessive thought circled in his head: Beethoven himself probably wouldn't have approved of such gestures. Schroeder's brain was definitely mocking him.
Finally, he reached a fork where a branch led straight to the window. The distance was considerable. Lucy's window was closed. Schroeder froze, assessing. He decided to think again. It was 2AM. Was she asleep? Normal people sleep!
Schroeder hung on the tree, trying to figure out what to do next. He'd planned to climb up, tap quietly on the glass, and when she opened...
And when she opened, then what?.. He blanked stupidly. Yeah, what? And what if she didn't open? He blinked slowly and distantly. But there was no turning back. The branch behind him was already passed. Getting down would obviously take longer than climbing further.
Schroeder took a deep breath. He couldn't stand this! He just couldn't stand this!
And the branch couldn't either. So it bent. Creaked.
"Please don't break," he said aloud for some reason, then blew the hair out of his face.
He'd almost reached the window itself when the branch creaked again, plaintively. A slight tremor ran through his body, not from the cold. He looked down. The ground was a long way off. Mrs Van Pelt's peony bushes loomed ominously below in the darkness. The branch creaked louder.
And at that moment, the curtain twitched.
Because Lucy wasn't asleep.
She was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying the events of the past few days in her head. Charlie Brown, coming to her for advice about a girl who used to like him. Charlie Brown, suddenly spouting nonsense about Joe Shlabotnik. Charlie Brown, sweating like he was being tortured.
Blockhead.
She'd figured it out by his second visit. Too obvious. In her humble opinion, Charlie Brown had rarely been liked by anyone in a romantic sense. The little red-haired girl? Oh, please...
But there was one other girl who'd really trailed after one particular boy all through childhood... who'd sat on his piano for hours while he pounded away at his Beethoven... who'd stopped doing that in eighth grade because she got tired of being furniture... And, let's just say, Lucy was well acquainted with that girl. Which meant she could say for sure on whose behalf poor Charlie Brown was huffing and puffing.
Schroeder.
Schroeder, who'd always looked right through her at his sheet music. Schroeder, who seemingly hadn't noticed she existed as a girl, rather than as part of the music classroom decor. And now he'd sent Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown!
At first, Lucy got furious. Then she found it so wildly hilarious that she had to exert titanic effort to suppress her laughter while watching Charlie Brown's awkward attempts. Then she came up with that list... perfect. Let him suffer. Let him stand there with his mouth open. Bouquets, chocolates, jewelry – pfft, good luck with that! A serenade – pfft, he might actually be… well, who knows… a sociopath, always so quite! And the window…
The window part she'd said just for laughs. And maybe influenced by a couple of old romance novels she'd read, purely for general erudition, of course. Imagining Schroeder climbing through a window was impossible. It would be like imagining his lovely Beethoven doing the jazz.
Lucy smirked in the darkness and rolled over.
Then the branch creaked. Lucy froze.
Another creak. Lucy sat up in bed. Listened.
Silence. Then another creak. Closer.
She slowly approached the window, pulled back the curtain… and froze. Half a meter from her window, on the branch of the old maple, hung Schroeder. The branch bent ominously beneath him. Their eyes met.
"Hi, Lucy."
Lucy stared at him. At the branch. Back at him.
"I must be dreaming," she said, eyebrows shooting up. Her voice was a mix of amazement, horror, and absolute, somewhat smug, delight.
He sighed wearily. The branch creaked again, plaintively.
"Jeez, you really are a blockhead," she said with a face like she was making some incredible discovery in the field of human brains and how they function.
"Can I come in?"
"I like how you're hanging there."
"Lucy."
"What?"
"Have you ever noticed your sadistic tendencies and your attraction to causing suffering in others?" the pianist asked, sounding entirely sincere.
She snorted.
Schroeder sighed wearily again and deadpanned. He tried to shift from the branch to the windowsill, and it was a sight not for the faint of heart. He grabbed, he slipped. At one point, Lucy had to grab him by the scruff of the neck and literally haul him inside.
They tumbled to the floor of her room.
"This is trespassing," she said, deliberately putting on a theatrical tone.
He was silent.
"So what are you even doing here?"
He turned his head towards her. For a few seconds, they just lay there.
"Lucy."
"Yeah?"
"Why do girls like this?"
She blinked stupidly.
"I mean, all of this. Why does any of this actually appeal to girls?" he repeated.
Lucy looked at him. At this serious, confused, utterly sincere face of his. At his hands, which were obviously created to produce masterpieces of musical art, not to touch tree bark in the middle of the night. For a second, she even thought about how touching it was, really, the way he was trying to understand, trying to do what he was supposed to, even if it meant risking his neck, his hands, and his dignity.
She burst out laughing.
Schroeder thought that right now, he'd probably rather be like Beethoven.
I.e., dead.
He lay on the floor of Lucy van Pelt’s room at 2 AM, with his palms slightly scraped by tree bark, feeling universal embarrassment. Lucy laughed so hard the glass rattled. She buried her face in the soft carpet, kicking her feet in the air.
"Why did you skip the other steps, huh, Schroeder? Or why not all at once? Did Charlie Brown forget to mention that girls like everything at once? Like the whole package?!"
Schroeder stared at the ceiling. "I was hoping one thing would be enough to satisfy Your Highness."
She snorted. Silence fell again.
"I missed you, Lucy."
"I figured."
They sighed in sync. Then Lucy clicked her tongue. "Took you long enough."
Schroeder nodded weakly and sat up.
"But really, Lucy... do girls actually like this?"
"I can't speak for all girls," she said, leaning in and giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. "But I do."