Fingers

william sleator

Eighteen-year-old Sam has always been jealous of his younger brother, Humphrey, the famous "wonder child" pianist. But now that Humphrey is fifteen, the one-time child prodigy isn't able to get any more bookings. Sam's mother refuses to accept that Humphrey's career is over and devises a scheme to recapture his Sam will compose "new works" by a long dead gypsy composer, and they will tell the world that the composer is dictating the music to Humphrey from the grave. The scheme is a wild success--until some ghostly occurrences convince Sam that the spirit of the dead composer has actually taken over Humphrey's fingers. Have Sam and his family unleashed a force from beyond the grave?