'Dance of the Happy Shades' (short story)

In which an elderly woman, a music teacher, invites her unwilling students to give a musical recital at her home. Amidst the faintly squalid surroundings, sandwiches crawling with flies, fusty smells and judgemental young mothers, a child who would in these times be described as having 'special needs', sits down to take her turn at the piano. And as the fed-up audience look on, the little girl peacefully, lightly, and with wobbling notes, taps into something 'else'. A quiet sort of magic happens. What the author calls 'Real music', in this most unlikely place. The child's music, The Dance of the Happy Shades, slips out through the open window and into the dusty street outside. It's a transforming moment.

Meantime, the old teacher, who gives the same equable, gentle encouragement to all her children, shows no surprise. Because for those who believe in miracles, as Munro tells it, miracles are to be found every day.

This story is so typical of Alice Munro's unique perspective, and of her gift for taking marginalised or invisible people, in this case the small girl at the piano stool and the children watching her, placing them plump at the centre of her tale. Showing us how it was for them.