"XYLOPHONE" SHALL HENCEFORTH BE SPELT -
By Hibah Shabkhez
“The door was locked. I could not see them, but...” The Xylophone stopped to collect its bars. “I could hear them laughing at me.
'What a funny old word,’ said the little boy. ‘Eksy, eksylo something.’
‘Not eksylo, silly,’ said the little girl. ‘Zylo. Zylophone. It’s a Z sound.’
‘Then why isn’t it spelt with a Z?’
‘Well, I suppose because – because – they had to have a word that begins with X for the ABC book, didn’t they?’
They began to laugh. Your Honour, I appear in every ABC book in the land, and all the children mock my spelling. May it please the court, then, to decree that my name be spelt henceforth with a Z!”
“Well, sir,” asked Judge Music. “Who did first spell you with an X, and why? Surely it was not to fill in the ABC book!”
“Well, the child was right,” rasped the Violin, who had lost its bow again. “They do need a word spelt with X for the ABC books.”
“My name is a neologism dating back to the eleventh century,” said the Xylophone, trying to maintain an expression of respectful dignity while simultaneously glowering at the sniggering instruments around him. “A happy union of the Greek roots for wood and sound – Xylo and Phon. For centuries, my hardwood ancestors have rejoiced in the noble appellation. I, Your Honour, being made – alas! – of gaudily-painted plastics –”
“Order! Order in the court!” thundered the Judge, signalling the Drum to drown out the laughter. “The Lyres will now retire to deliberate.”
“I say, old thing,” said the Zither to the Xylophone, as the Lyres rose. “Are you really going to change your spelling?”
“I certainly hope so. You don’t know how lucky you are, being spelt like all the other Z sounds! No one makes fun of you.”
“Oh, if only I were the one spelt with an X!” sighed the Zither. “Then I would be in all the ABC books, and children would look at me in wonder and merriment. Now, wouldn’t that be amazing?”
“Indeed!” said the Xylophone. “Well, if we offer them an exchange, it would certainly remove the ABC book objection, wouldn’t it?... Your Honour, I would like to lay another proposition before the court...”
Afterwards, when the Lute sang the story, it went like this:
“I wish I were spelt with a Z,” said the Xylophone to the Zither.
“I wish I were spelt with an X,” said the Zither to the Xylophone,
So they went to Judge Music, to move the Z hither, the X thither:
But the judge knocked their heads together, and sent them both home!
The Xylophone tried three times to have the Lute unstrung for calumny, bad rhyming, and wrenching metre, but the Zither was so happy to have its own song that it sang louder than all the rest, and quite forgot to be miserable at being spelt with a commonplace Z.