My first performance in front of an audience was coming up soon. I tried as hard as I could to keep calm, but my heart was racing. I stared down at my sweat-covered, shaking hands. I looked up again at the audience, realizing that these were real people. They were not just my mum and dad, who would say, "Good job!" even if I missed up the whole piece. What if I had the wrong music? What if I played the wrong notes? As it turned out, I was never able to answer these questions because the spotlight   was waiting for me. I grasped my hands tightly together, drying off the sweat. Slowly I walked to the mud-brown piano in the centre of the room. It had 88  _ keys, which were waiting impatiently to be played. _ in my throat   and sat down. Slowly, I opened the music. Next, I rested my still shaking hands on the keys. As my fingers played across the keys, I was becoming more unsure of my preparation for this moment. But the memory of my year of training came flooding back. I knew that I had practised this piece so many times that I could play it backwards if asked. Although at one point I accidently played two keys instead of the intended one, I continued to move my fingers automatically . My eyes burned holes into the page in front of me. There was no way that I was going to lose my concentration. To keep this promise to myself, I leaned forward and concentrated carefully on the music. When I came to the end of the page, a warning went off inside my head: don't make a mistake when you turn the page! Needless to say, I obeyed myself with all my heart and mind, and was proud of my "page-turning" feat . I finished the rest of the piece without making a single mistake. I had finished. I had mastered the impossible. Before the writer gave her first performance,   _  .
she could see nothing but her own shaking hands. her parents encouraged her, saying, "Good job!" she missed up the whole piece. her heart beat very fast.