"Four minutes," Dr. Holloway repeated. "I gave you sixty seconds. You played for four minutes."
"I am sorry," Maya said quickly. "I did not mean to—"
"Do not apologize," Dr. Holloway said. He held up one hand. "Please, do not apologize." He took a deep breath. Maya could see that his hands were not quite steady. "Miss Chen," he said. "I need to ask you something, and I need you to tell me the truth."
"Of course," Maya said.
"That piece you just played... where did you learn it?"
Maya was quiet for a moment. "Nowhere," she said finally. "I made it up."
"You made it up?" Dr. Holloway said. "Just now? On the spot?"
"No," Maya said. "I have been working on it for a long time, in my head, mostly. I never had a piano to practice it on properly. I just... I played it the way I heard it inside."
Dr. Holloway stared at her. Then he did something that surprised everyone in the room: he laughed. It was not a mean laugh, not the cold, dismissive sound he had made earlier; it was a real laugh, full of wonder and disbelief.
"In your head," he said. "You composed a piece like that in your head?"
"Yes," Maya said. She did not understand why he was laughing.
Dr. Holloway turned to the other judges. They were both watching him with wide eyes.
"Forty years," he said to them. "I have been teaching for forty years. And in all that time, do you know how many students I have had who could do what this young woman just did?" He held up his hand, showing zero fingers. "None," he said. "Not a single one."