"Yes," Longtree admitted.
"But—" Channeljumper seemed puzzled—"but somehow it doesn't seem complete. Almost, but not quite. As though—as though—"
Longtree sighed. "One more note would do it. One more note—no more, no less—at the end of the crescendo could tie the symphony together and end it. But which one? I've tried them all, and none of them fit!"
His voice had risen higher in his excitement, and Channeljumper warned, "Careful, you're beginning to turn purple."
"I know," Longtree said mournfully, and the purple tint changed to a more acceptable green. "But I've got to win first prize at the festival tomorrow; Redsand promised to marry me if I did."
"You can't lose," Channeljumper told him, and then remembered, "if you can get that last note."
"If," Longtree echoed despairingly, as though his friend had asked the impossible. "I wish I had your confidence, Chan; you're orange most of the time, while I'm a spectrum."
"I haven't your artistic temperament," Channeljumper told him. "Besides, orange is such a homely color I feel ashamed to have it all the time."
As he said this, he turned green with shame, and Longtree laughed at the paradox.
Channeljumper laughed too, glad that he had diverted his friend's attention from the elusive and perhaps non-existent note. "Did you know the space rocket is due pretty soon," he said, "perhaps even in time for the Music Festival?"