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I mumbled a protest. “My family aren’t famous.”
“We think they are,” said Jordan.
I said, “Sean might be, one day.” Even I might be, one day!
“Are you telling me,” said Liv, “that people don’t know who your mum and dad are?”
“Well … some people,” I said. “Ballet people.”
“We’re not ballet people,” said Jordan.
“No, but you’re my friends,” I said.
And being my friends they did sometimes have this tendency to boast a little. To new girls, for instance, such as Caitlyn. But it wasn’t like I was boasting! There really wasn’t any reason for Caitlyn to have been so unpleasant.
For all that, I still couldn’t stop studying the back of her head. I still refused to believe she wasn’t a dancer.
I tried talking to Mum about it after class that evening. I said, “There’s this new girl started at school. She’s called Caitlyn. She swears she doesn’t do ballet but I don’t believe her! I’m sure she does.”
Mum said, “Really?” Not, unfortunately, in a very interested sort of way. More like, Why is she telling me this now? It probably wasn’t the best moment to try talking to her about Caitlyn, when she’d been teaching all day and half the evening and just wanted to get home. But it’s never a best moment with Mum. She’s very … absorbed in her work, is what Liv would say.
I waited while Mum locked up and we walked out to the car. I said, “Why would anyone lie about it?”
“About what?” said Mum.
“Learning ballet!”
“Oh, goodness knows. People have their reasons. Incidentally, I meant to say earlier, you really must put in some work on your ports de bras. You’re getting very sloppy!”
I pulled a face. I know that arms are not my strongest point.
“Did you hear me?” said Mum.
I said, “Yes. I heard you.”
“Well, don’t just talk about it,” said Mum. “See to it!”
“I will,” I said. “I will!”
I always give up, in the end. You simply can’t have a conversation with Mum that isn’t directly to do with ballet. Dad isn’t very much better. No use expecting either of them to shed any light on the mystery. But I do so hate to be wrong!
On Thursday the following week, when we’d been back at school for ten days (and I was still hypnotically staring at the back of Caitlyn’s head), it poured with rain and we had to do PE in the gym. Coombe House is a very small school; we don’t have proper sports facilities. Just a single court where we can play netball or tennis, plus a patch of grass for rounders. No hockey. Certainly no football. So, when it rains, we all have to go up to the gym, where there isn’t very much except a few wall bars and a bit of coconut matting.
Miss Lucas, our PE teacher, is quite ancient and what she likes best is to get us all swaying about in time to music, or doing strange, bendy exercises – “Stretch, girls! As high as you can!” Sometimes we do a bit of dancing: old-fashioned stuff like polkas and waltzes. Stuff that anyone can do. But still Miss Lucas always goes, “Watch, girls! All look at Maddy!” Really embarrassing. There was this one time she said we were going to do Greek dancing and we got all fired up with enthusiasm, cos Greek dancing is fun, at least all the Greek dancing I’ve ever seen. I was all ready to fling myself into it, and this time I wouldn’t have minded if Miss Lucas wanted people to watch me. I’m really good at character dancing! But then all it turned out to be was just wandering about, striking weird poses. No real dancing at all.
I got a bit bold, cos it was, like, really frustrating, and shouted, “It’s not like Zorba the Greek!” Zorba the Greek is this film that Dad has in his collection and which I know practically off by heart.They do real dancing in that. But when I told Mum, expecting her to be sympathetic, she said it was not only extremely rude of me but also unkind.
“Poor old soul,” she said. “She does her best.”
“But Mum,” I wailed, “it was just stupid!”
“So learn to put up with it,” said Mum. “Behave yourself!”
I do try, but when you’re told to “hop like a kangaroo” or “bounce like a ball” it’s very difficult to take it seriously, especially when you’re used to the discipline of barre work, with Mum prowling about the studio, watching your every move with her hawk-like eye.
That Thursday, after the usual stretching and skipping, Miss Lucas said she wanted us to walk across the floor as though on a tightrope above Cheddar Gorge.
“High, high up!” She wafted her hands above her head to demonstrate. I giggled, and immediately stifled it. I Iike Miss Lucas; I would never want to hurt her feelings. But it really did make me feel like I was back to being four years old and just starting my first dancing class. It’s all very well being kangaroos and bouncing balls when you’re four years old; not when you’re eleven and have been studying ballet for almost as long as you can remember. But Mum had said to behave myself so I obediently went off to the far end of the gym to make like I was crossing Cheddar Gorge.
I glanced at Caitlyn out of the corner of my eye to see how she was taking it. She seemed quite happy, lost in a world of her own. High up among imaginary clouds, no doubt. I shrugged. What would Dad do, I wondered, if he was making a ballet about tightrope walkers? He would be bound to have one person who was a bit uncertain. Like in Les Patineurs, which is a skating ballet, where one of the skaters goes flump! on to her bottom. I couldn’t very well go flump and fall into Cheddar Gorge, but I could be a bit wobbly. More than a bit wobbly! I could miss my footing. I could slip, I could slide, I could almost fall off. Eee … ow … aaaargh!
I knew it wasn’t what Miss Lucas wanted. She wanted us all to be beautifully poised and balanced, like the time she’d got us walking around the gym with books on our head. But you have to have some fun!
When we’d all successfully walked our tightropes across the yawning gulf beneath us, Miss Lucas said, “Right! Let’s all watch Maddy.” She nodded at me. “Off you go!”
I think by now people were used to me being singled out. They were kind of resigned to it. There wasn’t anyone else in the class who was a dancer, or even wanted to be a dancer, so perhaps they didn’t really care.
I wobbled back along my imaginary tightrope. I slipped and tripped and threw up my arms in horror. People laughed. I did it again, and they laughed again, so I pulled this agonised face and began to step reeeeally sloooowly, trying not to look down, cos if you looked down … Eee … ow … aaaargh! That was nearly it. Phew!
Everybody by now was in fits of giggles. Miss Lucas gave a little smile. She said, “Well, I think you’ll all agree that was very clever. Thank you, Maddy! Now … Caitlyn.” She beckoned. “Not quite so clever, maybe, but … let’s see what people think. Come! Don’t be nervous.”
Caitlyn had turned bright pink. I wondered what Miss Lucas had meant when she’d said, “Not quite so clever but …” Like maybe clever wasn’t such a good thing?
“Off you go,” said Miss Lucas.
Caitlyn set off diagonally across the gym. We all watched, like in some kind of trance. You could almost feel the wire stretched taut beneath her feet, just as you could almost sense the gaping void beneath her. If she’d been in a film, instead of in the gym, it would have been enough to make you hold your breath. I think some people actually did hold their breath, cos the minute she reached the end and stepped off there was a loud burst of applause. Even Miss Lucas joined in. After a few seconds (to get over my surprise) I did, too.
“So, there you are,” said Miss Lucas. “Two very different interpretations. Maddy used technique, Caitlyn her imagination. We laughed at one and held our breath with the other.”
Liv and Jordan grumbled afterwards.
“What on earth was she on about? You used your imagination just as much as she did!”
But I hadn’t; Miss Lucas was right. I had relied on technique. If I’d used imagination, people wouldn’t have laughed: they would have been holding their breath, just as they had for Caitlyn.
Why did I feel that I’d let myself down?
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Next morning I was told that Miss Lucas wanted to see me in the gym at lunchtime.
“Wonder what that’s about?” said Livi.
I pulled a face. She was probably going to talk to me about yesterday, about what Mum would have called my “antics” on the high wire. Mum doesn’t approve of antics; she says they are just a way of showing off. Mum’s pupils are not expected to show off. We leave all that sort of thing to Babette’s Babes, sashaying about the stage in their sparkly tiaras and pretty little pink tutus.
Miss Lucas is softer than Mum, and a whole lot kinder. She wouldn’t fix me with a contemptuous stare and coldly ask me what on earth I thought I was doing. Mum would! Miss Lucas would just be very sad and reproachful, which in some ways was even worse as it would make me feel ashamed of myself, especially if she gazed at me with her sorrowful eyes. Like, How could you do that to me, Maddy? Like she knew I secretly considered myself too grand to go skipping and hopping and tiptoeing about on imaginary tightropes.
I’d already made up my mind that I would apologise. I would admit that Mum is always accusing me of playing for laughs. I would be humble and meekly accept that it is one of my worst faults. I am never meek with Mum! She can sometimes make me quite defiant. But Miss Lucas is so gentle you almost feel the need to protect her.
“Ah, Maddy,” she said, as I presented myself in the gym. “Thank you for coming! I’m so sorry to cut into your lunch hour.”
I said, “That’s all right.” I was a bit taken aback, to tell the truth. I’d thought I was the one who was supposed to apologise!
“I wanted to talk to you,” said Miss Lucas, “about the Christmas production.”
“Oh?” I perked up. Maybe she was going to offer me one of the lead parts. Fingers crossed! After all, I was in senior school now, so she surely couldn’t expect me to do what I’d done last year, and the year before, when she’d wanted me to perform little soppy dances to steps that she’d made up. Not when I was in Year Seven!
“Let’s sit down,” said Miss Lucas.
We both sank down on to the coconut matting and sat with our legs crossed. I had to fight another of my horrible urges to giggle. Miss Lucas is older than my gran! I couldn’t imagine my gran sitting cross-legged on coconut matting. But I suppose Miss Lucas is still quite supple for an older person.
“I thought that this year,” she said, her eyes gleaming with excitement, “we’d do a real play … a Christmas play. One that I’ve written myself.”
I made a little noise like “Mm!” to show that I was impressed. Miss Lucas beamed.
“Let me tell you what it’s about.”
It was about a Christmas tree fairy who had become old and tattered. Once upon a time she had been young and beautiful. Every year she had been brought down from her box in the attic with all the rest of the Christmas decorations and placed at the top of the tree. Now the family who owned her didn’t want her any more.
“Four little rich girls,” said Miss Lucas. “All horribly spoilt! ‘Ugh, Mum, look at it!’they go.” Miss Lucas put on a little girly voice. Little rich girly voice. All shrill and shrieky. “‘You’ll have to get us a new one, Mum! We can’t invite all our friends to our Christmas party with that disgusting old thing at the top of the tree!’And so,” continued Miss Lucas, “they take the poor fairy and they throw her out with the rubbish.” Miss Lucas made a throwing motion. “‘Tatty old thing!’”
She leaned forward, very earnestly. “They’re not very nice girls, you see, but they don’t really know any better, poor things! They’ve been brought up to believe that the minute something becomes a bit worn or a bit dirty it’s no good any more.”
I nodded, solemnly. I wasn’t going to tell her that last Christmas I’d begged Mum and Dad for new decorations cos ours were starting to look all old and shabby!
“That poor fairy,” said Miss Lucas. “She’s so unhappy! Cast out of the only home she’s ever known … rejected by the family she loves. Can you imagine it, Maddy? Can you imagine how she must feel?”
Miss Lucas fixed me with a tragic gaze. Her eyes were swimming. I made another encouraging “Mm!” sound. Maybe, I thought, I could play one of the spoilt little rich girls. I’d enjoy that! “So, there she is,” said Miss Lucas, “tossed out with the rubbish. All alone in the cold and the dark. But wait!” She flung up a hand. “What’s this sniffing around the bin? It’s a fox!” Miss Lucas clasped her hands to her bosom. I clasped mine as well, to show that I was living it with her. “He drags the poor fairy out and starts playing with her … tossing her about—”
We both made tossing motions.
“Until, in the end—” Miss Lucas sank back, “—he tires of the game. He drops her in the gutter – plosh! – and goes running off. The poor little soul is left there, face down—” Miss Lucas drooped. “She’s cold; she’s wet; her once beautiful skirt is torn and muddy. Her poor heart is broken.”
I said, “That is really sad.” I wondered if it was a part that I would want to play. Being broken-hearted is not really my thing. I mean, I could be, obviously. But it’s not what I’m best at.
“Anyway,” said Miss Lucas, “time passes and we cut to a different family … a mum and her three children. Two little girls, one little boy. Well! The boy isn’t that little. About your age, I’d say.”
I sat up, bright and expectant. Maybe I could play the boy? I’d be good at playing a boy!
“This is an underprivileged family,” said Miss Lucas. “Dad’s no longer around; Mum is on her own. They’re having to live in a B & B.”
Excuse me? I obviously looked puzzled.
“Bed and breakfast.”Miss Lucas whispered it, as if it was too dreadful to say out loud. “Sometimes they even have to visit a food bank.What kind of Christmas can they look forward to?”
“Not a very nice one,” I said.
“Not a very nice one at all! No tree, no fairy … hardly anything in the way of presents. One little girl isn’t very well, and she does so want a tree. And a fairy to go on top! But Mum can’t afford it.”
Sadly Miss Lucas shook her head. I waited, expectantly. At least she couldn’t ask me to play the sick little girl; she’d need someone younger for that.
“So next,” said Miss Lucas, “we have a scene where the little boy is walking along the road, scuffing his feet, miserable because he can’t do anything to help his little sister.”
I nodded. I could scuff my feet! And kick things. Little boys were always kicking things.
“I think probably,” said Miss Lucas, “that both this scene and the one with the fox—”
I had a moment of horror. Please, please, I thought, don’t ask me to play the part of a fox!
“I can see you looking worried,” said Miss Lucas. “You’re asking yourself, how do we portray a fox? I’m sure it can be done. There’s a girl in Year Six—”
Oh, I thought. Lucky her!
“Anyway, as I was saying, I think those two scenes should both take place in front of the curtain. What do you think?”
Like I was some kind of expert! I said, “Yes, that’s an excellent idea. Cos they’d be street scenes.”
“Exactly.” Miss Lucas looked pleased. “I thought we could get the art department to paint a suitable backcloth … houses, shops. That kind of thing.”
“That would be really good,” I said.
“It would, wouldn’t it? We obviously think alike! So, there’s the little boy, wandering along, when suddenly he catches sight of something in the gutter … what can it be?”
“The fairy?” I said.
“The fairy! Poor, wet, bedraggled fairy. To cut a long story short,” said Miss Lucas, “he rescues her, takes her back with him. Mum helps clean her up, even manages to make her a new skirt and mend her wand, while the little boy uses silver foil to turn an old abandoned umbrella into … guess what? A Christmas tree! Such a wonderful surprise for his little sisters when they wake up on Christmas morning! ‘Is she really ours?’”whispered Miss Lucas. “‘Can we keep her?’Mum assures them that they can. So, all ends well for everybody! The little girls have their Christmas tree fairy, and the Christmas tree fairy has a new family to love her. What do you think?”
She looked at me, eagerly. I struggled to find something to say. To me it seemed a bit … mushy. Like when I’m forced to eat something I hate, such as Brussels sprouts, just to take one particularly loathsome example, and I smash them all up with the potatoes and the gravy so that Mum accuses me of making a mush. Miss Lucas’s story was a mush! All soft and squishy and kind of yuck.But she was so pleased with it! She was so happy!
“Of course,” she said hastily, “there will be other scenes. I thought maybe in the penultimate scene – that is, the next to last, before we have the little boy and his family waking up on Christmas morning – I thought it might be nice to show the rich little girls having a party. They could invite all their friends and show off their new expensive fairy, but oh, dear!” Miss Lucas rolled her eyes. “These rich little girls will squabble so! They all want to be the one to put the fairy on the tree. They end up quarrelling so badly that their mother has to come in and put a stop to it.”
In that case, I thought, I’d like to play one of the little rich girls. The oldest one. I already saw her as being very bossy and snatching at the fairy and jumping on a chair so she could reach the top of the tree. But then maybe one of the others would grab at her and pull her down and they’d end up fighting and pulling hair and scratching. Yes! I could turn her into a really spoilt brat.
“Well?” Miss Lucas was waiting anxiously for me to say something.
“It sounds really good,” I said. “Which part did you want me to play? Shall I be the oldest sister?”
“Oh, Maddy, no!” cried Miss Lucas. “You’re our little dancer! What I want from you, I want to have a dance interlude between the acts. It would be after the poor fairy’s been thrown out. She’d be so sad. So very sad! She’d remember the old days, when she was young and the girls loved her. She might even do a few steps, trying to recapture the magic of her youth …”
Miss Lucas made a frail gesture with one arm. Her head drooped, her shoulders sagged. She looked a bit like Anna Pavlova in The Dying Swan. I fought back another surge of giggles. I’d promised Mum I’d behave myself! And it wasn’t fair to laugh just cos I thought her idea was mushy. My only fear was how much more mushy would her dance interlude turn out to be?
“Naturally—” she suddenly snapped back into brisk, teacherly mode “—it would be entirely up to you. I wouldn’t want to interfere. You would have complete freedom. I’m sure you’re a far more capable choreographer than I am!”
I blinked. “You want me to make up my own steps?”
“Oh, Maddy, could you?” Miss Lucas clasped both hands back to her bosom. (I say bosom as it is only polite, though in fact she is so skinny she is like a tube.) “That would be really wonderful! You’re so much more advanced than you were last year. I couldn’t possibly do justice to your talents! But of course,” she added, “you must ask your mother. If she thinks it’s too much, you must say so. I know how busy you are, with your lessons.”
I wasn’t as busy as all that. I could find the time. But I did so wish that just for once I could play a speaking part! Maybe I could get Mum to say she’d rather I didn’t take on any more dance assignments but wouldn’t mind if I was one of the spoilt sisters.
