Born to Dance

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.