Born to Dance

“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.