hand I don’t think it hurts to say the occasional prayer. Just in case there is someone there and they happen to be listening. So long as it’s not for something silly, or selfish. Like one time when I prayed I would get through a maths test OK, even though I hadn’t bothered to do any revision. I came next to bottom, but I didn’t hold it against God as I don’t believe that is what prayer is really supposed to be for. It is supposed (in my opinion) to be for other people. In this case, for Caitlyn.
Mentally I closed my eyes and put my hands together. God, I thought, if you’re listening, please do the right thing!
It was over a week, now, and we still hadn’t heard. Every morning as I arrived at school, Caitlyn would greet me with a heart-rending wail: “It hasn’t come yet! Has yours?” She meant, of course, the letter. The one we were all waiting for.
“Surely,” I said to Mum, “we should have heard by now?”
“You’ll hear,” said Mum. “Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried for me,” I said. And then, very quickly, before I could be accused of being overconfident, I said, “Well, I suppose perhaps I am just a little bit. Cos that’s only natural, isn’t it? Being a little bit worried. Anyone would be! Even Sean. I mean—”
“Maddy, stop babbling,” said Mum. “What’s the problem?”
“It’s Caitlyn,” I said. “I’m worried for Caitlyn! Mum, she will be OK, won’t she? She will get in?”
“I’d certainly like to think so,” said Mum. “I wouldn’t have let her take the audition if I didn’t believe she stood a fair chance. But even if she doesn’t make it this time round, it’s not the end of the world. She can always try again next year, when she’s a bit more sure of herself.”
I stared at Mum, in disbelief. “You don’t think she’s going to make it?”
“I didn’t say that! She may very well do so. But she desperately needs to build up her confidence. How did she take it when Madam walked in? Did it throw her?”
“It threw everybody,” I said. “Even me, a little bit.”
It hadn’t really thrown me, but I didn’t feel it was my place to go telling tales. If Caitlyn had wanted Mum to know she’d got in a hopeless muddle and lost her way, she’d have told her herself. All she’d said, when we’d arrived for our Friday-evening class with Mum, and Mum had asked her how things had gone, was, “All right. I think.” And then, a bit cheekily, she’d added, “Nowhere near as frightening as when I took my audition with you!”
I’d thought that was quite brave of her. Making a joke with Mum! Far braver than me making a joke with Miss Hickman. I also thought that it might actually have been true, since in some ways Mum is even more scary than Madam. But would Caitlyn still manage to be brave if she didn’t get in along with the rest of us? If me, and Alex, and Roz, all made it and she didn’t?
Mum must have guessed what I was thinking.
“Even if Caitlyn doesn’t have your confidence,” she said, “she’s not going to give up that easily. She’s had to fight for far too long and far too hard to fall at the first hurdle.”
“But, Mum,” I cried, “she’d be so upset!”
“She would,” agreed Mum. “Certainly to begin with. But if you want to get anywhere in life you have to be prepared to pick yourself up and carry on. I think you’ll find Caitlyn has more backbone than you imagine.”
All the same, I thought, it would be miserable going off to ballet school on my own. Perhaps my prayers were just a little bit for me as well as for Caitlyn, because how would I be able to enjoy myself, knowing how she would be feeling? And how would I ever be able to break it to her that I had got in when she hadn’t?
“It’s good that you’re loyal,” said Mum, “but give Caitlyn some credit … In spite of that meek exterior, she’s no pushover!”
I knew Mum was right. Caitlyn had been struggling to teach herself ballet for a whole year before I’d discovered what she was up to and had started to help her. Every day without fail she had practised in her bedroom, and later on in the gym before school, when no one else was around, copying steps out of some of the many ballet books she had.
It was hard enough doing class every day when you had a dragon like Mum breathing down your neck. Mum wouldn’t accept any excuses! Well, other than injury. Not even I would ever have dared to say I didn’t feel like it. Not even when I’d had a streaming cold or loads of homework or just a general feeling of fed-upness. I honestly wasn’t sure I’d have had the discipline to carry on all by myself, as Caitlyn had done. Obviously Caitlyn had never had any feelings of fed-upness. Never once had she lost sight of her dream.
Dreams can seem such flimsy things! I always picture them as being like puffy white clouds, high up in the sky, floating along quite happily until – poof! – a sudden gust of wind comes by and blows them to pieces, and all we’re left with is little bits and pieces, scattered through the universe.
Caitlyn’s dreams had obviously been made of sterner stuff. No gust of wind had ever come bursting into her daydreams. She had this fierce determination which had driven her on. But even the fiercest determination needed some encouragement!
Mum shook her head. “Maddy, you can’t fight other people’s battles for them,” she said. “You did all you could. Now it’s up to Caitlyn.”
I sighed. Common sense was all very well, but I did so want us to be together!
The next day, when I turned in at the school gates, I found Caitlyn waiting for me. Her face was one big beam.
“It came!” she cried.
“The letter?”
“Yes!”
“You got in?”
I didn’t really need to ask. The beam told me everything.
“I still can’t believe it! I honestly never thought I would. Not after messing up like that. I thought they’d just tell me to go away and not bother them. It’s all thanks to you! If I hadn’t been able to watch what you were doing, I—” She broke off. “You did get yours?” She looked at me, anxiously. “You did hear?”
“Not yet,” I said.
“Oh.” Her face fell. “Maybe it’ll be waiting for you when you get home.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Don’t worry about it. The main thing is that you’ve got in!”
“I won’t tell anyone,” promised Caitlyn. “Not till you’ve heard, as well!”
I struggled for a bit, then said, “That’s OK. You can tell people.”
I knew she must be dying to. But Caitlyn said no, it wouldn’t be fair. “We’ll wait till
