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?
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
