Dancer at Silver Spires (13 page)

We all lay in bed talking and talking, then just when my eyes were beginning to droop a bit, I turned my head to look at my pinboard as I did every night, and immediately sat up in big surprise because something had changed. Right in the middle, the blank space had been filled with a picture of me wearing a silver leotard and smiling as though I owned the world.

“What…? When…? How…?” I began in big confusion.

“Sasha took it,” laughed Emily. “Then Bryony rushed off at the end – as she's the fastest runner,” she added, “and transferred it to a computer and printed it out! So, hey presto, we have the one and only…Izzy!” Emily had spoken in an over-the-top dramatic voice and was pretending to raise her glass, as though she was at a grand party, proposing a toast.

The others laughed and joined in the fun, raising their own imaginary glasses. “To the one and only Izzy!” they chorused.

And Sasha and I exchanged our own special smile, because we both knew just how true those words really were. Ballet had found its place in my life again, and at long last I really had finally found
the one and only me.

Ballet is my absolute passion, but there are lots of other types of dance too. Check out my fun facts – maybe they'll get you in the mood to give dance a whirl as well!

* All sorts of dance styles are practised and performed in the UK, including African, ballroom, belly dancing, body-popping, break-dancing, classical ballet, contemporary, flamenco, historical, Irish, jazz, jive, line dancing, national and folk, salsa, square-dancing, street dance, tango and tap. Phew!

* Most ballerinas wear out 2-3 pairs of pointe shoes in a week – for some performers, a single pair is not enough to get through a whole performance!

* In Bharatanatyam, Kathak and Odissi – different forms of classical Indian dance – dancers wear heavy anklets of multiple bells called
gungru
or
ghungroo
to emphasize the rhythms of their feet. Dancers can wear up to two hundred bells – a hundred on each ankle.

* A single ballet tutu for a performance can cost over £1000 and take 75 hours to make.

* Girls who take part in Irish dancing competitions nearly always wear very curly wigs. Wigs were originally introduced for seriously competitive dancers who would go to a
feis
(Irish dance competition or festival) every week and found that constantly curling their hair damaged it. But the wigs caught on like wildfire – even though they're quite uncomfortable to wear!

* Dance marathons were very popular in America in the 1930s. Marathoners danced for hours and sometimes days at a time to compete for cash prizes. Americans Mike Ritof and Edith Boudreaux hold the world record. From 29th August 1930 to 1st April 1931, they danced for 5,148 hours and 28 minutes – that's 214 days!

* Dancing is such great fun and it gets you fit too! Instead of going to the cinema, try going dancing with your friends or making up a routine to your favourite song – an hour's dancing can be the equivalent of going for a 6km walk. If you do high-energy salsa dancing, you'll get an even better workout!!

Now turn the page for a sneak preview of the next unmissable School Friends story…

“Ouch!”

What's Bryony doing attacking me like this? She's supposed to be my best friend
. I stopped staring at the cloudy grey sky through the gap between the treetops, and raised my eyebrows at her in a vague kind of way.

“Ems, come back from whatever planet you're on!” said Nicole, laughing. “We've been trying to attract your attention for ages!”

And when I looked round I saw that it wasn't only Bryony and Nicole who were finding me amusing, but all of my little group of friends.

“What were you daydreaming about, anyway?” asked Sasha.

It was true I'd been miles away, thinking about my other best friend, my beautiful horse, Barney, who lives back home in Ireland. I was imagining myself galloping him across open fields on a beautiful summer evening when all the work on our farm had been done – well, all the work
I
had to do at least, because Mum and Dad and my big brother Will always work till really late in the summer.

But how could I explain all that to my friends? None of them have got much of a clue about horses, and they certainly don't know the first thing about farming. I still love them dearly, though, because the six of us have been together in the same dormitory here at Silver Spires Boarding School for Girls for a term and a bit now, and the others don't seem to mind that I'm always either daydreaming or, if you press my other button, rushing to get out in the fresh air. They're not bothered that I don't care about fashion or that I'm not the best in the world as far as lessons are concerned. They all just accept the way I am. Well, apart from a few times like right now, when I think I
do
get on their nerves.

But I always know how to bring them round. “I was daydreaming about winning the lottery and just wondering which friends I might take with me on my trip to see the wonders of the world!”

That had exactly the effect I expected. Izzy and Sasha stopped trying to keep warm by jogging on the spot and gave me big beaming smiles, while Antonia and Nicole both shuffled close to me and linked their arms through mine, and Bryony started batting her eyelashes about two centimetres away from my face in a totally over-the-top way, which looked so funny, knowing what a tomboy she is. We must have seemed like a really weird little group standing in the middle of the main lane that runs through the Silver Spires grounds.

“Okay, I'll take you all!” I said, sighing a bit and pretending they were a lot of pestering children that I had to keep quiet somehow.

When they'd finished being amused by me for the second time in two minutes, Izzy started doing vigorous star jumps. “How come you don't feel the cold, Emily?”

“I'm just used to it, I suppose,” I told her with a shrug. Then I looked at my watch. “Surely a few of the guests should have arrived by now, shouldn't they?”

Well that sent Izzy and Sasha straight back into their big excitement zone. “I can't wait to see them. I've got so many questions!” said Sasha.

“Me too!” squeaked Izzy. “And I bet they've got loads to ask each other, too. I mean, it'll seem so strange meeting up for a grand reunion party after all these years.”

And then Nicole and Antonia were joining in with the buzz, while Bryony and I stood quietly to one side. Neither of us was looking forward to the afternoon in quite the same way as our friends were, and we'd only really come outside to look out for the guests arriving because the others had wanted us to.

“I suppose it'll be quite interesting when we get talking to people, but I'm not as excited as the others, are you?” I asked Bryony quietly.

She's a very thoughtful person, my best friend, so she didn't answer me straight away. But then her face suddenly brightened. “I'm looking forward to the tea!”

“Me too!” I said, giggling. “All those totally fab home-made cakes and biscuits!”

“I hope they decorate the hall to make it very grand,” said Antonia, joining in with us now. “And use Silver Spires's best silver teapots and china!” she added, with a dreamy look in her eyes.

“Is that what your dad would do in his restaurant in Italy?” I asked her, because I'm interested in how the different countries all have their own traditions and ways of doing things.

“Afternoon tea isn't a custom in Italy, like it is in England,” Antonia replied. “But yes, it's true, Papà makes his restaurant look extra-specially wonderful for important occasions.”

Just about every time Antonia speaks I think how much her English has improved. When she joined Silver Spires with all the rest of us Year Sevens last September, she had trouble with lots of English words and she had a really strong Italian accent. But now you only notice her accent a bit. Nicole, her best friend, has helped her loads with the language. Antonia's also taught Nicole quite a bit of Italian, which Nicole has picked up really quickly, as she's the brainiest one in our group.

When Antonia started talking about decorations, I'd been imagining the big hall here in the beautiful old main building of Silver Spires full of women in their sixties all enjoying their grand reunion, introducing themselves to each other and chatting away about what they'd done since they'd left Silver Spires all those years ago. Now I suddenly felt myself wanting to break into giggles again.

“Isn't it funny the way everyone always calls them old girls?” I spluttered. “I mean it sounds kind of rude, doesn't it, to say, ‘A load of old girls are coming to a reunion party at Silver Spires'!”

“Well, if you put it like that it sounds rude. But that's exactly what they are, aren't they?” said Nicole. “Old girls. It's really amazing that they're all coming back to meet up after fifty years.”

“Yes, they might not even recognize each other,” said Sasha. “It'll be so weird for them all, won't it? They'll be comparing notes about what boarding houses they were in and what their housemistresses were like…”

“Just think,” I said, as something suddenly dawned on me, “this party could be
us
in fifty years' time.”

“Yes,” said Antonia, nodding firmly. “And we will all agree that it is Forest Ash which is the best boarding house, and Mrs. Pridham the best housemistress!”

“And Miss Stevenson the best assistant housemistress, and Miss Callow the best matron,” I added.

“I've just had a thought!” said Nicole, looking shocked. “Forest Ash wouldn't have even existed fifty years ago, because it's one of the modern boarding houses, isn't it?”

Bryony was staring round. “That's right. In fact the whole school must have been so much smaller in those days.”

“I can't believe that we're just about the only Year Sevens who've signed up to come to the tea party,” said Izzy, frowning. “It'll be really interesting talking to the –” she let out a giggle – “old girls!”

“See!” I said, stabbing my finger in the air with triumph, which was a bit over-the-top, I have to admit. “It
is
funny!”

“Yes, but seriously,” Izzy carried on, “don't you think it'll be great to ask them questions about the old days and what the rules were like and the uniform and whether they had midnight feasts…”

“And what the lessons were like,” Nicole chimed in.

“Yes, and what kind of things they got up to at weekends,” said Izzy.

“And whether any of them came from foreign countries, and if they were homesick,” Antonia added, looking a bit sad.

Nicole immediately put her arm round Antonia. “Imagine what it was like with no mobiles to call their parents or text them.”

“And no e-mails,” said Bryony. “Not even computers.”

“What about TV?” asked Sasha. And we all looked at Nicole for the answer to that one.