Louisa the Ballerina
Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Louisa’s Secret
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
A Rival for Louisa
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Louisa in the Wings
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
About the Author
Copyright
ABOUT THE BOOK
The perfect read for budding ballerinas! Three books in one!
Louisa’s Secret
When Louisa’s ballet class have to choose their partners, her new neighbour Tony is the perfect choice. But Tony thinks ballet lessons are for whimps!
Louisa in the Wings
A Russian ballet company comes to town and Louisa is desperate to see them. She tries to raise the money for the tickets but it’s all sold out! Can anyone help her?
A Rival for Louisa
At first, Louisa doesn’t like Phoebe, the new girl in her ballet class. But they soon find out they have more in common than they thought . . .
Louisa’s Secret
For Miriam Hodgson
Chapter One
I HAVE TO take good care of my legs and feet because when I grow up, I want to be a ballerina. I’ve been going to classes for three months now, and I’ve already danced in a show, so I’m a sort of ballerina already. Mrs Posnansky, our neighbour, says I am. She always calls me ‘Little Swan’, because that’s what I was in the piece my class performed. Mrs Posnansky is from Russia, and her mother was in the corps de ballet, ages and ages ago, so she ought to know who is a real ballerina and who isn’t. When I was being a Little Swan, she gave me the feathered headdress her mother used to wear, and she said I could keep it for ever and ever. I put it in a special box at the bottom of my cupboard, and it’s my Very Favourite Thing.
If I didn’t have to take care of my feet, I would have kicked my sister Annie under the table at supper. She called me Weezer. She keeps calling me Weezer, and I wish she wouldn’t. I’ve explained to her over and over again that it’s not the kind of name a ballet dancer would have. Louisa is my real name, and I don’t see why she can’t use it.
“Louisa Blair,” I told her. “That’s my name. It’s a very good name for a dancer.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Only I’ve got used to Weezer. I’ve called you that for seven years, so it’s hard to change all at once.”
“You’ve got to try,” I said. “You’ve got to get used to Louisa.”
“OK,” said Annie. “Louisa it is.”
There was something very important I wanted to talk to her about. I said, “Were you here when they moved in next door?”
“No,” said Annie. “I was at school, like you.”
The house next to ours had been for sale for a long time, but it was sold a couple of months ago, and since then, I’d spent hours imagining the kind of family that would come and live there. I wanted them to have a child: someone I could play with, maybe even someone who could come to ballet class with me. I wanted them to have a pet, so that our cat, Brad, would have a friend as well. I used to discuss all this with Annie, usually while we were lying in bed, waiting to fall asleep. She said once, “Perhaps a handsome widower will move in, and Mum can marry him.”
“Then he’d be a sort of dad,” I said, “and we’ve got a dad, even if he and Mum are divorced. What do we want another one for?”
“Ours lives miles away,” Annie said. “And I think Mum gets lonely sometimes.”
“No, she doesn’t,” I said. “She’s got us, hasn’t she?” I didn’t want to talk about Mum, so I said, “What will we do when the new people move in? Will we just go round there and knock at the door, and invite them to our house? I don’t want to go on my own. We’ll go together. OK?”
“OK.”
“Promise?”
Annie sighed. She sighs quite a lot when I’m talking to her. “I promise. Go to sleep, Weezer.”
“LOUISA!”
“Sorry . . . Louisa.”
That was a few nights ago. Now I said, “Do you think we can go and say hello?”
Mum was in the kitchen, and she didn’t wait for Annie to answer. “Certainly not,” she said. “They’ll be busy unpacking and getting everything straight. Tomorrow will be time enough for visits.”
“But what if they’ve got lots of little kids all getting under their feet? They’d be glad to have them coming here for a bit, wouldn’t they?”
“They haven’t got lots of little kids,” Mum said. “They’ve only got one, as far as I could see.”
“A girl?” I held my breath and crossed my fingers behind my back for good luck.
“’Fraid not,” said Mum. “A boy. With very dark hair.”
I sniffed. I didn’t care what colour his hair was, he was still a boy. “He won’t want to play with me,” I said. I’d have to stop daydreaming about a new friend.
“Why ever not?” Mum asked. “Boys like playing too, don’t they?”
“Most of the time they like playing with other boys though, don’t they? And I can’t play football and climb trees, can I?”
“Why not?” Annie asked. “You used to like doing things like that. You’re a fast runner, too.”
“That was before I started ballet. I can’t do those things now.”
“Why not?”
Did she really have to have everything explained to her? “Because,” I said, “I mustn’t injure myself. You can’t dance if you’re injured. And anyway, I haven’t got time. I have to practise every day.”
No one who isn’t a dancer understands properly. They say they do, but they don’t. You have to do exercises EVERY SINGLE DAY. The class is once a week, and lots of people who go to it do the barre exercises in class, but I do mine every single day, and sometimes I do them twice. In every book I’ve read about real ballet dancers, it says that you have do this if you are a ‘truly dedicated dancer’ and that’s what I am. Even Tricia and Maisie, who are my very best friends, only really like going to class so that they can chat to everyone and dress up in satin shoes and pink leotards and things. When they come to my house, I make them join in dances I’ve made up, but I know they don’t spend every spare minute thinking about being famous. They’ve both told me what they want to be when they grow up. Tricia wants to be a vet, and Maisie wants to be a nurse. I’m the only one who is determined to be a Prima Ballerina.
“Look!” Annie said suddenly, interrupting my thoughts. “Weezer, he’s in the garden. Come over here.”
I was in such a rush to see our new neighbour that I forgot to tell Annie off for calling me Weezer. I stood next to her and stared out of the window.
The boy was small, about my size, and skinny, and he did have very dark hair.
“I wish he’d turn round,” Annie said, “then we could see his face.”
“I’m going out to talk to him,” I said. “Are you coming?”
“No, you go by yourself. Go on. He might be a bit nervous if there’s two of us.”
“I don’t see why he should.”
“He shouldn’t but he might. Go on, you go. Find out what his name is.”
The boy didn’t look like someone to be scared of, so I went. The hedge between our garden and his garden was quite low, so I could just see over the top.
“Hello,” I called out. “My name’s
Louisa Blair. What’s your name?” I wasn’t scowling.
Annie says I often scowl, so I made sure to smile my very best and friendliest smile.
The boy turned round. He had a nice face, for a boy, with blue eyes and pink cheeks. He looked a bit nervous, but he was grinning (sort of) and he said, “Tony. I mean that’s my name.”
“Tony what?”
“Tony Delaney.”
“How old are you?”
“I’m eight. Are you eight?”
“Nearly,” I said. “I’m very nearly eight. Have you got any brothers or sisters?”
“No. Have you?”
“Annie’s my sister. She’s ten. Have you got any pets?”
“No. Have you?”
“We’ve got a cat called Brad. It’s short for Bradman. You’ll see him soon. He likes your garden. What school do you go to?”
“I’m staying at St Cuthbert’s for this term. That’s the school I went to when we were in our old house. Then next term, I’m starting at Fairvale Junior.”
“That’s my school!” I said. “It’s nice there. You’ll like it.”
“I won’t know anyone,” Tony said. He looked sad.
“You’ll know me,” I told him, but it didn’t seem to cheer him up much. I added, “You can come and play in our house if you want.”
“Really?” He looked happier at once. “I’ll go and tell my mum.”
He ran indoors and so did I. “He’s coming,” I said to Annie. “He’s coming to play. I invited him. Is that OK, Mum?”
“Fine dear,” Mum said. “Give him a drink and a biscuit when he gets here.”
Chapter Two
YOU CAN BE friends with a boy. I didn’t think you could, but you can. It all depends on the boy. Tony is a very good person to have as a friend, and because he lives so close to us, it means we can spend a lot of time together, either in his house or in mine.
“You really like him,” Annie said to me one night, after he’d been living next door for a couple of weeks.
“So?” I said. “So what? What’s wrong with that?”
“Weezer’s got a boyfriend . . . Weezer’s got a boyfriend . . .” she started to chant. I couldn’t believe how stupid she was! And she’d called me Weezer! I threw my hairbrush at her, and it hit her on the shoulder.
“Oww!” she cried. “That hurt.”
“Then stop being silly. Of course Tony isn’t my boyfriend. He’s a friend of mine, that’s all. And DON’T call me Weezer.”
“All right,” said Annie, jumping into her bed and pulling the duvet up to her shoulders. “Honestly! Can’t you even take a joke?”
While I was falling asleep, I thought about Tony and why I liked him so much. There were three main reasons:
He always played any games I said we should play.
He didn’t think boys were better than girls.
He never got cross, whatever you said to him.
“He’s coming to play tomorrow,” I said to Annie. “We’re going to make a den at the bottom of the garden. It’ll be our secret place.”
“How can it be secret,” Annie asked, “if you’ve already told me about it?”
“You must promise not to tell anyone. Do you promise?”
“OK,” said Annie. “Now go to sleep.”
We didn’t make the secret den the next day. It was pouring with rain.
“We’ll do it another day,” Tony said.
“I wanted to do it today,” I said. I really hate it when I can’t do what I want to do when I want to do it, but Tony never seems to mind a bit. I felt quite annoyed with him. I said, “What are we going to do instead, then?”
“We can play board games,” Tony said.
“I hate board games.”
“Then I’ll show you some card tricks.”
“Don’t want to learn card tricks.”
“Come over to my house and we’ll play some computer games.”
Tony was better at computer games than I was, but I felt silly saying no over and over again, so I agreed.
Tony’s house looked like our house, but it was much tidier. Mrs Delaney is much fussier than my mum, but I like her. For instance, in Tony’s house, we can’t take drinks or biscuits or anything up to his room. We have to sit in the kitchen and eat properly at the table.
Tony loves his computer games, but I can never see the point of them. All these little figures just race about on the screen, and you have to zap them. I asked Tony, “Why do I have to zap them?”
“Because they’re the baddies. And the more baddies you zap the more points you get.”
I zapped for a while, but it soon got boring. “I know,” I told Tony, “come back to my house and we’ll watch videos.”
“What videos have you got?” he asked.
“All sorts,” I said. “Come on.” “OK.” Tony switched the computer off, and followed me to our house and into the lounge. There he was, agreeing with me again. Why didn’t he care whether he got his own way or not? I decided to ask him. I said, “Tony, why don’t you mind what games we play or what we do?”
He thought about this for a few seconds, then he said, “Well . . . I suppose it’s because I like doing most things . . .” His voice faded away.
“Don’t you ever get cross and lose your temper?”
“Sometimes I do.”
“When was the last time?”
“Years and years ago.”
“Years ago? That’s amazing!”
“Why is it amazing? When did you last lose your temper?”
I laughed. “Yesterday. Or maybe even this morning. I can’t remember. I get cross all the time.”
“You’ve never been cross with me,” Tony said.
“That’s because you let me do everything I want to do. And what I want to do now is watch this video. It’s very special. You sit there and don’t say a word.”
Tony sat on the sofa. He was looking excited, and I felt a bit bad about the trick I was going to play on him. I knew he thought he was going to see a film. I knew he was going to be disappointed, but I thought the best thing was just to start the video going and hope for the best.
“What’s this?” he asked after he’d been watching for a few seconds.
“It’s my new ballet video.”
“Your what?”
“Ballet video. It’s special. This is a film of Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn. They’re ever so famous. You’ll love it, honestly. They’re brilliant.”
“I bet I’ll hate it.”
“Bet you won’t. Just watch for a bit. Go on, and then I’ll put a film on, I promise. Just watch for a minute.”
Tony didn’t answer, but he didn’t look happy. He looked more fed-up than I’d ever seen him.
The first dance was Rudolf Nureyev doing a piece from a ballet called Le Corsair.
“He’s supposed to be a fierce pirate,” I told Tony. He grunted. I said, “Stop grunting and just watch.”
The music was a loud, leaping, brave sort of tune, and Nureyev jumped and turned so fast that he almost seemed to fly through the air.
“Just a few more minutes,” I said, and looked over to make sure Tony wasn’t too bored. He was leaning forward and staring at the screen.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “Can you rewind a bit and play this dance again?”
He made me play it again four times.
“You really like it, don’t you?” I said.
“It’s OK.” He grinned at me. “Be even better to do it though. And I bet I could, too.”
“Bet you couldn’t. Loads of people think they can do ballet, but it takes years and years of training. Fantastically hard training. It’s ever so difficult.”
“It can’t be that difficult.” Tony stood up. “I’m going to try.”
“You can’t try here,” I said. “You’ll bump into the furniture.”
He looked out of the window. “We could go into the garden. It’s not raining any m
ore.”
“But it’s still wet. Your feet’ll get stuck in the mud, and your trainers’ll get dirty.”
“Then let’s go into the road.”
We live on a little cul-de-sac off a main road, so I knew we weren’t going to be run over, but I said, “Won’t you be embarrassed? Leaping about for everyone to see? They’ll think you’re mad.”
“No, they won’t,” Tony said. “It’s nearly tea-time. Nobody’ll be looking. Come on, I want to try it.”
We went out of the front door very quietly. I didn’t want Tony making a fool of himself. He made sure there were no cars anywhere, and then stepped into the road. After that, he started copying what he’d seen Rudolf Nureyev doing on the video. I couldn’t believe my eyes. He wasn’t anything like Nureyev, of course, but he did seem able to jump very high, and his legs were straight and the most amazing thing was, he knew where to put his arms, and I could see that he was staring at the same spot each time he turned round (which is the proper ballet way to stop yourself from getting dizzy).
“There,” he said when he’d danced back to where I was standing. “What do you think of that?”
“You’re a cheat. You’ve had lessons,” I said. “You must have done.”
“I haven’t.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Then you should,” I said. “Come with me tomorrow. Miss Matting always say she’s short of boys.”
“You won’t catch me in a ballet class,” he said. “That’s for girly wimps.”
I was so furious I nearly kicked him, but I remembered my feet just in time. I yelled at him instead. “It’s not for girly wimps! It’s for brilliant, strong, athletic people. And if it is for girly wimps, then you’re the biggest girly wimp of all, because you won’t even try. You’re too scared to even come to class. And you’ve got a gift for it. You could be dead good.”
“What would I tell my friends? They’d think I was soppy, going and dancing round with a lot of girls.”
“I think you’re soppy for caring what a lot of stupid boys think.”
“Well, I do care, so there. I’m sorry, Louisa. Dancing’s fun, but I’d hate going to class, OK?”