Читать книгу: «Delphie and the Glass Slippers»

1 A New Term Begins

Holding on to the barre with one hand, Delphie Durand drew her toe up to her knee and pointed her leg forward. Head up, back straight, shoulders down… The thoughts tumbled around in her head as she watched herself in the mirror of the ballet studio. Alongside her were nine other girls, all gracefully performing the same exercise.

Barre work was quite repetitive and not as much fun as actually dancing in the centre of the room but Delphie was just glad to be doing ballet again. Madame Za-Za’s School of Ballet had been closed for two weeks over the Christmas holidays and Delphie had really missed going to classes.

“Keep your knee turned out, Delphie. Graceful arms, please, Sukie.” Madame Za-Za walked along the line gently correcting each girl. “Keep your body centred and straight, Poppy.”

Delphie thought back to the last term. It had been such fun. The best bit had been dancing the main part in the school’s Christmas show. Actually, no, she thought, correcting herself. The very best bit of last term had been finding out that the old red ballet shoes that Madame Za-Za had given her were magic!

The shoes could whisk Delphie away to Enchantia, a land where all the characters from different ballets lived. Delphie had been there many times now and she had always had an amazing adventure. I wonder when I’ll go there again, she thought.

“Good,” Madame Za-Za said finally when she reached the end of the line but as she turned away, Delphie saw her pass a hand over her forehead and sigh. Madame Za-Za looked very weary. “And to the centre now, please, girls,” she instructed.

The girls began to repeat the exercises in the centre of the room.

By the end of the class, Delphie’s muscles were tingling from all the work. She felt tired but happy. Poppy and Lola, Delphie’s two best friends, ran over to her. “Come on! Let’s go and get changed!”

“In a minute,” Delphie told them.

She went over to Madame Za-Za. The teacher smiled. “You danced very nicely today, Delphie,” she said in her slight foreign accent.

“Thank you.” A warm glow spread through Delphie at the praise. She hesitated. “You… you look tired, Madame Za-Za. Are you all right?”

Madame Za-Za sighed. “I am tired. Sometimes I wonder if I am getting too old for all of this.” She swept her hand around the dance studio.

Delphie stared at her. “You’re not too old! Of course you’re not!” Madame Za-Za had greying hair and there were a few wrinkles around the corners of her eyes but she could still dance really well and she was very elegant and beautiful. “You’ve got to keep teaching ballet!” Delphie said.

“Maybe it is just because it is my birthday next week that I am thinking like this,” Madame Za-Za spoke gently. “I will be another year older – another year will have passed.” She looked affectionately at Delphie. “Do not worry about me though, child.”

Delphie joined Poppy and Lola feeling very worried.

“What was Madame Za-Za talking about?” Lola asked.

“I’ll tell you when we get to Poppy’s,” said Delphie.

Back at Poppy’s house the three girls hurried up to her bedroom. “So what’s going on with Madame Za-Za?” Lola asked.

Delphie sat down cross-legged on Poppy’s large double bed and told her friends what Madame Za-Za had said.

“But she can’t give up teaching!” said Poppy.

“No way. We won’t let her!” said Lola.

“She didn’t exactly say she would give up teaching,” said Delphie. “Only that she was weary of it all. But maybe we can do something that will make her remember how good it is.”

“Like what?” demanded Lola.

They all thought hard for a moment and then Delphie’s eyes widened. “Perhaps we could try and cheer her up by learning a special dance? She said it was her birthday next week – we could perform it then. It would be our way of saying thank you for teaching us and telling her how much we love her classes.”

“Oh yes!” breathed Poppy.

“That’s a cool plan,” said Lola. “We could try and work something out now?”

“Great!” said Delphie.

They began to talk about what music they could use and what dance they could do. It was hard to choose.

“I think Swan Lake!” said Lola. “We could all be swans.”

“It’s not very birthday-like though, is it?” said Poppy, just as her mum called them all for tea.

They sat down at the table. “How about we do a dance from The Nutcracker?” said Delphie. “We could use the music from The Land of Sweets.”

They all nodded. “Let’s try and make up a dance after tea,” said Lola.

But when they tried, the music from The Land of Sweets seemed very fast and they kept losing track of where they were, and all ended up doing different things at different times.

“This isn’t working,” sighed Delphie. “If we show this to Madame Za-Za it’ll be sure to make her want to give up teaching altogether!”

“Delphie! Lola! Your mums are here!” Poppy’s mother called up the stairs.