A MESSAGE FROM CHICKEN HOUSE
I love dancing – although I’m not very good at it! But when Milly searches for the truth about her mum’s disappearance, ballet’s secret language of moves and signals is only the first of some surprising new skills she has to master. Intrigue, jealousy, trust and some wonderful new friends are waiting for her at a ballet school that’s not quite what it appears to be! Helen Lipscombe makes her star debut in a series that will have me pirouetting in delight . . . In fact, you might want to move out of the area, this could get dangerous!
BARRY CUNNINGHAM
Publisher
Chicken House
Contents
1 The Trouble with the Lilac Fairy
2 The Mystery of the Unapplied-for Application
3 The House on Swan Lake
4 The Revenge of Willow Perkins
5 The Spy Maker
6 Cycni Venustas, Cor Leonis
7 The Heart Maker
8 Cinderella and Other Fairy Stories
9 The Shoe Keeper
10 The Dance of Death
11 The Secrets of Swan House
12 The Fall of the White Swan
13 The Homing Shoes
14 O
15 L’Odette
16 The Doobries
17 Kristina the Knife
18 The Birthday Surprise
19 The Ghost of Edwina Meekes
20 Merv’s MUMB
21 The Stars of Tomorrow
22 The Scarlet Supper
23 The Wicked Fairy
24 The Return of the Lilac Fairy
25 Is it a Merv? Is it a Plane?
26 The Three Hundred and Fifty-ninth Day with No Mum
27 The Dying Swan
28 The Final Act
29 The Scarlet Slipper
Acknowledgements
Copyright
For my boys
1
The Trouble with the
Lilac Fairy
‘OK, fairies – one more for luck.’ Mr Lamont squints into his phone. ‘Can the Lilac Fairy move to the front? And Golden Vine, you to the back. Milly, did you hear me? That’s it – a bit further back. Smashing. Everyone smile for the camera. Let’s hear you say “Scarlet Slipper”.’
‘Scarlet Slipper!’
‘Smiley face, Milly. And again . . .’
‘Scarlet Slipper!’
Flash.
Little black spots dance before my eyes.
‘Perfect,’ says Mr Lamont. ‘Let’s go, everyone.’
His silvery quiff bobs up and down as he rushes us into the wings of the theatre. ‘Now remember what I said, fairies – Enchanted Garden, nice soft arms. Songbird, fluttery hands. Golden Vine, flicky legs . . .’
I inspect my legs. Trembly? Yes. Flicky? No.
‘Lilac Fairy, take your ti— Willow, what’s the matter?’
Tears pool in Willow’s eyes. ‘It’s no good – I can’t dance.’ She rubs the scar under her tights. ‘It’s my leg. It’s hurting again.’
Mr Lamont frowns. ‘Your leg? But the accident was years ago.’
‘It wasn’t an accident,’ snaps Willow.
The other fairies look at me like they always do. Slightly suspicious and not entirely friendly.
I bite my tongue but the words sneak out between my teeth. ‘It was an accident, Willow.’
‘No it wasn’t. You were so mean!’
My cheeks burn. She’s right about the last bit.
Mr Lamont pulls a hanky from his navy-blue blazer. ‘This is no time for arguments. We can’t compete without you, Willow. We need our Lilac Fairy.’
Willow dabs her eyes. ‘I suppose the show must go on.’
‘She’s sooo brave,’ coos the Fairy of the Songbird.
I sigh and peek around the curtain. I’ve known Willow Perkins since we were in Ballet Tots. I still remember the smells of angel cake (her) and wee (me) mingling as we did the hokey-cokey. I remember the day she got her scar, too. Willow won’t let me forget.
Onstage, the founder of the Scarlet Slipper Ballet Prize nudges her glasses up her powdery nose. ‘Your Royal Majesties, my Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, esteemed Judges. It is my great pleasure to introduce . . .’ Dame Anna Popova blinks up at the Royal Box. She clutches her pearly throat. She gasps and drops her speech.
Someone runs on and picks it up. Someone else runs on and runs off again. The audience begins to rustle. When you’re 102, people must think you’ve popovered your clogs every time you reach the end of a sentence.
Dame Anna does a no-need-to-call-an-ambulance-just-yet shake of her wispy, white head. ‘Where was I?’ she says. ‘Ah yes. It is my pleasure to introduce the last of the schools competing for the coveted Scarlet Slipper trophy.’
The fairies crowd behind me and Mr Lamont points up at the balcony. ‘Your mother’s arrived in the nick of time, Milly. Same seat as usual.’
I beam up at the box next to the royals. Mum’s been on tour for three long weeks. I wave into the darkness and Willow does too.
Dame Anna warbles from the stage, ‘Dancing the Fairies Variations from The Sleeping Beauty, I give you –’ she flutters a hand drooping with diamonds – ‘LAMONT’S SCHOOL OF DANCE!’
Mr Lamont smiles. ‘Off you go, Milly. If you dance half as well as your mother, we’re in with a chance.’ A little titter passes from fairy to fairy.
Willow gives me a push. I troop behind the Fairy of the Songbird and take my place onstage. The clapping dies. The lights dim. Silence falls over the theatre like fairy dust. The conductor lifts his baton and Mr Lamont holds his breath.
Five minutes later, Mr Lamont breathes out. Four of the fairies have fluttered and flicked without a wobble. The audience is spellbound.
My turn next.
As the music plays, my skin begins to tingle. Who cares about Willow Perkins when you are the Fairy of the Golden Vine! My toes point, my fingers zap, my legs flick. I bourrée one way, whirl the other. As I fly across the stage, I wish I could dance for ever, but Willow is waiting. As I curtsey, she whispers behind me, ‘Out of the way, Milly. Your mum’s here to see me, not you.’
Willow Perkins is not a nice person.
Trouble is, I’m the only one who knows it.
As Willow begins to dance, my foot twitches. It inches out. It can’t seem to help it. Willow is so close . . . just a bit further and . . .
WHAT AM I DOING? Mum would never forgive me! My foot snaps back, but my legs are tired and I stumble sideways.
Bwmph! Into the path of a twirling tutu.
As the Lilac Fairy crumples, the audience gasps. The lights go up and my eyes shoot to Mum. It was an accident, they say. But Mum’s not there. I search for a sparkling tiara, a twinkle of sequins, but I can’t see her. I can’t see anything – the theatre’s too blurry.
Mr Lamont helps Willow to her feet. A bead of sweat drips off the end of his nose. ‘Willow, where does it hurt?’
‘Everywherrrrrrrre.’
‘Oh dear, oh dear. Milly, what happened?’
‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, I – I . . .’
‘SHE DID IT ON PURPOSE!’ wails Willow.
I blink back up at the empty box. Where is she? ‘Mr Lamont, when did Mum leave? Did she see Willow fall?’
Mr Lamont’s quiff shakes from side to side. ‘I don’t know, Milly.’
The wailing stops. ‘Well, I do.’ Willow’s violet eyes flash in triumph. ‘She saw what you did to me and died of shame. This time she won’t forgive you, Millicent Kydd. This time she’ll disown you FOR EVER!’
2
The Mystery of the Unapplied-for Application
Snip, snip, snip.
I grasp another chunk of hair and watch the dark clumps stick to the basin. I keep o
n snipping until it’s the same length all over. Well, sort of.
Me and the kitchen scissors chopped off my hair the day after the Scarlet Slippers and we’ve been cutting it ever since. My babushka didn’t say anything – she just brought me two little silver hairslides. I jab them in as she calls from downstairs.
Time for breakfast.
I sip my tea and gaze at Mum. She’s dressed as the Black Swan in a beautiful black tutu, topped off with a tiara, sequins and glossy black feathers.
Eight Months On, Ballet Star Still Missing, reads the headline over the photograph in the newspaper.
Eight months on. That’s two hundred and fourty-four days with no ballet. Two hundred and fourty-four nights with no Mum.
I fill up the hole in my insides with a third piece of toast.
Poor Mr Lamont. It’s not his fault about the no ballet. Willow’s dad said I was guilty of ‘dangerous dancing’. He had ‘evidence’, he said. His daughter broke a fingernail and bruised her funny bone.
I did ask for ‘evidence’ of Willow Perkins’s funny bone but Mr Perkins wasn’t amused. I suppose it runs in the family. ‘Throw her out,’ he said. ‘Now that her mother’s gone, who’s to stop you?’ The other parents agreed. She’s done it before. She’ll do it again. So I threw myself out so Mr Lamont wouldn’t have to. Goes without saying that no other ballet school would have me after that.
Across the table, Bab squints into a small gold compact. She blots her scarlet lips and pats her raven bob. This is a sign. It means I have to be quiet because she is about to call Scotland Yard. When I asked her why she wears lipstick to make a phone call, she said it made her words more ‘alluring’.
Bab talks to Chief Inspector Baxter every day. Actually, most days she talks to Chief Inspector Baxter’s answering machine. She says no news is good news, but to be perfectly honest, it’s not good enough. I’m hoping my posters will help. Mum smiles down from every lamp post between the newsagent and the postbox. Someone somewhere must know where she is.
‘Chief Inspector,’ Bab purrs. ‘You may as vell answer your telephone. My tango class has been cancelled and I have no plans for the rest of the day. I intend to keep leaving messages until you . . . hello? Chief Inspector Baxter? How vonderful to hear that manly, Glasvegian growl.’
She winks at me and pours a cup of sweet, strong coffee from the little copper coffee pot she brought with her from Moscow. Bab isn’t like other people’s grandmas. She doesn’t knit. She doesn’t bake. She doesn’t nap in front of the telly and think a cup of tea is the answer to everything. But she does worry about me, I can tell. Her voice goes all chirpy.
‘Is that so? If you don’t mind me saying, dahhling, you are beginning to sound like an old record – no vun simply vanishes into thin air.’
I slide the newspaper under my chair so Bab won’t start worrying about me again. Boris rubs his ginger furriness against my leg, then flops on top of Mum’s picture. It’s unusual for Boris to be so helpful. I accidentally-on-purpose drop a spoonful of boiled egg and watch him lick it all up. In the hall, the letterbox clunks and post plops onto the parquet floor. I push away my plate and get up carefully so as not to disturb him.
There’s all the usual stuff. Bills, more bills, a postcard from Buenos Aires, a Christmas gift catalogue. Free gift inside, it says, handy pen and torch in one. I leave it on the hall table. Normally I’d have started looking forward to Christmas by August, but this year isn’t normal.
Under a flyer for takeaway pizza is a pale-blue envelope. It’s marked PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL. It’s addressed to me.
In the kitchen, Bab huffs in Russian. Her conversation with Chief Inspector Baxter must have ended like it always does. She’s still huffing when I give her the postcard.
‘Bab, what’s the matter?’
‘Nothing, Mila.’ Her Cleopatra eyes brighten. ‘Ahhh, a card from Alejandro.’
I don’t think I’ve ever had a proper letter before. I slide my finger under the flap of the envelope and pull out a typed sheet. Embossed on the pale-blue paper is a pair of black and white swans. Underneath the swans are the words, Swan House School of Ballet.
Little wings flutter in my ribcage.
Dear Milly,
We are super excited to inform you that your application for a scholarship to Swan House School of Ballet has been totally successful!
Enclosed in this letter, you will find all the information you need before the new term begins. We sooo look forward to seeing you in September.
Yours truly,
Emmeline Topping, Student Liaison Person
Application? Scholarship? Successful?
The fluttery feeling sinks to my stomach. There must be a mistake.
Attached to the letter with a swan-shaped paperclip are three more pale-blue sheets of paper.
Term Dates and Timetables.
Uniform and Equipment.
Waiver – FOR YOUR EYES ONLY – Please read carefully and sign immediately.
A waiver? I don’t remember having one of those at Mr Lamont’s.
Bab props her postcard against the coffee pot. ‘What have you got there, Mila?’
I stuff the waiver in my dressing-gown pocket and pass her the letter. ‘It’s a letter. To me. From a ballet school.’
Her coffee cup clinks on the saucer. ‘Dahhling, you’ve von a scholarship!’
‘I KNOW! I didn’t apply, did you?’
‘Does it matter who applied?’
‘But Bab, it must be a mistake.’
‘It is not a mistake, it is vonderful! Let’s see, you start next veek . . .’ She tries not to frown at my hair. ‘I suppose it vill have grown a little by then. Oh, Mila, you von’t have to go back to horrid St Tilda’s!’
I hadn’t thought of that. A new ballet school would mean goodbye triple Science, au revoir scratchy jumpers, auf Wiedersehen grumpy teachers – which reminds me to ask Bab about her phone call with Chief Inspector Baxter.
Bab twists the ruby on her little finger. ‘The chief inspector said he vas no longer in charge of investigating your mother’s disappearance.’
‘Oh. Who is?’
‘It’s rather odd, Mila – he said he hasn’t a clue.’
My hand scrunches the paper in my pocket. ‘Bab, do you think they’ve stopped looking?’
‘Of course not, dahhling.’
‘Sometimes I think that she doesn’t want to be found.’
‘I’ve told you before, it vasn’t your fault. It seems obvious to me that your mother has amnesia. It happens all the time! She is being looked after by a very nice family in Piccadilly, or thereabouts, and as soon as she remembers who she is, she vill come home. There. Now, I have kept all of your dancevear in my vardrobe. Go see if it still fits.’
Bab says this in her chirpy voice.
A chirpy Russian. It’s not natural.
I give her a hug and rush upstairs.
Up in my room, I unscrunch the waiver.
Please read carefully and sign immediately.
In the case of injury, incarceration, inexplicable memory loss or death, I, the signatory, waive my right to claim against any individual, individuals or institutions employed by, or connected with, Swan House School of Ballet.
Sign Here (mandatory)....................
I speak five languages but Small Print isn’t one of them. Perhaps they’re being extra careful? After what happened in the Scarlet Slippers, it’s a wonder I wasn’t incarcerated on the spot.
At the bottom of the page there’s an address.
Please return with your acceptance of our offer forthwith and absolutely as soon as possible to: Emmeline Topping, Swan House School of Ballet, Regent’s Park, London, W1.
A thought pops into my head and makes the paper tremble in my hand. If Bab didn’t apply, the only other person who could have arranged the scholarship is Mum. It’s MUM who’s giving me the chance to dance again. Maybe if I can make up for what happened in the Scarlet Slippers, she’ll come home? Maybe th
is is some kind of TEST?
My old ballet clothes can wait – better reply to Swan House School of Ballet before Emmeline Topping changes her mind.
After I’ve written my letter, I pop it in one of Bab’s scented envelopes, lick the flap and tell her I’m going out. At the end of the road, a red Post Office van draws up alongside the postbox. Forthwith, Emmeline Topping said. Absolutely as soon as possible.
I start to run.
The postman jumps out of the van. He scoops the letters into his sack.
‘Wait!’ I thunder along the terrace and almost flatten an old man coming the other way.
‘Steady on, young filly!’
It’s my next door neighbour. ‘Sorry, Bombardier!’
The Bombardier straightens his tweeds and smooths his whiskers. ‘Oh, it’s you, Milly. Just the gal I wanted to see. Remind your grandmother we have a special date tonight, what ho?’
‘Will do!’ Must remember to warn Bab; I expect he’s going to propose again.
The postman flings the sack over his shoulder. Close up, he towers over the postbox. Either his trousers have shrunk in the wash, or they don’t make post office uniforms for giants. I skid to a halt and hand him my letter. ‘Lucky I caught you. This is really important. It’ll be delivered by tomorrow, won’t it?’
He pulls his cap over his eyes and mutters through his scarf. ‘Aye, pet. I’ll see to it myself.’
I’m still wondering why he was wearing a woolly scarf in August when Bab calls me upstairs. She’s decided to sort through her wardrobe while I try on my things.
Bab’s wardrobe is better than Narnia. It’s a whole room and has sinky cream carpet and its very own Bab-like smell. Parties, perfume, mothballs – a whiff of the dry cleaners on Clapham High Street. Between her two full-length mirrors are outfits for the opera, the races, the country, the city, before ski, après ski, Moscow, Paris, Monaco . . .
She nods at Mum’s old school trunk. ‘Your ballet clothes are in there, Mila.’
I open the lid and pull out the stripy legwarmers Mum gave me for my birthday. Folded underneath is the girl I was eight months ago. My heart folds up too. I close the trunk quietly. How can Mum expect me to do this without her?
Bab sits me down on her chaise longue. ‘Everything is much too small anyvay. Look at you, you’re almost as tall as your mother now. Let’s go shopping tomorrow and have lunch in Covent Garden like ve used to.’
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