I try on a too-small smile. ‘Bab, do you think Mum would want me to dance again after what happened?’
‘Of course I do, dahhling.’
‘No one seemed to think so at Mr Lamont’s.’
Bab huffs. ‘Vhat do they know? Vhen your mother returns, she vill find her little duckling transformed into a beautiful svan. You’ll see.’ She pops a gold lamé bolero over my dungarees, then tries on her Caribbean cruisewear collection. It’s her way of cheering me up.
The rest of the day slips by in a blur of fake fur and sequins. I fill bags for the charity shop while Bab tells me stories about Mum – how she won her Scarlet Slipper and performed Swan Lake for the Queen. As I drag the last of the bags downstairs, there’s a clunk in the hall. An envelope. Pale blue. Addressed to me.
Boris follows me into the kitchen. I glance at the mantlepiece and the little scarlet pointe shoe perched on its golden mount.
Mum’s Scarlet Slipper.
I cross my fingers. Please, please don’t let it be a letter from Emmeline Topping saying she’s made a mistake. Inside is the same embossed notepaper, but this letter isn’t typed. This letter is scrawled in impatient black ink.
Dear Milly,
Thank you for the prompt acceptance of our offer. You will find that Swan House School of Ballet provides its students with a training like no other. I would urge you to study the enclosed prospectus carefully. It will shine a light on life at Swan House.
Yours Sincerely
Celia Sitwell, DCB
Director
At my feet, Boris sneezes and coughs up a fur ball. My neck goes prickly. How did Celia Sitwell, DCB know I accepted her offer? I only posted my letter this morning.
When I open the prospectus, it isn’t like the one at St Tilda’s. There are no smiley faces, no shiny facilities, no gushy quotes. Just lots and lots of empty pages.
Bab swoops into the kitchen. ‘How odd. Ve haven’t had a second post in years. Vhat does it say?’
‘Nothing really. It’s a prospectus from Swan House, but all the pages are empty.’
Bab flicks through it. ‘The printer must be in love. I’m sure they’ll send you another. Now, are you sure you don’t mind if I go next door? I’ll knock on the vall if the Bombardier goes down on vun knee again. Betveen the two of us, ve should be able to pull him up.’
I don’t mind one bit. Bab’s given up lots of things since Mum left. Cruises, Ascot, mah-jong with Mr and Mrs Ling from across the road. When I start at Swan House, she can go back to having fun again. ‘You go,’ I say. ‘I’ll make my own tea.’
She kisses my cheek. ‘You are an angel. I’m so proud of you, dahhling, and Eva vould be too. I’ll be home before midnight.’
Once I’ve tidied away Bab’s clothes, I glance in the mirrors. Mum wants me to dance again, but look at me. Cutting my hair seemed like a good idea until about nine o’clock this morning. I do a little pirouette and ballon up and down a bit. I’m out of breath after three and a half minutes and my hair doesn’t swish at all. How many dancers have bright-red faces, slumpy shoulders and do-it-yourself bobs? What would Mum say if she could see me now? Willow Perkins would laugh her leg warmers off.
Eight months on, and I don’t even look like a ballerina.
3
The House on Swan Lake
The cab turns in to Regent’s Park. We drive past a boating pond. A café. Past mums and dads taking their babies to London Zoo.
‘Never been to no Swan ’ouse before,’ says the cabbie. ‘Is it one of them boutique ’otels?’
‘Oh no,’ Bab replies. ‘Svan House is a school of ballet.’
‘Which one of you girls is the ballerina, then?’ He winks at Bab in the mirror.
Bab bats her eyelashes. ‘My daughter. She’s extremely talented.’ I open my mouth and close it again.
This morning Bab gave me her favourite beret – pale blue, totally French. I’m wearing it with a stripy red-and-white top. She says if it wasn’t for the dungarees, I’d look quite the Parisien. I suppose if I had hair like Willow Perkins I wouldn’t need a beret. When Bab’s hairdresser said it’s still in that inbetweeny stage, he meant in between short and tragic.
‘My littlest says he wants to be a ballet dancer,’ says the cabbie. ‘Watched that Scarlet Slipper competition on the telly. Did you see it?’
I pull my beret down over my ears.
‘How charming,’ says Bab in her chirpy voice. ‘Have you many children?’
The cabbie chats away as the road takes us through a glade of spindly trees. In, out, in, out. The sunlight makes zebra stripes on the tarmac.
‘You’d think ve vere in the countryside,’ says Bab. ‘Listen, Mila.’
I listen. No tooting horns. No rumbling buses. Just a soft coo-cooing coming from the treetops. On the other side of the avenue, a lake shimmers in the sunshine. A swan swoops over the water and lands on its reflection without a bump. It’s like magic.
Bab points her scarlet nails at the far side of the lake. ‘Ideal’no!’
‘What did you say?’
I translate for the cabbie. ‘Ideal’no – it means “perfect” in Russian.’
And it is. Swan House School of Ballet is a perfect white mansion on a perfect green lawn. The cabbie whistles. ‘That must be costin’ a pretty penny.’
Bab puffs up. ‘Milly von a scholarship, didn’t you, dahhling?’
My toes curl in my sneakers. I don’t deserve a scholarship after what happened to Willow’s funny bone. Mum must have pulled all kinds of strings to get me into such a smart school.
We follow the road around the lake until we reach a stone gatehouse. A hairy hand appears from the window. ‘Passes please.’
Bab holds out the passes that arrived this morning.
‘Thank you, Mrs Lilova,’ growls a voice. ‘Please proceed but make sure your driver does not leave the vehicle.’
‘Fine by me, sunshine,’ says the cabbie.
The hand waves us on and the wrought-iron gates creak open. Once we’re through the gates, Bab reaches for her handbag and pulls out a red velvet evening bag. ‘Mila, the chief inspector returned your mother’s bag yesterday. I’d like you to have it.’
I try to say thank you, but the lump in my throat gets in the way.
‘Open it, dahhling.’
Inside is a programme for the Sixtieth Scarlet Slipper Ballet Prize. On the cover there’s a photograph of Mr Lamont and his fairies. There I am, behind Willow. Alongside The Fairy of the Golden Vine – Millicent Kydd, Mum’s written, Milly, age twelve. I trace my finger over her big, loopy handwriting. There’s another faint scribble next to Willow. When I tip up the programme to see what it says, a silver chain snakes into my palm.
Bab squeezes my hand. ‘The chief inspector said they found Eva’s charm bracelet underneath her seat.’
A shiver runs up my arm as Bab slips it over my hand and before I know it, I’m back in Mum’s room – her arm around my shoulders, the bracelet heavy on my wrist. My little voice is asking, ‘What are these, Mummy?’
‘They’re charms, Milly. They remind me of my favourite things. There’s the ballet shoe Bab gave me when I won my place at the Royal Ballet School. And look, this is the little ballerina your father gave me on the day you were born.’
Dad died when I was a baby so the silver ballerina is extra special. I search the bracelet then empty Mum’s bag. She’s gone.
A missing ballerina. It feels like a sign. I pop the bag in my backpack and zip it up. Mustn’t cry now. Not in front of Bab.
The cab ambles down a long gravel driveway. Little stones pit-pat the tyres. The front of the school comes into view and my toes curl tighter. All of the children milling around the car park have swishy hair and perfect posture.
Well. All except one.
No one seems to notice the boy puffing across the driveway like Thomas the Tank Engine. He’s got headphones over his bushy, dark hair and a bushy, dark monobrow to match. An old satchel bounces across hi
s shoulders, and there’s something flapping around his neck. He’s the least likely looking ballet dancer I’ve ever seen.
I open the cab door. Nearby, a mud-splattered car starts to reverse. As it bunny-hops backwards, three doggy faces bounce up and down in the back window. The boy and his beaten-up suitcase are in its path.
Uh-oh. He can’t hear it. It can’t see him. He’s going to get squished.
I jump out of the cab. ‘Stop!’ I shout. ‘STOP!’
I grand jeté on top of him and we thump to the ground.
Tumble, tumble. Legs. Arms. Dust. A screech in my ears. Heat on my cheeks. Smoke up my nose.
‘Mila!’ Bab’s heels biscuit-crunch towards me. ‘Mila, say something!’
I try. I try asking the boy if he’s alive enough to move his sandal off my face, but it comes out as a kind of ‘Fwmph.’
I give Bab a thumbs up instead.
A car door slams. A pair of dirty wellies appear next to Bab’s kitten heels. ‘I’m so terribly sorry,’ says a plummy voice. ‘The Range Rover’s a frightful mess. Been cleaning out the ponies and with the Labs in the back, I just didn’t see him . . . is he hurt?’
A pair of boy’s trainers skid next to the wellies. ‘Looks dead to me, Mother.’
‘Winded!’ wheezes Thomas the Tank. ‘Can’t breathe.’
‘Oh dear,’ says the woman, ‘you’d better lie still for a moment.’
The boy peers over me. I make out a halo of summery hair. An angel with a backpack for wings. I think he’s laughing.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘WHAT DID YOU SAY?’ Thomas the Tank’s sandal kicks my teeth. ‘I CAN’T HEAR! I CAN’T HEAR!’
‘It would help if you took these off,’ says the angel. He pulls off the boy’s headphones. ‘Got a name?’
The sandal lifts off my cheek. ‘It’s Merv, if you must know.’
The angel pulls Merv up. ‘I’m Benedict. My friends call me Sp—’
‘Spencer. I know.’ Merv shakes his head like he’s got water in his ears, then checks the padlock on his satchel. What kind of ballet dancer has a padlock on his satchel?
I sit up. The Angel Spencer is wearing black jeans and a black leather jacket. He must be terribly hot. He pushes up his sunglasses. ‘Have we met before?’
‘No,’ says Merv. ‘Says on your number plate.’ I twist my head – SPN C5R.
Blimey. Merv’s a bit clever.
Bab takes my hand. ‘Mila, dahhling, can you move your legs? Can you feel your toes?’
I pick up my beret. ‘I’m fine. I can wriggle them and everything.’
‘What a brave girl,’ says Mrs Spencer. ‘Are you all right now, Merv?’
Merv glares at me from under his eyebrow. ‘Would you be all right if you’d been attacked by a mad Parisian?’
Possibly not that clever.
Merv makes Spencer look incredibly tall and brown. Like he’s spent all summer surfing, or safari-ing, or some other outdoorsy thing beginning with ‘s’.
‘Cheer up,’ says Spencer. ‘If the mad Parisian hadn’t flattened you, the Range Rover would’ve. I’d show some gratitude if I were you.’
‘Oh.’
‘OK, don’t overdo it.’ Spencer leans against the bonnet of his car. ‘As a matter of fact, she’s an expert at flattening people. The hair threw me, but I never forget a face. You were that girl in the Scarlet Slippers, weren’t you? Eva Kydd’s daughter, right?’
‘Yes, Milly. You saw it?’
Spencer has the whitest smirk I’ve ever seen. ‘Me and the rest of the world.’
I wish he wasn’t quite so loud. And tall. And brown. He’s attracting way too much attention. I pull my beret over my eyes and make myself invisible.
Not really, but it worked when I was three.
Mrs Spencer carries on fussing over Merv. ‘Are your parents here, Merv?’ Merv shakes his head. ‘Oh dear. Have you come far on your own?’
‘Widecombe,’ grunts Merv. ‘Walked a really, really long way.’
Spencer drops the grin. ‘You walked. From Devon?’
‘No.’ Merv eyes him suspiciously. ‘Victoria Coach Station.’
Mrs Spencer checks her watch. ‘We still have a little time – maybe I should drive you to hospital?’
Merv’s monobrow shoots up in alarm. He gropes for the thing around his neck. It’s a white mask like the ones people wear on the news. ‘NO. WAY. Don’t you know how many deadly flesh-eating bacteria there are lurking in hospitals? No way am I going to hospital.’
‘Let’s go,’ says Spencer. ‘He’ll live.’
Mrs Spencer sighs. ‘He really doesn’t look well. What about a visit to the school nurse?’
‘NO!’ says Merv.
‘It’s the first day of term,’ says Spencer. ‘It’ll take at least a week before zillions of flesh-eating bacteria infect the infirmary.’
Merv’s eyebrow wiggles. ‘Oh. OK, then.’
I fetch my backpack from the cab. Inside are my emergency supplies – a bag of mints, a term’s supply of plasters and a hot-water bottle in the shape of a fat, ginger cat.
I open the mints. ‘Thanks,’ says Spencer, helping himself to the whole packet.
Bab smiles at him. ‘You seem like a strong young man. Be a dahhling and bring Milly’s trunk.’
Mrs Spencer looks surprised when her son grabs the trunk handle. She doesn’t know that Bab has a mysterious way of getting people to do things. I think it has something to do with her eyelashes.
The cabbie calls after Bab, ‘Don’t be too long, Mrs L. Got a job waiting in Tooting.’
We all follow Merv to the steps. Either side, the white stone pillars are topped with life-size marble swans. Bab nudges Mrs Spencer. In all the excitement we hadn’t noticed the enormous man at the entrance. He has two straw-coloured ponytails – one at the back and a beardy one at the front. He is the second least likely looking ballet dancer I’ve ever seen.
Bab pats her bob. ‘Thor in a suit and tie. I adore a vell-dressed Viking, don’t you?’
Thor’s ponytail beard swishes as Spencer goes past with the trunk. There’s a god-like rumble. ‘Where d’you think you’re going? Show us your pass.’
Where have I heard that voice before?
‘It’s here!’ Mrs Spencer waves a pass in the air. ‘I’m so sorry, I did ask Ben to wear it.’
I check mine is safely around my neck.
‘Benedict Spencer,’ reads Thor. ‘Put that on until I tell you to take it off.’ He scowls at the rest of us. ‘Go straight through the hall, past the statue, and reception’s on the left. Hand in your mobiles and electrical devices at the desk.’
‘No one’s touching my phone,’ says Spencer. ‘It only came out yesterday.’
Thor squares his shoulders and the seams of his jacket sigh. ‘Unauthorized devices will be destroyed. End of.’
‘I’ve got an electric toothbrush,’ I say. ‘Does that count?’ But Thor’s already shouting at someone else.
‘Gosh,’ says Mrs Spencer to Bab. ‘I can’t see him in ballet tights, can you?’
‘Dahhling,’ sighs Bab. ‘You’re just not trying hard enough.’
We file into a wide, airy hall. Lots of lovely smells fill my nostrils – wood polish, lilies, fresh paint. Bab oohs and ahhs her way around the columns and arches. Caught in a beam of sunlight, a small bronze ballerina hovers en pointe. Spencer plonks down the trunk and I pause to read the plaque underneath.
ANNA POPOVA. FOUNDER OF THE
SCARLET SLIPPER BALLET PRIZE.
A DYNASTY IS BORN.
It’s Dame Anna Popova before she was 102.
‘Dame Anna has genes to die for,’ says Bab. ‘Every vun of her offspring has become a fabulous dancer. If you become famous vun day, they might make a statue of your mother.’
I wait for Spencer to make a joke, but he’s too busy admiring himself in one of the huge gold mirrors.
Bab’s eyes are all twinkly. ‘Dahhling girl, this is your chance to make friends a
nd start afresh. Everything vill be vonderful, I promise.’ She kisses me on both cheeks and I give her a hug. As she tip-taps away, there’s a tut-tut noise behind me. All of the girls in the hall are looking at me like the fairies did. Slightly suspicious and not entirely friendly. They must have seen the Scarlet Slippers too.
Even when she’s not here, Willow Perkins ruins everything.
4
The Revenge of Willow Perkins
Spencer flicks a blond hair from his jacket and offers me one of my mints. ‘Did you know you’ve ripped your trouser things and your knee’s bleeding?’
I yelp at the mirror. There’s a hole in my dungarees and oily black gunk all over my bottom.
‘Not to worry. My father’s a surgeon. I’ll get him to put you on his waiting list – for a new Kydd-knee. See what I did there?’
‘Oh, there you both are,’ says Mrs Spencer. ‘Now, Merv’s seen the nurse, haven’t you, Merv? And he’s quite well, all considered. So I’ll say goodbye. You will call, won’t you, Ben? And remember what you said . . .’
‘Yes, Mother, I’ll be on my best behaviour . . .’
‘Promise?’
‘Promise.’
Mrs Spencer pecks him on the cheek. She doesn’t notice the fingers crossed behind her son’s back. She pecks me too and leans towards Merv. Merv pulls his mask over his nose.
It’s not fair. Everyone else seems to have made nice, normal friends.
Mrs Spencer trots away as a gangly woman with frizzy hair and fuchsia lips approaches us. Her smile looks like it’s been stuck on with sticky tape. Merv squeaks and trips over his suitcase.
‘Whoopsie,’ she says. Her teeth are fuchsia too. ‘HONK HONK! Can I have your attention, everyone, please-thank-you.’
Spencer’s still posing in the mirror. I seem to be the only one listening.
‘HELLOOO, SWANLETS. There’s been a teensy mistake. Suitcases should have been left in the courtyard.’ She whispers to me, ‘My fault, been in bit of a flap this morning.’ Then she beats her arms like a mad flamingo. ‘ANYHOOO . . . who is this crazy lady, I hear you say.’ She waffles on to no one in particular. ‘My name is Emmeline Topping, but you can call me Topsy. I’m not a teacher, obvs, but the BRILLIANT news is – dun, dun, duh, duhhh – I’m going to be your MUMMY SWAN this year! Yes, swanlets, I’m going to be your housemistress – that’s if I don’t fail the probationary period again . . .’
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