Willow and Danny swap secret looks. He dropped me on purpose.
I bolt out into a corridor squirming with leotards. When I reach my dorm, I jam a chair against the door and rush to the little bathroom. Cold water gushes from the tap. I swill out my mouth and spit out the blood.
What am I going to do? The lifts in Swan Lake are harder than anything I’ve practised before and if Danny drops me again, I could get injured. I need help.
Didn’t the Captain say our mentors are supposed to guide and advise us? Filipp may not care about me, but I think he really does care about ballet. He might understand.
‘Filipp, I need you.’
Filipp’s face flickers in the bathroom mirror.
‘What do you want?’ He squints at my chin. ‘You look terrible.’
‘My dance partner dropped me – Filipp, what should I do? They want me to do these lifts, but I’m scared.’
‘Then you must practise more – or are you scared of hard work too?’
‘No, it’s more than that. You know what it’s like when everyone has such high expectations. We’re actually quite alike, you and me. Your mum won a Scarlet Slipper. My mum won a Scarlet Slipper. I let mine down. You, well, you sort of let—’ My words tumble to a stop.
‘Are you daring to compare my family with yours? Your history with mine?’ Filipp’s cheeks turn blotchy. ‘I am a POPOV! I have scarlet in my veins. Do you hear me? Scarlet! I am superior to you in every way. If the Debello boy dropped you, it was because you deserved to be dropped. You will never dance like a Popov. Never. Ever. Ever. Ev—’
Filipp’s face vanishes as I rip off my Swanphone. Maybe Danny didn’t drop me on purpose. Maybe my core was too weak. I don’t need a mentor, I need my mum.
I watch the tears wriggle down my cheeks. Mum. Where are you?
There’s only one thing to do. I run to my cupboard, pull on my hoody, reach for my beret and stuff what I can into my backpack.
I ignore the stares that follow me through the hall and out into the drizzle. No one comes after me. No alarm bells ring. Maybe they’ve realized they’re better off without me.
As I splosh down the gravel drive, I regret not planning my escape better. Bab’s in Buenos Aires and I’m on foot. Even if I knew where to go, I wouldn’t know how to get there.
At that moment, there’s a honk behind me. A dark-red van with Meekes, Makers of Fine Dance Shoes in olde-worldy gold letters slows down alongside me.
Pip winds down the window. ‘Where are you going, miss? Do you need a lift?’
Rain trickles down my neck. I take one long last look at Swan House and jump into the van.
‘Where to?’ says Pip.
To the only person who might understand. ‘To Meekes.’
13
The Homing Shoes
We slow past the gatehouse and pass through the gates.
‘Is everything all right, miss?’ asks Pip.
I shake my head. I can’t tell Pip I’m running away without crying again.
As we zig-zag out of the park and into the traffic, I stare out of the window. Little ant people are pouring in and out of the Tube. They’re huddling in doorways and sheltering in cafes. I wonder if Mum is one of them.
‘You’re awfully quiet, miss,’ says Pip.
‘Am I? Sorry.’ I scrabble around for something to say. ‘How long have you been working at Meekes, Pip?’
‘Almost a year now. Started off unloading the vans, then Mrs H-P took a shine to me and I got my place on the bench. Just been promoted from soft toes to hard. Miss, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but how did you get that bruise on your chin?’
‘I fell,’ I say. ‘It was nothing.’
Pip shakes his head like I’m brave or something. ‘You dancers are a tough lot.’
I glance at the steering wheel – at the blisters on his hands. ‘So are you makers. Are your hands always sore?’
‘You sort of get used to the pain after a while. Just as well, with everything that’s happened at work this week. To be honest, some of us think we’ve got a ghost, you know, like one of those poltergeists. Diamond Maker swears he’s heard moaning at night.’
‘A poltergeist? Does Mr Stubbs think so too?’
‘No, not Heart Maker. I keep telling him to look out, but he won’t be told.’
We turn into a narrow back street and the van rattles over the cobbles.
‘Here we are, miss. Back entrance.’ Pip pulls into a parking bay and I jump out.
Outside, the clouds have puffed away and the sky is a pale September blue. I follow him through a small courtyard to the back of the building. We clang up a fire escape and straight into the shop, where Mrs Huntley-Palmer is sitting cross-legged on the carpet. The foot of a bored-looking girl rests in her hands. Mrs H-P smiles when she sees me, then frowns at my bruise.
‘Are we finished Mrs H-P?’ drawls the girl. ‘I have a Nutcracker rehearsal at two.’
‘All done.’ Mrs Huntley-Palmer’s frown follows me to the stairs.
Down in the basement, a couple of the makers are having a break over a bacon sandwich. ‘Heard it again last night,’ says one.
‘If you ask me, it’s the ghost of Edwina Meekes,’ says the other. ‘Fierce she was. Always said it’d take more than a coffin to carry her out of the place – do you remember, Alf?’
Mr Stubbs looks up from a wad of paper. ‘Don’t you start, Bert. This place is older and creakier than me and you put together. All this talk of moanin’ and the like is tommyrot.’
He spots me behind Pip, but his eyes don’t crinkle like they usually do when he sees me. ‘’Ello, Miss Millicent. Is somethin’ the matter?’
I tuck my chin in my hoody. ‘I wondered if I could ask you something. It’s quite important.’
The makers put down their sandwiches to listen, but Mr Stubbs waves a sheet of paper. ‘Make a start on this, will you, Pip? Five and an ’alf, she wants – ’essian – strong, with a bit of a taper. Come through to the kitchenette, miss. We can talk there.’
The kitchenette isn’t a room exactly, more of a corner behind a rack of shoes. Mr Stubbs fills the kettle and takes a pint of milk from the fridge underneath the counter.
‘Cup of Rosie, miss? Got a nice new kettle.’
‘Yes please.’
‘Still take it like your mum? Milk and ’alf a sugar?’ I nod. ‘What is it then, miss? Ask away.’
The words that come out aren’t the ones I planned. ‘Mr Stubbs. I’ve run away from school.’
Mr Stubbs nods like he knew all along. He pulls out a stool nestling under the counter. ‘Sit yourself down and tell me all about it. I ’ope it ain’t nothin’ to do with that shiner on your chin.’
I pull off my beret, and it all comes out in a big sob. I tell him about Madame and having to dance all the leads. I tell him about Willow being so horrible and Danny dropping me. ‘I can’t stay at Swan House – I can’t do it without Mum. I’ve got to find her. Please, Mr Stubbs, can you help me?’
Mr Stubbs’s shaggy eyebrows meet in the middle. He pours hot water into a china teapot. ‘I wish I could, miss, I really does, but the way I sees it is this – there’s good people out there lookin’ for ’er. Them that knows what they’re doin’. They’ll find ’er, miss, I’m sure of it. In the meantime, your mum’d want you to go back to school an’ do your dancin’.’
‘But Willow’s turned everyone against me.’
‘Not all of ’em, surely, miss. What about that nice young lady, Miss Lottie? She ain’t the sort to listen to Miss Willow’s nonsense. And the lad, Danny – ’e ain’t a bad sort neither, just the type to be easily led. I admit, there ain’t much you can do about Madame de La Cloche. Between you an’ me an’ the stage door, she’s too huppity for her own good.’
‘Huppity?’
‘That’s what I said. Anyway, if you asks me, it’s Ms Celia’s opinion what really matters. She’d never ’ave picked you to dance all them leads if she didn’t believe in you. You got an
opportunity, miss. A chance some would bite off your arm for.’ Mr Stubbs’s eyes twinkle. They’re the same blue as the teapot and twice as shiny. ‘All you got to do is find the pluck to take it.’
‘But Mr Stubbs, I’m all out of pluck. I think my pluck is wherever Mum is.’
Mr Stubbs pats my hand. ‘Wait there. I got somethin’ for you. I was savin’ them for the Scarlet Slippers but I reckon you need ’em now.’ He leaves me puzzling and comes back with a shoebox. ‘Open it, then.’
I pull off the lid. Inside is a pair of pointe shoes. When I lift them out, a tingle goes down to my toes. Next to the black hearts stamped on the soles are the initials ‘E. L.’
Eva Lilova. They’re Mum’s.
I hold them to my heart.
‘These are the first pair of shoes I made for your mum. She’d just started at the Royal Ballet and ’ad the biggest case of ’omesickness I ever saw. Ran away in ’em, she did.’
‘Mum ran away?’
‘That’s right. But the next day I found her upstairs in the shop – she reckoned the shoes brought ’er back. I said they was like a pair of ’omin’ pigeons my old dad kept in the war. We ’ad a laugh about that. She asked me to keep ’er ’omin’ shoes for someone else who might need ’em. I ’ad a funny feelin’ it might be you.’
‘Thank you, Mr Stubbs!’
‘Now – you could dance back to Swan ’ouse, miss, but I think it’d be quicker if I called Ms Celia, what do you say?’
14
O
Ms Celia zooms through the puddles. ‘You and I have much to discuss. But first things first, why did you run off like that?’
I clutch the shoebox and wonder what spies do to children who run away.
‘Well? Madame said you fell during a lift today.’
‘I didn’t fall, I was dropped, but it’s more than that, Ms Celia, you don’t understand.’
She steps on the accelerator and Winifred roars. ‘You’re right, Milly. And that is because I am not a mind reader. But I am a spy and I’ve done a little detective work. The Captain tells me that Tom Garrick fired an unauthorized weapon at you in the woods yesterday.’
‘Yes, but it didn’t hit me. He looked awful when we found him. Did he break his ankle?’
‘Unfortunately, yes. He had to go straight to hospital.’
Sunshine streams through the windscreen but I feel a sudden chill. ‘H-he didn’t say I did it, did he?’
Ms Celia lowers her sunshade. ‘Quite the opposite. He told us you’d half carried him back to school.’
‘Merv helped too.’
‘You both behaved admirably, but the fact is, Milly, we can’t have you running away again. You were invited here for a purpose.’
‘I know. I have to make friends with one of Korolev’s students.’
‘That’s right, but there’s something else. You may have heard mention of someone called O?’
I grip the seatbelt as we swerve into the park. ‘Topsy said he was your boss but no one ever sees him.’
‘Emmeline is correct. O’s identity is highly classified.’
We pass through the glade of spindly trees. I think back to my first day as the sunlight makes stripes on the tarmac. In, out, in, out. Only this time they make me think of prison bars.
Ms Celia pulls up outside the gates and the hairy hand waves her past the gatehouse. Moments later, Swan House comes into view and Winifred grinds to a noisy stop outside the porch.
I wonder why Ms Celia wants to talk about O. Maybe it’s O who deals with spies who run away?
When I ask her she shakes her head. ‘Then what’s O got to do with me?’
Ms Celia turns to look at me. Her eyes are as deep and dark as the lake. ‘Everything.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Milly, my dear, O is your mother.’
My hand slides from the seatbelt. ‘No,’ I say. ‘NO. Mum can’t be O. Her name begins with an E for Eva – Eva Kydd.’
Ms Celia reaches for my arm. ‘Think, Milly. Which role made her famous?’
‘S-Swan Lake . . . What’s that got to do with anyth— Oh, O-dette and O-dile.’
‘Exactly.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘I’m afraid it’s true. She was recruited to Swan House as a girl, just like you were. When she graduated, she went on to work for the school.’
‘But she trained at the Royal Ballet School.’
‘Only until her final year. Then she came here. Your grandmother didn’t know, of course.’
My head begins to throb. ‘So Mum’s a spy?’
Ms Celia nods. ‘One of the best – the head of our entire organization, in fact. And we think that’s why she was taken.’
‘Taken? Taken by who? Not . . .’ The name sticks to the roof of my mouth. ‘Not Korolev?’
Ms Celia stares across the lake. ‘We believe Korolev kidnapped her on the evening of the Scarlet Slippers.’
‘But why?’
‘Ivan and Eva were in Swan House together. It was Eva who caught him using poison the night before the Scarlet Slippers. He blamed her for his downfall. We think he means to win this year’s competition at any cost. Possibly by using Eva as a bargaining chip.’
Thoughts stomp through my brain. Mum didn’t leave because she wanted to. She didn’t leave because I tripped Willow. It wasn’t my fault, but isn’t this worse? Mum has been kidnapped by a poisoner, and a cheat, and a Very Bad Man.
‘So, you see, Milly, by staying to fulfil your part of the mission, you will be helping to rescue your mother.’ Ms Celia’s elbow catches the horn. We both jump. ‘Sorry. How careless of me.’
Ms Celia is never careless. I suppose Mum’s identity is a secret she’d rather have kept to herself. ‘Ms Celia, does Willow Perkins know about Mum?’
‘None of our students know O’s identity, or even that O is missing. I will announce the purpose of the mission when I see fit. Until then, this information must remain top secret. Do you understand, Milly? You mustn’t say a word.’
When I tiptoe into the dorm that night, Willow’s mouth drops open. ‘I thought you’d gone,’ she says.
‘I’ve decided to stay for a bit longer, if it’s all the same to you.’
Willow and Bumble start talking about me like I’m not here. But I’ve got another voice in my head. A voice that conjures up buttery toast and perfumed hugs.
Sorry, sweetheart, I have to go away for a couple of days. Just a short tour this time. I’ll be back for your birthday . . .
Memories are springing up like daisies.
The time Mum was delayed in Paris because she missed her plane.
The time she was held up in Moscow because of the snow.
Missed planes. Bad weather. Mum is a spy. What else don’t I know?
I jump into bed, tuck Mum’s homing shoes under my pillow and hug Boris to me. If Mum needs rescuing, she needs someone brave and clever. Someone who cracks codes and karate kicks. Someone who isn’t afraid of men with bluebottle-black hair and shifty eyes.
But more than that, she needs someone who can dance.
Cycni venustas – cor leonis.
She needs someone with the grace of a swan and the heart of a lion.
That someone is not going to be Willow Perkins. That someone is going to be me.
Eventually, Willow and Bumble doze off but I don’t even try to sleep. In the end, I spend hours making shapes out of the clouds on the ceiling. I find a cat, a shoe, an O.
An O.
If Mum is a spy, wouldn’t she have left clues? I tiptoe to my trunk and pull out her Scarlet Slippers programme. Once I’m in the bathroom, I run the light from my Swanphone over the cover and shine it on Mum’s scribble.
YES.
If it means what I think it means, I just found Mum’s first clue.
15
L’Odette
Spencer pulls up his hood. ‘Remind me again, Kydd. Why have we swapped breakfast for a morning hike?’ ‘Yeah, and where are we g
oin’?’ says Lottie. ‘I ain’t been this far into the woods before.’
Something rustles in the undergrowth. I look over my shoulder and swipe the rain from my eyes. ‘I need to tell you something. Do you think anyone can hear us out here?’
‘Doubt it,’ says Lottie. ‘But you never know wiv us being monitored non-stop and Merv bein’ so paranoid. What is it, Milly?’
‘Just a little bit further and I’ll explain.’
Lottie flashes her Swanphone at my face. ‘Flamin’ Nora. What have you done to your chin?’
I blink. ‘Nothing.’ I’ve got more important things to worry about right now than Danny Debello. ‘I fell in class yesterday – it was an accident.’
Lottie squelches after me. ‘If someone’s been givin’ you a hard time, I’ll have a word.’
‘A “word”? Remind me, is that Mandarin, Malay or Cockney for a punch on the nose?’ says Spencer.
Lottie ignores him. ‘What is it, then, Milly? Any furver and we’ll be up to our necks in flamin’ duck-weed. Listen!’
A familiar pitter-patter fills my ears. I clamber over the fallen tree and wait for them to catch up. ‘It’s OK, we’re here.’
Lottie spots the boat first. There’s a name peeling across its side. ‘L’Odette,’ she reads. ‘Like the White Swan.’ She points at the hut. ‘I never knew that was here neiver.’
‘I found it when I was running away from Willow.’
‘I found it first.’ Spencer lowers his hood and runs his fingers through his hair. It sticks up in blond spikes before falling perfectly in place.
‘Does it matter?’ says Lottie. ‘Let’s get out of the rain.’
We pile inside the boathouse. Lottie plucks a slug off the rug and we plonk ourselves down.
‘So,’ says Spencer. ‘What’s the big secret? Better be worth missing scrambled brains for.’
My voice begins to quiver. ‘It’s Mum.’
Spencer yawns. ‘What about her?’
Lottie kicks Spencer’s foot. ‘They ain’t found her, have they?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘So, what is it then?’
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