Born to Dance. Jean Ure

I called out, over the banisters. She paused, and glanced up. “Here!” I tossed the shoes down to her. “You don’t have to go,” I said.

      For a moment she hesitated, but then violently shook her head and scurried on her way.

      Slowly I went back into the gym. I put on Mum’s CD and dutifully did my fifteen minutes of workout, but my brain was now buzzing with so many unanswered questions that I found it almost impossible to concentrate. Why was Caitlyn practising pirouettes in the gym? Why hadn’t she been taught how to spot when doing turns? Why, after all, did she persist in saying she didn’t do ballet when she quite obviously did?

      All the rest of the day she kept away from me. At breaktime she stuck closely with the other two new girls: the tall one, Astrid, and the tiny one, Ava. I didn’t want to barge in and start questioning her in front of other people. I’d already embarrassed her once, bulldozing my way into the gym. But I was just dying to get to the bottom of the mystery!

      It wasn’t till going-home time that I managed to get her on her own. I could see Mum waiting in the car outside the school gates, but I could also see Caitlyn just ahead of me. I raced after her.

      “Hey, Caitlyn!”

      She half turned. For a minute I thought she was going to take off, but reluctantly she waited for me.

      “I don’t mean to be nosy,” I said, “but do tell me who your teacher is!”

      “I don’t have one.” She said it almost desperately, like, Please, please, just go away and leave me alone!

      I don’t enjoy upsetting people. In spite of what Mum says, I am not