Dance

• Isabella Simons, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2019

Dance. Dance and I met when I was young. We would play in the backyard for hours. Dance always wore the same maroon brown tail coat with his jet black top hat. Everyone who met him said he had the most gorgeous piercing blue eyes. His round face made it feel as if you were staring straight at the shining moon itself. Dance had given me happiness when none else could. We would jette, plie and pirouette for hours to a sound sweet as sugar. The world around us slowly transformed into a fairytale. He said we would be together forever. Until we weren’t.


One joyful evening Dance didn’t come. Had he forgotten? I waited for hours. Time slowly ticking past like a snail crawling as slowly as possible. The tree behind me whispered softly in my ear “he’s not coming tonight”. I started to dance slowly, but it didn’t feel quite right. The next day I waited again. Dance did not come. This time I danced harder. I had to make dance come back. Oddly when I danced that night I felt light as a feather. The whispering willow began to sing as sweetly as a nightingale. Next to join were the dainty little rose bushes. Next the grass began to sway in time with the beat until the whole field was overcome with a harmonious melody. I felt as if I could dance forever when suddenly everyone stopped. The willow stopped singing, the grass stopped swaying. I stopped. I didn’t know what to do when suddenly my whole body was overcome with the sense of being watched. I was right. A gang of about four boys a little older than me stepped out from a bush standing out oddly in their pitch black outfits at this time of day. They started to clap and cheer sarcastically. “What do you want?” I said a little less courageously then I’d hoped. “Not much,” the boy with platinum blonde hair replied,”only for you to stop frolicking around so we can ride here”. “I will never stop!” I screamed. One of the other boys hit me. It felt as if the whole world had entered his fist then come down on my face. When I woke up they were gone and to my surprise sitting in front of me a boy in a top hat and maroon tail coat. “Dance!” I exclaimed. “I thought you had gone”. I had never really left you, I had just entered a part of you. That way when I do leave, you will always know that I am with you”.


Now, I Dance professionally with the London Ballet Company and every time I go on stage I catch a glimpse of a certain top hat and tail coat. Dance and I shall always know we are together and when we are I get the most wonderful feeling that I’m dancing back in that field slowly waltzing with him along to a graceful tune.