Dancing For Life

• Sarah Jones, Grade 4
• Short Story
• 2008

Ever since my mother had died I felt like I had nothing left except sadness. My mother caught the plague one night after dancing in Convent Garden. After that I went to live with my grandmother as she is my only remaining relative. We were fine for a while because my mother had earned a decent sum of money but after a few months we started to get low on money. Now every day all I have to eat is a couple of dry, mouldy pieces of bread. We are poor now and barely have enough money to feed ourselves.
On my birthday I looked out our tiny dinghy window into the street beyond and wished with all my heart that I was someone else. Suddenly I heard my grandmother, Audrey, calling my name in her rasping voice. When I reached her she said to me “Since it is your birthday I have decided that you can have Ballet lessons.” My heart leaped and then sank and quietly I said “But we don’t have enough money.” Smiling my grandmother said “I have scraped just enough money together for you to do ballet for a year and I hoped you might join a ballet company when you’ve done your year of training.”
“I’d love to!” I said laughing and I leaped around the room.
The next day I turned up at my ballet class and looked around at everyone in their immaculate skirts and leotards and then I looked at my own old, ripped tunic and felt like I wanted to retreat into my shell, my shell that sadly did not exist so I all I could do was hope that talent would hide my looks. Finally our teacher, Mrs Sternover called us to the bar to do some exercises.
After a while she said to do some free dancing and when I heard the music it swept me away and made me feel like all I ever wanted to do was dance, so I did. When the last note left my ears I looked up and noticed that everyone was staring at me in awe. That night I went home happier than I had been in years.
The year flew by and quickly, too quickly, I reached the end of my last ballet lesson. After the lesson I went to my grandmother and said “What if I don’t make it into the dance company?”
“I’m sure you will” she said “I’ve booked you an audition for tomorrow.” Tomorrow, I thought wildly and started practicing like I would never stop.