Let the Dance Begin

by Lynda Waterhouse

  Cassie nodded. ‘By the next time you come I’ll have taken a look inside that study. Now let’s race. One good thing about all this dancing is that it has made me stronger. I bet I can beat you.’

  ‘We’ll see about that!’ Rubus raced off on his board.

  An hour later an exhausted Cassie climbed back up the rope ladder and fell into bed. Her body was tired but her mind was racing. It was focused on one thing: trying to think of a way to get into Madame Rosa’s study.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘There is a movement to capture every mood and emotion.

  Dance and you will find it.’

  The Sands of Time

  As Mrs Sandskrit sailed into the practice room the next morning, she announced, ‘Madame Rosa has decided that it is time for your first interpretation class.’

  An excited whisper filled the room. Lexie, Cassie and Shell grinned at each other. Mrs Sandskrit lifted up her hand and continued. ‘I am not convinced that you are ready, but we shall see. Make your way in single file to the swimming pool at once, and without any talking.’

  Intrigued, the sand sprites walked as fast as they dared out of the practice room and through the back corridor that led to the outdoor swimming pool. The pool was wedged between two sides of the dunes and was lined with rocks and fringed by grasses and gorse bushes.

  Miss Youngsand Snr was waiting for them by the swimming pool. Her tiny body was almost hidden by the row of gorse bushes by the side of the pool.

  ‘Maybe we’re going to do the class underwater.’ Shell nudged Lexie.

  ‘Shh,’ Calluna said as she walked past them.

  ‘Follow me.’ Miss Youngsand Snr pointed to an old stone staircase behind a large bush.

  ‘I’ve never noticed that before,’ Cassie whispered to Lexie. ‘This is exciting.’

  ‘Careful on the stairs! They’re old and slippery’ Miss Youngsand Snr warned as they all filed down. The stairs wound down and led to a small grotto.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Lexie gasped. The walls were covered in shells and coloured glass that twinkled in the pale shafts of light. In the middle of the room there was a green shell fountain with a small white shell in the centre of it. Thassalinus was standing next to it.

  ‘The perfect place for me.’ Shell’s eyes twinkled as she spun around, touching the smooth walls.

  ‘Welcome to our outdoor dance studio,’ Madame Rosa greeted them as they walked into the grotto. She was wearing a pearl-coloured dress and her arms were decorated with shell bracelets. ‘It is time for your first interpretation class. A sand dancer should be always in touch with her feelings and sensitive to the emotions of those around her. This allows her to interpret these emotions in her dancing.’

  The sand sprites gathered around excitedly.

  Madame Rosa lifted her arms, making her bracelets shake. ‘I will demonstrate a dance inspired by my love of the dunes to the accompaniment of the fountain.’ She nodded to Thassalinus who began to turn the handle on the white shell.

  The room fell silent as the water flowing through the shell made a gentle bubbling sound. Madame Rosa began to dance, slowly at first, and then building into a sequence of moves so light and delicate that even her wings began to flutter gracefully. It was the most beautiful dancing Cassie had ever seen. No one moved or spoke during the dance – everyone’s eyes were fixed on Madame Rosa. Finally she stopped and there was a spontaneous round of applause. ‘Now I want you all to have a go,’ she said.

  As the other sprites began to move, Cassie felt selfconscious. But then she began to focus on the sounds of the fountain, the trickling and splashing of the water, and her feelings began to take the lead. She found herself recalling once again the Night of the Great Sandstorm and the last time she saw her mother.

  It had seemed just like any other night.

  Her mother tucked her up warm and snug in her kutch.

  Marina stroked her hair and said, ‘I have to go away.’

  Her mother used to go away sometimes to perform dune dances, so Cassie was not too surprised.

  ‘Are you going to do the Triple Silica Jump again?’ she asked drowsily.

  Marina sighed. ‘I can’t tell you where I’m going or for exactly how long, but I will be back by the next spring tide.’

  Cassie yawned. ‘That is a long time. Will you bring me back a present?’

  Her mother always brought her the most wonderful presents from her travels: scarves and dresses and delicious-tasting sweets.

  Marina laughed and gave her a big hug. ‘I will bring you back the finest pair of dance slippers and then I will teach you some of the exercises that will turn you into the finest dancer that has ever been.’

  ‘So that we can dance together?’ Cassie asked.

  ‘So we can dance together.’ Her mother gave her another tight squeeze and said, ‘Never forget who you are and what you can be!’

  Cassie fell into a deep, happy sleep.

  And then the storm came …

  The next thing she was aware of was an arm gently around her shoulders and Madame Rosa’s voice saying, ‘It’s all right, Cassie. Everything is all right.’ She realised that she was shaking from the top of her head to the tips of her fluttering wings, and that everyone was staring at her.

  ‘Sometimes, dancing has the power to awaken deep emotions and memories in us,’ Madame Rosa said. Cassie slowly felt calmer and the other sprites turned back to their dancing. Madame Rosa looked at her gently. ‘After you’ve eaten supper I want you to come to my study. There is something Id like to show you.’

  Cassie could not believe her luck. She was speechless. She was actually being invited into the principal’s study – the room which she thought might well hold the key to her mother’s disappearance.

  Over supper Lexie said, ‘That was amazing. I have never seen you dance like that before. But are you feeling all right, Cassie? You look drained.’

  For a moment Cassie thought about telling her more about her mother, and confiding why she was really at the dance school – but then Shell arrived, and the moment had passed.

  Shell put her plate down. ‘Great performance this afternoon. Do you think Madame Rosa is about to offer you the role of prima dune dancer?’ she teased.

  ‘She’s probably going to lecture me about showing off. No doubt there’s a Rule about displaying too many feelings.’ Cassie stood up. ‘I’d better get going.’

  ‘Good luck, and if you’re leaving that soup, I can help you out!’ Lexie was already slurping before Cassie had left the dining hall. As she went downstairs, she smiled to herself as she passed Miss Youngsand Jnr’s science lab. This was something to tell Rubus! She tapped lightly on the door of Madame Rosa’s study.

  ‘Enter!’ came the voice from the other side.

  Madame Rosa sat behind a large, highly polished driftwood desk. She was writing.

  ‘Forgive me, but I must finish writing in the Day Book. All events in the dance school must be recorded.’ As Madame Rosa dipped her pen in a pot of squid ink and wrote, Cassie looked around. The study was smaller than she’d imagined it would be, but it shimmered and glowed with candlelight. The walls were mother-ofpearl, and Cassie noticed a strange narrow ledge running along the top of the wall. The small peephole had a large seat covered in different shades of abalone. Opposite the peephole was a shelf filled with exercises books and a large copy of The Sands of Time. On the shelf below it was a row of small hessian-backed books all labelled Day Book.

  Madame Rosa finished writing, looked up and smiled at Cassie. ‘How are you settling in at Sandringham?’

  ‘I am finding learning the steps hard, but I am enjoying it,’ Cassie replied.

  ‘I have been impressed by your application and attitude to work. You have a rare talent for interpretation of feelings – a quality that is essential in a sand dancer. Watching you dance today reminded me of someone, and I want to show you something. Come along.’

  She stood up and walked into the back of the st
udy. Cassie followed her.

  ‘Take a seat.’

  Cassie sat on a chair by an old table, on which there was a large lantern. Madame Rosa opened a small wooden box and took out some painted glass strips. She fitted them around the lantern, lit it and pulled long drapes across the window to make a screen.

  ‘You might be surprised to know that your mother also struggled to master the steps at first,’ she said.

  ‘No!’ Cassie gasped.

  ‘Marina never gave up, and spent hours practising so that eventually she was able to perform the Triple Silica Jump. No one had ever performed it perfectly before.’

  Cassie watched the lantern flicker and the image of her mother dancing floated across the room.

  ‘I am showing you this because I do not want you to give up hope and lose heart in your own dancing. You must realise that dancing is very important – even more important than you already think. You have a raw talent, but that alone is not enough. You need to practise. This is not simply for selfish reasons; sand sprites need to dance to survive. There are those who say that if we stop dancing altogether and forget the secret dune dances, then disaster will strike.’

  Cassie nodded. She was mesmerised by the sight of her mother’s flickering image dancing on the fabric in front of her.

  Madame Rosa sighed. ‘She was beautiful. Look at the way she moves effortlessly from a Dart and Turn into a Dune Arabesque.’

  A knock at the door broke the moment.

  It was Calluna. She scowled when she saw Cassie. Then she curtseyed and said, ‘Madame Rosa, you are wanted urgently. Mrs Sandskrit has asked you to come and look at one of the young sand dancers who has developed the shivers.’

  ‘I’ll be there in a moment.’ Madame Rosa blew out the lantern and guided Cassie out of the door. She smiled and said, ‘Never give up, Cassie.’

  Cassie watched Calluna and Madame Rosa hurry down the corridor. In her haste Madame Rosa had not locked the door behind her. As quickly and as quietly as she could, Cassie went back into the room.

  The air was smoky where the lantern had been blown out. She felt uncomfortable sneaking in after Madame Rosa had been so kind in showing her the slides of her mother.

  ‘If I’m quick it won’t seem so bad,’ she said to herself as she looked around. She looked at Madame Rosa’s desk but, apart from the Day Book, the pot of squid ink and a pen, there was nothing there.

  ‘The Day Books!’ Cassie’s heart raced as she turned towards the bookshelf and peered along the rows of books. What was it Madame Rosa had said? ‘All events in the dance school must be recorded.’ The books were crammed tightly together on the shelf. Sand dancers were methodical, so Cassie knew they must be in some kind of order. There was a space on the shelf for the current book, so the book beside it must be the one with the details of the Night of the Great Sandstorm in it, Cassie reasoned. After all, the dance school had been closed since then.

  A sudden creak outside the door made her stop and try to still her heavy breathing, but luckily the footsteps passed by.

  She took the Day Book off the shelf and began to skim-read through the pages. She was just about to turn over a page when she saw her mother’s name and read about a dancing display she had given. Her eyes prickled with tears and her hand shook as she turned over more pages and read about the inspiring lessons Marina had taught, the talks she had given and the concern expressed about the health of the sand dancers. Hardly a day would go by without her involvement in the school. Cassie’s throat itched with sadness, but at the same time her heart glowed with pride.

  She realised she was getting distracted, and flicked through trying to find the pages relating to the Night of the Great Sandstorm. Towards the end she came to a new section with Pertaining to the Night of the Sandstorm written on a blank sheet.

  Slowly and carefully she turned over the page. Her heart was beating with excitement. Might she find some answers at last? Instead she found a large gap where the pages had been neatly cut out. Cassie was filled with disappointment and confusion. Who would have cut out the pages? And where could she find them, if not here? But just then another sound in the corridor made her stop and freeze. She would be in huge trouble if she was caught snooping.

  Reluctantly she closed the book and placed it carefully back on the shelf and, making sure no one was around, tiptoed out of the room.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Three steps forward and two steps back

  is the way to make true progress.’

  The Sands of Time

  All Cassie could think about was those missing pages. What secrets did they contain? What answers to her many questions were lying in those pages about the Night of the Great Sandstorm? Her head was so full of questions she forgot to leap at the right moment in the Dune Bug Jumps with Mrs Sandskrit the next day, and landed badly on her leg. She darted when she should have turned, and bent when she was supposed to stretch. It was impossible for her to concentrate.

  Over the next week she found she could think of little else apart from the pages. She found it difficult to eat, and Miss Youngsand Snr made her swallow three spoonfuls of green slime tonic every morning to try and get her appetite back. Shell and Lexie kept asking if she was all right, and were very worried about her. But Cassie didn’t feel able to tell them what the matter was – somehow it felt that her secret was too big to burden them with.

  She couldn’t even get excited when Madame Rosa made an announcement one morning at breakfast. ‘As you have generally been working hard I have decided that we will give a public performance at the Harvest Moon Festival in Silica City’

  There was an excited whisper around the room. Madame Rosa raised a hand for silence and continued. ‘But before then it is time for your tests. And no, I will not tell you the exact time, but it will be soon. You have nothing to fear if you have been working hard and concentrating. After the tests I will select the most promising group of dancers to show our talents at the festival.’

  Everyone in the room cheered, apart from Cassie, who was only half listening.

  Cassie urgently needed to see Rubus. She knew she could talk things over with him and together they would work out what to do next. When she slept she would fall into a jumbled sleep where she was chasing her mother through a sandstorm. Every time Cassie got close, her mother would dance away or turn into a shimmering scarf.

  Then, one night, she woke with a start, hearing the rope ladder creaking outside. Then there was a shadow at her peephole. ‘Rubus, where have you been?’ Cassie asked in delight. She felt so relieved to see him.

  ‘The usual.’ He grinned. ‘Why are your lips green?’

  ‘Seaweed tonic. Miss Youngsand thought I was looking peaky’ Cassie stuck her tongue out. ‘But never mind about that – I have some news for you.’

  She told him about the missing pages.

  ‘The book wasn’t damaged?’ Rubus asked.

  Cassie shook her head. ‘No, the pages had been deliberately cut out. Why would someone do that? They must have something to hide.’

  Rubus frowned. ‘If it was that confidential they may have destroyed the pages.’

  ‘It’s more likely they’ve hidden them somewhere. Sand dancers do not like destroying things,’ Cassie replied.

  ‘We need to go back to the study and search for those missing pages. Come on. Let’s climb down and creep round the outside.’

  ‘What about Thassalinus?’

  ‘I brought him some barnacle beer and sea pasties so he’d let me in. That should keep him occupied for most of the evening.’ Rubus sighed as he looked wistfully towards the beach. ‘This is a great night for racing. Still it won’t take me long to get us into the study’ he bragged.

  They crept slowly down to the lower floor. Cassie felt nervous as they moved quickly and silently along the corridor that led to the study.

  Rubus rattled the mother-of-pearl handle as quietly as he could. Then he stood back, stroked his chin and sighed. He ran his hands down the
wood, muttering something about looking for the weak point. Then he flexed his legs and cracked his fingers.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Cassie hissed.

  ‘One kick in the right place and I’ll have us inside in next to no time,’ he said.

  ‘And wake everybody up!’

  ‘I can do a silent kick. I just need to prepare myself.’ He closed his eyes, bent and stretched his legs and padded around slowly in a circle while Cassie patted her hair and took out a wire hairpin.

  She put it into the lock and managed to open it in three waggles.

  ‘Ahh! I was going to suggest that if my kick hadn’t worked – though it would have done.’ Rubus grinned as they tiptoed into the dark study.

  ‘I’ll look on Madame Rosa’s desk,’ Rubus said. ‘You might have missed something before.’

  Cassie went to the small window, pulling the heavy curtain back to give them some light, but there was no moon visible. She checked the window ledge, but its abalone surface was clear and smooth.

  They searched as best they could, but there was no sign of the missing pages.

  Cassie even climbed on Rubus’s shoulders to take a peep at what was on the long shelf that curved around the top of the room.

  ‘Can you see anything?’ Rubus asked.

  ‘Just move a few steps closer so I can reach my hand across.’

  ‘If you’ll stop digging your heels in my back,’ Rubus pleaded as he stumbled. Cassie stretched forward. Rubus wobbled.

  ‘I think I can see something.’ Cassie extended herself further. ‘It looks like a folder.’ She pulled herself forward whilst Rubus tried to steady himself.

  ‘I’ve nearly got it. Almost there!’ Her fingertip made contact with the folder. In her excitement her foot squashed into Rubus’s face, which made him lean and wobble some more, and in the dark his foot stumbled on the uneven floor surface.