Ticket To The Sky Dance

by Cowley, Joy

  ‘Did you hear me, Mr Ashoga, sir?’ Anna was standing beside him, offering him a pink container with a spray top.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Mr Matisse had this made for you in the laboratory—your personal deodorant. Mr Matisse says that if you don’t like the perfume, he can change it.’ She pressed the top and there was a faint whiff of something that smelled like Gran’s cinnamon biscuits.

  Shog was both embarrassed and relieved. He noticed that the label on the container was like a prescription notice, his own name inscribed in large letters. Mr Ashoga Donoghue.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  Jancie wrinkled her nose. ‘Don’t forget to do your feet, too,’ she said.

  Compared with the makeup session, the photograph tests were brief. They sat in a studio next to the video room, surrounded by screens and lights, while a man called Zeke danced around them taking rapid shots with a camera lens that looked like a missile. They were photographed front on, side on, singly, together, moving and still. Then it was over and they were told to go.

  ‘I nearly forgot!’ said Zeke. ‘Mr Matisse has issued your Class Act House cards. Miss Jancie. Mr Ashoga.’ He handed them two rectangles of embossed pink plastic. ‘You may use these in the restaurants, cinema, shops and amusement arcades, in the same way that a credit card is used. Simply sign your name, each purchase.’

  ‘Credit card?’ Shog looked at his name on the plastic surface. ‘That means we have to pay?’

  ‘No. Class Act pays,’ said Zeke. ‘Your signature is for the accounting department, that’s all. As far as you are concerned, everything is free.’

  ‘We don’t know if we’ve passed our photo tests,’ said Jancie. ‘Maybe we’ll fail and Class Act won’t want us.’

  Zeke had begun to put away his camera equipment. ‘The photo test was a mere formality,’ he said. ‘Mr Matisse made a decision the moment he saw you. You are both very lucky.’

  Shog was aware that Zeke did not call them Sir and Madam, nor did he treat them like royalty. If anything, he had seen them merely as objects in front of his camera and, now that the session was over, he seemed to want to be rid of them. ‘What about our friend Banjo?’ Shog asked. ‘Does he get a card?’

  ‘He had it hours ago,’ said Zeke. ‘Excuse me. If you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.’

  They found a large group of students enjoying their midday break in the amusement arcade, using their pink plastic cards to buy tokens for the machines. Banjo was in a space fighter, a helmet over his head, engaged in a virtual reality battle above a dust sea on Jupiter. His teeth were clenched and he swayed sideways at the controls, grunting. When Shog touched him on the shoulder, he jumped as though he had been lasered by a horde of aliens.

  ‘We’re in!’ Shog shouted.

  Banjo couldn’t hear. He took off the helmet, his hand pressed against his fluttering heart. ‘You gave me a fright!’ he bellowed.

  ‘We’ve made it!’ Shog shouted back. ‘We’ve been accepted for the modelling course!’

  Banjo’s face lit up like a shop window. He laughed and punched Shog on the arm, then he climbed out of the space fighter. ‘I told you, didn’t I? I knew they just had to take you. Man, you look different! Smooth haircut! Where’s Jancie?’

  Shog turned round. Jancie was up at the token booth, trying out her Class Act credit card.

  Banjo had to return to an afternoon of classes. ‘In the morning we have school work,’ he said. ‘In the afternoon, it’s modelling. You know what deportment is? It’s about standing and moving right. You know, like models and actors do. We get Mr Matisse for that. Then someone has us for speech and media presentation and someone else takes us for dance aerobics. We finish at 4 pm.’ He folded his timetable and put it in his pocket. ‘I reckon they’ll start you two tomorrow.’

  ‘Do the students go home for the weekend?’ asked Jancie.

  Banjo shook his head. ‘They don’t go home for two and a half months. It’s part of the training. Remember what Savannah said? It’s a rule and the parents have to sign their consent. Us fresh air kids are different. They get consent for us from someone like Social Welfare.What’s the time?’ Then he laughed, remembering his new Class Act wristwatch. ‘Got to go. See you later.’

  Shog and Jancie used fifty tokens in the virtual reality machines, battling dragons under mountains, engaging in aerial warfare, steering jet boats on the Colorado River, racing cars on a Grand Prix course, weaving their way through a haunted mansion, driving a space train across an alien planet, avoiding beings made of fire. Still they had not sampled a sixth of the machines in the arcade.

  Shog wanted to get more tokens but Jancie was keen to see the shops.

  There were four stores and, in them, they could get anything from perfume, hair ties, hand-held hologram games, music discs, to giant stuffed animals, remote-controlled helicopters and classical guitars. The biggest store was filled with clothing, Class Act and other brands, and Shog noticed in the footwear section a whole row of Zeus boots.

  ‘You see that?’ he said to Jancie. ‘We can get them for nothing.’

  ‘This is too much!’ she said.

  ‘You know something? I’m scared Peaches is going to turn up here and try to arrest us. If I get a new pair of these boots, I can mail them back to that guy in the shop.’

  Jancie shook her head. ‘Bet you can’t. Bet they wouldn’t even let us write a letter. Have you noticed something, Shog? There aren’t any phones here, not even in the public areas.’

  He picked up a pair of Zeus boots and put them down again.

  ‘Have you seen a phone anywhere?’ she asked.

  He shrugged. ‘They must have them in their offices. It’s like they said. We can’t have contact with the outside world for two and a half months.’

  ‘What about Gran?’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘How can we call the Eventide Home to see how she is?’

  ‘She’ll be all right. Sure, she will.’ He spread his hands in the air. ‘Jancie, don’t glare at me like that! I didn’t make up the rules. We’ll get someone to phone for us! Marlene or Anna. Or Leroy! It’s only ten weeks!’

  It was Mr Matisse himself who set their minds at rest. He had come to formally announce their acceptance into the school and to outline their courses of study over the next three months. ‘Great shakes, my little poppies!’ he cried. ‘It is true that we don’t permit direct outside contact for the first ten weeks, but we are not fiendish ogres! I myself personally, and with the utmost care, handle all messages by phone, fax, computer mail and carrier pigeon. At any time, the students may put a message on my desk and I absolutely drop everything to see that it goes through. Does that console your tender little hearts?’ He reached out and patted them both. ‘When the ten weeks is up, Leroy will take you to visit your grandmother—every day, if you like. Any more questions?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jancie with her usual bluntness. ‘Why are you doing all this for us?’

  Mr Matisse flicked his blond pony tail over his shoulder and gave her the kindest of smiles. ‘My dear Miss Jancie, that question reveals a low self-esteem that needs immediate attention. You do not realise your own worth. We do this for you, my pretty one, because you are exceedingly valuable to us.’

  Later, Shog had to admit to himself that he didn’t know when Mr Matisse was teasing and when he was serious, but Mr Matisse had guaranteed that he would have Leroy immediately deliver a pair of Zeus boots to the shoe store, and that he would phone the Eventide Home twice a week for a bulletin on Gran’s condition.

  That had also made Jancie happy. The questions that had been troubling them, the newness of the luxury that surrounded them, the strangeness of their extraordinary luck, all faded with familiarity and soon they were as Banjo had been in the limousine, acting as though they had always been students of Class Act. With plastic cards ready they went through the stores, buying as much as they could carry back to their rooms. Jancie had bags of shirts and jeans,
cosmetics, some high-heeled shoes, a wide-brimmed hat covered with flowers, a pocket-book computer, in-line skates and a large polar bear pillow. Shog got himself western gear, a stetson hat, silver studded jacket, real leather chaps and fancy stitched boots. He also stocked up on candy bars and bubble gum.

  They tipped their new possessions out on Shog’s bed and were showing them to each other when Banjo came in. Then they began again, holding up each item for Banjo’s inspection.

  ‘Great hat!’ cried Banjo, putting on the stetson. It sank down over his eyes. ‘I reckon this would be big enough for my dad. He’d love it. Hey! I must do some shopping!’ He turned towards the window and lifted up the hat. For a moment he held it in front of his face, admiring the braided leather band with its silver clip. Then he looked beyond it to something outside and his face opened up with recognition. ‘There’s Elizabeth Frey!’

  ‘Where?’ Shog came over and stared down at green lawns, the garden, the pond by the driveway.

  ‘There! Getting into the car!’

  The white limo was in front of the house and a woman in a green fur coat was sliding through the driver’s door. Shog glimpsed straight black hair, a white face, thin hand. For a moment he felt puzzled. It was as though he were looking at a photo doubly exposed, two images, one on top of the other. ‘That’s Dr Robinson,’ he said.

  ‘It’s Elizabeth Frey,’ said Banjo. ‘I told you about her. She’s one of the bosses, with Mr Matisse.’

  ‘It can’t be!’ said Shog. ‘Jancie? Look here. This woman getting into the car. Isn’t she Dr Robinson from Social Welfare?’

  But by the time Jancie had strolled to the window, the woman had shut the door and the white limo was rolling down the drive.

  Banjo laughed. ‘You got your wires crossed, man. She was in the Meek and Gossan store. I sat beside her in that car, all the way out here. I tell you, I know her!’

  Jancie was hugging her fluffy polar bear pillow. ‘What are you two on about?’

  Shog took his stetson from Banjo and put it on. ‘Oh nothing,’ he said. ‘My mistake.’

  Jancie took a step backwards and grinned. ‘Shoot, Shog! You stink like rotten cinnamon!’ she said.

  Chapter Nine

  For school sessions there were no classes. Each student had his or her own computer work station and each day was given a folder with discs containing individualised programmes. Jancie’s first folder had four discs, interactive math, a reading exercise with an oral spelling test, a short film about the wildlife in high desert areas and a socio disc on accident prevention in the home and workplace. No student could spend more than an hour at a time at his or her computer. Every sixty minutes, a buzzer sounded and no matter where they were in their work, they left their stations for a ten-minute refreshment break. It was the only time during school hours that the students were together. They stood in groups in the lounge area, drinking milk or soda and talking. Most of the conversations were about modelling and clothes but the students also talked abut families, friends ‘out there’ and the schools they had been to. Many were homesick and some of the newer children looked red-eyed and sniffly.

  Jancie and Shog were apart for most of the time. Jancie’s work station was between that of Taylor Shaw, a tall girl with long red hair, and Stephen Chang, a boy of twelve who was like Banjo, short for his years. Stephen had a round face and eyes that disappeared when he laughed. His father was a surgeon, his mother an actress. It was his mother who wanted him to be a child model.

  ‘When I grow out of juvenile fashion, I shall probably train to be a doctor,’ he said. ‘I shall try to look elegant in a white coat. What will you do?’

  ‘I haven’t thought that far ahead,’ said Jancie. ‘But my brother and I are going to buy a house.’

  ‘That’s so wise,’ said Taylor Shaw. ‘People tell me that Class Act work their models to the bone, but they pay fabulous money. We’ll all be millionaires in no time at all.’

  ‘Do your parents want you to go to college?’ Stephen asked Taylor.

  The red-headed girl looked towards the door and her smile became vague. Then she gave a little laugh and said, ‘Time’s up! Back to slavery!’

  Shoot, thought Jancie. She’s another fresh air kid, like us, only she’s not going to admit it.

  For most of the afternoon classes, the girls and boys worked in separate studios. They learned to breathe correctly. They spoke into microphones that beeped when they mispronounced a word or slurred letters. They were taught the differences between fad and fashion and style, had lectures on colour, cosmetics, diet, jewellery.

  They were weighed and measured. Their teeth were checked. They did gymnastics, classical dance and aerobics. In Mr Matisse’s class, they discovered how complicated a thing it was to simply walk across a stage.

  ‘Lead with your hip bone, my dear Miss Taylor. Do you know where your hip is? Good. When you turn, point it.’

  ‘No, no, Miss Chanelle, we do not slap our feet down heel first. That’s for ducks. Quack, quack. We prefer to pitter-patter like cats.’

  ‘Miss Jancine! Ma’am! Elbows in. They are not coat-hangers, my lovely. And don’t ever, ever, ever, spread your fingers like that. Hands cupped and curved, graceful as rosebuds.’

  ‘Walk tall, my lovelies! Tall, tall! Your spine is a straight steel rod. No flopping in my class, Miss Taylor.’

  By Saturday night, everyone was tired and most did not get out of bed before eleven o’clock on Sunday morning. Banjo was up early to go down to the chapel. He was the only one there, he said, but Jancie was too sleepy to feel guilty. She sat at her table in a deep green silk robe with matching scuffs, eating fruit salad, muffins, drinking chocolate milk and reading a comic book. It was a fine day outside. A heavy dew, almost a frost, shone on the grass and the bare branches of the trees, but the sky was blue and there were still a few roses blooming. In the distance the sea shimmered like a grey mirage, beautiful and beyond touch. Sometimes she longed to run across the road, down to the beach, and feel the edge of the breakers icy on her bare feet. It was not permitted, of course, but they could go anywhere they liked within the grounds. When Shog woke up, they could put on their new running gear and do a few circuits of the track around the garden.

  Marlene knocked on the door. She was in her pink uniform and Jancie wondered if she worked seven days a week.

  ‘Miss Jancine? I have messages from Mr Matisse, one for you and one for Mr Ashoga.’ She handed Jancie two pink envelopes with the Class Act logo. ‘They came in late last night and I didn’t want to disturb you.’

  ‘Thanks, Marl.’ Jancie remembered that her mumbled words always got a beep in speech classes. She repeated clearly, ‘Thank you, Marlene.’

  Marlene smiled with her unchanging politeness. ‘It is a pleasure, Miss Jancine.’

  Neither envelope was sealed. Jancie opened Shog’s, wondering if it was urgent enough to wake him. The message was brief.

  Memo to Mr Ashoga Donoghue from Matisse: The Zeus boots were delivered to Ramsay’s shoe store as promised and there will be no further action.

  Jancie opened the other envelope. Her message was even shorter.

  Memo to Miss Jancine Donoghue from Matisse: Your grandmother is well and sends you her love.

  Jancie stared at it, then leaped up, spilling the last of her chocolate milk. ‘Shog! Shog!’ she yelled, as she raced to his room.

  Shog was slow and sleepy and he couldn’t see anything wrong with the message. ‘You know what they’re like at the Eventide Home. They’d give any kind of response.’

  ‘I don’t believe he phoned,’ she said, waving the paper at him. ‘I think he made it all up. Yours, too.’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Jancie.’ He pulled the pillow over his head.

  She snatched it away. ‘Gran sends us her love!’ she yelled.

  He pulled a face. ‘All right, so that’s a bit of an exaggeration. It got added on. But that’s no reason to jump up and down like a flea at a dog show. Heck, if you’re worried go and
ask Matisse.’

  ‘He’s away today.’

  ‘Well, tomorrow then. Jancie, it’s not a trick of some kind. Matisse is doing us a personal favour by taking our messages. He just got that bit wrong. Anyway, it’s not all wrong. Gran would send her love if she could. Have you had breakfast?’

  ‘I want to phone the Eventide Home,’ she said.’I don’t believe he called and I want to know how she is.’

  Shog was now sitting up, rubbing his fingers through the hair that stood up in a fuzz like dark cotton wool. ‘You can check with Leroy. If Matisse sent the boots back, then you can be sure he phoned the home about Gran. Heck, Jancie, we were really stupid to do that shoe store. Now, thanks to Mr Matisse, we’re in the clear. That makes us just about the luckiest kids in the city. You know how many dream of working for Class Act? How many get chosen? Even kids whose parents have heaps of money get turned down. They asked us, Jancie. You, me, Banjo. They actually asked us. Don’t you do anything to spoil it.’

  ‘Spare the shootin’ lecture, Shog. I just want to phone the home. That’s all.’

  Shog leaned forward. He was looking fierce. ‘You mess this up, and I’ll never forgive you, Jancie.’

  She looked at him for a moment, then gave a quick laugh. ‘I won’t mess anything up. You’d better get out of bed. Banjo’s been waiting for hours.’ But as she walked out the door, she added under her breath, ‘And I’ll find a squawk box if it shootin’ well kills me.’

  That afternoon they ran twenty laps of the garden track, swam in the heated basement pool and then dressed for the formal Sunday evening dinner. The restaurant was made into a banqueting hall, tables set with white linen, silver, crystal glasses and flowers. Almost fifty boys and girls, who had spent the afternoon in sports gear and casual dress, appeared as young adults in evening wear.

  Banjo wore a red jacket, dark grey pants and white shirt with a red, black and white striped tie. Shog was not comfortable in his dark blue suit. Jancie saw him slouch, then straighten up, then slouch again, throughout the evening. She too had to keep reminding herself that this was a part of the course and that they were learning how to conduct themselves at formal social engagements. Her dress was simple, a bright buttercup yellow sheath with shoes of the same colour but the skirt was tight and she had to move carefully to prevent it from wrinkling up round her thighs. Shoot! she thought. This is me, little Jancie who always hated dresses! And she stood tall, aware that in every part of the room there were tutors watching the students and making notes in readiness for class tomorrow.