Skating School: Silver Skate Surprise

by Linda Chapman

  Chapter Three

  A Brilliant Idea

  Emily worked hard all lesson and afterwards she stayed on the ice to practise some more. The rink emptied until there were just three other people left – Zoe, Heather and Amanda. They were all from the Ice Owls dorm. Zoe was helping Heather, and Amanda was skating through sections of the routine on her own.

  ‘Are you staying too?’ Emily asked, skating over to Amanda.

  When she had first started at the school, Amanda had been really annoying, often boasting and telling tales, as well as being really competitive. But the Iceskating Academy had been good for her. She seemed to be trying much harder to be nice now.

  Amanda nodded. ‘Do you want some help?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ Emily replied eagerly. ‘I’m having a problem with the first section.’

  ‘OK, let me see what you’re doing.’

  Emily set off. She jumped the double loop and that was fine, but when she started the next steps, her feet seemed to get tangled up and she ended up stopping and exclaiming in frustration.

  ‘You’re going too fast,’ Amanda told her. ‘And you’re looking down. It’s throwing your balance off. Let’s go through it slowly.’

  Amanda went through all the steps until Emily could do them properly.

  ‘Wow! Thanks!’ she said, amazed Amanda had been so patient.

  ‘No problem.’ Amanda smiled. ‘You helped me in the scavenger hunt and you really helped Heather last week. Now it’s my turn to help you.’

  ‘I wish I could see the dance from start to finish,’ Emily said, sighing. ‘It might help me to learn it.’

  ‘I could try,’ offered Amanda. ‘I won’t be brilliant, but it’ll give you an idea. Why don’t you ask the dragons to play the music?’

  ‘It’s almost suppertime,’ Zoe called to them from across the rink. ‘Are you two coming?’

  ‘In a minute,’ Amanda called back.

  Emily skated over to the large purple music box at the side of the rink and lifted the lid. Inside there was a complicated set of wheels and levers and four pale-blue ice dragons, each about the size of her hand.

  ‘Hi,’ Emily chirruped in dragon language. ‘Would you play the Lulling Dance for us, please?’

  ‘Of course,’ one of the dragons chirruped back.

  Emily lowered the lid. She loved the ice dragons and had started to learn their language in the second week. She was getting good at it now.

  Amanda skated to the centre of the ice. She stood, hands by her side, one leg crossed behind the other, waiting for the beautiful music to begin. Emily watched as Amanda began to skate through the routine. She was very good. Maybe she’ll be the Ice Princess, Emily thought, watching as Amanda jumped the double loop followed by a graceful layback spin, her dark hair sweeping around her.

  Amanda moved into the mid section, jumping a double flip followed by a double lutz. Emily rubbed her eyes. Suddenly she felt really tired. Amanda was gliding on one leg, lifting the other leg up behind her. She finished with a final upright spin. Emily had to blink to stop her eyes from closing.

  Amanda skated over. ‘How was that?’ Emily couldn’t stop herself. She yawned.

  Amanda’s face fell. ‘Oh, that good.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Emily apologized. ‘It was great. I just feel so tired suddenly.’

  ‘Me too,’ yawned Zoe, who had been watching from the side with Heather.

  ‘I guess we have had a long skating session,’ said Heather, rubbing her eyes.

  Amanda looked at the three of them. ‘Or…’ She broke off. ‘No, it couldn’t be,’ she said, shaking her head.

  ‘What?’ asked Zoe.

  ‘Well, the dance is supposed to make the dragon sleepy, right?’

  Emily stared at her, trying to work out what she was thinking. ‘You mean maybe the dance was working? Maybe that’s why we’re all feeling sleepy!’

  ‘I’m not feeling quite so tired now you’ve stopped dancing,’ said Zoe. ‘Just sort of happy and content.’

  ‘Like you’ve had a long sleep?’ said Emily. Zoe nodded.

  ‘Weird! I feel just like that too!’ Emily said.

  ‘The magic must have been working!’ Amanda said in astonishment.

  ‘That’s so cool!’ breathed Heather.

  Emily looked enviously at Amanda. She wished she could dance the routine well enough to make the magic work already. She’d only just managed to do the first section. The girls came off the ice and Zoe and Heather waited for them while they changed out of their skates.

  ‘I do love being here,’ said Zoe happily. ‘All the magic stuff is great – and learning about the land – but it’s also just amazing being at a school like this. I always used to read books about boarding schools and wish I could go. Now I know what it would be like.’

  Emily nodded. ‘I wish we’d had a midnight feast like they do in books.’

  ‘Well, why don’t we?’ suggested Amanda. ‘We could!’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ Zoe gasped. ‘We could do it on Saturday night, our last night here.’

  ‘All of us?’ said Emily.

  ‘No, not Camilla,’ said Heather promptly.

  ‘But we can’t just leave her out,’ protested Emily. ‘That would be really mean.’

  Zoe looked thoughtful. ‘I suppose we could just have the feast for our two dorms. We don’t need to tell anyone in the Snow Foxes dorm.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Heather, pleased. ‘Let’s do it just for us. And we can have it here. We can eat and skate – perfect!’

  ‘OK,’ Zoe said, her eyes shining. ‘We meet here at midnight on Saturday night then. Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed!’ they all declared.

  Emily told her dorm about the feast at suppertime.

  ‘It’s a brilliant idea!’ exclaimed Molly.

  ‘What will we do about food?’ Tilda asked.

  ‘We could ask the frost fairies for some,’ suggested Alice.

  ‘We could ask them to join us for the feast too – and the ice dragons,’ said Emily eagerly.

  ‘But we’ll need to keep it secret from the teachers though,’ warned Hannah. ‘I bet we’ll get into loads of trouble if they find out.’

  ‘And we mustn’t let the Snow Foxes know,’ muttered Molly, glancing over to where Camilla, Tess, Helena and Clare were sitting at a table together.

  Tess saw her looking. ‘What are you lot talking about?’

  ‘It’s a secret,’ they all chorused with grins.

  ‘Oh, ignore them,’ said Camilla, turning her back.

  Molly giggled, but Emily felt a pang of guilt. She didn’t like the Snow Foxes, but it did seem a bit mean to leave them out. ‘Maybe we should invite them too?’

  ‘No way!’ whispered Molly. ‘They’ll only spoil it. Now, let’s start planning what food to ask the frost fairies for.’ Her eyes sparkled. ‘This is going to be so much fun!’

  Chapter Four

  Plans and Preparations

  The next morning they had an extra long lesson with Madame Longley, the teacher who taught them all about the magic land. She brought some ice dragons into the classroom and started teaching the girls how to speak dragon language so that the girl chosen to be the Ice Princess would be able to ask the fire dragon to leave the mountain.

  Emily loved it. She was really good at dragon language already and so she just chatted to Charlie, the smallest ice dragon, while the others tried to work out how to say hello and attempted to ask the dragons to do things.

  Some of the girls, like Alice and Hannah, found it easy; others had more trouble. When Camilla asked her ice dragon to fly in a circle, he promptly flew into the waste-paper basket and fell asleep! Emily had to hide her grin. She had a feeling he had understood Camilla very well, but ice dragons could be very mischievous when they wanted to be!

  In the skating lesson later that morning, Monsieur Carvallio made them go over the individual jumps in the routine until

  Emily’s head was spinning. Hannah, Molly, C
amilla, Zoe and Amanda, who were all in the advanced group with Madame Letsworth, had already mastered all the different moves.

  ‘You can start linking the sections together now, girls,’ Emily heard Madame Letsworth say.

  ‘If we do the whole dance, won’t we send each other to sleep?’ said Amanda.

  Emily had a feeling she was remembering the day before.

  ‘No, I’m sure you will be fine. The dance needs to be skated in a certain way for it to work. If you are just practising for the competition, it is very unlikely you will send anyone to sleep,’ Madame Letsworth reassured her. ‘But, just in case, don’t all do the dance at exactly the same time. The magic is very powerful and the more people who dance it, the stronger it will be.’

  Hannah put up her hand. ‘If the magic works better when lots of people do it, Madame, why don’t we all go and skate the dance for the dragon?’ she asked curiously.

  ‘We don’t want the dragon to fall asleep, Hannah,’ Madame Letsworth reminded her. ‘We need him to feel peaceful and happy so that he will listen and agree to move, but if all of you were to dance the Lulling Dance then he would fall asleep completely. That would be disastrous because when fire dragons go to sleep, they sleep for a hundred years. During that time, his breath would melt this land completely.’

  Emily saw Monsieur Carvallio glance at her as she stood listening. She quickly started skating again. She jumped the double loop, landed well and followed it with the step sequence she had been practising with Amanda the night before. As she finished it, she felt a surge of triumph. She’d done it!

  ‘Good work, Emily!’ Monsieur Carvallio called. ‘Why don’t you start working on the middle section now? I’ll be over to you in a few minutes.’

  Emily tried her hardest all lesson. By the end of the class she could manage most of the dance and just had trouble with the final difficult combination of two double jumps followed by a spiral and then a spin.

  She fell over quite a few times. But she didn’t let herself be put off. I’ll get it right by Sunday, she thought determinedly. I will.

  When Emily got off the ice, Camilla was unlacing her skates in the changing area. ‘How many bruises have you got, Emily? You must have fallen over about a hundred times today.’

  Emily ignored her. Over the last six weeks, she had learnt not to be bothered by Camilla’s snide remarks.

  ‘You know, if you skate like that, you’ve got absolutely no chance of being the Ice Princess,’ Camilla carried on.

  ‘Oh, and you’d make such a good one,’ Molly said, coming into the changing area. ‘At least Emily would be able to talk to the dragon if she was the Ice Princess. If you asked him to leave the mountain, he’d probably not understand you and ask his friends round for a party instead!’

  Camilla scowled at Molly. ‘I’ll learn dragon language by Sunday. It’s not that hard. Anyway, you weren’t much better!’

  ‘At least my dragon didn’t fall asleep,’ said Molly.

  ‘Are you coming, Camilla?’ Tess called.

  ‘Yeah.’ Camilla got up. ‘Let’s go and talk about you know what.’ They met each other’s eyes and grinned.

  ‘What are you going on about?’ Molly asked.

  ‘You lot aren’t the only ones with secrets, you know,’ Tess said mysteriously.

  ‘It’s OK. I’ll tell you, Molly,’ said Camilla. She leant forward. ‘It’s…’ She broke off. ‘Nah, sorry,’ she said with an infuriating smirk, ‘I’ve changed my mind. See you later!’

  Molly rolled her eyes. ‘Not if I see you first,’ she muttered.

  The next few days flew by. There was so much to pack in. Knowing it was her last week in the Land of Ice and Winter, Emily wanted to do all the things she loved best – skiing, taking the huskies out in the woods, sledging and snowball fights.

  She also wanted to skate as much as possible of course. Her practising was paying off and by the end of the week she could perform most of the Lulling Dance well, although she did still have problems with the double–double combination. Everyone else had improved too.

  Emily kept watching them and wondering who would be the Ice Princess. Would it be Molly with all her energy, or Hannah with her grace? Camilla, who always seemed to sparkle on the ice, or Amanda, who was so expressive? And there were others who were good too – Zoe, Alice, Tasha.

  Or maybe it’ll be me, Emily thought, crossing her fingers. She wondered what it would be like to face a fire dragon. It was quite a scary thought, but every night she dreamt about being the Ice Princess.

  On Saturday morning Emily woke up to find the frost fairies had delivered the girls’ costumes in the night. All the girls had white dresses, but each one was slightly different. Molly’s was dramatic with a low back and a short, jagged-edged skirt; Hannah’s was longer and more elegant, made of a velvety material with long sleeves and a scooped neckline.

  Emily thought hers was the most perfect of all – it had a skirt made of floaty material, short sleeves, and the neck and hem were edged with sparkling, diamond-like jewels. But then everyone seemed to like their own dress best! The frost fairies had done really well. The girls were allowed to wear the costumes for their morning skating class. It made it all seem so much more real.

  ‘Really concentrate on yourself and your own performance,’ Madame Letsworth told them all before they started. ‘This is your last chance for a proper practice.’

  Emily had been getting better at the double jump combination followed by the spiral, but she still didn’t manage to get it right every time. She thought she had managed it by lunchtime when she had skated the moves ten times without getting them wrong under Monsieur Carvallio’s watchful eye. But then, in the afternoon’s dress rehearsal, when they took it in turns to skate to the music on their own, she had fallen on the second jump.

  Emily got quickly to her feet and carried on, but she was cross with herself.

  ‘Don’t worry, it was just one fall,’ Hannah said when she skated off the ice.

  ‘Yeah, you did it great this morning, Em,’ said Molly.

  Emily told herself she hadn’t been the only person who had fallen – several of the others had too – but she wished she’d got the routine right.

  Hannah squeezed her hand. ‘You’ll be fine,’ she said comfortingly. ‘Don’t worry.’

  Trying to put it behind her, Emily concentrated on clapping and cheering the others as they came off the ice.

  As Emily sat down at supper, three of the frost fairies fluttered over. They perched on the table and one of them quickly drew a picture of a plate of cakes on Emily’s napkin using magic. She wrote the word ‘tonight’ underneath it and then pointed at herself and at Emily. Emily grinned. She’d been so busy skating, she hadn’t really thought about the midnight feast all day, but it was only a few hours away now. ‘Yes, tonight,’ she whispered.

  The fairies giggled in delight and flew away. They seemed just as excited by the idea as Emily.

  Hannah, Molly, Tilda and Alice came to sit down with their food. ‘I can’t wait until tonight,’ whispered Tilda.

  ‘The frost fairies have said they’ll wake us up,’ said Molly, who’d been organizing the feast.

  ‘I’m not going to need waking up,’ said Alice. ‘There’s no way I’m going to be able to sleep.’

  ‘Me neither,’ said Emily.

  But, by the time they went to bed, they were all so tired after the busy day that they fell fast asleep within five minutes. Emily was in the middle of a dream about skating in front of an ice monster when she felt something tickling her face. She sat up. It was dark and two frost fairies were fluttering in front of her. Emily blinked as everything came flooding back. Of course! It was time for the midnight feast!

  Chapter Five

  Midnight Magic

  Within a few minutes everyone was awake. ‘Come on!’ hissed Molly.

  Alice giggled. ‘This is brilliant!’

  ‘We’ve got to be really quiet,’ said Hannah. ‘We mustn’t l
et any of the teachers hear us.’

  Putting on their dressing gowns, they crept downstairs to the corridor where the Snow Foxes and Ice Owls had their dorms. As they tiptoed past the Snow Foxes dorm, Emily bit her lip. The Snow Foxes, particularly Camilla, were very annoying, but it felt a bit strange to be doing something big and exciting at the school without them.

  The Ice Owls were waiting. They all hurried down the final flight of stairs and along the deserted corridors towards the kitchen. The frost fairies flew in front, leading the way.

  The kitchen was a massive room painted a sunshine yellow, with three large tables and a huge cooker. Bunches of dried flowers and herbs hung from the ceiling and frost fairies swooped around. On one of the tables a wonderful feast was laid out – iced biscuits in the shape of skates, pink cupcakes, scones, a massive bowl of strawberries and jugs of fruit juice. Emily grinned. This was going to be the best midnight feast ever!

  Everyone picked up a jug or a plate and carried it to the ice rink. They started whispering in excitement.

  ‘Shh!’ said Hannah quickly as they reached the bottom of the staircase that led up to the teachers’ rooms.

  One of the frost fairies flew away up the stairs. ‘The fairies are going to take it in turns to keep watch in case the teachers wake up,’ Molly whispered.

  They reached the rink. The moon and stars were shining down through the glass roof and the ice was glittering with a silvery glow. All the dragons who worked at the school were there, perched on top of the music box. They waved as the girls came in, and the smallest one, Charlie, turned a somersault.

  The frost fairies spread out a snowy-white tablecloth on one of the square benches and everyone put down the food and drink. Molly made sure the heavy doors were shut properly so no noise would carry up to the teachers.

  Emily glanced at the rink. It looked beautiful in the moonlight. ‘Let’s skate before eating.’

  The ice dragons jumped into the music box and almost immediately a lively tune flooded out. Everyone changed into their skates and started to whizz round, gliding in circles, jumping and spinning. After a week of practising just one dance, it was lovely to be able to skate however they wanted.