Ballet Shoes for Anna

by Noel Streatfeild

  The invitation accepted, Gussie hung back and, when no one was looking, took a scarf, two pairs of woollen gloves and a tie out of his pockets and laid them on the counter.

  “That is the worst of Britain,” he thought, “all behave too well so it is not possible to take more. It is better in Eastern countries.”

  Then he hurried after the others.

  But Francesco had noticed Gussie was not with them. So when he caught up he whispered anxiously:

  “You didn’t take anything, did you?”

  Gussie’s face expressed shocked amazement.

  “Me! Take a squeeze when the man offers ices! Such an idea!”

  BEFORE SCHOOL STARTED Wally’s dad had a talk with Wally. They were down by Bess’s sty. Wally was cleaning out.

  “When I was in that smash with me lorry,” Wally’s dad said, “I couldn’t bring meself to talk about it, not for months I couldn’t, even the insurance could only get what ’appened out of me slow like. I reckon the three Docksay kids is like that. It’s not ’alf goin’ to upset them if the children at the school asks too many questions.”

  Wally leant on his rake which he was using to clean the sty.

  “I know, but what can I do about it? Maybe Francesco and me might be in the same class but the other two won’t so I can’t see what’s ’appenin’ to them.”

  Wally’s dad wheeled his chair closer to the sty, as if he was afraid someone would hear what he said though there was only Bess there.

  “I was thinkin’ you might ’ave a word with the ’ead.”

  Wally nearly fell into the pigsty. “The ’ead! Why, I never spoken to ’im and ’ope I never will.”

  His dad went on calmly as if Wally had not spoken.

  “I was goin’ to see if your mum would go, but you know how she is, like enough just seein’ the ’ead and she’ll talk about you.”

  Wally did see. Too well he knew that his mum believed he was not properly appreciated in the school. Not promising anything, he asked:

  “If I was to see the ’ead what would I say like?”

  In the evenings Wally’s dad sometimes went down to a pub called The George and Dragon for a pint. There the publican had a boy of Wally’s age who was clever, and often the publican talked to Wally’s dad about the headmaster and what an understanding man he was.

  “You can do it all right, son. Just tell ’im what a state the kids get in when they remember what ’appened, ’e’ll understand all right.”

  Wally had no idea how you saw a headmaster, but the next day he got on his bike and went to the school. He knew the headmaster would not be there, but the school keeper would and might know where he lived.

  The school keeper was loading some coke into the boiler room to be ready for when central heating started. He knew Wally by sight.

  “ ’Ello!” he said. “Not like you to come to school when you don’t ’ave to.”

  “It’s a message I got for the ’eadmaster,”Wally explained. “D’you know where ’e ’angs out?”

  “You’re in luck,” said the school keeper, “he’s inside seeing some new bookshelves what has come for the library.”

  The headmaster was equally surprised to see Wally.

  “Hello! Wally Wall, isn’t it? What can I do for you?”

  Wally swallowed twice then burst without pause into his story.

  “It’s these Docksay kids what’s coming next term. Me dad says you did oughter know what a state they gets in if anyone asks them questions. When we first sees them it was shockin’ the way they cries, you see, they ’aven’t nobody left not except an uncle an’ an aunt, who does right by them but they don’t get on like an’ …”

  The headmaster was a tall man. Now he laid a hand on Wally’s shoulder.

  “Not so fast. Let’s sit down and talk this over. I think your father was quite right to tell you to see me. But what we have to think about is how best to do what needs to be done.”

  As a result of Wally’s talk it was arranged that as soon as the children arrived for their first day at school he should take them for a guided tour round the school and the playing field. Meanwhile the headmaster would talk to the rest of the school and tell the children that the Docksay children were not to be questioned. That some day they would talk about what had happened but until then they were to be left alone.

  “You try to imagine,” he told the school, “what it would be like to go for a walk and come home to find your father, your mother, your brothers and sisters – all your pets and your house just disappeared. One or two of the teachers know because it could happen in the last war, but if it did, even now all these years later, it’s not a thing we talk about. So you treat Francesco, Augustus and Anna just as if nothing had happened to them. I know it’s hard, for we’d all like to know what it’s like to be in an earthquake, but we must wait and perhaps some day they will tell us. Hands up those who understand.” Every hand in the room shot up.

  Francesco, Gussie and Anna liked school. It was, they found, easier than doing lessons with Olga for each worked in a separate class, whereas Olga had to try and teach all three at once though none of them was studying at the same level. The children had taken for granted Olga had taught them well, but really it was surprising for Olga’s English was bad and, though she had been well educated in Turkey, she was not trained as a teacher, yet the children passed the little tests given them with, on the whole, flying colours.

  The headmaster told them the results.

  “You have done well, especially in arithmetic, reading and geography.”

  “Arithmetic we must know,” Gussie explained. “When every two, three weeks it is another country and another money you must learn to add in all.”

  “Geography is I think easier when always you are travelling,” Francesco pointed out. “But it is the Near and the Far East which is good, where a country is cold we never work.”

  Anna saw the caravan in her memory with Olga in her broken English reading to them from Alice in Wonderland or The Wind in the Willows.

  “Because we must read Christopher buys a big box of books called Children’s Classics. I do not remember when we could not read.”

  The headmaster heard a tremble in Anna’s voice so he gave them all a big smile.

  “But nobody taught you how to speak English.”

  Francesco nodded.

  “Everyone said our English was bad. Christopher said it was terrible.”

  “So did S’William,” Gussie put in, “and so does The Uncle. He is going to give us lessons and this we do not like.”

  “Well, I must say you can do with some lessons,” the headmaster said. “Now I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to put you this term to work with people of your own ages, then later on we’ll see.”

  The children liked school, not always the actual lesson times but the play times were fun. They soon got to know all the children in The Crescent and Francesco made friends with Jonathan and Priscilla who were in his class. But though Gussie in particular was always asking questions, neither he nor Francesco could find out how to earn fifty pence a week. They were in a junior school where the children were too young to be allowed to work. Older children, they discovered, could earn such money easily on paper rounds or helping in a shop on Saturday mornings, but for children of their age working was not permitted.

  “Don’t you get pocket money?” Priscilla asked Francesco. “All children do.”

  “How is pocket money?” Francesco asked.

  All the children in the school were trying to improve Francesco’s English.

  “Not ‘how is?’” Jonathan said. “It’s ‘what is?’Anyway, it’s money you are given every week to spend.”

  Francesco was thrilled.

  “Who gives such money?”

  Priscilla could hear the sentence was wrong but she did not know how.

  “Our father gives ours, I suppose your uncle would give yours.”

  Francesco knew the answer to
that.

  “He would not. The Aunt perhaps if she could, but I do not think she has much.”

  However, he passed on the news to Gussie in case he had any ideas.

  “Now that we have the English lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays could we perhaps talk about pocket money?”

  The Uncle’s English lessons were always conversations. He would pick out one of the children and say: “Describe what you did this morning” or “Describe what you do at recreation.” Francesco always tried hard to answer correctly. Gussie wouldn’t try at all and Anna was so scared of making a mistake she only spoke in a whisper. To do Uncle Cecil justice he was very patient, he merely corrected, never scolded, but there was that about his patience that made Gussie describe it as “too full a cupboard out of which any minute all would fall”.

  Now Gussie thought over what Francesco had said.

  “It is true all but we have pocket money. Each week they give a new penny to buy a lifeboat or for a dog to lead a person who is blind. Us they do not ask because they know we have nothing.”

  “Some pay for school meals,” said Anna. “For this they have much money to pay, in one week more I think than the whole dancing class.”

  Gussie gave Anna a dirty look.

  “If you think I am going to starve for your lessons you are wrong.”

  “Nor will The Uncle pay for the school dinners,” Francesco pointed out. “He says sandwiches is better. And I think so too, it is terrible what they had yesterday, that thing called a cottage pie and prunes covered in custard.”

  “Always the sandwiches are not good,” Francesco agreed, “but often they are and The Aunt cuts pages out of papers to find new things to put in them which taste good to eat.”

  “We must try the pocket money,” Gussie said. “Today is the lesson, let us agree the first one he asks a question of talks of pocket money.”

  “Oh no,” Anna pleaded, “not if it’s me. I will do it wrong.”

  Gussie looked at Francesco.

  “So she would. The first of us two. It is agreed.”

  “I suppose so,” Francesco said gloomily.

  That evening when the children came into the lounge and sat on the sofa it so happened The Uncle started with Gussie.

  “Describe to me, Augustus, your school library.”

  “It is a room by itself and each day two boys is …”

  “Are,” said The Uncle.

  “Two boys are looking after it. We go at the dinner break and change a book.”

  “The books are free?” The Uncle asked. This was of course Gussie’s chance.

  “Yes, otherwise all in the school …”

  “Everyone in the school,”The Uncle corrected.

  “Would get books except us, we would have no books because we have no pocket money.”

  Uncle Cecil was silent for a moment. The truth was he had forgotten pocket money. But when he had been a boy there had been some. A penny for church on Sunday. Three pennies towards school charities and two pennies for himself. Christopher, when he was old enough for school, had only pretended to put a penny in the bag on Sundays and had never given a farthing to school charities, but had secretly spent his whole sixpence on painting materials. Uncle Cecil turned to Francesco.

  “If you had pocket money, Francesco, on what would you spend it?”

  Francesco told the other two afterwards he so longed to say “on dancing lessons for Anna” that he nearly did. Then, just in time, he stopped himself. Trying desperately to speak good English so as not to offend he said:

  “As the other children do. There is – I mean are – many school charities to which all give. This week I think we will buy a lifeboat.”

  Uncle Cecil of course understood that money today would not go as far as it had when he was at school, so, feeling very generous, he decided to double what he had received.

  “Every week,” he said in a grand voice, “each of you will receive five pence.”

  OF COURSE THE children could not use their pocket money either for school charities or for themselves. Every penny would be needed for Anna’s dancing classes, and obviously fifteen pence a week would be a great help. All the same, it still left a lot to be found and not one word from S’William. Not knowing that Sir William was capable of leaving an unposted letter in his pocket for six weeks the children worried, for of course they knew how easy it was to be well and happy in the morning and to have vanished for ever by the evening.

  One night in bed Francesco said to Gussie:

  “No one has said something has happened in Alaska. I asked Wally to ask his dad, for he reads two papers but he says there has been nothing in the news.”

  There was now only one week’s money left to pay for Anna’s classes. Gussie found it hard never to have sweets when others did.

  “I was thinking that our five pence should be saved for a week when we have earned nothing. Then some weeks we might not need it.”

  Francesco sat up in bed.

  “I do not know yet of a week when we can earn anything. Not unless Wally hears of something. He is trying hard.”

  “What I think,” said Gussie, “is that we should take turns – you the first week, me the second. Then it could be sometimes we have our pocket money to ourselves. Not perhaps Anna as she is causing us to work but you and me.”

  Francesco was suspicious.

  “Have you a plan?”

  Gussie sounded cautious.

  “No. But – I have ideas.”

  Francesco leant over towards Gussie’s bed.

  “Do tell me before you do anything. There is not the same rules in Britain as there was in the places we knew. Then to beg was honourable and to take a squeeze from the shopping correct, but here it is not so.”

  Gussie smiled in the darkness.

  “Do you think I don’t know! You get the fifty pence your way and I will find a way to get mine.”

  Francesco found it hard to sleep that night. If only he knew what Gussie was planning. But since they had been going to school Gussie had gone his own way and made his own friends and Francesco was not sure they were good friends for him. Wally had put this idea into his head.

  “Young Gus has picked up with The Gang.”

  Francesco’s English was improving rapidly. So he swallowed back “How is a gang?” and instead asked what it was.

  “It’s them from the new block of flats. They’re what’s called re’oused from farther off an’ by what’s said they’re a rough lot. You know, breaking public telephones and that for fun.”

  “Why is that fun?” Francesco had asked.

  Wally couldn’t explain exactly.

  “Just for somethin’ to do, I reckon, but young Gus did ought to watch out, for the coppers ’ave their eyes on a lot like that.”

  Now, tossing in bed, Francesco thought of what Gussie had said. “You get fifty pence your way and I’ll find a way to get mine.” But what would be Gussie’s way? Oh dear, if only S’William were back. Then he had an idea and it was this which sent him to sleep. Tomorrow he would write to S’William so at least he would get a letter the moment he returned to England.

  The one person who never appeared to worry at all where fifty pence was coming from was Anna. It was true that she spent most of her free time thinking about her dancing, and working at exercises in her bedroom, but the truth was that she had a secret worry of her own as well. She was almost sure that Miss de Veane, though she had not said so, was planning that she dance in her public performance at Christmas. After a lesson she would say:

  “Before you go, Anna, do this enchaînement for me. Wait, I will put some music on the gramophone.”

  And then Anna was given a series of steps which she could guess was part of a dance. It was lovely to do and made her feel much more that she was really dancing than exercises did, but she knew it was wrong. Jardek would never have allowed it. But what was she to do if Miss de Veane ordered her to dance? She had learnt a lot since she came to Fyton, and one of the t
hings she had learnt was that until S’William returned and the picture could be sold she must learn from Miss de Veane, for she was the only teacher there was. There would be other teachers in London but London was many miles away and she had no means of getting there.

  It was natural now for Anna to go to Francesco when she had a problem, so she went to him about her dancing lessons. He should know what she most feared. In the last two weeks only Francesco had taken Anna to her class. Gussie, on the days when they did not learn English with Uncle Cecil, had taken to slipping off after school with his friends. This Wednesday, on the way home from her dancing class, Anna said to Francesco:

  “That was the last of our money. Will you have another fifty pence for next week?”

  Francesco had no idea where his fifty pence was coming from but he did not want to worry Anna.

  “It will be ready for next Wednesday.”

  Anna tried to explain what was troubling her.

  “I think perhaps if Miss de Veane knew we have no money she would teach me for nothing.”

  Francesco could have jumped like a kangaroo. For nothing! No more worrying where fifty pence was coming from! However, he spoke cautiously for there was no knowing what Anna felt.

  “Why should she?”

  Anna looked up at him and her eyes were full of anxiety.

  “I think perhaps Jardek taught better even than we knew. At Christmas Miss de Veane gives a great performance in a concert hall, it is for some charity. At such a concert all she has taught, dance – girls like Doreen. I think she would wish me to dance so all would think it was not Jardek who had taught me but that she had. So more pupils come.”

  Francesco was shocked.

  “But you are only eight. Jardek would never permit this.”

  “I am nearly nine,”Anna reminded him. “And Jardek is no longer here.”

  This was so miserable a thought that they walked in silence for a moment, almost on tiptoe so that what little they still had of Jardek would not be disturbed. Then Francesco asked:

  “Has she said she wishes you to dance?”

  Anna shook her head.