by R. A. Spratt
“Not at all,” said Nanny Piggins. “I don’t think a book could ever do justice to the exciting things that happen to me on a daily basis. Not unless the pages were made out of chocolate.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Boris and the Debacle at the Ballet
hhhh, be very quiet. No sudden moves,” whispered Nanny Piggins as she and the children crouched on the kitchen floor, staring in through the oven door. They were watching their chocolate soufflé.
“Now the heat will make the air we whipped into the mixture expand. At the same time, the egg will start to cook, causing it to lose its tertiary structure and solidify. And that is what holds the soufflé in its deliciously light and fluffy state,” explained Nanny Piggins quietly.
“Wow! It’s like science,” whispered Michael.
“It is science,” whispered back Nanny Piggins. “Only the science of cooking is much more important than that quantum physics or carbon chemistry stuff they obsess about at universities.”
“It’s starting to rise!” breathed Samantha excitedly as the soufflé slowly began to lift.
“Excellent!” whispered Nanny Piggins. “Now everyone be completely silent. The slightest vibration can cause the air to escape before the egg has cooked, which would make it flop like a pancake.”
But just then—BANG!—the back door in the kitchen slammed open, and Boris (all thousand pounds plus of him) burst into the kitchen. “Have you seen this three-week-old newspaper?!!” he yelled.
Nanny Piggins and the children turned to look at Boris, then turned back to look at their soufflé, just in time to see it collapse back into the bottom of the dish.
“Awww,” groaned the children.
“What?” asked Boris.
“We were making a soufflé,” explained Nanny Piggins.
“I thought you were going to get a red, flashing light installed to warn me when delicate things were being cooked,” said Boris. “I would have waited until the egg lost its tertiary structure if I’d known.”
“Yes, but if I knew there were going to be no loud bangs to ruin my soufflé then there would be no risk, and that would take the thrill out of it,” said Nanny Piggins. “Now, what are you so excited about?”
“My old ballet company, the Russian Ballet, is coming here to perform Swan Lake this week!” exclaimed Boris. “We’ve got to get tickets! May I borrow Mr. Green’s credit card?”
“Of course,” said Nanny Piggins as she fished the card out of her shoe. (She kept the real one there. The card in Mr. Green’s wallet was a fake made out of papier-mâché. Fortunately he was too cheap to pay for anything, so he never realized.) “An evening at the ballet is an educational experience. I’m sure Mr. Green would be happy to pay for it, if he was anybody other than himself and therefore a reasonable person.”
“But can’t you ask one of your friends in the ballet company to give you free tickets?” asked Derrick.
At this point Boris looked sheepish. He even blushed, although you could not tell, because his red face was covered by brown fur. “Oh, I couldn’t do that,” said Boris.
“Why not?” asked Samantha.
“You were their star for years,” said Michael. “I’m sure they’d be delighted to see you.”
“Oh, I’m sure they would, but I’d be embarrassed,” said Boris.
“Why?” asked Michael. He could understand someone being embarrassed for forgetting to take off their pajamas before going to school, or for accidentally putting their shirt on inside out and back-to-front (before Nanny Piggins had arrived and taken control of his wardrobe, Michael had done things like that all the time). But since Boris was a bear and did not wear clothes, Michael did not understand what he could possibly be embarrassed about.
“All my old friends from the ballet are still proud professional dancers,” said Boris, “whereas I… well… I’ve let myself go. I don’t do anything anymore.”
“What are you talking about?” protested Nanny Piggins. “You are the busiest bear I know! Just yesterday you helped me fetch the newspaper the delivery boy managed to hurl up into Mrs. McGill’s tree.”
“And you helped me make a diorama of an alien space station that fires real space goo,” added Michael.
“And you teach yoga to homeless people in the park,” added Derrick. “Even the ones who don’t want to learn.”
“And you’re better at hugging than anybody I know,” added Samantha.
“Yes, I do do all that. But it isn’t dancing, is it?” said Boris. “I used to be the best ballet-dancing bear in the entire world. And now…” His bottom lip began to quiver. “I’m just a bear.”
“But you’re always dancing around the garden,” said Derrick. “That ballet you did yesterday to express how sad you felt when the lawn mower wouldn’t start was really beautiful.”
Boris blushed again. “It’s very kind of you to say that, but I don’t think the dancers at the Russian Ballet will see it that way. You see, dancers enjoy being mean to each other. It makes them feel less bad about themselves.”
“They wouldn’t be so mean if they weren’t half starved on crazy diets all the time,” muttered Nanny Piggins.
“You’re probably right,” agreed Boris. “The year they all went on the Israeli Army Diet was unbearable. You could never go to the toilet because there was always someone in there crying.”
“Are you sure they’re your friends, then?” asked Samantha.
“Oh yes, they’re my very dear friends. It’s traditional for ballet dancers to be horrible to each other. If dancers aren’t horrible to you, you know they’ve got no respect for your footwork,” explained Boris. “So I do want to see all my old friends. But since I’d rather not talk to them, I’d better just pay for the tickets.”
That night they all got dressed to go to the ballet. Nanny Piggins insisted they dress appropriately, which meant white tie and tailcoats for the boys and ball gowns and long gloves for herself and Samantha. It was hard to find a tailcoat that fit Boris off the rack, and the tuxedo rental shop refused to rent one to him when they found out he was a bear (despite Nanny Piggins’s threats to sue them for species-ism).
Fortunately, Nanny Piggins was able to whip up a tailcoat and pants herself, by cutting up the curtains from Mr. Green’s bedroom and dyeing them black, then making a white shirt, vest, and bow tie out of Mr. Green’s bed sheets. So when they finally headed into town, they were by far the most stylish people on the bus.
As they entered the theater lobby, the children were immediately impressed. It was a very grand building. There were lots of marble columns, gold-colored decorations, statues of armless women, and furniture upholstered with red velvet. “How does it feel to be back in a ballet theater?” asked Samantha.
“Like coming home,” sobbed Boris, completely breaking down. He had to give them each several bear hugs to cheer himself back up. Then the five-minute bell rang, so they all went into the theater to find their seats.
“You don’t think anyone will recognize me, do you?” asked Boris as he put on a pair of sunglasses to try to hide his identity.
“Oh no, not at all,” lied Derrick kindly. Boris was gifted at transforming himself into whatever he portrayed, but at the end of the day he was a ten-foot-tall, thousand-pound-plus bear and, therefore, he did tend to catch the eye.
The usher showed them to their seats. Nanny Piggins and the children sat down. But Boris just looked at his seat, his lip quivering. “I don’t think my bottom is going to fit in that gap,” said Boris as tears welled in his eyes.
Nanny Piggins had only brought three boxes of tissues with her, so she sought to stem the flow. “The carpenter has obviously made a dreadful mistake,” said Nanny Piggins kindly. “That seat is much smaller than any other one in the theater. But it’s all right; Michael will share his seat with you. Then you can have two seats so you can spread out and be comfortable. Michael, you don’t mind sitting on Boris, do you?”
“Not at all,” said Michael.
> At that moment, the lights went down, and everyone in the hall hushed (except the person sitting behind Boris, who wept quietly, knowing that she was not going to see a single moment of the ballet sitting behind a ten-foot-tall bear with a little boy perched on his head).
The introductory overture started and, as the music swelled, Prince Siegfried danced onto the stage in pursuit of a flock of swans. Soon, through the magic of music and movement, the audience was transported back in time to the fantasy land of Russian folktales, making everyone believe that they really were in the Siberian forest, that tights really were a normal thing to wear when you were out hunting, and that all those skinny women dancers really were beautiful swans.
Next, Princess Odette danced out onto the stage. The already spellbound crowd was awed by her beauty. She paused to acknowledge the applause, then skipped lightly to the front of the stage, where she leaped high in the air and spun in a beautiful triple pirouette before suddenly and unexpectedly disappearing from sight as she missed the stage completely and crashed down into the orchestra pit.
“Aaaaggghhh!” screamed the ballet dancer playing Odette.
“Ow!” said the viola player she landed on.
Odette then loudly screamed several rude words. Fortunately, no one in the audience except Boris and Nanny Piggins could understand Russian, so it did not matter, although Nanny Piggins held her trotters over Michael’s ears just in case.
The stage manager and the ballet company’s physical therapist rushed to help the stricken ballerina. Boris could distinctly hear the Russian words for “broken ankle” and “don’t be silly, of course you can’t dance with a broken ankle,” emerging from the pit.
“What’s happening?” asked Samantha.
“I think they’re going to have to cancel the performance,” said Boris.
“Won’t there be an understudy?” asked Derrick.
“Oh no, there’s never an understudy,” said Boris. “Principal ballerinas always feel threatened by their understudies, so they usually push them down a flight of stairs or poison them before they go on tour.”
The stage manager got up onstage and gestured for silence. “Please,” he said, addressing the entire audience. “Is there anybody in the theater who is a ballet master and knows the role of Odette?”
The audience muttered among themselves and looked about to see if anyone was going to stand up. No one did except Nanny Piggins, but Derrick grabbed her by the arm. “Sit down, Nanny Piggins; you aren’t a ballet master.”
“How do I know until I try?” protested Nanny Piggins.
But then Boris removed Michael from his head and proudly rose to his feet.
“I, Boris the bear, know the role of Odette,” announced Boris. (Back when he was a ballet dancer, Boris had normally played Prince Siegfried, because that is the boy’s part. But if you hold a woman up above your head often enough you come to know her well, so Boris was familiar with the woman’s part too.)
The dancers onstage were amazed and muttered among themselves in Russian. “Look who it is!” “It’s Boris, the greatest ballet-dancing bear in the world!” “Doesn’t he look dashing in that tailcoat?”
The audience watched in stunned silence as Boris made his way to the front of the theater and climbed up onto the stage, only stopping to peer into the orchestra pit and speak to the stricken ballerina. “Hello, Svetlana, I’m terribly sorry about your ankle. But don’t worry; I’ll fill in. I’ll play Odette just the way you do, so if anyone is late they won’t even notice I’m not you.”
Boris was then ushered backstage. He reappeared moments later in a white tutu. The children did not recognize him at first because he moved with all the beauty and grace of a ballerina. But there were a few distinctive characteristics—his movements were even more graceful and beautiful than the other dancers, plus if you looked closely you could see that he was still ten feet tall and covered in fur.
The ballet resumed, and it was wonderful. Nanny Piggins got so caught up in the story that the children had to restrain her several times from running up onstage and telling off the wicked Baron Von Rothbart. Then at the end, when Odette and Siegfried jumped into the lake and Nanny Piggins realized that they were not just going swimming, she was devastated. They were all very glad Nanny Piggins had brought three boxes of tissues. They had never seen a pig cry so hard.
Boris’s portrayal of Odette had been perfect. It was the best performance of Swan Lake ever. True, the dancer playing Siegfried had struggled to lift Boris, but Boris just lifted him instead. And nobody, except a ballet aficionado, would ever notice the difference.
As the curtain closed and the audience burst into applause, Nanny Piggins and the children climbed up on their seats to clap and whistle the loudest. Boris had to come back out and bow seventeen times before the theater management got tired of it and started flashing the lights on and off to make everybody go home.
“Come along,” said Nanny Piggins. “Let’s go backstage and tell Boris how wonderful he was.”
Backstage, it was hard to get to Boris’s dressing room because so many people had crowded around to congratulate him. There were ballet dancers and orchestra players and rich people with nothing better to do everywhere, and they were all babbling in Russian. Eventually Nanny Piggins made her way to the front by saying “izvinitye” (Russian for “excuse me”) and, when that did not work, by stomping on a few feet.
They found Boris reclining in his dressing room, wearing a purple silk robe and sipping honey tea while a gaggle of adoring ballet critics, theater management, and other important people gathered around him.
“Boris, you were magnificent,” praised Nanny Piggins.
“I never knew Swan Lake was so awesome,” said Derrick.
“It was even better than that ballet you did to show Headmaster Pimplestock what you thought of his curriculum,” added Michael.
Samantha did not say anything. She just hugged Boris’s leg with pride.
“Thank you, darlings; it did go well, didn’t it?” said Boris.
“Let’s go home and create a dessert to name after you,” suggested Nanny Piggins. “I’m sure we can come up with something better than the pavlova they named after that hack what’s-her-name.”
“I wish I could. But Mikhail has asked me to join the company for a pot of honey back at their hotel,” said Boris, nodding toward the dancer who had played Siegfried. “I’d invite you along, but it would be boring for you listening to a bunch of old dancers reminisce.”
Mikhail and Svetlana (who was sitting there with her leg propped up on a bag of ice) laughed.
“Oh,” said Nanny Piggins.
“Don’t wait up for me,” said Boris as he turned back and started talking to Mikhail and Svetlana in Russian.
Nanny Piggins led the children away.
“Is Boris all right?” asked Samantha. “He seems to be acting peculiarly.”
“Performers are often a little strange after a show,” explained Nanny Piggins. “It’s because the fear and the adrenaline haven’t worn off yet. Don’t worry; I’m sure he’ll be back to normal tomorrow.”
“I hope so,” said Michael. “Boris the ballet star doesn’t seem as nice as Boris the bear who lives in the shed.”
The next morning, Nanny Piggins and the children were, again, crouched on the kitchen floor, staring in through the oven door as they watched their second attempt at chocolate soufflé. There was no whispering this time—just to be sure. If they wanted to communicate with one another they wrote notes, very quietly, on a notepad.
“It smells delicious,” wrote Samantha.
“That is a good sign,” Nanny Piggins wrote back. “Smell is a sure indicator of cooking. This is the crucial stage—everyone try to breathe quietly.”
The children took small, shallow breaths as instructed, and the soufflé gradually started to lift… when—BANG!—the back door slammed open.
“Good morning,” called Boris as he did a grand jeté (a flying leap) into
the room. The moment he landed, the soufflé sank, along with the culinary hopes of Nanny Piggins and the children.
They turned to look at Boris. He was still wearing his tailcoat, although the white bow tie hung loose, and he was carrying four dozen red roses in one arm with a huge bucket of half-eaten honey in the other.
“Did you have a good night?” asked Nanny Piggins politely.
“Oh, Sarah, it was marvelous,” gushed Boris. “And the most wonderful thing has happened. They have offered me my old job back, as the male lead in their new ballet. They did offer me principal ballerina because I was so much better than Svetlana at playing Odette. But I think I would prefer to play the male roles. I don’t want to be typecast.”
“But you aren’t going to take the job, are you?” asked Michael.
“Why wouldn’t I?” replied Boris.
“Because the Russian Ballet Company is based in Russia. It’s going to take forever for you to travel back and forth to Russia every day,” said Michael.
The others looked at Michael. It was times like this that they remembered that he was the youngest and most naive.
Boris just laughed. “You silly billy. I will, of course, be moving back to my homeland, Mother Russia.”
Michael burst into tears and ran out of the room.
“What’s wrong with him?” asked Boris.
“He’s just had his feelings hurt by a very stupid bear,” said Nanny Piggins sternly.
“He’ll get over it,” said Boris as he got up to return to his shed. “And you must all come and visit me in Moscow, after a year or two when I have settled in.” With that, Boris left the same way he entered—banging the back door loudly.
“What on earth has happened to Boris?” asked Samantha.
“He is suffering from a tragic medical condition,” said Nanny Piggins. “His head has become swollen. It is a very common malady in the entertainment industry. It can strike anyone, even lovely, caring bears.”
