Let the Dance Begin (9 page)

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 her- self recalling once again the Night of the Great Sandstorm and the last time she saw her mother.

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 . . .

‘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.

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 study. 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 dis- appointment 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.

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.