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, Camilla, 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!
