Chapter Eleven

A big white building with too many windows.

Girls stretching everywhere, their hair in impossibly tight buns.

Scary-looking adults walking around with faces that don’t know how to smile.

I was at the one place I never wanted to be.

An audition.

And, to make it worse, an audition at Dance Art Academy.

The only thing my body wanted to do was sleep, not perform an audition piece that I’d only put together in the last week.

And not very well, at that.

Before that even happened, everyone still had to do a warm-up class where all the teachers from the Royal Academy of Ballet judged you on how well you took direction, and your natural ability.

Maybe I could shove myself into a corner where no one would look at me.

Mum and I went to register at reception, but I was too busy checking out Dance Art to take much notice.

‘Paige Montreal,’ Mum said to the woman behind the desk. ‘Here for the masterclass.’

I could feel Mum’s hand on my back while the lady tried to find my name on her list. It took forever. I started to hope that maybe Mum had forgotten to enrol me after all.

But no such luck.

‘Oh, here you are,’ said the lady. ‘Yes. Paige. After the warm-up class you will be in the second audition block. That’s at eleven o’clock. Fiona will call you to the waiting area when you’re up.’ She pointed at another lady who looked like she was born to hate ballerinas.

Great.

It would have been so good to have Ashley by my side, making silly jokes about everyone. Or Ellie, whose confidence always made me feel better.

Mum handed me a sticker that I had to put on my leotard. Number 23.

‘This is so exciting, Paigey,’ she said, guiding me down the hall. ‘I bet you can’t wait. Do you want to find a spare room to practise your audition piece before the warm-up?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m okay.’

Dance Art was so scary-looking! Such high ceilings. Floors made of marble that looked like they were cleaned every hour. (Meanwhile, Silver Shoes had dust bunnies behind every door.) There were also huge framed pictures hanging on the walls of every single competition Dance Art had ever won. They were the only splashes of colour in the place. Everything else was so white and bright. It hurt my eyes.

And my tummy.

Mum led me down about a million corridors before we finally reached the audition space. Get this – it was a ballroom! One that looked like it held fancy-dress balls a hundred years ago. What did Dance Art use that for?

There was a huge group of girls and a few boys gathered around the double doors. Some were even lined up down the stairs, doing their stretches against the balustrade.

Why were they so keen to get to the audition? All I wanted to do was run away!

‘Are you sure you don’t need to warm-up, Paigey?’ asked Mum. ‘I think you should.’

‘It’s too crowded,’ I said.

Although the truth was that if I even moved my body in the smallest way, I felt like my breakfast would come up.

I hunted around for Riley and spotted her, away from the door, which made me feel a tiny bit better.

I had to push past to get to her, and I’d barely said hello before we were called into the ballroom for the first part of the audition.

The ballroom was more than big enough to fit all of us, so of course I had nowhere to hide. They let us line up wherever we wanted, and I quickly took a place next to Riley.

Straightaway I needed to pee.

I was stressing out so much, I didn’t even really hear the Royal Academy people introduce themselves.

Was my ribbon tight enough? Was my posture good? Were those girls over there staring at me, waiting for me to mess up?

This is only a warm-up, Paige, I told myself. You’ve done these steps a million times before.

We began with barre work, moving into the five positions, demi pliés and grand pliés, relevés, and then leg stretches – coupé, posse, ronds de jambe and battements. It was so familiar to me that I began to relax.

I could do this, couldn’t I?