Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 042

"Mademoiselles!" called Mme Noelle from outside the dressing room. "Are we plonning to donee today?" She clapped her hands loudly, just once. That meant, in Madame's special shorthand, "Get into the studio, NOW!" I panicked. I bent over my dance bag and practically turned it inside out. They had to be in there! I clearly remembered putting them in the bag the night before, after they'd aired out enough so that they'd be ready to wear again.

I looked around the dressing room. There were heaps of clothing everywhere - tangled leg warmers on the benches, leotards hanging by one sleeve from a locker door - but not a toe shoe in sight. What was I going to do?

Everybody else was hurrying out of the dressing room. Mary stopped for a moment as she passed my locker.

"What's the matter, Jessi?" she asked.

I told her that my toe shoes were missing. Her eyes grew round. She knew how serious this was.

"I wish I could lend you a pair, but my spare ones are at home," she said.

"That's okay," I said. "I really couldn't dance in anyone else's shoes anyway." My toe shoes are unique - everybody's are. And every dancer has a different way of taking care of them. There's a whole routine with toe shoes - you have to break them in (I do it by banging them against the banister on the staircase at home), and sew ribbons onto them, and stuff the toes with lambswool. So even though they don't last too long (I usually need a new pair every week or so), each pair has a lot of time invested in it. And each pair ends up fitting your feet, and your feet alone.

I do, of course, have a spare pair of toe shoes. But guess where they were. Right - they were at home.

"This is terrible," I said. By then I was alone in the dressing room. I could hear Mme Noelle's voice, just faintly. She was taking the roll in the studio. In about three seconds she'd realize that I wasn't there.

I was going to have to go into the studio barefoot.

I took a deep breath and started to walk. I stopped at the dressing room door and took one last look around the room. There was not a single toe shoe anywhere. I looked down at my feet. This was going to be humiliating. And Mme Noelle wasn't going to like it at all.

At least my entrance was quiet. Bare feet make a lot less noise than toe shoes, which tend to make clunking noises when you try to walk normally.

But, as quiet as I was, everybody, including Mme Noelle, looked at me as I walked into the studio.

"Ah," said Madame. "Zee Princess Aurora hos decided to join us." She gestured to a spot on the floor. "Please, your highness, take a seat." Then she saw my feet.

"But where are your shoes, Mademoiselle Romsey?" she asked, her eyebrows raised high.

I felt so ashamed. "I - I don't know," I said.. "I packed them last night, but now they're not in, my bag." I felt hot, then suddenly cold, all over.

"But you cannot rehearse wizout zem!" she said. "And we cannot rehearse wizout you." She stood up. "You must look for zem again. Perhops zey are benease some ozair girl's clothes. Come!" She clapped her hands and gestured to the class to follow her.

I felt like such a jerk, walking back into the dressing room with my entire class marching behind me. When we got there, we started to tear the place apart. Mme Noelle stood at the door of the room as we searched. She had a funny look on her face, as if she smelled a dead fish or something. Usually, she made a point of staying out of the dressing room - and it was obvious that she wasn't enjoying this little visit.

"What is zot!" she asked, pointing at Carrie's neon green, pink, and yellow jacket, which was tossed over a sink.

"That's my jacket," said Carrie.

"I see," sniffed Mme Noelle.

"I think it's wicked cool," said Katie Beth. "I wish I had one." "Perhops if you young ladies were more careful with your sings, zis would not hop-pen," said Mme Noelle, looking at me.

I felt tears stinging my eyes. It wasn't fair! True, everybody's stuff was strewn all over the room. But I'm actually a pretty neat person. My stuff is usually put away in my locker. And I'm always prepared for class. At least I always have been.

I looked around at my classmates. They'd finished poking through the piles of stuff and were looking back at me. I picked up my dance bag one more time and checked it again. No luck. It was empty, except for my high-tops. Too bad I couldn't dance in those.

I looked at Mme Noelle and shrugged my shoulders. "I'm sorry," I said. "They're not here." She gave me a glance that said, as clearly as words would have, "Jessica Romsey, I am most disappointed in you." Then, out loud, she simply said, "Come." We trooped back into the studio and got ready to warm up at the bane. I was just going to have to do the exercises barefoot. Mme Noelle put on some music and led us through a few minutes of plies (plee-ay - that's when you sink down, keeping your backside tucked in and only bending at the knee) and releves (reh-leh-vays - that's when you go up on your toes).

I saw her look at me as I releve'd. Everybody else was en pointe - that is, really up on their toes. I was kind of just pretending. Madame shook her head, her lips in a tight line.

"Zis will not do," she said suddenly. "If Mademoiselle Romsey cannot practice en pointe, zere is no reason to rehearse today. After all, she is zee Princess Aurora, and we cannot do very much wizout her." She turned her back on us and lifted the needle from the record. "Zis rehearsal is concelled." I was shocked. This was worse than I ever could have imagined! Everybody groaned. I knew how they felt. There's nothing worse than missing a day of dancing - it throws off your whole routine. And we needed every rehearsal that was scheduled. The performance wasn't all that far off.

"Isn't there any way we can still rehearse?" asked Lisa.

"What if we just look for the shoes one more time?" asked Hilary. "If Jessi says she brought them, they must be in that room somewhere." Mme Noelle didn't look happy about the idea, but she agreed. "One more time," she said. "But zen, rehearsal is off." I hated having her mad at me.

We all paraded back into the dressing room. I brought up the rear - I wasn't too enthusiastic about another pointless search. Just as I entered the room, I heard Katie Beth squeal.

"Hey, here they are," she said, holding up a pair of toe shoes. They were mine. I could tell from across the room. "They were in your bag the whole time, Jessi." I ran over to her and grabbed them without even saying thanks. My shoes! I'd never been so happy to see them. But I knew Katie Beth was wrong. Those shoes had definitely not been in my bag the whole time. I knew it as surely as I knew my own name.

"Very good, Katie Beth," said Madame. "Zee mystery is solved. Now let us get on wiz zee rehearsal!" She led us back into the studio and the rehearsal began for real. I put on my toe shoes as Madame told us about the first part of the dance we would be practicing.

"And zen," she said, "zee Princess Aurora enters wiz a glissade ..." She made a movement that suggested what I was supposed to do. ". . . and zen a releve en arabesque." Again, she illustrated what she meant.

I love to watch Mme Noelle move. She doesn't dress in leotards for class - she just wears a turtleneck and a long black skirt. And when she demonstrates steps, she doesn't do them full out. But every move she makes is just so - so full of grace is the only way I can describe it. You can see all those years of dance training in the slightest motion of her arm. I don't think she knows how to move like a regular person anymore. I wonder if I'll ever have that kind of poise.

For me, for now, ballet is more like hard work. The stuff I do without having to think about is stuff I've been doing nearly every day for seven years. And everything new I learn is based on those foundations. It takes a long, long time to learn to dance.