opened her mouth to protest.
“No,” I said, “I am! It’s not fair to keep her waiting. She’ll be so pleased when I tell her.”
“But what about you?” wailed Caitlyn. “Why haven’t you heard?”
I shrugged. “I dunno. Post, maybe? Letters are always getting lost.” That, at any rate, was what Dad said. He had this theory that all over London there were huge bags of mail that posties had just dumped. “They’ve probably gone and put it through the wrong door, or something. I’m not bothered! It’ll come.”
I said I wasn’t bothered, and it was true, I wasn’t. Not really. I couldn’t help thinking it was a bit odd, though. Caitlyn obviously thought so, too. I could tell that it was preying on her mind. At breaktime she rushed up to me and hissed, “I know why you haven’t heard!”
I said, “Why?”
“Cos you’re in the second half of the alphabet and we’re all in the first!”
I frowned.
“It’s got to be,” said Caitlyn. “Think about it!”
“Mm … maybe.” I supposed it made sense. Roz Costello, Alex Ellman, Caitlyn Hughes, Madeleine O’Brien. “I’m still going to tell Mum, though!”
I told her when I got back from school that afternoon, even though my letter still hadn’t come. Dad was there as well. He said, “Caitlyn? This is your protégée that you’ve been nursing?”
“I knew it would pay off,” said Mum. “I knew she had it in her!”
“It was me that discovered her,” I said. “Me and Sean. What’s a protégée?”
Dad groaned. “Don’t they teach you anything at that school? Protéger … to protect?”
“You mean, like, Mum’s been protecting her?”
“Guiding her,” said Mum. “Mentoring, if you like.”
Teaching, in other words. I opened my mouth to point out – in case she had forgotten – that I was the one who’d taught her first, but Mum cut in ahead of me. “What I want to know is why Caitlyn’s heard and you haven’t?”
“Oh, we think that’s just cos of me being in the second half of the alphabet,” I said. “All the others are near the beginning.”
“What others?” said Mum, rather sharply.
“Other people that have heard.”
Mum’s eyes narrowed.
“Costello, Ellman, Hughes …” I ticked them off on my fingers.
“They’ve all got in?”
Mum’s gaze flickered across the room to where Dad was sitting.
Dad, very faintly, hunched a shoulder. “Probably just some administrative glitch.”
“Not good enough!” snapped Mum. “Totally unacceptable! If she hasn’t heard by tomorrow, I’m going to be on that telephone demanding to speak to someone.”
“Oh, Mum, no, don’t, please!” I begged. It was bad enough everyone thinking I was like some kind of royalty, just because of who my parents were. I had been quite shocked that Roz and Alex had chosen to tell Caitlyn their good news and not me, simply cos of thinking I was above it all. I wasn’t above it all! I didn’t expect special treatment. I never got special treatment. If anything, Mum was harder on me than on anyone else when she took us for class. She was positively soft on Caitlyn! She never chewed her out or accused her of having arms like waterlogged balloons, like she’d once done to me. But she does undeniably have a lot of influence, and friends in high places, and I desperately didn’t want her wading in on my behalf. I could just hear her. “This is Madeleine O’Brien’s mother. I’m wondering why it is that my daughter hasn’t yet had her letter of acceptance … I presume it is on its way?”
My toes were curling in shame just at the thought of it.
Dad, fortunately, came to my rescue. “Let’s hold fire for a day or two. I’m sure there’s no cause for concern.”
“I’ll give them another twenty-four hours,” said Mum. “But that’s as far as I’m prepared to go.”
“I thought you weren’t worried,” I said.
“I’m not worried!” Mum tossed her head. “What should I be worried about? If Caitlyn’s got in, you’ve got in. I just want things settled.”
Fortunately the letter arrived the very next day. Just in time to stop Mum embarrassing me!
“So what does it say?” said Dad. “I’m on a knife-edge here!”
“It says she’s been offered a place,” said Mum. “What else would it say?”
“You tell me,” said Dad. “All that fussing and fuming!”
“I wasn’t worried,” said Mum.
But I knew that she had been. Just for a little bit, Mum had actually had doubts. She had actually considered the possibility that I might not get in. It was a sobering thought. Did it mean Mum didn’t have faith in me?
Fretfully I said, “If you’d let me go when I was eleven, I’d be in my second year by now. Why didn’t you let me go then? Most people do!”
“Sean didn’t,” said Mum. “He didn’t go till he was nearly fifteen.”
I said, “Jen did!”
But Jen had got married and had a baby and given up dancing. That was practically a sin in Mum’s book.
“Is it because of her you wouldn’t let me?” I said. “Cos you were scared I’d do what she did?”
I’d once heard Mum and Dad discussing it and saying how maybe they’d made a mistake and pushed too hard. That maybe Jen’s heart hadn’t really been in it.
“I’d never give up just cos of having a baby,” I said. “I don’t even like babies all that much.”
Dad said, “Hah! Famous last words … That’s exactly what your mum used to say. And then she went on to have the three of you!”
“Yes, but I carried on dancing,” snapped Mum.
“Until you had me,” I said.
“You were an accident,” said Mum. “But anyway, it was nothing to do with Jen giving up. If you want to know the truth, your dad and I weren’t totally convinced that at the age of eleven you had the necessary discipline for full-time training.”
I stared at her, indignantly. How could she say that? When I’d been dutifully attending classes three times a week for almost as long as I could remember! I hadn’t ever grumbled or complained. Not even when she’d told me my arms were like waterlogged balloons or my fingers like bunches of sausages. In front of the entire class! I’d never resented it. Well, only a little bit. It had never stopped me trying to improve. I’d always worked hard; I’d passed all my exams. What more did she want?
“We just needed to make sure,” said Mum, “that you were really committed. I’ve felt once or twice with Jen that maybe she was only going along to please me and your dad, because it was expected of her, and that perhaps if we’d held her back a bit she might have chosen a different path. We always knew with Sean that his heart was set on it. He only waited till he was older because boys can. There wasn’t any particular rush. But thirteen is a perfectly good age! You don’t have to look all reproachful. You’ve been accepted; you’ll be starting in September. What’s the problem?”
I said, “There’ll be some people that have been there two years already!”
It would make me feel inferior. Everyone