‘Ooh! It looks gorgeous,’ drooled Jess, a hungry look on her face.
I nodded my head in agreement, ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘It looks delicious.’
Jess’s eyes gleamed, or maybe it was the reflected light from the refrigerator, ‘Did your mum make it?’ she asked a note of awe in her voice.
‘No it was me,’ I said, putting on my best innocent smile.
‘You never did, you’re a big fibber Bethany Green.’
‘I did so.’
‘Liar, liar, tongues on fire.’
‘No it’s not,’ I said, sticking out my tongue and touching the tip to my nose.
‘Yuk, that is horrible, and you still didn’t make it.’
‘Alright, alright, mum made it last night.’
All the time we had been talking we had been staring into the refrigerator. The object of our desire was a magnificent trifle that sat on the middle shelf.
We had moved from an upstairs flat into the new prefabricated bungalow a month earlier and mum, who was used to a stone slab in the pantry, had fallen in love with the new refrigerator in the kitchen. No more daily shopping for her after work. She now did the majority of her shopping on a Saturday and any perishables that she bought; she would place in the magical gas operated larder, to be kept for days without spoiling. But that wasn’t all, she could now prepare meals or special treats, like the trifle, the night before, place them in the magic box and hey presto they would appear on the table when she came home from work the next night.
‘I don’t suppose we could…?’ asked Jess.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ I warned. ‘If we touch it before mum comes home, she’ll kill us.’
I can’t say I wasn’t tempted, because I was, all that fruit filled red jelly topped off with a thick layer of cream, sprinkled with hundreds and thousands made my mouth water. Reluctantly I closed the refrigerator door and we went into the sitting room to read our comics until mum got home.
A little while later Jess looked up from her copy of Playbox and said, ‘Maybe your mum wouldn’t notice if we tried just a spoonful?’
‘I don’t…’ I began and then gave in to the temptation. ‘Oh, all right, but just a teeny little one.’
I should have known better, one spoonful led to another and of course we had to have piece of fruit each. We hadn’t eaten more that a few spoonfuls, but there was a small and seriously deep hole in one side of the trifle. Oh, my God what was I going to do now? I looked at the clock, thank goodness, mum wouldn’t be home for two hours yet, ‘Quick, ‘ I said. ‘You look in the cupboards on that side and I’ll look in these one’s, see if you can find any strawberry jelly.’
We searched everywhere but all we found was one single square of raspberry jelly. It would do, it was red after all. Having watched mum the night before I knew just what to do. While Jess put on the kettle, I got out a basin, placed the square of jelly inside and when the kettle boiled poured on some of the water and as if by magic I had for the first time in my life made some jelly. After waiting for the jelly to cool slightly I carefully pored the jelly into the hole in the trifle, and let it stand, while I washed up and put away the basin and the spoon.
‘What are you going to do about the cream?’ Asked Jess.
‘If the jelly sets a little, I’ll scrape some off the top and fill the hole with it.’
‘And if it doesn’t set?’
‘I’ll just have to scrape it over and hope for the best.’ I said as I placed the trifle back into the Refrigerator.
Twenty minutes later I took the trifle from the refrigerator; the jelly was nearly set, so I spread the cream across until it filled the hole and then shrieked, as I realised that the hundreds and thousands had disappeared into the cream. We searched the cupboards again, but there were none.
‘I’ll run to ours and see my mum has any,’ said Jess
‘You’ll have to be quick then,’ I said. ‘Mum will be home soon.’
I had almost given up on her when she burst though the door, handed me a packet of hundreds and thousands and cried breathlessly, ‘Quick! Quick! Your mum’s coming.’
Within seconds the trifle was sprinkled, placed in the refrigerator with the raspberry side to the back and we were sitting reading our comics when mum walked through the door, ‘Had a good day at School girls?’
‘Yes mum, yes Mrs Green,’ we chorused, as her hung up her coat.
‘Good,’ she said, disappearing into the kitchen and calling back, ‘Your tea won’t be long.’
Shortly afterward dad came in and by the time he’d had a quick wash the tea was ready. We had hot pot and when mum brought in the trifle Jess and I held hands under the table while it was dished out, we needn’t have worried mum didn’t notice a thing. Mind you, dad, who got the last portion, did ask mum what flavour the jelly was, and when she said strawberry, commented that he thought it tasted like raspberry.
‘Come on, hurry up, or you’ll be late,’ said her mum.
‘Don’t care, don’t want to go,’ she said sulkily.
‘We’ve been through it all before, this is the school you’ve been allocated.’
‘But it’s not the school I want to go to, I want to go to St Joseph’s, with Shannon and Laura.’
‘What you want and what you get are two different things. Now get a move on.’
Tracy stopped dead, ‘No, I’m not going,’ she said, shaking her head so vigorously that her long brown ponytail swished from side to side like the real thing. Her green eyes flashed and she planted her trainer-clad feet firmly on the ground. ‘It’s not fair you can’t make me.’
‘What’s fair doesn’t come into it, I marked St Joseph’s as first choice on the form, but they have allocated you a place at St Mary’s and there is nothing I can do about it.’
‘I’m still not going, I don’t know anyone there.’
‘You better make up your mind to go, because I’m not going to get a fine, or go to jail, just because you don’t want to go to school.’
‘All right. All right! I’m going, but I hate you.’
Tracy’s mum sighed with relief, ‘Thank, God for that,’ she said and stood and watched as Tracy trailed slowly through the school gates.
While it hurt to be told by your only daughter that she hates you. She knew that it was just the anger and frustration talking and Tracy would say sorry later. Tracy was a good kid and she had every right to be upset. They lived within the catchment area for St Mary’s and while all her friends – one of them lived in the same street – had been picked, Tracy hadn’t. She'd tried talking to the Headmaster, the School Governors and the Educational Authority, but it was a waste of time, as far as they were concerned the lists were made and that was that; So much for the right to go to the school of your choice.
In the schoolyard, Tracy stood alone and watched her mum turn and leave. She thought of waiting till her mum was out of sight and then slipping out to catch the bus into town. She would have too, if she thought she could have done it without getting her mum into trouble. Since dad had left, it took all of mum’s money to keep them and she really wouldn’t have been able to pay any fines.
It was Tracy this time that sighed, as she turned to look around her. The schoolyard was full of noisy, happy kids and they all seemed to know each other, judging by the shouted comments and laughter.
Although she was a friendly girl, she was a little shy and found it difficult to make the first move. As a consequence, she spent the first day hovering on the outskirts of various groups hoping to be invited to join in, but they all seemed to be so wrapped up in their friendships that they failed to even notice poor Tracy. She fought against the tears that threatened and smiled a thin smile and waited for the bell that would announce home time.
She was first out, ran all the way home, threw herself on the bed and let the tears flow. She cried until she could cry no more, then pick up a CD and pushed it in the player. At first she sat on the edge of the bed, thoughts of her first day swirling through her head and then as the music worked its magic, she began to sway. She loved to dance and had attended dance classes every week, since the age of six.
With the help of the music, her mood lifted a little, she danced a few steps across the floor, reached out, ejected the CD, replaced it with another and selecting a track, began one of her dance routines. Soon she was so immersed in the moves that the cares of the day fled and she seemed melted into the music. When the piece ended she clicked to another track, began a faster more complicated routine and by the time her mum came home, she was able to manage a smile.
‘Hi, darling, how was your day?’
‘OK.’
‘What does OK mean? Did you make any friends?’
‘Yeah, a girl called Laurel,’ Tracy lied, she hadn’t meant too, but it was only a small fib and a least it would keep her mum from going on and on. Besides, if she didn’t make friends with anyone tomorrow, she wasn’t going back, and if mum tried to make her, she’d probably run away.
‘Tea will be ready in an hour, why don’t you go and call on Shannon?’
‘No, I think I’ll go up play some music, I’m a bit shattered.’
She wasn’t, but she couldn’t stand the thought of Shannon banging on about the great day – which she just knew – her friends would have had at St Joseph’s.
If anything the second day was worse than the first. She might as well have been invisible for all the notice that anyone took of her. That’s it, I’m not having any more of this, she told herself, when the bell rings, I’m leaving and never coming back.
But as she hurried along the corridor, a notice on the board caught her eye; “Drama and dance group 4pm in the Western Hall”. She hadn’t know that the school even had either a dance or drama group and thought she might as well take a look, she glance at her watch, it was only 3.30 but she’d go anyway, you never know it might start early.
It only took 5 minutes to find the hall, she tried the door, it was locked, she looked around and spotted another near the corner, she tried the handle and the door swung open. After climbing a short flight of stairs she found herself standing on a well-lit stage. Shading her eyes, she peered out into the hall, but could see nothing it was so dark. She looked around the stage; it was empty apart from the sound system against one wall.
Walking over she spotted a pile of CDs and on the top was her favourite, “All That Jazz”. She looked around, the place was still empty, switching on the sound system, she picked up a radio mike, tested it was working, slipped the CD into the player and at the end of the intro slipped smoothly into her routine. She a good voice with just the right pitch for the song and flowed through her moves as if she had been born with dance shoes on.
When the song ended she made sweeping bow towards the darkened hall and was startled as someone began to clap enthusiastically.
‘Wow! That was fantastic,’ called a voice. ‘Hang on, I’m coming up.’
Tracy peered in the direction of the voice but could see nothing beyond the glare of the footlights and she was looking into the hall when a thin girl with long blonde hair, appeared at the end of the stage.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know anyone was out there,’ Tracy apologised.
‘Don’t be sorry, that was so cool, I wish I could move like that.’
‘Thank you,’ said Tracy self-consciously. ‘But who are, you?’ she asked.
‘My name’s Laurel, what’s yours?’
‘Tracy.’
‘Are you going to join the drama group?’
‘Yeah, I think so.’
‘Come on, then,’ said Laurel, grabbing her hand. ‘I’ll show you around, before the rest get here.’
Kraw the dragon groaned as he picked himself off the ground. Nora Rumpkin had cast a spell on him, just because he had water bombed her house. He hadn’t meant to do it. Well, not really. Well, not her house anyway.
It had all started when Katie had to spend the afternoon doing chores in the orphanage – Katie was a golden haired freckle faced orphan, who had been adopted by Kraw on her ninth birthday, cool or what?
Anyway she had been busy, and having nothing better to do, Kraw had wandered over to the smithy. Jim the blacksmith and he had become great friends last winter when Jim had helped him get his flame back after a bad attack of flu. He had barely said good afternoon to Jim when Rob Barley – who arrived, to report that Grumpy Dave’s chimney was on fire – interrupted them.
‘I’ll call out the fire watch,’ said Jim.
The fire watch consisted of Chas Morgan and Robby Stobbs, who work for farmer Mole. Jim’s job was to climb the tower and ring the alarm bell to summon them from the fields when anyone reported a fire.
‘If you tie a harness around that water barrel, I’ll see to the fire and you won’t have to call out the watch,’ said Kraw who was always willing to give a helping hand.
Five minutes later Kraw grabbed the loop at the top of the harness and flew off with the barrel of water hanging below. Swooping down there was a great hiss and a billowing cloud of steam as he poured some of the water down Grumpy Dave’s chimney and put the fire out.
Sweeping around to return to the smithy, he was congratulating himself on a job well done, when the harness slipped, the barrel upended and the water poured down Nora’s chimney. Even then he might have gotten away with it, if the flood hadn’t washed her out of the door before he could escape.
Soaking wet she sat in the middle of her front path, took off her soggy hat, pointed one bony finger skywards and pronounced the curse
‘Dragon, dragon, pouring water
where you shouldn’t really oughta.
I hereby ban you from the sky.
From now on you cannot fly.’
The curse had barely passed her lips when Kraw’s wings began to feel heavy and he found it a struggled to stay in the air. They got heavier and heavier, until finally he couldn’t lift them and he plunged to the ground. Luckily for him he clipped the top of a haystack on the way down, which bled off his speed – although he still hit the ground with some force.
After picking himself up and dusting himself down, he tried his wings – just on the off chance – let out another groan and began the long walk back to the orphanage.
*
Meanwhile, Katie had finished her chores and had stepped out into the garden expecting to find Kraw. That’s strange, she thought, as she scanned the sky anxiously for any sign of him, he’s always here waiting for me. And it was true, every single day, ever since Kraw adopted her on her ninth birthday, he had been waiting when she finished either her lessons or her chores.
She sat on the old tree stump at the bottom of the garden and began to wait. At this point she was more puzzled than worried; after all he could simply have been delayed by something or other. Mind you since he didn’t have a job – other than looking after her, that is – she couldn’t imagine what that something or other might be.
Half an hour later she was starting to worry, so she went to check out the barn. The old barn hadn’t been used for years, but she and Kraw had fixed it up and that was where he lived now. Maybe Kraw was ill; or he could be lying there with a broken leg, or worse. But the barn was empty and his breakfast plate was still on the table. It was obvious that he hadn’t been back since leaving this morning.
After checking the sky again she set off see Jim. If anyone would know where Kraw was, it would be Jim the blacksmith.
As soon as she was within hailing distance she called out, ‘Hi Jim, have you seen Kraw?’
‘Aye, he went to put a fire out in Grumpy Dave’s chimney.’
‘Has he been gone long?’
‘Aye, come to think of it he has, but I know he put the fire out, because Rob Barley saw him from the tower. Let’s go up, we might be able to see him from there.’
They climbed the rickety wooden stairs and on reaching the top Jim pointed towards the distant mountain and said, ‘There I told you so, the fire is out.’
‘Where?’
‘There, near the base of the mountain, that’s Grumpy Dave’s house and the one close by belongs to Nora Rumpkin.’
Katie shaded her eyes and looked in the direction that he was pointing.
‘Can’t see anythi… Yes, yes I can,’ she exclaimed. ‘They’re tiny; from this distance they look no bigger than little Mary’s toy building blocks. But where’s Kraw?’
‘I’ve no idea, but let’s see if we can spot him with this,’ said Jim as he took a telescope from his pouch. ‘There,’ he said. ‘That’s better, the fire is definitely out and Dave’s cottage isn’t damaged. Now let’s look for Kraw.’
Katie stood helplessly by as Jim slowly scanned the area around the cottages after a while she grew impatient and asked, ‘Well can you see him?’
‘No, wait...what’s that?’ he ceased his scan and concentrated the telescope on one spot. ‘Yes, that’s him there.’
‘Where; where?’ cried Katie.
He handed her the telescope, ‘There, where the road emerges from the forest.’
Steadying her arm on the tower wall, she focused the scope on the point where the road appeared from between the trees and spotted Kraw kicking up a small cloud of dust as he walked along the road. She couldn’t understand it; kraw never walked, he flew. In all the time that she’d known him, he’d never walked more that ten paces.
‘Jim I think we better go and get him, I think he’s hurt.’
‘Come on then, if we have to give him a lift, I better hitch Big Bob to the big cart’
‘Thank goodness,’ said Kraw, when the reached him an hour later. ‘I’d no idea it was such a long walk back to town, my feet are killing me.’
‘Are you hurt? You seem to be limping and why are you walking instead of flying?’ asked Katie.
‘I’m limping because my feet are sore and if you wait until I’m settled in the cart, I’ll tell why I’m not flying.’
So on the way home he told them about putting out the fire, accidentally spilling the rest of the water down Nora Rumpkin’s chimney and how Nora put a curse on him that prevented him from flying.
‘You didn’t spill the water on purpose did you?’ asked Katie.
‘No, I did not,’
‘Well there you are then, I’m sure if you go and say you are sorry, Nora will lift the curse.’
‘Do you really think so?’ asked Kraw. ‘I’m not really built for walking.’
‘Yes I do, if Jim will lend us Big Bob and the cart, I’ll take you back there tomorrow.’
‘No, problem,’ said Jim. ‘Drop me off on the way home.’
After dropping Jim off at the smithy, they continued to the barn and while Kraw went off to soak his feet in the old horse trough, Katie unhitch Big Bob, took of his harness and put him out to graze in the paddock. Leaving Kraw to soak his sore feet she called goodnight and made her way to her room in the orphanage.
It had been a long day and she was feeling tired; besides she needed to be up early to take Kraw to apologise to Nora. Not that she expected any problem there, Nora was a kindly old lady and while she was a witch, she wasn’t one of those nasty black clad creatures that rode on broomsticks; she was more of a white witch one of those that made spells and potions to cure the sick. Katie giggled to herself even though she shouldn’t; being washed out of her house must have must have given Nora an awful shock, for her to get mad enough to put a curse on Kraw.
*
The next day when they reached Nora’s cottage Katie said, ‘Knock on the door and apologise nicely.’
‘Do I have too? She might turn me into a frog or something.’
‘Don’t be silly, simply apologise and I’m sure she’ll lift the curse.’
Kraw knocked timidly; there was the sound of bolts being drawn and the door creaked open, Nora looked up, squinted and said, ‘Oh, it’s you, the water dragon, I suppose you want the curse lifted.’
‘Yes please,’ said Kraw. ‘I’m sorry about the water; I didn’t mean to do it.’
‘Great green lizard, washing folks out of their homes,’ Nora grumbled.
‘But he is really, really, sorry,’ said Katie.
‘Yes, well maybe I shouldn’t have lost my temper, come inside and I’ll mix a potion to lift the curse, said Nora. ‘Not you, you great green lump, I don’t want you breaking all my things.’
Katie followed Nora inside and helped her lift down a great black book. Nora opened the book, ran her finger down the contents page until she found the one that she wanted. ‘This is the one ‘to lift a non-flying curse,’ page 206.’
Flicking to the page she read for a moment then began to assemble the ingredients, ‘Eye of newt, wing of bat, powdered toad, Grimble gum, Boggle wort and breast feather from a Red Tailed Hawk. Oh dear, no feather, that’s a problem, it’s the most important ingredient.’
‘Where can we get one?’ asked Katie.
‘The only place is the nest on top of Pointer Pinnacle and I’m too old to climb up there,’ said Nora. ‘If your dragon wants to fly again, you will have to go and get one from there.’
The pinnacle wasn’t far from the cottage, no more than ten minutes walk away.
The problems began when they got there, Kraw was determined to be the one to get the feather, but he only got one third of the way up before freezing with fright – A dragon who was afraid of heights, whatever next? – and Katie had to climb up and coax him down.
‘You stay down here I’ll go,’ said Katie as she began to climb.
It wasn’t a hard climb, as climbs go, and Katie was soon at the top. There were no sign of the hawks; they must have been out hunting. Reaching carefully beneath the three eggs in the nest, she removed two small feathers and placing them in her pocket, began to climb back down.
She was halfway down when the hawks returned and began to buzz her; they came diving down one after the other slashing out with claws and beaks. She kept on climbing down, but as the hawks came in a second time she lost he grip and fell screaming. Luckily Kraw broke her fall – falling on tubby old Kraw was a bit like falling into a feather bed and she didn’t even end up with a scratch.
Back at the cottage Nora added one small feather to the potion and forced Kraw to drink every last drop. At first nothing happened, then his eyes began to spin and he started hopping up and down, each hop higher than the last, until finally he hopped so high that he had no choice but to fly.
‘Wheee!’ He whooped, as he soared higher and higher.
Katie thanked Nora and geeing up big bob, headed back to the orphanage with Kraw doing loop the loops and barrel rolls all the way there.
The three of us were walking home from school on Thursday and Cindy was banging on about Mrs Mendle our maths teacher. Cindy hated maths mainly because she was our resident Drama Queen and claimed to hate anything that wasn’t creative. Laurel who was at the other side of Cindy rolled her eyes and decided it was time to change the subject. ‘Are we still on for yours tomorrow night Sandy?’
‘Yes I suppose so, although I’m getting sick of the same thing all the time.’ I said.
Every Friday night, except when we went away separately on holiday with our families, we had a sleepover at one of our houses, and tomorrow it was my turn to have them at mine.
‘We not invited then?’ asked Cindy.
‘Sure you are, it’s just…I don’t know…it’s not what you could call exciting, is it?’
Listening to myself, I thought, 'Sandy the great adventurer, I even get sick on the big dipper.'
‘Well, I for one think our sleepovers are great,’ said Laurel. ‘We get to play our music without interference, can put on our makeup and we stay awake chatting all night.’
‘Yeah, and we have good giggle.’ cried Cindy.
‘Yes I know, but couldn’t we do something different and still have a sleepover too?’
‘Like What?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘I know! I know!’ Cindy said excitedly. ‘We could make it fancy dress; we could all dress up as character from High School Musical 3.’
‘Good one, but I still don’t know.’
‘We could sit around telling scary stories,’ said Laurel.
‘We do that anyway.’ I said.
‘Not in the wood, in the dark, sitting around a campfire, we don’t.’
Now, I’m the world's greatest scaredie-cat; I hide behind the settee when Dr Who is on the telly and the idea sent a shiver down my spine; but I found myself saying. ‘Let’s do it. I’ll ask mum if we can camp in the wood at the back of ours.’
Strictly speaking the wood wasn’t a wood at all; it was just a bunch of about thirty trees, with a clearing in the middle that grew right at the bottom of our garden.
With a bit wheedling and whining we all got permission from our parents to camp out. Which was just as well, since we were determined to do it anyway?
Friday night after tea, while it was still light, we pitch our tent, made a stone fire-circle, gathered enough dried wood to last the night and hauled over a couple of logs to sit on. After dark we sat around a blazing fire toasting marshmallows and telling stories. Despite being only two hundred yards from our house no light shone through the trees and beyond the circle cast by the campfire the night was like a black wall around us.
Cindy was telling us a particularly gruesome tale about a mouldering corpse that wandered the night, when I heard a noise. ’Shhh! Listen, what was that?’ I cried.
The noise, whatever it was, stopped as I spoke.
Laurel gave a nervous laugh and said, ‘Are you trying to scare us? I don’t hear anything.’
No sooner were the words out of her mouth than a noise came from somewhere in the wood behind the tent. Scrreeaaaaape, scrreeaaaaape, scrreeaaaaape. It sounded a bit like someone dragging a nail down a blackboard and I imagined some large predator sharpening a claw on a tree. Except that we didn’t have any large predators in the English countryside. There was silence for few moments and then the noise came again and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, Scrreeaaaaape, scrreeaaaaape, scrreeaaaaape, this time it came from further to the right, In the silence that followed we sat frozen unable to move. But when that horrible scraping came again, from even further to the right, almost as if it was circling around us, we jumped to our feet and ran screaming from the wood.
Reaching the house we hammered on the back door and dad let us in. ‘What’s the matter with you lot?’ he asked. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘Don’t be silly dad, of course we didn’t. But we heard these terrible noises and got scared.’
‘You wouldn’t have been telling each other scary stories at time, by any chance?’ He asked with a chuckle.
‘It’s not funny dad,’ I said giving him my best, parents know nothing, look. ’ We were really, really scared.’
‘OK! OK!’ He said. ‘Why don’t I make us all a cup of drinking chocolate, and then you can tell me exactly what happened.’
Dad put a plate of biscuits on the kitchen table, handed out the cups of chocolate, sat down and said, ‘Right, now tell me what happened.’
We all began to babble at once and he held up his hands. ‘Whoa! One at a time, please.’
The others looked at me so I began. ‘We were sitting around the fire toasting marshmallows…’
‘And Cindy was telling us about a mouldering skeleton,’ said Laurel.
‘Corpse,’ I said, giving her a withering look, ‘and I thought I heard a noise.’
‘I didn’t hear it.’
‘Neither did I.’
‘Who’s telling dad what happened?’
‘You are Sally,’ they chimed.
‘In that case can you both be quiet until I’ve finish.’
They didn’t look too happy with the idea, but they both nodded their heads.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘After that we heard this horrible screeching, scraping noise. Then we heard it twice more and it sounded as if whatever was making the noise was circling around the camp.’
‘You know that sounds are amplified at night, especially when it is quiet,’ said dad. ‘What you probable heard was some small night creature out hunting.’
‘No way dad, whatever it was, it was Gigantic.’
‘I doubt that Sally. But I’ll go up there with you in the morning and we’ll sort it out then. Now off to bed the three of you.’
‘We all piled into the one bed; left the light on and believe it or not eventually fell asleep.’
Of course, we slept in the next day and it was eleven o’clock before we arrived downstairs.
‘Come on you sleepy heads, the cereals on the table, eat your breakfasts and we’ll go to the wood.’
‘No thanks,’ we chorused
Dad laughed, ’Oh, it’s OK, I’ve already been up there and I couldn’t find a thing. I just want you to show me where the noises were coming from, and then we’ll pack up the tent and bring it back.’
Reluctantly we agreed and when we arrived at the camp after breakfast, I pointed to a tree beyond the tent. Dad walked over and we followed. ’See,’ he said, after circling the tree, ’there’s nothing here.’
‘Oh yeah,’ I said. ‘What are those then, above your head?’
Twelve feet up on the tree trunk three, distinctively separate, deep jagged scars had been ripped downwards though the bark. He stared up at them, glanced around nervously and said, ’Show me the other places where you heard the sound.’
We did, and those trees also bore the same scars. Quickly, we collected the tent and hurried back home.
Dad telephoned the nearest zoo and they sent out an expert who said that the marks had been made by a large bear. Strangely there were no bears missing and there were no reports of anyone seeing a bear.
The expert said it was a bear, but we girls knew it wasn‘t; after all what kind of bear moves without making a sound, leaves no trail and only has only one extra large claw?’
Needless to say, we never camped in the wood again.
Laurel cupped her hands either side of her face, pressed her nose to the glass and scanned the practice room. It was empty, good; she had been hoping it would be. There was two hours yet to rehearsals and she needed to work on the extra routine that Mr. Rushford had introduced into the second act.
Mr. Rushford was the school drama teacher, a brilliantly creative man who the kids all admired. He had arrived at the school five years earlier and had taken the small poorly attended drama class and turned it into a vibrant and innovative drama group that the whole school was proud of. He was a creative genius and like a lot of creative people his enthusiasm for the job often ran away with him. To the dismay of his pupils who had spent weeks in rehearsals for a show, he would quite often come up with an additional routine at the last minute.
Hence, Laurel needed to practice her new solo routine before the rehearsals began. Closing the door behind her, she took off her jacket and hung it on a peg near the door, walked to the end of the room and slipped her CD into the player. As the music began she adjusted the sound and began her warm-ups. Dancers, like athletes, warm up to prevent injury and Laurel was always careful to complete hers; no way was she going to allow any injury to get in the way of her dancing.
Fifteen minutes later she was ready and slipping a new disk into the player, began to practice the routine. As always with something that is new, it was difficult, but when it came to dancing it was doubly so. Not only have you got to remember all the steps, but also you must match and flow with the music and Laurel was in trouble almost from the beginning. She would get the first section perfect then while she knew the steps to the next, her timing would go and she would make a mess it and if she got that part right she would get another wrong. She knew she was trying too hard, but couldn’t bring herself to stop trying and at the end of an hour she was so frustrated that she screamed.
‘Having trouble?’ a voice asked, in almost a whisper.
Laurel spun around to find a smartly dressed woman standing at the other end of the room. The woman looked about the same age as her mum and yet the suit she was wearing wasn’t anything like the clothes her mother wore. They were somehow old fashioned, more like the clothes worn by her grandmother in the family photo album.
‘Pardon; Can I help you?’ asked Laurel, thinking that the woman might be lost.
‘No, but I may be able to help you,’ came the reply in the same whispery voice that had a hard rasp to it, like someone with a sore throat.
Laurel frowned and wondered what she was on about. Beside she didn’t know this strange woman and she was always wary of strangers. The woman laughed and despite the rasp the laughter had a comforting ring to it.
‘Oh dear, you should see your face. I should explain. I’m Mrs. Prince. I was a dance teacher here and I was on my way to see the head, when I heard the music and couldn’t resist popping in.’
At the mention of the head, Laurel relaxed, ‘Sorry about the scream, but I can’t seem to pull this new routine together.’
‘Like I said, I can help you, but you will have to show me how to work your music thingabe,’
Laurel laughed at the strange word and Mrs. Prince said ‘Don’t laugh, in my day we had to make do with a piano.’
Cor, thought Laurel. She must be older than she looks. Even mum knows how to work a disk player. She showed Mrs. Prince how the player worked and despite her claiming ignorance of new-fangled things, as she called them, she picked it all up in a few minutes.
‘Right,’ said Mrs. Prince, ‘I’ll start the music, count to three and then you begin.’ She hit the play button, the intro came on and she counted Laurel in, ‘Ready, one, two, three.’
At the count of three Laurel began the routine and as before it all came apart half way through. Mrs. Prince called a halt. ‘It’s the timing. You’re starting a tad late, then subconsciously speeding up and over-compensating that is why it's all going wrong. Show me the steps for whole of the routine and for the moment forget about the timing.’
Laurel shrugged, but did as she was told. This time without the music and when she had finished, Mrs. Prince said, ‘Excellent. Now, this time you start the music and I’ll show you where you’re going wrong.’
Laurel again did as she was told and stood with her mouth open in disbelief as Mrs. Prince danced the complicated routine step perfect, as if she had danced it forever and a day.
‘Close your mouth, Girl, you look as if you are catching flies, and follow me.’
For the next hour they dance the routine together over and over again and when they had perfected the routine Mrs. Prince stepped to one side and Laurel performed solo. Laurel closed her eyes, felt the flow of the music and danced the piece in perfect rhythm. As the music died she opened her eyes and did a little curtsey. Mrs. Prince smiled and said, ‘Good girl, you’ve got it.’ and vanished. One moment she was there and the next she was gone.
Laurel was stunned. Either she had just dreamed the whole thing or she had spent the last hour dancing with and talking to a ghost. It never occurred to her to be afraid. If Mrs. Prince had indeed been a ghost, she had been a nice and not a nasty one. Laurel was sure of one thing, no way would she mention this to anyone, they would think she had gone crazy. Maybe she was crazy and maybe she had dreamed it all. Somehow she didn’t think so, but on the other hand she might have. There was only one way to settle her mind. She needed to find out if Mrs. Prince ever existed.
After rehearsals she hurried to the school library and began to research the history of the school. She had to go back seventy years to find what she wanted and it was in the form of Mrs Caroline Prince’s obituary. It praised a teacher who had given up a promising career on the stage, dedicated her life to training children to dance and sadly died age forty four of a throat infection. Laurel had found her ghost and she cried as she read of her death. But one thing she did know was that, ghost or not, Mrs Prince had been an excellent dance teacher.
