Movie Shoes by Noel Streatfeild

sofa.
    “Yes. I could tell anywhere you were a pupil of Madame’s. She’s so thorough and so strict about precision and arms. You know about Manoff’s ballet? You must come to a rehearsal; you can’t believe how lovely some of his things are. Well, I can’t teach you often because I rehearse every day for that-I’ll get Manoff to let you come to his Saturday mornings sometimes. He teaches then himself, but for regular work you had better go to a woman called Donna. Madame Donna. She’s good. I’ll write it down for you.”
    Rachel saw Posy was the sort of person who saw no difficulty in doing things. She had evidently forgotten what Aunt Cora had said about not being a chauffeur. Posy was getting a piece of paper and a pencil out of her bag. Rachel gently laid a hand over Posy’s to stop her. Then, red in the face because nobody likes explaining the sort of difficulties she had to explain, she told Posy everything. About Aunt Cora and how good it was of her to have them at all, and John’s accident, and the British government’s rules about money. Posy did not wait for Rachel to finish; she jumped to her feet.
    “Where’s the telephone?”
    Rachel knew that using the telephone in somebody else’s house was a thing you asked permission to do, but Posy Fossil was not a permission-asking person, so she led her to it. Rachel only hoped Aunt Cora and Bee would not come back from their shopping in the middle of the telephoning. Posy looked up a number in the telephone book, talking all the time.
    “You’re like my sister Pauline. When we were at Madame Fidolia’s, we never had any money, and she always thought we couldn’t do things. When Manoff saw me dance and said he would take me as his pupil, Pauline tried to tell me I couldn’t go to Czechoslovakia to learn from him. Imagine. Not learning from Manoff when he’d said he would take me! Of course 1 went.” She got her number and asked for Madame Donna.
    Rachel listened in a mixture of admiration and awe to the conversation that followed.
    Posy explained to Madame Donna about Rachel and that she had no money. There was a pause after that, while Posy listened, looking bored and impatient, and then, unable to listen anymore, she appeared to interrupt. She said that she knew that was how Madame Donna would feel and of course, she could not be expected to teach for nothing a child who would be in the country only six months and no lasting credit to her. That if the lessons were all, it would not matter, as Posy would see to it, but there was transportation as well. What about Pirouette? Wasn’t it true that she was providing most of the dancers? At that, from the other end, there was lot of talk which Posy interrupted with “You can easily arrange it… No harm in letting them see her.... Very pretty indeed.” Finally, still holding the telephone, she began to dance. Then she said, “She’ll be there,” and put the telephone down. Posy turned to Rachel.
    “It’s all fixed. Wait a minute.
    She danced again the steps she had done at the telephone. “I never can remember anything in my head. I have to remember it with my feet. The audition is at three, at the studio, but you are to be there at two so that Madame Donna can test you herself. You’re to wear a tutu, which you probably don’t have, so pack your shoes and tights and I’ll take you with me and fit you into one of mine. Nana, our old nurse who lives with us, will alter it and take you to the audition. She’s used to them.”
    “An audition for what?”
    Posy looked surprised that Rachel didn’t know.
    “That film they’re making. Pirouette. It’s got scenes in a theater where a ballet’s dancing. They ‘ll want the girls they select on and off for three months. If they pick you, and I don’t know why they shouldn’t, you ‘ll earn enough to pay for taxis to your lessons, and you’ll be working at the studios under the man who’s arranging the dances, as well as Madame