Theatre Shoes by Noel Streatfeild

Mistress Mary and was only a holiday pupil had an attaché case.”
    Sorrel and Mark were walking fast and Holly had to run and skip to catch up.
    â€œAnd so has even that smallest child who is almost a baby—she’s so small that she doesn’t even carry her case herself, her mother does—and here’s us, old enough to go to the Academy alone, and not an attaché case between us.”
    Sorrel slowed up because the Academy was in sight.
    â€œI wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t for us being Grandmother’s grandchildren. People expect us to be good at everything because of her and because of our mother and the uncles and aunts and all the rest of it, and because of our having scholarships, and it’s bad enough that we aren’t good, but when as well we haven’t got anything but brown-paper parcels we really look most peculiar.”
    The Academy was quite a different place now that the term had started. Winifred was standing at the Students’ entrance with some lists in her hand, and she told the girls to hurry up and put on their black tunics with their white socks and dancing sandals, which they would wear for lessons. Sorrel and Holly had lockers side by side in one changing room, Mark’s was in the boys’ room down the passage. Sorrel opened her locker quickly and pushed her parcel inside and tried to unpack it in there. There did not seem to be many of the girls about that she knew, but all the same she thought she would like to get her parcel undone and everything hung up before anyone noticed. All round the room there was a flow of chatter.
    â€œHullo! Had a good holiday?”
    â€œHullo, Doris! Have you come back to live in London?”
    â€œHave you heard Freda will not be back until half term, she’s still with that concert party in Blackpool, lucky beast.”
    Then it happened. Somebody hurrying by tripped over Sorrel’s feet and the back half of her that was sticking out of her locker and a voice said:
    â€œOh, bother! I nearly fell,” and then added, “One of the new girls grubbing about with a paper parcel.”
    Holly was sitting on the floor changing her socks. She did not so much care what anybody said to her, but she would not have anyone being rude to Sorrel. She raised her voice to what Ferntree School, who had not approved of such behaviour, would have called a shout.
    â€œWe would have attaché cases if we could, but we can’t because there is a war on. Perhaps you didn’t know that.”
    There was a lot of laughter, and then somebody said, “That’s put you in your place, Miranda.”
    Miranda! Sorrel turned, her cheeks crimson. What an awful start she had made with her cousin. What an even worse start Holly had made, shouting like that. Miranda was walking up the line of lockers, she ran after her and caught hold of her arm.
    â€œAre you Miranda? I—I mean we—are your cousins. We’re Sorrel, Holly and Mark Forbes. Mark isn’t here just now, he’s in the boys’ room changing.”
    Miranda turned and Sorrel gave a little gasp of surprise, Miranda was so very like what Grandmother must have been like when she was a child. The same brown hair—it hung down at the back, of course, but the top part was piled up into curls—the same dark eyes, the same effect of being a patch of colour in a dull room. Only Grandmother was like a sparkling bit of colour and Miranda was more like the last smouldering red cinder lying amongst grey ash. Miranda was evidently not a person who minded if she had been rude to her cousins or not, or rather she seemed to have forgotten it, for she put on a very grown-up gracious air.
    â€œHow do you do? I heard you were coming. We shall be quite a family gathering this term, for Uncle Mose is sending Miriam, did you know? You’re a beginner, aren’t you? I’m afraid that means we shan’t see much of each other.”
    Sorrel