Читать книгу Delphie and the Masked Ball - Darcey Bussell - Страница 9

The following day, Delphie lay on the sofa at home listening to the music of a ballet called Swan Lake, and rested her ankle. The doctor she had seen at the hospital had told her that it was indeed a nasty sprain and confirmed that she couldn’t dance on it for at least a couple of weeks. Delphie’s eyes were red with crying. She’d practised so hard to be the Bluebird over the last month and had been looking forward to it so much. It was so unfair that Sukie was getting to dance the part instead of her.

The more Delphie thought about it, the more she felt sure that Sukie had knocked her over on purpose. It was just the kind of thing Sukie would do. Thinking about it made fresh tears spring to her eyes. She blinked them away and tried to concentrate on the music. She knew the piece well. It was from a scene where the prince in the story was standing near an enchanted lake watching a group of swans dance for him, led by the swan princess. Delphie sighed. She desperately wanted to be up practising and dancing, not lying on a sofa.

She looked at the floor. Her red ballet shoes were there. If only they would glow and take her to Enchantia. She had been willing them to do just that but nothing had happened yet. Everything must be quiet in Enchantia, thought Delphie. The shoes only took her to the magic land when the characters needed her help. Delphie didn’t know whether to feel glad for her friends that everything must be OK or whether to wish something would go wrong so she could go and see them all!

She leaned over and picked the shoes up. The beautiful music from Swan Lake swelled through the room. Delphie couldn’t resist slipping the ballet shoes on. She sighed longingly. If only I could get up and dance, she thought.

As she did up her ribbons, she heard the front doorbell. Delphie’s mum answered it. There was the murmur of voices and then Mrs Durand called from the hall, “Delphie! There’s a friend here from your ballet class to see you … Sukie.”

Sukie! What was she doing calling round? Coming over to gloat probably, thought Delphie, her heart sinking. The last thing she felt like doing was seeing Sukie.