Ballet Shoes

The next morning, the girls awaken to find what Dr. Jakes and Dr. Smith were working on all night: “Sylvia always had a Christmas tree for them, but this was not like any tree they had seen before. It was the usual fir tree; but every branch was covered with glittering frost, which made the tree shine as though it were magic” (63). Sylvia gifts each of the sisters a wristwatch. When Petrova asks if they weren’t too expensive, Sylvia explains that she sold a big gold watch that once belonged to her father to pay for them.

The rest of the Christmas holiday flies by, and soon it’s spring. Pauline is given two roles for the semester: Cinderella in the French production of the story, Cendrillon, and “the other as Tyltyl in some scenes from The Blue Bird” (66). Posy intensely focuses on her classes with Madame Fidolia and dances any chance she gets.

Petrova feels that Mr. Simpson is the only one she can talk to about how she really feels: “that dancing [is] rather stupid, and cars and things much more important” (68). Before the end of the term, she gets the flu and misses classes for a week.