Saturday Rave - Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild

I read this again and again as a child. I wasn't rich enough to have ballet lessons myself - I didn't even get to see a ballet until I was grown up - but, oh the clothes! How I envied Pauline that blue velvet dress, and how awful it must have been to have to dance in rompers. (What are rompers? I'm still not sure, but they sound foul).

Not only were the clothes fascinating, but Pauline, Petrova and Posy Fossil were all adopted, too. Just like me. I knew I was too tall to do ballet, but perhaps, I thought, just perhaps I had some talent in me somewhere which might one day allow me to do something wonderful.

Pauline, with her silk wings streaming behind her, and her toe pointed to alight beside Titania, almost forgot to say 'ready' when she came down, because she was thinking to herself how like being a real fairy it was.

I'll try, I decided. I couldn't have dance lessons, but I'd try to do something wonderful all the same.

Yes. I really would.

Word To Use Today: fairy. This word is from the Old French feie. Before that it comes from the Latin Fāta. The Fāta are the spooky characters we call the Fates who decided how long each person lived.