Ballet Shoes

The girls grow up to look quite different from each other. Pauline has a head of platinum blonde curls and big, blue eyes. Petrova is pale and thin and has dark hair, while Posy has curly, red hair. By the time two of the girls are old enough to start their education, the question of who should teach them arises. Sylvia insists that she isn’t the best teacher, so they send Pauline and Petrova to Cromwell House, a junior day school.

When they get home from their first day, Pauline runs to ask Sylvia, “Garnie, what is my real, honest surname? […] They said it was Brown, but I told them it wasn’t, because Nana always says that you are no relation” (15). Petrova reminds them that Gum called them his “little Fossils.” This reminder delights Pauline and Petrova, and they run to ask Posy, now a toddler, if she would like to have the last name too, and she agrees.

A few years later, Nana starts to worry about Sylvia after noticing that she “[has gotten] very thin lately, and that her hair [is] turning gray” (17). Posy will be six soon, and little is left of the money that Gum left for them. To save money, they must pull Pauline and Petrova out of school, and they need another source of income to keep the household afloat. Nana suggests that they take in boarders. They put an ad in the papers and move Gum’s fossils around to make room for new tenants.

First to answer the ad are Mr. and Mrs. Simpson from Malay. Petrova greets them at the door and wonders at their beautiful automobile. The next is “Miss Theo Dane. She [i]s instructress of dancing at the Children’s Academy of Dancing and Stage Training” (23). Posy is thrilled by Miss Dane’s beautiful phonograph and starts to dance along to the music it plays. Petrova and Pauline worry that their sister is showing off, but Miss Dane says that its fine and encourages them all to dance. Two older women who are retired professors, Dr. Jakes and Dr. Smith, arrive at the house, both of whom Pauline claims as her favorite boarders.

One day, while Pauline is home nursing a cold, she runs into Dr. Jakes, who is also sick. She invites Pauline to see her room, which has changed so much since she moved in that Pauline “[feels] it [is] a new room altogether” (28). Pauline is drawn to the beautiful books on Dr. Jakes’s shelf. Dr. Jakes asks Pauline what books she studied at school and if she has ever read William Shakespeare. When Pauline says that she hasn’t, Dr. Jakes has her read Puck’s speech from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She is pleased with Pauline’s recitation and says that she may be a Shakespearean one day.

The two discuss Gum, how the Fossil sisters came to live with Sylvia and Nana, and how the sisters got their last name. Dr. Jakes tells Pauline, “The three of you might make the name of Fossil really important, really worthwhile, and if you do, it’s all your own” (31). This resonates with Pauline, and she finds her sisters to tell them. The sisters make a vow, one that they’ll renew on any of their birthdays, to make their name mean something important one day.

Later, Dr. Jakes, Dr. Smith, and Miss Dane approach Sylvia with an offer. The two teachers gently tell Sylvia that they “doubt [she’s] qualified to teach those children” (36), and Sylvia agrees. They tell her that they’ve missed teaching since they retired and want to tutor the Fossil sisters for free. Miss Dane adds that she told Madame Fidolia, the head of the performing arts school where she teaches, that she’ll train the three sisters in the hope that they’ll become professional performers one day.

Sylvia discusses the offers with Nana, and they decide to let the women help the girls. The education that they’ll receive from the professors and the training at the performing arts academy will help set up the Fossil sisters for self-sufficiency when they get older.

The first morning that the Fossil sisters go to the performing arts academy, chaos ensues. Pauline and Nana argue over what’s appropriate to wear, and Petrova tells Mr. Simpson that she fears she won’t be any good at dancing, asking him, “Do you suppose if you train to be a dancer when you are eight like me, that you can be something else when you grow up?” (43). He assures her that she still has plenty of time to find another career, and when she asks if girls can be chauffeurs, he says that they certainly can.

Since it’s an important occasion, Mr. Simpson drives the Fossil sisters and Nana to the Children’s Academy of Dance and Stage Training, an imposing place made of three separate houses. While waiting, they look at pictures on the wall of previous students. Posy is especially captivated by the pictures of young ballerinas who wear flowers in their hair.

Soon, the head of the school, Madame Fidolia, welcomes them. She has her dark hair in a sleek bun and wears “a long practice-dress of white tarlatan, and pink tights, and pink ballet shoes” (47). She tells the girls that all her students must greet her with a curtsy; the three girls do so, and she finds Posy’s curtsy the most poised and elegant.

She leads them to one of Miss Dane’s classes, where she watches them dance with about 20 other young girls. She then assesses them all and sorts them into different levels. Pauline and Petrova are placed in the elementary class and will attend acting classes as well. When they get home, Sylvia gives them a shilling to buy cakes for tea as a reward for their hard work that day.

The girls have a busy and active schedule between their lessons with Dr. Jakes and Dr. Smith and their dancing and acting classes. At the academy, Madame Fidolia takes an interest in Posy, and during “[e]ach class that she [comes] to watch she [makes] her do some step alone” (56). Worrying that all the attention will go to her head, her sisters tease her until Nana makes them stop, telling them that Posy can’t help that Madame Fidolia singled her out. She’s soon selected as the only one in her class to study independently with Madame, which is quite an honor.

Pauline does best in acting classes. No matter what character she plays, she “make[s] them real without any dressing up, but just in the way she move[s]” (57). When the school breaks for Christmas, the older students are in rehearsals for pantomimes, which are plays that they perform during the holidays for family audiences. Once a performer turns 12, they’re eligible for a license, which allows them to perform on a London stage and get paid for their work. Pauline watches the older students with awe, hoping that one day, she can become a licensed performer herself.

Even though Nana tells her that not everyone has the same talents, Petrova feels bad that she isn’t as artistic as her sisters. She does “not want to be a good dancer, but since she [has] to dance at all [it’s] annoying to see someone younger than herself doing so much better” (59). Pauline is moving up to the next level of dance classes and worries that she won’t do as well without her sister there to help her.

The sisters’ excitement and worries about the performing arts academy are put to rest during Christmas. The boarders work to make the house beautiful for the season, while Dr. Jakes and Dr. Smith work on a secret project in their rooms. Nana sends the girls to bed on Christmas Eve.