Little Swan Read Free Page B

the past couple of weeks, I’d been trying to tell Weezer that the chances of Dad coming to watch her being a Little Swan were very small.
    “He’ll want to see me dance,” she’d kept saying. “He won’t want to miss it.”
    “He won’t have to,” I said. “You know Miss Matting will put the whole show on video. She’ll lend it to us when he’s here. Then he can see you.”
    “It’s not the same,” was Weezer’s answer. “It’s not like watching it live.”
    “But it’s nearly the same,” I said. “You might have to settle for that.”
    Now Weezer was turning Dad’s letter over and over in her hand.
    “Open it, love,” Mum said, “and tell us what’s in it.”
    Weezer opened the letter. She read it. She turned very pink. Then she turned very white. Then she gave a little howl and ran out of the room.
    “Oh, my goodness,” said Mum. “I told her not to get her hopes up.”
    “Me too,” I said. “I kept telling her. She wouldn’t listen. She only listens to things she likes hearing. I’ll go and talk to her. What does Dad say in the letter?”
    “He says, ‘Although I won’t be there, I know you’ll be terrific. I’ll be thinking of you every minute. When I see you at Christmas, you can show me the video.’ How did he know about the video?” Mum asked.
    “I think Weezer must have told him. She spoke to him on Sunday. She was very excited about it then. She liked the idea of being able to play a film of her performance over and over again. She even said she was going to show it in school.”
    “I’d better go and see if I can make her feel better,” Mum said.
    “No, I’ll go,” I said. “I’ll try and get her to think about who can have the extra ticket.”
    Weezer had almost cried herself dry by the time I reached her. Her face was red and puffy.
    “Cheer up,” I said. “You don’t look like a Little Swan any more. You look like a Little Turkey.” That made her smile.
    “Are turkeys red in the face?” she said.
    “Redder than Little Swans,” I said. “Go and wash your face in very cold water. Then we’ll work out who’s going to get the extra ticket.”
    “I’ve already decided,” said Weezer. “I’ll tell you when I get back from the bathroom.”
    When she returned, Weezer said: “Can you guess who I’ve thought of?”
    “Mrs Walsh.” (Mrs Walsh was Weezer’s class teacher.)
    “No.”
    “Josie?”
    “No.”
    “Ruth?”
    “No.”
    “I give up,” I said.
    “Mrs Posnansky,” Weezer announced. Istared at her.
    “But why?” I asked. “We hardly know her. We’ve seen her a couple of times to say hello to, and you carried her shopping home once, but that’s it. Won’t she think it’s strange? Some child she barely knows offering her a ticket to a dancing show?”
    “She
does
know me. And she’s Russian,” said Weezer, as if that explained everything. “She said she loved the ballet. She said it the very first time we spoke to her. After my first class. Don’t you remember?” I did remember. Weezer had nearly knocked poor Mrs Posnansky over. When she said she loved the ballet, she probably meant proper professional dancers. I was sure she didn’t mean a lot of little girls who had only just started to learn. But I wasn’t going to tell Weezer that.
    I said, “Fine. That’s a great idea. Let your face get back to normal. Then you can go over to her house and offer her the ticket.”
    “I can’t go by myself,” said Weezer. “You have to come with me.”
    “Why?”
    “Because,” Weezer said. Her lip was looking a little wobbly. Her eyes shone as though she might start crying again at any moment.
    “All right,” I said. “I’ll come.” I like visiting people. And I was curious to see what Mrs Posnansky’s house was like, anyway. “Let’s go down now and tell Mum what we’ve decided.”
    Mrs Posnansky took a long time to come to the door.
    “She walks slowly,” Weezer explained. “She sometimes has a stick to help her.