Free Butterfly by V. C. Andrews

was dedicated to dance lessons, it was hard to make new friends and Celine wouldn't permit me to join any teams or clubs.
    "All we need is for you to sustain some sort of injury now," she said. She even tried to get me out of gym class, but the school wouldn't permit it and Sanford argued that it wouldn't interfere with my dancing lessons.
    "Of course it will," Celine snapped. "I don't want her wasting her physical energies on nonsense."
"It isn't nonsense, darling," he tried to explain, but Celine would have none of it. She hadn't gotten her way and she didn't like it one bit.
"Don't do any more than you have to," she advised me, "and do what I used to do whenever you can: claim you have cramps from your period."
"But I haven't gotten my period yet," I reminded her.
"So what? Who's going to know? Lying," she said when she saw the expression on my face, "is all right if it's for the right cause. I'll never punish you for doing something to protect your dancing, Janet, never, no matter what," she said, her eyes so bright and big, they scared me. I wondered where she went when that look came over her.
Like most of the girls and boys my age at the orphanage, I used to fantasize about the people who would become my parents. I filled my head with dreams of fun things like picnics and trips to the park, and I saw myself holding my father's hand as we walked through the gates of Disneyland. I imagined big, beautiful birthday parties, and I even dreamed of having little brothers and sisters.
How empty and different the big house I now lived in seemed when I compared it to the house in my dreams. Yes, I had expensive things and a room bigger than I'd ever seen, and there was a lake and beautiful grounds, but none of the family closeness or trips or fun and games that I'd imagined. Sanford wanted to spend time with me, to show off his factory, but Celine just seemed to come up with one reason after another why I couldn't go. Finally, she realized how silly her arguments sounded and relented. I went to work with Sanford on a Saturday and saw the machines and the products. I met some of his workers and his executives. I was amazed at how pleasant and eager he was to show me things and how sad I was when our time alone ended. I think Sanford felt the same way--on the ride home neither of us spoke and for the first time that day the mood between us was gloomy.
When we returned home and I started to tell Celine about our day, she grimaced as if in pain.
"We need the factory so that we can afford the luxuries in life," she said. "What we don't need is to acknowledge its existence. And we certainly don't allow it to take up one iota of our time or thought"
"But some of the things that are made in the factory are beautiful, aren't they?" I asked.
"I suppose, in a pedestrian sort of way," she admitted, although I didn't understand exactly what she meant, and I saw it displeased Sanford. She didn't become animated and happy again until Sanford told her he had gotten us tickets to the Metropolitan Ballet's performance of The Four Temperaments.
"Now," she cried, "now you will see your first real ballet and understand what it is I want you to do and become."
Celine had Sanford take us to buy me a formal dress. I chose a long royal blue taffeta and Celine even had Sanford buy me some jewelry--a set of sapphire earrings and a matching teardrop-shaped necklace.
"Going to the ballet is a very special thing," she explained. "Everyone wears their very best clothes. You'll see."
She brought me to a salon where they styled my hair in a French twist and showed me how to apply makeup properly. When I gazed at myself in the mirror, I was amazed at how grown-up I looked.
"I want you to make a statement, to be noticed, to be someone everyone will look at and think, 'There's an up-and-coming star, a little princess.' "
I had to admit I was finally swept away in Celine's world. I permitted myself to dream the same dreams, to think of myself as a celebrity, my