Free Washy and the Crocodile by James Maguire Page B

I would be!”
    â€œOf course she was,” said her uncle. “But her mummy came and collected her every weekend and took her back home to see the cat, and so she didn’t feel quite so lonely, and even when she was at home she practised her ballet all the time. So Charlie was happy, really. As far as she could be.”
    â€œAnd then what happened?” Asked Jack, who despite himself was intensely interested in the story of the unknown adolescent girl and her obsession. “Did she go on and become a famous dancer?”
    Uncle Otto paused and took another plum and chewed it slowly, and the children waited.
    â€œNo, she didn’t,” he said slowly. “She never became famous.” He squinted at the sun as it shone through the branches of the little plum tree as if he could see the past - which he could. Otto could see everything. “She injured her knee, and she couldn’t dance any more, not properly, not to performance standards, and then she didn’t know what to do and she was very unhappy for a long time, and then she decided...”
    Uncle Otto paused for a moment, as if unsure of how the story unfolded. It was most unlike Uncle Otto, thought Evie, because he was always absolutely sure about everything, and how did he know this girl who wanted to be a ballerina anyway, and what was really going on here? This was very intriguing, and she couldn’t wait to tell her friend Samantha all about it!
    â€œCharlie,” continued Uncle Otto, “decided to retrain as a dance teacher. And then she found work through a... contact at the Australian Embassy.” Uncle Otto paused. “They were looking for someone to teach dance.”
    â€œIn the outback,” said Jack helpfully.
    â€œIndeed,” said his uncle. “Charlie was a very decisive person, and she made a very good impression on her contact at the Australian embassy who thought she was just right for the job. So off she went, full of hopes and dreams and aspirations.”
    â€œGood,” said Evie. She knew just how Charlie felt!
    â€œAt first, she found it very difficult,” continued Uncle Otto. “The children had no interest in ballet, because it was totally outside their experience. She was visiting some very isolated communities, where there were very few children. She wasn’t Australian, and they didn’t really understand her; and she didn’t know how to reach them.”
    He stopped again, like a marathon runner who was having great difficulty in finishing the course, but was determined not to give up.
    â€œAnd then it happened.”
    â€œWhat happened?” Asked Jack. Uncle Otto was telling this story all wrong. What was wrong with him? Had he eaten too many plums?
    â€œThey’d organised a gathering miles from anywhere, right in the middle of the dry season, and it was extremely hot, even in the shade, and although some children had turned up they were hot and bothered and quarrelsome”—Uncle Otto looked at his two little charges rather carefully at this point—”and they clearly had no interest in what she was doing.”
    â€œOh, dear,” breathed little Evie, who was totally absorbed by the unknown girl’s plight. As for Jack, he was giving nothing away. Ballet! What good was that to anyone? Why didn’t she help them to learn something useful, like car maintenance? Or—
    â€œBecause she didn’t want to, Jack,” said Uncle Otto, stopping his nephew’s chain of thought dead before he’d even had a chance to develop it, which was really unfair. “She’d reached a crisis, and she felt like giving up and going home and going back to Shropshire and retraining as a librarian.”
    â€œGolly,” said Evie. “That was desperate. Even Sam doesn’t want to be a librarian.”
    â€œI know,” said her uncle, and winked. “Charlie thought she’d make one final effort. She thought,