Free Dance Academy Anywhere but Here by Bruno Bouchet

swimming costume. The call backs are the next day. In the morning I get Scout to come tomy room at the boarding house so I can kit her out properly. As I open up my old trunk I’m confronted with my life in dance. All my old outfits, souvenirs, brief moments of glory have been packed in here. It’s a long time since I looked at them. As I’m rifling through old tutus and leotards Scout pulls out a picture of my mother posing in her
Swan Lake
costume.
    ‘She is like the most beautiful mum I ever saw,’ Scout says.
    ‘Natasha is a self-obsessed diva who has only ever loved her career.’
    Scout nods. ‘I get a card from my mum sometimes. Even money, if it’s my birthday.’
    I stop what I’m doing and look at her. You don’t have to be rich to have absent parents.
    ‘So, who do you live with?’ I ask.
    ‘My sister. My half-sister actually.’
    ‘I always wanted a sister.’
    Next Scout finds a photo of me aged about seven in a concert. There’s a whole row of identikit ballerinas. They’re all so similar it takes me a moment to work out which one is me.
    ‘What a bunhead!’ Scout says. She’s on a roll exploring all the things in my trunk. She slips on an old tiara, takes up a regal pose and puts on ahilarious posh accent. ‘You can shove that
pirouette
right up your bum, Miss Raine.’
    I crack up laughing. She’s so feisty she makes me look restrained. Impressive.
    Finally I find the right leotard for her. She tries it on and it fits perfectly, but there’s just one thing that needs doing if she’s to completely look the part – the sacred bun.
    When I’ve finished putting her hair up, Scout stands in front of the mirror in first position. It creeps me out – she looks just like all the other girls in her first audition. It’s like my feisty little Scout has vanished. I try to release her hair.
    ‘What are you doing?’ she says angrily and moves away.
    ‘You saw that picture of me. They just squash you down until everything you loved about dancing is gone.’
    The last thing I want to do to Scout is give her my life. I suddenly regret the makeover. She might not have looked ‘the part’ in her swimming costume and board shorts but she was all character.
    ‘I’m not you, okay!’ she says. Nothing and no one is going to touch her bun today. She’s fierce enough to stand up to anyone. She’s a character, whatever she’s dressed like. We head over to theAcademy to join Christian and Operation Scout is go for launch.
    Petra and Tara are helping Miss Raine at the call backs. Petra is in the corridor stamping the forms and handing out the numbers to all the hopeful baby bunheads. Tara is in the studio with Miss Raine. When Tara gives me the signal I push Scout into the line of girls waiting to enter the studio for their audition. Petra hands her a number and stamps her form.
    Through the window, Christian and I watch our protégé.
    ‘We make a good team,’ I say without thinking and suddenly realise he might take it the wrong way. We’ve never really spoken about our ‘incident’ at the world’s worst sixteenth birthday party.
    ‘Not that kind of team,’ I add. ‘My party, the … mistake, obviously.’
    ‘Not that it was bad.’
    ‘No, not at all.’
    ‘But not …’ Christian says.
    ‘Totally,’ I agree. Phew. Now that’s sorted we can get back to watching Scout.
    lShe does almost too well, attracting attention from the eagle eyes of Miss Raine. She stops the music to ask Scout, ‘And you are?’
    ‘Number fifteen,’ Scout answers.
    Miss Raine looks through her paperwork and doesn’t see Scout’s name. Then she recognises our ugly duckling.
    ‘This is most unusual … Scout? You’re not on my call-back list.’ She gives Scout’s new bunhead appearance an X-ray examination. ‘Quite a transformation, I must say.’
    For a second I see Scout slump, worried she’s going to be thrown out again. I catch her eye and hold my head up to remind her to hold her posture. As