CHAPTER 1
hello my name is cassandra esperanza golding i livein paris france iand i dance in the core de ballet at the opera populaire in pairs I have long dark brown hair, light shining blue-green eyes and a dark complexion even though all the other girls in the core de ballet are really pale and fair. i'm one of the best dancers in the core and i always get the lead parts in the operas in the dances and a lot of the ballerinas get jealous when la Sorelli gives me the best parts but i don't care because it's not my fault i dance better than them
the opear is reall prety inside. the curtains are deep red like blood and the boxes around the stage are lined with goldn eedeocrations and golden angels that are as big as normal people. there is a chandelier with many crystals that hangs from the senter of the ceiling painted with skies from different times of day. it's so big that sometimes when all th candles melt down the workers in the opera just climp onot itl like it's a bit platform and change them.
a lot of noble people come tothe opera almost evey night too, one of them is the comte de Chagny and he comes with his younger brother roaul. me and the ballet girls when we're alone in the bedchambers talk about him being with la sorelli when we ask la sorelli she always tells us to just go to sleep but i know that it's true because once i saw her alone with himin thdanceing studio and he was hugging her for a long time and then they kissed.
but when i'm on the stage i always see him and his brother looking at me really intensely beacuse i think they think i am beautiful. people always tell me i sam beautiful they say "cassie you are so beautiful why are you still dancing her e and your not married yet" but im only sixteen and i liove to dance and i don't want to get married yet so i gnotre them.
therea also a ghose that haunts the poerao he haunts it even during the persofmances when there are people there. we call him the opera ghost and he writes notes to the new managers because monsier lefevre just resigned and he doesn't like the new managers and they don't pay him. some of the wrokers say that he's the ghost of on of the builders of the opear that died when some bricks fell on him cduirng construction but i don't think so they say that he wears a cape and a hat and his head loos like a skull with no nose and sometimes there are red flames around it. i dont see why a builder would go around haunting an operahouse like that i mean it's just builder
i think he's more than a iulder i think he's the spirit of a singer or something that used ot sing her but no one listens to me when i tell them especially not the ballet girls. theyre jsealous of me anyway and they makeup their own stories about him.
one day the managers were putting on an opera and i was the lead dancer so i was in front during the dreass rehearsals. the lead soprano carlotta was singing really high and everyone else was holding their ears because no on e likes hwer voice it's so loud and annoying. besides she looks like a fat frog and i hate her then she started singing a song from the opera called Think of me and one of the backdrops fell and almost hit her. she started sobbing and said she wouldnot perform until these things stopped happening. then the managers said "/who is the understudy" and the piano playuer monsier reyer said "There is not understudy the production is knew". everyone thought that the opera was ruined. i was stanind next to my best friend Emilia and she said to me "You should go and sing"
"No way!1" I replied turning red."i cant sing"
"yes you can your voice is so beautiful i know you could do it" she smiled at me
before anyone could say anyting else one of the other leading dancers meg got up and started pulling another browndhaired dancer toward the manage "christine dae could sing it sir!" she shouted
"the ballet girl?" said monsier firmin (that's the name of one of the managers, he has a moustache)
"she's been taking lessons from a great teahcerr!/!" she said.
"oh from whom?" said monsier andre the other manager.
the brown haried dancer whose name was christine dae said "i don't know sir"
but the managers lether sing and she sang and she sounded so much better than carlotta that on opening night she was the lead soprano and everyone thought she was great. when i saw her picture on the poster for the opera i felt my heart sikn. i loved to dance but i wanted to sing but i knew my voice was terribnle,. my mom and papa told me before they died that i could sing but after they died i couldnt. it felt like my voice was disappeared and i couldn't sing anymore even though i loved to. i felt a lump in my throat and felt like i wanted to cry
i dance that night like i had never danced before even though i felt like crying becaus i was thinking about myu mom and papa. i llveed them so much and they told me "cassandra esperanza you can do whatever you want to do if you really want to do it" and i always remembered that but then when i was little they got on a boat without me to go visit my uncle in england and the boat sank and they drowned leaving me all alone. i got sent to an orpahanage in paris but i ran away and came to the opera and learned to dance ballet. i'd wanted to sing for my whole life but i couldn't.
after the performance all of us were tall talking to christine dae about how great she was but la sorelli came in and told us we were a disgrace in the opera and to go practice. i practive witht eh girls but meg went and talked to christine then i saw raoul the comt's brother walk downt he hall way with the managers and go into christine's dressing room with a rose. a little while later he left, and then he came back after that, and then he ran out shouting "CHRISITNE!"
A/N: tell me how u like it! I read da book to so that why i used La Sorelli instead of Giry bcuz i like la sorelli more i don't know why. ^_^ R&R plz!1!