OK, so here's Chapter 2! I'm planning on continuing this story until the end, so no worries! Thank you 13sapphire13 for your review! Please remember to review!
I stood silently in the center of the stage as I waited to hear my fate. I hoped with every fiber of being that I would be accepted. I had no idea what I would do if I was not, I had no where else to go. It seemed like hours before Monsieur Firmin stood up.
"Mademoiselle, we have decided that we will hire you. You are most needed in our dance corps. You shall train under Madame Giry privately until you are ready to train with the rest of our ballerinas."
I was a little stunned. I was thrilled that I was wanted here, that they wanted me to stay. But, I had not come here to be a dancer. The only reason that I had prepared a dance was because it was required in an audition. But I decided that I needed this so much that I couldn't refuse.
"Thank you Monsieurs. I promise that I will train very hard." I assured them. I know that I would need to if I was ever going to hope to keep up with the other dancers. I had been to performances here before and all of the dancers had been perfect. I didn't think that I could ever dance like them.
"Yes, you will need to." said Monsieur Firmin. "You will train three times a day until you are able to practice with our other dancers."
"Madame Giry will now take you to your room where you shall be living." Monsieur Andre said. "We are short on rooms for dancers so you will be sharing a room with another girl. That's not a problem is it?"
"No, not at all Monsieur." I assured him. I had never actually shared a bedroom with someone else because I was an only child. It couldn't be too hard. And maybe this would be a way to make my first friend here.
"Very good." Monsieur Andre said. "Madame, if you would lead Mary-Alice to her room now."
"Of course Monsieur" Madame Giry responded. She turned to me. "Follow me." She instructed before turning away.
I quickly jumped off of the stage and walked after her. We left the stage room and walked back down the hallway we had went to get my costume. But this time we past that door and continued down the long corridor.
The further down we went, the more people we began to see. Girls, some my age some looking to be in their late teens, would pass us. Most of them would turn their heads to look at me, wondering who this new dancer was. Finally we stopped at a door.
"This will be your room." Madame Giry informed me. "You will be sharing it with my daughter, Meg. She is rehearsing at the moment and will be back within the hour. Your first rehearsal will be later this afternoon. Everyday you will have three practice times, all of them private with me as your instructor. You shall have one at eight o'clock in the morning, which means you should wake up before seven thirty to get ready. Then you have another at one o'clock and then another at six. Lunch at dinner will be served at twelve and five, each lasting forty five minutes, giving you fifteen minutes in between your meals and practices. Take extra care to be on time, punctuality is very important here. Now, do you have any questions?"
"No Madame. And, thank you." I added. She smiled at me and opened the door to my room.
It was large, with two beds next to each other, each covered in a purple blanket. The walls were grey and tall. There were two wooden wardrobes, not nearly as big as the ones that I had seen while getting changed, on either sides of the room.
"I will leave you so that you may get settled. Meg should be back any minute. I'm sure you will like her, she is very welcoming to our new dancers. She is one of our lead ballerina's here." Madame Giry said. "Is there anything else that you need?"
"No, Madame. Thank you." I answered. She nodded and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.
I took a deep breath. This was it, I had done it. Sure, it wasn't exactly as I expected. I never in a million years would have guessed that I would have been accepted as a dancer. Not when I had put so many hours of my life into singing and piano. But that was alright. I had always silently known that it would be harder than anything to be a singer here. The chorus was very small and accepted few people. And of course, being Prima Dona was probably one of the hardest things to achieve. Even being a piano player in the orchestra would have been nearly impossible, they had only ever accepted male instrumentalists. So, I figured that being a dancer was the best thing for the moment.
All of a sudden there was a knock at the door. I jumped a little before realizing it was probably Meg. I stood up, fixed my skirt, and walked over to open the door.
When I opened it I saw a beautiful girl. She was short, though not nearly as short as me. She had long blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. I assumed she was about nineteen. She smiled at me before I moved to the side to let her enter the room.
"Bonjour." She greeted, her voice reminded me of tinkling bells. "I'm Meg Giry, I'm your new roommate."
"Bonjour." I said as I curtsied slightly. "I know who you are. Your mother told me about you." I explained.
"Alright then." She said. "Well, all I know about you is that you are Mary-Alice, our newest dancer. Would you tell me about yourself?" she asked as she sat down on the edge of one of the beds. I copied her and sat on the other one.
"Well," I began. "I'm fifteen. Before coming here, I lived in a small town outside of Versailles with my parents. They are the ones who trained me to sing, play piano and dance. I came here, hoping for a job and a place to stay, after they died." My voice became quieter when I said the last part. I missed them so much.
Meg's voice became sympathetic. "Oh, I'm so sorry. What happened?" she asked.
"It was a carriage accident. They were walking down a road and an out of control horse ran over them with its cart." I explained.
"That's awful!" Meg exclaimed. "Where did you go?" she asked
"Well, I had no other family. My parents were both only children, like me. The government came and told me that they were taking our house to pay off my parents' debt. They told me that I had one more night in it and then I was to be sent to an orphanage. I didn't want to go so I ran away in the night. I knew that I wanted to come here, but I had no money for travel. So I started on foot. I would sleep on the streets and I found change on the street for food. Sometimes, shop owners would pay me a little to clean, so I could buy food. One time, someone even gave me enough money to take a carriage a few miles so I wouldn't have to walk. It took me about a month, but I got here." I explained. When I looked up at Meg, her face looked horrified.
"That's terrible! Something could have happened to you! What if you had gotten sick or hurt?" she asked.
I laughed a little. "I don't know what I would have done. But really Meg, it wasn't that bad. I made it here, didn't I?"
"Well yes, but it is the middle of winter, it must have been freezing!"
"Meg, listen to me. It was hard out there, but I am here and I am fine. I don't even have to think about it any more. Okay?" I asked. I was afraid this was how people were going to react. Well, actually, I was more afraid that if I told somebody, they would report me. Because technically I was an illegal runaway.
"Alright." Meg said, appearing to calm down a little. Well, I have some things that I need to get done, but I will be back later. Mother will come here to bring you to your rehearsal. Will you be alright alone until then?" she asked.
"Yes, I'll be fine. Thank you Meg." I said. As she left the room I smiled. Meg was so nice. Maybe she was my friend.
I still had a while before my afternoon rehearsal, so I decided to write. I pulled my bag onto my bed and took out the only things that were in there: paper and a few pens.
I had always been a writer. As long as I could remember I had loved it. When I was little I would write silly little stories but as I got older, I began to write music. I had used one of my pieces for my audition earlier. But I had much longer ones, some with lyrics and some without. My mother and father would always tell me that instead of writing a bunch of random pieces that I should make some that all went together, an opera. I had tried once, but it hadn't really worked. The way I would write was, if I would feel a certain emotion strong enough, I would write a piece that sounded like it. That is what it was to me: music is what feelings sound like. I was never able to write good music based on a pre thought idea.
Right then was a perfect time to write because I was feeling so many emotions. I wrote furiously for what seemed like only minutes, but it must have been hours because before I knew it I heard a knock on the door.
"Mary-Alice," Madame Giry said behind the closed door. "Its time for rehearsal."
