Ok people, I honestly don't know where the heck this story is going right now. These next few chapters are all parts of the same incident, but due to time restraints I cant type them all at once.

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Thank you so much to all who reviewed and inspired me to keep writing. I will thank you guys personally in the next chapter.

"An angel?"

"Shh! Meg, please!" Christine looked around nervously, attempting to locate any eavesdroppers. She needn't have bothered.

The dormitory was milling with over twenty girls from seven to fifteen years of age, all bustling about, preparing for bed. Clothes had to be taken off, folded neatly, and placed under the bed with the rest of one's belongings; hair had to be brushed and plaited, faces were washed, hands were scrubbed, and toiletries put away with military precision in accordance to Madame Giry's unbending regime of neatness. But, of course, during such trivial tasks, more important things were addressed, such as sharing twenty girl's day's worth of gossip. The noise was unbearable.

Nevertheless, Meg lowered her voice as she craned her head over her shoulder, trying to catch the eye of her friend who was helping her unfasten the line of tiny whalebone buttons trailing down the back of her shift. "Christine, are you sure you feel well?"

The little brunette let out an exasperated sigh. "Yes! I haven't been ill since last week, when-"

"-When your angel visited." Meg completed this with the air of someone who has heard a story a thousand times and is getting a bit tired of it.

Christine winced at her friend's incredulous tone. "You don't believe me, do you?"

Meg shrugged out of her dress and began to peel off her small petticoats, not meeting her friend's hurt gaze. Christine bit her lip. Of course Meg was skeptical! Despite her wild tales and chronic lying, the little dancer's nature was such that she needed to see concrete evidence of everything. Christine had the feeling that if Meg ever got the slightest inkling that her friend had a guardian angel, she would begin pushing her from the rafters to see proof that a celestial being would catch her.

Over by her bed, Meg pulled on a nightgown, the material obscuring her face for a moment. "It isn't that I don't believe you Christine…" The child paused and seemed to be weighing her words carefully. "But…you said yourself that you only remember a little bit about that night…" Meg's tousled blonde head reemerged from the nightgown. "Perhaps you only-"

"Dreamed it?" Christine's voice came from the floor, where she sat removing her shoes. "I couldn't have Meg…I just couldn't have." She paused a moment. "I could feel how much he cared…He loved me!"

Despite herself, Meg smiled. She began to reply, when a low, mocking voice cut in on their conversation.

"Love? You? Don't make me laugh!"

Christine's shoulders tensed as both she and Meg turned to see a thin girl about two years older than them, perhaps ten, with pretty, rather vulpine features, eyeing Christine with distaste. "Who would waste their time caring about you, Mouse?" She flipped her red-gold hair over her shoulder and grinned maliciously as Christine's brown eyes filled with tears.

One bed over, Marie Delaroche, a close friend of Meg's, sat up, shaking black hair out of her face and fixed her piercing emerald gaze on Christine's tormenter. "Estelle, stop it. You're being hateful."

Estelle gave her a contemptuous glance. "Quiet! I'll say whatever I wish. So what about it Mouse?" She addressed Christine again. "Who's this person who loves you so much?"

There was a long silence as Christine stared down at her stockinged feet, not saying a word. The other girls had long since stopped their tasks to watch the drama. A few of them were shooting Estelle looks of the utmost disgust, but were loath to fight her, lest Madame Giry find out and punish them.

Estelle let out a ringing laugh. "I thought so. You disgusting little brat, you don't matter to anyone!" Christine suddenly scrambled to her feet, and for a moment it looked as though she would defend herself. But her courage seemed to fail her, and she ran from the room. Marie called out after her but got no reply, only the sound of her unshod feet descending hurriedly down a staircase.

Meg turned swiftly on Estelle, a dangerous glint in her blue eyes. "Take that back you vicious beast! How dare you be so cruel!" The older girl looked down at Meg disdainfully.

"Why should I take it back? It's true. And, even if I did, she can't hear me now. The little runt is probably downstairs in some corner, crying like she always does." Her voice became high-pitched, mocking. "Whining for her father!"

This was the last straw. With an inarticulate scream of rage, Meg hurled herself at Estelle, kicking and biting furiously. Estelle was knocked over by the force of the attack and both girls rolled over and over on the floor, fighting like a pair of crazed cats. The other ballet rats afforded themselves the luxury of one shocked moment of silence before rising to action, trying to separate the brawling girls and all accusing or defending either Meg or Estelle at the top of their voices. Marie and her twin sister Josephine recruited help and finally managed to pry Meg, who was shrieking words that no civilized eight-year-old should know, off of a screaming Estelle.

"Stop it!" Josephine cried, desperately striving to be heard above the din. "Stop it, everyone, please!" And, as though some god had decided to interfere on the girl's behalf, the entire room suddenly fell silent. Meg, her arm still clamped in Marie's tight grip, slowly turned to see her mother standing in the doorway.

The woman's sharp green eyes narrowed as they took in the entire scene: twenty girls in various stages of undressing, all trying to look as innocent as possible; Meg, bleeding from scratches on her face, being restrained by Josephine, Marie, and several others; Estelle, with a bloody nose and the beginnings of a magnificent black eye, being consoled by one of her friends, a tall pretty blonde named Annette. In short, it looked as though a full-scale tornado had swept through the room, with several casualties.

"What," hissed the woman, "happened here?" There was no reply, everyone having become seemingly fascinated by the floor. The ballet mistress strode into the room, skirts rustling, and stopped before Estelle and Meg, towering over them like some malevolent goddess. They cowered appropriately. Her eyes turned to Josephine. "Were these two fighting?"

The black-haired girl fidgeted and cast a desperate glance towards her twin, who shrugged helplessly. Finally, after gathering her thoughts, Josephine began to relate the past incident in her typical unhurried, unbiased manner.

However, before she was halfway through, Annette broke in. "That is untrue!" She snapped. "You're trying to make it seem as though it were Estelle's fault!"

"That's because it was!" growled Meg.

For a moment, it looked like there was going to be another fight, but neither girl dared risk it under the baleful gaze of Madame Giry, who snapped her fingers at Josephine, bidding her to continue. The girl did so, ending at last with, "And now we don't know where Christine is!"

The ballet mistress seemed to take no notice of this last remark and instead took a step forward and gripped both Meg and Estelle's upper arms tightly. "You two," she said coldly, "will both be severely punished for this disgusting misconduct. Tomorrow after rehearsals, you will spend another two hours exercising at the bar. Together." Estelle heaved a martyred sigh as Meg glared at her.

"Now," Madame Giry released the miscreants, "all of you to bed! Now!" She clapped her hands and there was a sudden scramble to pull on nightgowns. In a matter of minutes, the room was dark, with a girl-shaped bundle in each bed.

Once satisfied that all talking had ceased, the ballet mistress stepped out of the dormitory and closed the door behind her. She looked down the long narrow hallway, her expression suddenly one of concern. "Christine?" she called. No answer. With a growing sense of urgency, the woman began to walk quickly towards the five flights of stairs leading to the auditorium. Perhaps she was hiding in one of the boxes…

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