Fluffy chapter

The next morning-

"WHY 'AVENT YOU FINISH YET?" Carlotta's cry echoed through the opera house as she stormed onstage. Babette and Ghislaine (the women who made the costumes for the Paris Opera productions) were deserving of deep pity that morning, as they were to face another of Carlotta's outbursts.

"First you make my dress too long, then you make it too tight, and now you not finished fixing it!" Carlotta went on, ranting, raving, and complaining, and Meg and Evelia knew that this would stall rehearsal for at least another 10 or 15 minutes. Silently, they started Mocking Carlotta with exasperated gestures and motions. It took all of their strength to keep from bursting out laughing. Carlotta, though busy fuming, eventually saw the girls mocking her out of the corner of her eye. Shocked and appalled, she paused in med-sentence and turned to the girls "Are you MOCKING me!"

Meg tried to hide her smile, but failed as she said "Oh no, Miss Giudicelli!" "You're lying! I saw you! You and 'er!" she pointed furiously at Evelia "Mocking me! You silly little ballet girls 'oo should bow and scrape before me were MOCKING ME! Firmin, Andre, do you believe this!" Carlotta got more and more furious with every sentence "Well I will NOT stand for zees! I will not! Goodbye, Paris Opera, I am leaving! Goodbye stupid costumers 'oo can't get anything right, goodbye stupid managers, and goodbye silly little dancing girls!" The now screaming, red-faced Carlotta stormed off, leaving everyone else speechless for a moment. Then Firmin spoke as he looked at Meg and Evelia.

"Did you really HAVE to do that? Now I have to go grovel at her knees again, do you think that is enjoyable?" And he hurried off to find Carlotta.

Messier. Andre stood with a face as red as a tomato "Oh, wonderful! We're here with a show fast approaching, and things are going fine until THIS happens! Do you have ANY idea how hard it was to get her back LAST time? And even then she wasn't nearly as angry as she was just now! I wouldn't be surprised if she leaves for good this time! So what are we to do, eh?"

There was silence, then Madame Giry said softly and calmly "We must go on with the scene. The girls need to rehearse the ballet in the middle of the scene."

"And the sailors need to rehearse their entrance that comes before the ballet!" Another actor chimed in.

"Well, that's Carlotta's song! All of it! And SHE is not here to sing it, is she!" Fumed Andre

"Well we must do something!"

"I know," Said Andre, still furious. He pointed to Meg and Evelia "You two. YOU got us into this, and you will pay the price. You will sing the aria in Miss Giudicelli's place."

"But we're ballet girls! We don't sing!" Meg protested

"Well I suppose that's your problem! You'll just have to humiliate yourselves in front of all of us by doing a terrible job!" Andre smirked as he said this.

"Messier, get a hold of yourself! This is ridiculous! And besides, Meg missed the last two rehearsals due to an injury and really needs to practice."

"Fine then!" Andre said, still quite angry "SHE can dance. But you," He pointed an angry finger at Evelia "YOU will sing, no matter how bad you sound!"

"But messier-" Madame Giry started

"No Buts!" Andre cut her off "The girl will sing!"

Slowly, Evelia came up to the front of the stage. She was terrified, but at least she knew the song. She quite liked it actually, but she would have never wished for this! She'd never practiced it before, why would she! What if she forgot the words, or if her voice broke? She wasn't warmed up, after all. Evelia did like to sing, but she had never sung in front of people before in her life! For all she knew, her voice was one thousand times worse than even Carlotta! So many thoughts buzzed frantically in her head, but all she could was nod her head for the piano's soft introduction to begin, and then start to sing. For the first few measures before she started to sing, she felt the heat of everyone's eyes as they watched her and petrified her with their cold stares. But as she started to sing, her fear slowly melted away as she sank into the world of the character. This made it much easier for her to sing, and she made no mistakes. It was a beautiful song about a lost love, so there was so much soul and emotion to put into it! As the song progressed, she put more and more of her soul into the song, and Evelia's lovely soprano voice floated to touch every wall of the opera house. About halfway through the song, Evelia noticed out of the corner of her eye that the ballet girls were not dancing. This puzzled her, but she went on. Slowly, the song's end approached, and Evelia remembered that the last note of the song was the F above high C. She did not know if she could hit such a high note, let alone not warmed up! She had never examined her rage before, and had no clue if it included a high F. What if she couldn't hit the note? How humiliating that would be! Just the thought of such humiliation chilled her but once more, she could do nothing but go on with the song. Evelia sang into the dramatic conclusion of the song, took a breath, and soared up to the high F. Astonished, Evelia realized that she wasn't screeching as Carlotta did, but instead had little trouble hitting the note. She held it out for a while, and then cut off. She was very pleased that she didn't make any big mistakes, but still fearful of what everyone else thought. As she turned with a racing heart to face everyone else on stage, she was met with loud cheering. Evelia looked around, shocked to see that everyone had gathered around to watch her sing! The cooks, the stagehands, the costumers, and Messier Andre. Every face bore a wide-eyed expression, and Meg and Madame Giry beamed. Shouts of "Bravissima!" rang out, drowning out Messier Andre as he whispered to himself in disbelief "But she's a ballet girl! I thought she couldn't sing...none of the ballet girls sing that well!" as he was as shocked as everyone was by Evelia's beautiful voice. Evelia felt warmth in her soul as everyone cheered; she knew she had done well.

Just then, Carlotta stormed in, down the isle past the rows of velvet-covered seats. Messier Firmin trailed quickly behind. "So you think you can replace me, eh? Well sorry little dancing girl, but I'm back! You can just go back to your little dance studio and your toe shoes and leave the singing to the real singers!" Then there was silence for a moment, until Andre spoke.

"Alright then, from the top of the scene if you please!"