Theatre Shoes by Noel Streatfeild Read Free Book Online Page B

from the Admiralty, and that, I suppose, is just enough for clothes and food and things. Grandmother hasn’t any. When they want money Alice sells something. That’s why the house is empty. Alice wants us to try very hard when we go to that school tomorrow, because then she thinks they won’t charge much to take us. Alice doesn’t think we’ll ever have to be actresses or an actor really. She thinks Grandfather’s money will have come before then and, anyway, I’ve made her swear that you shall go to a proper school for the Navy by the time you are eleven.”
    Mark swept all the bears into a hollow that he had made between his knees.
    â€œIf you think I’m going to shout poetry like grandmother so that everybody thinks I’m like that Sir Joshua, you’re wrong.”
    Sorrel made little pleats in Sir Joshua’s rug.
    â€œI absolutely see how you feel about grandmother, but I don’t believe that it’s grandmother who’s going to worry about the school. It seems to me it’s Alice, and I like her.”
    Mark stared at her.
    â€œBut why should Alice? She’s not a relation or anything, is she?”
    â€œWhy should Hannah? But she does.”
    Mark picked up the bears again and once more arranged them in a circle. He took the largest and a medium one and put them in the middle. He made a growling sound.
    â€œThat’s the christening call ringing across the ice.” He pulled forward the smallest bear and spoke in a squeak. “What names do you give these bears?” He turned to Sorrel. “A sea-lion’s taking the christening.” He barked, with his hand on the largest bear. “I name thee Hannah.” Then he touched the other bear. “I name thee Alice.” Then he made a lot more growling noises. “That’s the bears growling ‘amen.’”
    Sorrel thought Mark christening one of the bears Alice was a good sign.
    â€œIf it’s to help Alice would you try to-morrow?”
    Mark did not answer for a moment because he was collecting the bears to put them on the mantelpiece for the night.
    â€œAll right. Just for her I will, though I should think we’d all look the most awful fools.”
    Sorrel kissed him good-night.
    â€œI should think that’s certain. I wish to-morrow was over.”

CHAPTER VI
    THE ACADEMY
    The Children’s Academy of Dancing and Stage Training was in Bloomsbury. Hannah tried very hard to persuade Alice to take the children.
    â€œThe very word ‘stage’ turns me over. I was brought up strict and though I daresay some of these actresses live just as nicely as the rest of us, I can’t get over the way I was raised!”
    Alice would have loved to have taken the children. It would have been a day out for her, but she had to say no.
    â€œI wish I could oblige but we take a terrible lot of getting up in the morning. Our hair alone takes us half an hour, what with the brushing and fixing the combs and that. And we have our ways; you’ll get used to us in time, but right away the first morning wouldn’t do. And we’ve got an artistic temperament. We’ve been known to throw things when we weren’t pleased. We don’t want any of that.” She gave Hannah a friendly pat. “Cheer up now, there are worse troubles at sea.”
    Neither Hannah nor Sorrel thought that shorts were at all suitable wear for London. London was a place for best clothes and even for gloves. But Alice was firm, and so it was in their school cotton blouses and grey flannel shorts that Sorrel and Holly dressed. Mark had on his school grey flannel suit and his school tie and turn-over stockings with the school colours.
    They went to the Academy by tube, getting in at Knightsbridge and getting out at Russell Square. It made a good beginning to the day because of the escalator at Knightsbridge. None of them had ever been on a moving staircase before and they thought it