Ms. Green referred to the sheet of paper on her desk. “Name the countries of Europe,” she read, “in the order of size.”
Nancy bent over her paper. This was easy. She pictured each country as she listed it, as though reviewing the memory of old friends. She gave a special little smile as she reached Switzerland, which had always been her favorite. She thought of the greenness, the high white peaks of the Alps, the sound of cowbells ringing clear and soft through the sweet mountain air. She completed the list and sat quietly, waiting for the next question. Everyone else was still writing. Faces around her were wrinkled into scowls of perplexity.
Honestly, Nancy thought, how can they have trouble with such an easy question? It seemed like hours before Ms. Green picked up her sheet again: “Name all the bodies of water that touch the European coastline.” Another simple list, and not even a long one.
Quickly Nancy listed the names of the gulfs and seas. She wondered idly how Kirby had done with that one. She had been to all the same places that Nancy had, but to Kirby the whole of the continent was composed of ballet companies—the Royal Ballet in England, the State Ballet in Germany, the Opera Ballet and the Grand Ballet de Monte Carlo in France. Whether or not she had ever noticed the bodies of water was anyone’s guess.
She finished her list and went on to the next question: “Name the capitals of all the countries.” Another easy one; you couldn’t visit a place without knowing its capital.
The fourth question was to name the languages; the fifth, the principal industries.
So engrossed was she in trying to remember those that she wasn’t aware of the figure that had stopped by her desk until Ms. Green spoke.
“Nancy Garrett, may I please see your paper?”
Nancy jumped, her pen bounding on the paper.
“I haven’t finished yet,” she said. “I’m only on the fifth question.”
“So I see.” Ms. Green bent over to inspect the paper. “Can you explain exactly how that happens to be?”
“Well, I—I—just haven’t gotten any further. I don’t think anyone else has, either.” Nancy glanced up at the teacher in bewilderment.
“I don’t imagine they have,” Ms. Green said coldly. “Especially since I have only read out loud two questions.”
“What?” Thinking back, Nancy couldn’t remember the exact wording, but she was certain that she had heard five questions. “Maybe I’m wrong, then,” she said. “Maybe I just thought you asked more questions.” Even to her own ears it sounded absurd.
“No, Nancy, you did not imagine these questions,” Ms. Green said. “They are exactly the same questions that I asked the previous classes. I would be very interested in learning how you knew what they would be.”
There was a long silence. All around them, heads were raised and turned in their direction. Thirty pens were held, suspended, over thirty sheets of paper as thirty students waited to hear Nancy’s explanation.
“I—I don’t know,” Nancy said slowly. “I just sort of—knew. I do that sometimes. I mean, I guess things and they turn out to be right.”
“How very convenient,” Ms. Green said.
There was a snicker from the far side of the room. Two girls exchanged knowing glances. A boy with a seat across the aisle cleared his throat.
“Nancy Garrett.” Ms. Green repeated the name thoughtfully. “Don’t you have a twin sister? Isn’t she in my third-period class?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Nancy said. She paused and then suddenly the significance of the question came through to her. “You think Kirby told me the questions? But she didn’t! Kirby would never do a thing like that.”
“Did you see your sister during lunch period?” Ms. Green asked.
“Yes,” Nancy admitted. “We ate together, but we didn’t talk about geography. We didn’t talk about anything much. We just ate our lunches and we were both busy thinking about other things.”
Ms. Green picked up Nancy’s paper from the desk.
“I do not put up with cheating in this class,” she said darkly. “I realize that it can be difficult for a homeschooled child to keep up in a regular classroom, but no problems are ever solved by dishonesty.”
“I didn’t cheat!” Nancy exclaimed. “I don’t have to cheat! I know the answers!”
“And evidently you know the questions as well.” There was no sympathy in Ms. Green’s voice. “I would like to see you after school this afternoon in the counselor’s office. I think Mr. Duncan should have an opportunity to hear your explanation. I will have your sister summoned also.”
“But Kirby can’t stay after school,” Nancy said. “She dances. She won’t come. I know she won’t.”
“If she doesn’t,” Ms. Green warned, “you will both be in even more trouble than you are right now.”
When Kirby arrived at the counselor’s office, it took only one look at Nancy’s face to know that something bad had happened. Nancy’s eyes were hard with a frosted, blue look, and her chin was thrust out in a way that her sister knew well.
She’s angry, Kirby thought. No, she isn’t just angry. She’s absolutely furious.
Aloud she said, “I can’t stay long. I have a dance lesson at four. I’ve already missed the three twenty bus by coming here, and I absolutely have to catch the one at three forty.”
Mr. Duncan was seated behind a wide-topped desk. He looked older here, somehow, than he had the night their mother had introduced him to them in their own living room. His face was serious and thoughtful, and Kirby thought, Whatever this is about, he’s going to be fair about it.
However, it was Ms. Green, glaring furiously from a chair by the window, who started talking.
“I’m afraid your dance lesson is less important than the subject we have to discuss,” she said firmly.
Ms. Green’s face was serious, also, but there was nothing thoughtful about it. She had the kind of face that was Kirby’s least favorite—not a straight-lined one like Nancy’s or gentle and rounded like their mother’s, but a tight, prissy little face that looked as though it had dried up and withered. Until this moment, Kirby hadn’t noticed how unpleasant it was.
Now, when she answered, Kirby made her voice as sweet as possible.
“I do have to make my lesson,” she said, “and my dancing is important. I’ll be happy to give you ten minutes, though, if I can help you. What’s the problem?”
Ms. Green’s face pursed even more until it looked as though her mouth might never get back into shape again. It was as if she couldn’t believe that anyone as soft-looking as Kirby could have spoken in such a way.
“Let me tell you now, young lady,” she said, “that I will not stand for impertinence!”
“Kirby’s not being impertinent,” Nancy said. “She does only have ten minutes.” She turned to Mr. Duncan. “Ms. Green wants you to find out if my sister gave me the answers to the pop quiz in social studies. She thinks we cheated.”
Mr. Duncan spoke for the first time. His voice was matter-of-fact.
“Well,” he asked, “did you?”
“Of course not,” Nancy said.
“Did we have a social studies test?” Kirby had forgotten all about it. The morning classes were things she dreamed away in order to reach the afternoon. “Oh, yes, we did, didn’t we! The one on Europe. Why would I need to help Nancy? She’s much better in school than I am.”
“According to what Ms. Green tells me,” Mr. Duncan said, “Nancy did know the questions ahead of time. She was writing answers to questions that hadn’t been asked yet. Her knowledge of those questions must have come from someone.”
“I suppose it could have been me,” Kirby admitted. “I have that class right before lunch, and I was thinking about the quiz when I came to the table. I didn’t tell her, though. If she got anything, it was an accident.”
“You see!” Nancy gave Ms. Green a glance of angry satisfaction. “See, I told you. I don’t cheat, and Kirby doesn’t, either. I just didn’t realize that you hadn’t asked the
questions yet. There was nothing dishonest about it.”
“Now, wait a minute,” Mr. Duncan said quickly, before Ms. Green had a chance to open her mouth for an answer. “You say that Nancy might have gotten the questions from you, Kirby, but that you didn’t tell them to her. Can you explain that statement?”
“Nancy does that,” Kirby said. “She always has. It’s—well, I guess it’s just something she enjoys playing around with. She likes to do things with her mind.”
“If you think that any intelligent human being can accept that—” Ms. Green began furiously, but Mr. Duncan raised a hand to stop her.
“Wait,” he said. “Now, let’s hold on a minute, Ms. Green. I would like to hear a bit more about this ability of Nancy’s. There is such a scientific thing as extrasensory perception, you know, although we don’t run into it too often.”
“Extrasensory perception?” Ms. Green’s mouth fell open. She stared at the counselor as if he had gone mad. “Oh, come on, Mr. Duncan, surely you can’t be serious!”
“But I am,” Mr. Duncan said firmly. “ESP does exist. I’m positive it does. I’ve known these girls’ family for years, and I’ve often wondered if their grandmother didn’t possess that gift. Now, Nancy, your sister says you play around with it. Does that mean you practice this sort of thing often? I mean, that you know things without anyone telling them to you?”
“How often is often?” Nancy asked, setting her chin in the way she did when she was going to be difficult. “You mean every hour or once a day or once a week or what?”
“May I go now?” Kirby asked, glancing up at the wall clock. “I really will miss the bus if I don’t get started.”
“Yes, go along,” Mr. Duncan said. His eyes were still on Nancy, and he was beginning to look excited. “I’ve done a lot of reading about ESP. It’s a longtime interest of mine. We have a psychiatrist right here in Palmelo, a Dr. Russo, who’s done some experiments in that field.”
“We’re here to talk about the test!” Ms. Green broke in. Her face was a mean little knot of frustration. “If you think I’m going to give a grade to a paper that was obviously the result of cheating—”
“Please, Ms. Green,” Mr. Duncan said. “We’ll discuss that later. Right now, I want Nancy to tell us more about this mind-reading gift of hers.”
This mind-reading gift… The words stayed in Kirby’s head as she hurried along the sidewalk toward the bus stop.
This gift—what a strange thing to call it! It was Kirby, with her dancing, who was the talented one in the family. She had always assumed Nancy’s “gift” was just being supersmart. But Nancy—was it possible that Nancy was gifted with a talent as well, but in a very different way?
The bus arrived, and Kirby climbed on it and settled herself into a seat. What if Nancy is gifted? she asked herself, continuing the line of thinking. It was true that Nancy could do things other people couldn’t. “The phone is going to ring,” Nancy would say, and Brendon, who loved to answer the phone, would get up, and the phone would ring, and he would answer it. Or “They’re all out of clams,” she would say as they entered a restaurant, and the waiter would hand them the menu and say, “I’m sorry. The clams are gone.”
It was strange, when you thought about it, how she could know such things, but they never did think about it particularly, because it was just Nancy. They took it for granted as part of her, the way they took for granted the fact that she was smart and stubborn and had blond hair. She was theirs, the family’s, and they loved her, and they put up with her peculiarities just as she put up with theirs. Was it possible that she had something so extraordinary that it could bring that light of excited discovery to Mr. Duncan’s eyes?
She was still wondering about it when she turned up the front walk of the Vilar Dance Studio and opened the door, and then—as always—all thought vanished from her mind before the glorious realization that she was here—here at last—and the only part of the day that mattered was about to begin.
The moment the door closed behind her, the atmosphere of the dance studio came sweeping over Kirby—the smell of floor wax and sweat and broken-down toe shoes, the swirl of movement, the muted sound of music from the practice rooms.
Standing in the entrance hall, Kirby could see straight through the open door into the largest of the rooms, with the barre running horizontally around the walls and the great floor-to-ceiling mirrors and the shiny wood floors. A class of little ones, six-to eight-year-olds, was just finishing a lesson. Miss Nedra, one of the youngest of the teachers, was giving the instruction, and Arlene Wright, a delicate, pale-faced girl of about Kirby’s age, was acting as demonstrator.
Madame Vilar herself taught only the most advanced classes, although she often sat in the corner of the room and observed.
Now Kirby stood for a moment watching, remembering herself at six years old, already certain that the only thing in the world she would ever want was to be a dancer. Then, with a glance at her watch, she turned to hurry into the dressing room and change into her leotard.
When she emerged, the baby class was over and her own advanced group was already assembling. Madame Vilar was standing in the hallway. She was wearing the traditional black leotard, and beneath it, the bones of her thin shoulders stuck out like little wings.
“Kirby,” she said, “you will not take Miss Nedra’s class today. Instead, I would like to see you in the third practice room.”
Turning on her heel, she started down the hall.
Kirby’s stomach went tight with apprehension. She had seen Madame Vilar take girls into the further practice room before. Only last week she had seen two girls from the beginning class trailing after her down the hall. The next day one of the girls had withdrawn from dancing completely and the other had dropped ballet and enrolled in a tap class.
Kirby felt her stomach turn. She couldn’t give up taking regular lessons now—not after waiting so long to be able to have them!
Madame did not even glance over her shoulder as they entered the room.
“Please close the door behind you,” she said.
Kirby followed her through the doorway and pushed the door shut. The room was very silent.
Madame crossed to the CD player in the corner and pressed a button. In an instant the room was filled with music. It was a melody Kirby had never heard before.
Madame Vilar seated herself in a straight chair next to the player and folded her hands in her lap.
“Dance,” she said.
“Dance?” Kirby stared at her. “But how—what—?”
“When your mother brought you here,” Madame said crisply, “she said that you could dance. I did not wish to see you dance then. Now I do. So”—she motioned with her hand—“dance!”
Kirby felt her panic beginning to subside. There was nothing frightening about dancing, even if it was for Madame Vilar.
“All right,” she said. But she did not start. She stood quietly for a long moment listening to the music. It was telling a story of a summer sunrise. The sky was lightening and the wind was waking. Somewhere in the music there was a bird.
Gathering her body, Kirby stood waiting as the morning came alive around her and the bird sat poised, opening its wings. Then she lifted her own arms and moved out into the morning and became it all.
Kirby’s gift was that she could become with her body the thing she was hearing. It wasn’t the way it was when she did her exercises, for then she thought about each part of herself, her arms, her legs, her feet, her head, her chest.
When she danced she did not think; she merely was. She let her body do its own thinking, and she lifted and flew and was the bird and was the wind and was the dawn.
The sun rose slowly against the gray of the summer sky. The wind rose and caught the clouds and stirred them awake. The bird chirped, first sleepily, then hungrily; then it burst into song. All of it happened together, faster and wilder, as the sun broke free of the edge of the earth and exploded into the sky and the clouds blew
apart and the wind turned to gold, and it was no longer dawning—it was a bright blue day!
The music stopped. Kirby stopped. The dance was finished.
She had danced hard. Her legs ached. Her chest throbbed with the force of her breathing. She looked into the mirror and saw herself standing there, panting for breath. Her hips were broad and her bust rounded and her face plump and flushed, and she wasn’t a dawn breaking or a bird soaring. She was merely Kirby Garrett.
She turned and looked at Madame Vilar. Slowly the black swan rose from its chair.
“You did not learn that in seminars,” she said.
“No,” Kirby admitted. “The positions and steps, though—I learned those.”
“There have been dancers in your family, perhaps?” Madame asked.
“I don’t know,” Kirby said. “I don’t think so. I think I’m the first—the only—dancer.”
“So you think of yourself as a dancer?” The swan eyes narrowed. “It takes many years to become a dancer, my young friend. Years—work—practice—heartbreak. And you do not look like a dancer. You are too tall already. Your bones are large.”
“But I can dance,” Kirby said. She paused. “I—I didn’t mean it to sound that way,” she said in embarrassment. “I didn’t mean to sound like bragging. I know there’s a lot for me still to learn. It’s just that—I know I can learn it. I can dance.”
Madame Vilar shook her head in bewilderment.
“It is strange,” she said. “Looking at you, who would guess? And with no consistent training—” She shook her head again. “It is all wrong. You are not the type. You should be thinking about school parties and boyfriends. If you want to perform, you should be thinking about becoming an actress in a television series or some such thing.”
“I will be a dancer.” Kirby spoke quietly, but the softness was gone from her voice. It was a voice that was older than she was, clear and strong and determined. She raised her head and met the swan’s sharp black gaze with her own steady blue one.