The Red Slippers Read online

  “Nancy’s in detective mode already!” George said. “She’ll figure out who sabotaged you in no time.”

  “Thanks, Nancy,” Maggie said, “but this is no mystery. I know exactly who did it.”

  “Who?” Bess asked.

  “Fiona Scott,” Maggie replied, practically spitting the name. “She’s my understudy. If Jamison doesn’t let me perform tomorrow for Oscar LeVigne, Fiona will go on instead.”

  “That reminds of me this old movie I watched with my grandmother, All About Eve. It’s about an understudy who schemes to take over for the star without anyone knowing,” George said.

  “Unfortunately, this isn’t a movie,” Maggie lamented.

  “How do you know it’s Fiona?” I asked. I had learned over the years that the first person someone suspects is usually the wrong one.

  “This isn’t the first incident that’s happened on this tour. In Fairview, my wig went missing thirty minutes before the start of the performance. Fiona had to step in, since her wig is two sizes smaller than mine and there wasn’t an extra. Then in Bristol someone told our hotel’s front desk to give me a wake-up call every two hours the night before our show. The next day I was so tired, I fainted backstage during intermission and Fiona had to take over in the second act.”

  “How has this girl not been kicked out of the company?” Bess fumed. Her face was red with indignation. Bess hates anything that isn’t fair, and cheating drives her especially crazy.

  “There was never any proof,” Maggie said. “Plus Fiona’s parents are major academy donors. Their money helps pay for Jamison’s salary. He is never going to punish her without evidence and risk losing her parents as benefactors.”

  “I’m sure Nancy could end this once and for all,” Bess said.

  “I’d be happy to look into it,” I offered.

  “It’s okay,” Maggie said. “This is our second-to-last stop on the tour. I’d rather just focus on dancing and stay out of Fiona’s way. I don’t want to make her any angrier.”

  I caught Bess’s eye in the rearview mirror. Next to me, George was looking at me the same way. None of us thought Maggie’s plan was a good one. From what she had said so far, Fiona seemed ruthless. Maggie couldn’t be careful enough!

  But before I could say anything further, we were at the theater. I screeched to a stop.

  “It’s too late!” Maggie said. “Three twenty.”

  “You have twenty-eight seconds till it turns three twenty-one,” George said, holding up her watch. “I’ll run in right behind you to prove you made it in time.”

  “We all will,” I said.

  We jumped out of the car and Maggie sprinted up the steps, with George, Bess, and me right behind her.

  Maggie flung open the door and raced through the lobby.

  “Fifteen seconds!” George shouted breathlessly.

  Maggie made it to the theater entrance and threw open the door, stopping so abruptly that I almost plowed into her. I looked up and saw why she had stopped so suddenly.

  The entire cast—roughly thirty-five girls and a handful of boys—stood staring at Maggie, in complete silence. There was a mix of horrified looks on their faces as well as the occasional gleeful one. The back of Maggie’s neck was bright red, and I imagined that her face was as well. This wasn’t a room you wanted to walk into late.

  Only one person wasn’t looking at Maggie. Standing with his back to us was a man with blond hair. The cast members kept shifting their eyes from Maggie to him and back. I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be pleasant when he finally did turn around.

  After what seemed like several minutes of awkward silence, George cleared her throat. “I have the most accurate watch money can buy. . . . Maggie made it here with five seconds to spare. She should get to dance tomorrow.”

  Slowly the man turned. In front of me, Maggie caught her breath. Bess squeezed my hand.

  “I’m sorry,” Maggie squeaked.

  “You’re sorry?” the man asked in an eerily calm voice. His entire body was held so rigidly, I didn’t understand how he’d managed to turn around so smoothly. It looked like he was rotating on a lazy Susan. His hair was slicked back and he had piercing blue eyes with extremely well-defined cheekbones. He was handsome, but severe. He also didn’t seem like someone you wanted to be on the bad side of, which, unfortunately, was exactly where Maggie was standing.

  “You’re sorry?” he repeated, a smidgen louder than before.

  Maggie nodded.

  “YOU’RE SORRY!?” he bellowed this time with amazing force. If we were in a cartoon, we’d be leaning back from the power of his voice.

  Maggie nodded again. The man marched toward us. “I thought you were serious, Maggie. I thought you had the ability to go far. Was I wrong about you?”

  “No . . . ,” Maggie said meekly.

  “I don’t care if you were technically under twenty-one minutes late, as this”—he paused and gave George a dismissive once-over—“disheveled little girl claims. If you were serious, you would have been here twenty minutes early, warming up, making sure you were in tip-top shape. Fiona was. Maybe I should let her go on instead of you, anyway.” I looked up on the stage and saw a tall blond girl struggling to hide an ear-to-ear grin.

  “That must be Fiona,” I whispered to Bess and George.

  “Please,” Maggie said to Jamison. “The time on my phone—”

  Jamison cut her off. “Stop!” he roared. “How do I feel about excuses?”

  “You hate them.”

  Jamison grabbed Maggie by the back of the neck and marched her toward the stage. He didn’t seem to be hurting her, but it certainly seemed humiliating. “I just don’t understand how you could do this to me. I thought we were a team; I thought we were going to impress Oscar together. You’ve let me down. You’ll have to dance the best you’ve ever danced today to prove to me that you can do this. If not, Fiona’s up.”

  Once Maggie was onstage, everyone sprang into action. Fiona couldn’t hide her look of disappointment, but she got out of the way and let Maggie take her spot.

  “Let’s take it from the top,” Jamison said. “Everyone back to starting positions.”

  I sighed a deep breath of relief and slumped into a nearby seat. The adrenaline rush from the drive was starting to wear off, and I was exhausted. Bess and George sat next to me.

  “That was intense!” George said.

  Bess nodded in agreement. “At least he’s giving Maggie a shot. Your race-car driving wasn’t all for naught, Nancy.”

  George giggled. “Who knew you could maneuver a car like that! You were like a female Jeff Gordon out there.”

  “I was never unsafe,” I protested. “Just a little more aggressive than usual.”

  “I’m not complaining,” George said. “I wish you drove like that all the time.”

  I grinned but shook my head. I preferred a calmer style of driving. I watched the stage, where Jamison was pacing and speaking to Maggie. He seemed upset, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying.

  “You know what’s weird?” I asked my friends.

  “What?” Bess said.

  “Jamison seemed just as upset as Maggie was. It seemed like he took it really personally,” I noted.

  “That’s because Jamison has as much riding on Oscar LeVigne’s review as Maggie does,” a male voice said. We all swiveled our heads to see a thin boy about our age with messy dark hair sitting a few seats down, almost entirely hidden in the darkness. “I’m Sebastian,” the boy said, sliding over to sit closer to us.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said. “I’m Nancy and this is Bess and George. Do you have a friend in the production as well?”

  He shook his head. “I’m the pianist accompanying the show.” I noticed his long and thin hands; they looked like they were made to play the piano.

  “What do you mean about Jamison having as much riding on this performance as Maggie?” I asked.

  Sebastian shrugged. “Just like it was really competiti
ve for the dancers to get selected for this tour, all the top teachers in the area wanted the job choreographing it. Jamison is known as a teacher who gets results, but what he really wants to do is choreograph. If Oscar likes what he did, it will open a lot of doors for Jamison. If he doesn’t, it will be tough for him to get another opportunity to break through.”

  I nodded. “But why does that make him so mad at Maggie? Can’t Fiona dance the part just as well?”

  Sebastian grunted dismissively. “She wishes. The Lilac Fairy, as Jamison choreographed it, is a hugely technical role. To dance that part and make it look effortless takes great skill. Maggie’s the only person in the company who can do it justice. When Fiona dances it, you can see the gears turning in her head as she remembers each step. It’s very mechanical. Fiona tries hard and her parents have given her every opportunity, but she’s just not at the right level.”

  “Sebastian!” Jamison bellowed from the front of the room. “Stop flirting and get down here, please!”

  I blushed, but Sebastian seemed unfazed. “That’s my cue. See you later.” He strode to the front of the room and took his seat at the piano.

  I looked at my friends. “Do you guys want to head home?” I asked. They nodded. As we made our way into the lobby, we bumped into our old ballet teacher, Miss Taylor.

  “Nancy, Bess! It’s so nice to see you!” she said. “I still miss you in my class, Bess. You too, Nancy.”

  It was no secret that Bess was the more talented dancer of the two of us. I thought back to how Sebastian had described Fiona. That was probably a fair description of how I danced. I tried hard, but it never felt natural. I never became lost in the music the way Bess did. I was always thinking about the next step, concentrating on how I held my shoulders or my hip rotation.

  “Are you involved in this show?” Bess asked.

  A cloud briefly passed over Miss Taylor’s face before she regained her composure. “No, I’m just helping out. Tomorrow my advanced students get to observe the preperformance rehearsal and even warm up with the company.”

  “That sounds like a wonderful opportunity,” Bess said.

  Miss Taylor gave us a tight grin. “It’s a great honor . . . for them.” There was an awkward pause as we tried to think of something to say. “Do you girls mind doing me a favor?” Miss Taylor asked. “Can you put these posters for the performance around town?”

  I looked at Bess and George. We didn’t have any other plans. “Sure,” we said in unison.

  I took the roll of posters from Miss Taylor, and we headed back out into the cold. Before I had even finished opening the door, I heard a man’s voice shouting.

  “It’s bad enough that you and your mother convinced me to let you go to dance school! But going behind my back to tour with a company? Having the family name on a ballet poster all over town? It’s the last straw!”

  Tentatively I pushed open the door and saw a man yelling at what I guessed was his son. The boy was shivering in his ballet clothes, looking furious. We held back, not wanting to make the situation worse.

  “Get in the car, Colin,” the man yelled. “We’re going home.”

  “No!” Colin yelled back. “I have a rehearsal.” He stormed back to the theater, shouting, “I’m becoming a professional dancer. Get used to seeing my name everywhere!” He pushed past us, letting out a primal scream of rage as he went.

  “We’ll see about that!” his dad screamed back. He ran to the door and tried to open it, but it was locked.

  “I hate you!” Colin yelled from inside.

  His dad kicked the ground in anger before turning and heading to his car.

  “What’s up?” I asked George, noting that she looked particularly glum.

  “It’s nothing. That fight just reminded me of the fight I had with my mom when I told her I didn’t want to join ballet with you and Bess. I wanted to join the robotics club. She was upset that I didn’t want to do the same things that most girls want to do.”

  Bess rubbed George’s back. “I know it’s upsetting, and I’m not saying your mom or Colin’s dad handled the situation well, but their intentions were good. They just wanted to prevent their kids from being teased.”

  George shrugged. “I think a parent’s job is to let their kids be who they are and to support them no matter what.”

  I stopped at a light pole in front of my car, thinking this would be a good place to hang a poster. But when I unrolled one, I froze.

  “Guys,” I said. “We have a bigger problem.”

  “What’s going on?” Bess asked.

  I held up the poster. Although it listed all the dancers’ names, including a special citation for Colin Carter as the Prince, the picture was of Maggie in an arabesque—a ballet position where you stand on one leg, your other leg in the air behind you, and your arms extended, one in front and one in back.

  Only the picture had been vandalized—and Maggie’s face was violently scratched out.

  CHAPTER THREE

  On the Case

  “OH MY GOSH!” BESS EXCLAIMED. “Are they all like that?”

  I flipped through the rest. Every single one had been defaced, but the posters themselves didn’t seem to have been tampered with. Clearly someone had altered the file that had gone to the printer.

  “Who would do something like this?” Bess asked.

  “I can think of one person, at least,” George said drolly.

  I nodded. “It does seem pretty clear that Fiona has it in for Maggie. Did you see how she smiled as Jamison was yelling at Maggie?”

  “Yeah, and I noticed the daggers she gave me when I proved that Maggie made it just in the nick of time,” George added.

  For a moment we were all silent. I was pretty sure we were all thinking the same thing.

  George spoke up first. “I know Maggie said she didn’t want you to investigate Fiona, but whoever did this,” she said, gesturing to the poster, “seems really scary.”

  George was right. The black lines completely obliterating Maggie’s face showed that the culprit must have been really angry. I know ballet is cutthroat, but this seemed personal, like it was about hurting Maggie.

  “I agree,” I said. “We have to convince her to let us investigate.”

  I turned toward the theater, but before I had taken two steps, Bess’s voice stopped me. “Wait. Are you sure this is a good idea?”

  I turned back, my forehead wrinkled in confusion. I may be the official detective in the group, but my friends are always right by my side. They’ve never shied away from a case, especially when we think someone might be in danger. I couldn’t imagine why Bess might not want me to investigate further.

  “Fiona needs to be stopped,” I said. “You heard what Maggie said in the car: without hard proof, nothing will happen to her.”

  “Of course Fiona needs to be stopped,” Bess said. “I’m just wondering if we need to tell Maggie. Do you remember our ballet recitals growing up?”

  “Of course,” I replied. Miss Taylor’s classes put on two recitals a year: one in June and one in December. It didn’t matter that the recitals were small and the audiences consisted of friends and family; everyone took them as seriously as if we were dancing at Lincoln Center in New York. The weeks leading up the performance, I would practice morning, noon, and night. My dad had to make a rule banning jetés before seven a.m. because my leaps woke him up.

  “Do you remember what happened to Maggie before every recital?” Bess asked, breaking into my reverie.

  I thought for a second, and it all came rushing back: Maggie sitting in the corner, wide-eyed, trembling with nerves, pale as a ghost. “Stage fright. We were all nervous, but she was on a whole different level.”

  Bess nodded. “It didn’t matter that she was the best by far. She was so anxious, she threw up before every performance. Imagine how nervous she is about dancing for Oscar. Maybe we shouldn’t show her the posters.”

  Bess had a valid point. I was doing this to help Maggie. It wouldn’
t do any good to make her more stressed before the performance. What if she made a mistake in front of Oscar because of the poster? On the other hand, it seemed wrong to investigate Fiona without Maggie’s permission, especially since she had explicitly asked me not to.

  As I examined the poster again, the solution suddenly occurred to me.

  “We’re not going to investigate Fiona,” I announced. Bess and George looked at me in shock.

  George leaned forward and placed her hand on my forehead. “Are you feeling all right, Nancy?”

  I grinned. “I didn’t say I’m not taking on the case. I just said we’re not going to investigate Fiona.”

  “I don’t get it,” George said.

  “We’re going to investigate the poster. We’re going to find out who vandalized the file. But we’ll ignore the other acts of sabotage and pretend Maggie never said anything to us about Fiona. When we know who vandalized the poster, we can tell Maggie, and then she can decide what to do.”

  Bess and George smiled.

  “All right, what’s the first step, boss?” George asked.

  I looked at the tube the posters had come in and noted a sticker that read SHARP IMAGE. “Bess, you stay here and keep an eye on Maggie. We might not officially be investigating Fiona, but I don’t trust her. Don’t let Maggie be alone, and if anything suspicious happens, call me right away.”

  Bess nodded.

  “George,” I continued, “you and I are going to Sharp Image to see what we can find out about whoever submitted this file for printing.”

  “Sounds good, Nancy,” Bess said as she headed back into the theater.

  Sharp Image is a regional chain. They’re known for their sterile white walls and counters, with giant photos of animals and landscapes adorning the walls, showcasing the bright and clean printing jobs. What most people know them for, though, are the hot-pink vests and hats they require all employees to wear. It is widely regarded as one of the most humiliating uniforms in River Heights, and most of the employees look positively miserable in them.