• Information
• Extract

Looking at her ratty-tatty, used-to-be-white, too-big high-tops, and then at her skinny chicken legs poking up from the ground, you’d never think that Casey Quinn could ever be a ballerina.

But just because Casey can’t do ballet in high-tops doesn’t mean she can’t dance. She has more grace in her pinkie toe than the local pinky-pink, richer girls put together. Casey has a dream to dance in New York - and no-one is going to stop her.

Sarah Rubin's Dreamer Ballerina is a feel-good ballet story to rival Billy Elliot – and in the spirit of Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet Shoes.

Released January 2011.

My right foot comes oh-so-slowly to stand beside my left foot. Then I start swaying - hop to the left, hop to the right. My one-two-step power dance.

I am spinning and swaying on the sidewalk in front of Vicky’s Ballet Studio. Everyone can see, driving by in their shiny new Cadillac cars. A group of high school boys comes past in their beat-up ford truck, hair slicked back, glistening with grease. They yell and whistle as they go by, but I don’t care. I am flying high, dancing free under the clear blue sky. I leap like nothing can hold me down.  Miss Priss just stares in horror, her face all red because she’s been seen with me. I’ve got her now. My arms go up in the air as I let out a joyful whoop.

And then I lose it.

The sound of my voice breaks the spell, and the other girls start to laugh. They crow and cackle and feast on my mistake. Miss Priss raises one bony finger and points at me. She shrieks with laughter, forcing it out until she doubles over gasping for air. Now it is my turn to blush, hot shameful flames licking up the side of my face. I try to keep dancing like I just don’t care.

I don’t care.

Miss Priss laughs like an ugly monkey, so who cares if she’s laughing at me? But my feet get tangled. My left foot hooks on the back of my right shoe and down I go into a heap. One messy pile of arms and elbows, legs and skinned knees.

‘Looks like you have two left feet, Bigfoot,’ Sally says. Beth howls.

‘You mean two left big-feet!’

They all shriek again even though it’s not funny. It isn’t even clever. Then, Miss Priss stands up straight. She smoothes her hand over her ballet bun.

‘I can’t believe you think you can dance. You are the worst dancer I’ve ever seen.’ She sniffs, brushing off her skirt. ‘You have no technique whatsoever.’

The other girls sniff too. Sucking up to their new Queen Bee. And then, without another word, they stick up their noses and walk into Vicky’s Ballet Studio, leaving me sitting in the dirt alone. I want to scream and shout, but I can’t. I’m too angry to speak, and being angry makes my eyes fill up with hot shameful tears. I bite my lip hard to keep them back. She should be the one sitting in the dirt, not me. I can feel the people on the sidewalk looking at me, and the people in the cars driving past.

And I know what they’re looking at too. They’re looking at my skinny chicken legs poking up from the ground, and my scrawny arms that are all elbowy. And their looking at my ratty-tatty, used-to-be-white, two-sizes-too-big, Chuck Taylor high-top shoes. They’re saying, That Casey Quinn is an awkward child. She ain’t got no grace, and she ain’t no beauty neither.

It’s true my nose is too wide, and I’m freckled from head to tappin-toe. Even under my hair I’m freckled. And maybe my ears do stick out like two mug handles, but I do have grace. I have more grace in my pinkie toe than I bet you’ve ever even imagined. I have more grace in my left little fingernail than new-to-school Miss Priss Ann-Lee and all those pinky-pink ballet girls put together.