Paul felt strange, confused a moment as he stared at the box of tights. Why wasn't he dressed for rehearsal? He grabbed the dark green tights from the box and went to the boy's dressing room.
Where were his slippers? His top? He must have forgotten them. Mum would kill him - she had been talking him up to her class for weeks, and now that he was actually there to perform for them, he'd forgotten his stuff!
"Paul!" His mother stuck her head in the door. "What are you doing in here? And why are you wearing tights?"
"For the demonstration!" Paul stared at his mother, bewildered. "You asked me to do a dance demonstration for your students, remember? But I forgot my slippers."
"Your...?" His mum looked like she was going to laugh. "Uh, tell you what. If you want to give a demonstration to my girls, I'll loan you my slippers - they're close enough to your size." She took them off and tossed them to him. "This should be... interesting."
Grumbling over his mother's weird attitude, Paul got the slippers on and went out. All the little girls were off to the side, some giggling. His mother was grinning, too, but she put on a CD and turned to watch as 'Swan Lake' came on.
Settling into a crouch, Paul took a breath, spun up with the music and began to dance. He was doing well, he knew, but it was one of the routines he had been doing when he was 6. Why was his mother looking so shocked?