Ballerina

'The State Ballet School' - that was the name over the main entrance. All her life Lana would remember walking through the door that first morning as a new girl - the sound of music and dancing feet, the pile of black ballet shoes on the secretary's desk, the girls hurrying along the corridor... Soon they would be her friends: they would work and laugh and quarrel and dance together, learning from the stern but devoted Miss Nina all that was contained in the magic word "Ballet." She had no idea, that first day, of what the future held in store for her; of the tragedy which lay just ahead of her; of the wonder and excitement of emerging at last as the ballerina she had always longed to be.