The Ballet

Chapter One

"Taylor? Come and get your dinner, we're going to watch the announcement of the dancers."

Taylor put her red hair into a simple pony tail and went to get her spaghetti bolognaise from the kitchen.

"Hurry up TayTay"

Taylor's parents cooed over their youngest daughter as they patiently waited for Taylor.

She settled down on the floor wearing a baggy grey T-shirt with light blue jeans and some warm fuzzy slipper socks. Elsie, her little sister, snuggled up next to her, her face covered with tomatoey sauce.

"Good luck girls... and the first name is..." Charles VanJole Smiled cheerily on the TV screen

Elsie started clapping; she was too young to understand that this was bad.

"Sarah Dean!"

Somewhere a girl would be crying, her family trying to console their daughter, maybe she was too young to understand what was happening.

"Girl number two is..." Charles' white teeth beamed under the lights in the studio.

"Polly Franklin!"

Taylor's mum sighed and patted her lap so that Elsie would stop wiping her face all over Taylor. Taylor took the opportunity to eat her spaghetti, taking a big mouthful and trying to chew it.

"And the final girl is..."

Taylor's father stood up and took Elsie's bowl through to the kitchen; he paused in the doorway to see who the final girl would be.

"Taylor James!"

Silence gripped the room, broken only by the sound of Elsie's bowl breaking on the kitchen tiles.

The doorbell rang shrilly through the house making them all jump; Taylor was the only one who made any advancement towards it though. She pulled open the door, still in shock. A woman in her late 20's with bubblegum pink curls waved eagerly at her.

"Taylor James? Come on, we have to go- In the car. Chop-chop!"

Taylor turned back towards her family, her eyes begging them to stop this happening. None of them moved- it was like they had forgotten she even existed. The woman took her arm and practically dragged her out of the house and shoved her in the black limo.

"We'll get you dressed when we arrive, you'll meet the other girls later and I assume you have some basic dance ability or you wouldn't have been chosen."

Some parents thought it was better to make sure their daughter could dance amazingly so that even if they were chosen they wouldn't be taken away, others thought that by not training them they would avoid being chosen in the first place. Taylor's parents chose the latter. She had never danced in her life and now she had to do it in front of the whole of Cortella.

The woman busied herself in the limo, fixing her hair, reapplying her eyeliner. She paused and looked at Taylor.

"Don't look so scared darling... Oh I never introduced myself. Where are my manners? Ursula Teduka, I'll be your designer, teacher and general helper! I'm sure we'll get along just fine."

Taylor was about to reply but Ursula waved her hand in Taylor's face.

"Just fine." She smiled a syrupy smile and clicked her fingers to get the driver to start the car.

"We'll be there in an hour." She flattened her tagerine pencil skirt and crossed the seatbelt over her matching jacket.

Taylor didn't know what to say, but she did know that she was going to find out exactly what happened to the other girls, the ones who never came home.

The car pulled up in front of a large white building, the marble pillars glisten in the light, flowers draped over the balcony, white and pink geraniums. Ivy covered the wall to the left of the large wooden door, Ursula clicked her fingers at the driver who jumped out of the limo and opened the door for her, and she muttered something about the rudeness of people these days before strutting up to the large door, her hips swaying beneath her tightly fitted tangerine skirt. Ursula stopped and turned back towards Taylor,

"Come on..." She emphasized the word 'on' and sounded somewhat childish. Her pink ringlets framed her heart-shaped face. Despite her age Ursula looked incredibly young, Taylor couldn't see a single wrinkle on her softly powdered skin, her heavily painted ruby smile spread across her face revealing her fake, whitened teeth.

"Do hurry up dear, we have..." Ursula paused and looked down at the gold watch on her wrist,

"Two hours until your interview."

After the announcement of the dancers, they were taken away from their homes, dressed up like dolls and forced to smile for the public and talk about how glad they were to be chosen, how long they had waited to show their respects for the murdered girls.