BALLET SHOES PLOT

Ballet Shoes follows the narrative of the Fossil sisters; three orphaned girls adopted by eccentric fossil collector and world explored Gum (Great Uncle Matthew). Pauline, Petrova and Posy are left in the care of his niece Sylvia and her old nurse, Nana, while Gum continues exploring. He leaves Sylvia enough money for five years, and which point he is due to return. When five years pass and Gum is still not back, the money begins to run out. To make ends meet, the family take in lodgers to fill the large house in their Cromwell Road house. One such lodger, Miss Theo Dane, is a dance teacher at Madame Fidolia’s Children’s Academy of Dance and Stage Training, and encourages Sylvia to enroll the girls at the school to train for the stage and learn to support themselves. Lodgers Dr Jakes and Dr Smith (ex teachers) offer to educate the girls to give them a better chance in life, as school fees had become too expensive for Sylvia to pay. The generosity of others allow the sisters to make a name for themselves, or as they vow, ‘to get our names into the history books’.

Pauline is discovered to have a talent for acting, and experiences success in London’s West End in staring roles such as Alice from Alice in Wonderland. Posie, although still a young girl, has natural abilities as a ballet dancer, and is taken under Madame Fidolia’s wing to train exclusively in classical ballet. The more practical Petrova struggles at the stage school, torn between her wish to support her family and her true passion for airplanes and engines. Sylvia’s mental heath deteriorates throughout the novel with the financial stress weighing over her, forcing her to sell the house.

As Pauline success reaches Hollywood, she is offered a contract with Independent United Pictures and five years of work for the screen. Posie runs away from home to audition for a visiting Russian ballet company, who offer her a place at their school in Prague. Petrova is lost in all the arrangements, at which point Gum eventually returns home and allows her to fulfill her dream of flying planes ‘like Amy Johnson’. Sylvia goes to Hollywood with Pauline, Nana accompanies Posie to Prague and Gum continues to travel with Petrova. Pauline and Posie know that as an actress and dancer, they are unlikely to get their names into the history books, but now vow to help Petrova to get her name there instead.