Nicole Terry 2/11/2016 ENGL 320R The Toy Soldier and the Ballerina 1128 words Every night at precisely 9:30, Mr. Henderson swept the floors of his toy shop. He checked each toy for cracks or imperfections and put each back in its place. At the grandfather clock's tenth chime, Mr. Henderson turned the lights off and went home to his family, locking the door on his way out. At exactly 10:01, the lamps flickered back on and the toys came to life. The ballerina spun in her music box. The jack-in-the-box jumped out and scared the others. The alphabet blocks made silly rhymes. Each toy had a talent. Each had something they excelled at. Each, that is, except the toy soldier. One rainy night, the toy soldier watched the other toys from his shelf in the corner. He wished he could play, too, but nobody wanted to march with him, and that was the only thing he was good at. He didn't have a real talent. Unless his talent was hidden. Maybe he just needed to discover what he was good at, and then he could play! As soon as the clock struck 10:01, he hopped off of his shelf and joined the musical instruments on the shelf below. Maybe he could make beautiful music just like the xylophone. The xylophone was thrilled to teach the toy soldier his talent. “The more the merrier!” he said. “We can try to play a duet. Repeat after me.” He played all the way up to his highest note and all the way down to his lowest note. He handed the soldier the wooden mallet. “You can do it, soldier!” he encouraged. “Give it a try.”
The soldier tried to do what the xylophone had done, but it did not sound musical. The xylophone was much bigger than the toy soldier. The soldier had to run down the length of the xylophone to hit the notes. They sounded disjointed and wrong. He didn't have the xylophone's long, elegant arms. He just couldn't reach. The toy soldier dropped the mallet. “I can't do it. I guess music is not my talent after all.” The xylophone suggested that the he try again, but the soldier wouldn't listen. He wanted to move on to something new. Maybe he could play tricks on the other toys like the jack-in-thebox could. Playing tricks was nothing like playing music, so he felt confident that this would be much better. He dashed over to the jack-in-the-box's shelf and asked if he could give the soldier lessons. “Of course I can,” the jack-in-the-box said, laughing. “This will be so fun!” The toy soldier couldn’t help but smile at the jack-in-the-box’s excitement. This has to be my new talent, he thought. “See them?” The jack-in-the-box pointed to the rocking horse and the toy train, who were deep in a conversation about who was the fastest. “We're going to scare them.” The toy soldier's face lit up and he jumped up and down. This had to be his talent. He was small. Small toys could be very sneaky. “Oh, how fun! What do you need me to do?” “I'll sneak up next to them. When I duck inside my box, that's your cue to come join me. Then we'll jump out and scare them together.” The jack-in-the-box crept over to the other toys. He climbed inside his box. My cue! The soldier carefully stepped exactly where the jack-in-the-box had, but his clunky black boots squeaked on the wooden shelf.
The rocking horse spotted him and laughed. “Caught you!” The jack-in-the-box laughed with him. “Good try. Getting caught is half the fun.” The toy soldier threw his hands in the air. “No, it's not. Getting caught is embarrassing.” “Let's try again. We can scare some other toys. It might be better this time,” said the jackin-the-box. The toy soldier shook his head. “No. I can't do anything right. I give up.” He hopped back to his shelf, lonely and heartbroken. The ballerina overheard the toy soldier. She couldn't dance knowing that another toy felt useless. She skipped over to his shelf. He was standing in a dusty corner by himself. The ballerina felt bad for not noticing that he was lonely this whole time in the toy shop. She whirled to his side and tapped him on the shoulder. “Toy soldier,” she said, “don't you want to join us?” The toy soldier slowly turned around. He stared at his boots and shrugged. “Of course I do,” he said, “but how can I when I have no talents? I'm only good at marching, and marching is boring.” “Well,” the ballerina said, “maybe you really are good at something else. Like dancing! Have you tried dancing?” “No, I haven't,” replied the soldier. “Oh, how exciting! Dancing is like marching really gracefully. I bet you can do it.” The ballerina sprang into the air. “I would love to teach you.” The toy soldier agreed to try one last time. The ballerina led him to her music box. It started playing Tchaikovsky's “Waltz of the Flowers.” The other toys came over and watched her
as she demonstrated the dance flawlessly. The toy soldier had never seen anything so beautiful before. This was what he hoped he was meant for. The ballerina ended the waltz with a curtsy. The toys clapped and cheered for her. “Now it's your turn,” she told the soldier with a smile. The toy soldier grinned at her and took her place. He repeated her steps perfectly. He was doing it! He was dancing and he was good at it! Until he tripped and fell in front of all the toys. The soldier turned bright red. He got up as quickly as he could and started to run away. “I should have known I couldn't do it,” he cried. The ballerina stopped him. “No, no. It just takes practice. We can keep practicing until you're even better than I am.” The toy soldier didn't think he would ever be good at dancing, but he wanted to believe her and he wanted to be included. At first, the toy soldier tripped and misstepped. He felt discouraged, but the ballerina wouldn't let him quit until he gave it real effort. Night after night the ballerina and the toy soldier danced and danced. And something happened that surprised the soldier—he got better! The pair twirled, leaped, and pirouetted from shelf to shelf. They waltzed, tangoed, and quick-stepped until they were the best dancers in the entire toy shop. The other toys would often come to watch them perform. “We did it!” the toy soldier said to the ballerina while they were tap dancing for the others. “We finally found my hidden talent.” “No, we didn't find it,” she told him. They finished their routine and bowed. “You created it.”
THE END