'When you do dance'

“That looks like Downton Abbey to me.” Two teenagers stand gawping at the gates of the regal, cream, brick building of the Royal Ballet School, situated in the lush green of Richmond park. Anya continues talking to her friend Vicky who is still mesmerized, “I can't believe you dragged us all this way though! Oi, Vic, I'm talking to you!” She playfully nudges Vicky who finally responds,

“It's a dream isn't it?”

“Dream on more like!”

Vicky is slightly bruised by Anya’s comment; “What? I'm good enough!”

Anya enjoying the opportunity for sarcasm looks her friend up and down in assessment, “Sure you're just about good enough, but what about when they hit you with the school fees huh? Did you think about that one ‘Darcey Bussell’?!”

Vicky rolls her eyes; she knows Anya is right, “Thanks for the vote of confidence”.

Anya looks back to the school; “'Well sometimes you have to be realistic,”

“Don't you want to go?” Vicky retaliates.

“Sure! But I don't let my crazy mind pollute me with false hope.”

“Ooh poetic!” Mocks Vicky.

Anya puts on her best upper class British accent, “Indeed! And I happen to have quite a penchant for poetry!”

Vicky mimicking, “Oh, fancy that, me too!” She pulls out a little black notebook from her backpack and opens it to a page of a less than perfect sketch, but a valiant effort nonetheless, of two girls doing up their pointe ballet shoes in tutus and leotards. Vicky shows Anya her sketch, “I could see us there together!”

Anya observes the sketch, “Now that's pathetic! Is that supposed to be us?”

Both the girls burst into a fit of giggles. Vicky quickly composes herself, however, not wanting to betray the seriousness of her own intent, also admittedly in slight defense at the exposure of her drawing. She continues in her attempt of conviction, “The law of attraction says if you visualize something enough it will happen!”

“That's it Vic! That's your calling...you'd make an excellent leader of a cult!”

Vicky rolls her eyes playfully once more and pushes Anya, “Shut up!”.

Anya checks her watch “Right daydream believer I need to head back in time for dinner that, to be fair, I did just spend the last twenty minutes visualizing! You coming?”

Vicky seems lost in thought, after a long pause she says quietly “It was my Granddads birthday today.”

Anya knows the weight of this, how close companions they were, she takes her friends hand “I'm sorry Vicky.”

“He would've liked this place you know. I'm gonna go check out this antiques fair on the way home that he used to take me to, it reminds me of him.”

“What old?” Anja jests to cheer her up.

Vicky appreciates this, “Yeah old!”

Vicky arrives at a bustling antiques fair, she feels small amongst the crowd and somewhat overwhelmed. She opens her bag with forced determination. Her eyes scanning the contents of the interior, suddenly an internal panic ensues as she cannot find what she is looking for. “Oh no!” she opens a zipper and checks the front compartment to no avail! “Oh no, no, no!” She checks the bag again with a frenzied pace…nothing! She shoves her hands deep into her pockets, palms beginning to sweat as both are empty. Desperately she feels around some more before discovering a rip in the lining of her right pocket. She pushes her fingers through and her fingertips tap upon an object. She traces her grip around a box, with this a wave of relief washes over her as she carefully pulls the box in front of her eyes for confirmation. “Note to self, buy a new coat!” She takes off the lid to reveal a stunning gold locket necklace with the initial 'V' for her name engraved on the front. She opens the locket, a gold crafted ballerina stares back at her. Her relief turns to a feeling of regret and sadness as the reality at the prospect of selling this possession dawns on her.

Vicky walks up to a table, from the contents majestically displayed, it looks like jewellery is mainly being handled here, ‘success!’ she thinks to herself. She asks the elegantly dressed gentleman behind the table in a sheepish voice “Excuse me sir, can I get this valued please?”

The man removes a looking glass from his eye somewhat stereotypically “Do you have an appointment young lady?”

Vicky looks confused “Err no, was I supposed to?”

“Yes I'm afraid so, we are filming here this evening so I can only view pre-approved items, I suggest you try your luck at one of the other tables instead.”

Vicky looks dejected but obliges politely “Ok”. She swivels around on her feet, spots an emptier looking stand and heads in that direction.

Again, she approaches an antiques appraiser. This time she musters up as much confidence in her voice as she can manage “Excuse me sir, could you give me a valuation for this please?” She displays the open box containing the necklace.

The man rather clumsily, in her opinion, takes out the necklace and turns it over examining it a few times. He opens and closes the clasp. “Hmm, it doesn't fully close as well as it should do.” He continues looking at it closely under a looking glass, then he rubs it harshly,

“Careful!” Vicky exclaims.

“Yes you should be more so!” He answers. “There's a scratch on the back.” The appraiser pompously purses his lips then exhales out a few times as though thinking but Vicky can tell it’s more for effect “Pom, pom, pom, I'd say one to two thousand in auction.” He looks at her, “We have an auction starting soon if you would like me to add this as a lot?”

Vicky can feel her heart sinking, a cool breeze washes over her simultaneously making her shiver.

“Well?”

“Um” She is lost in contemplation, the sinking feeling growing heavier, almost unbearable. She is about to respond when gasps of appreciation coming from the table next to where she is stood breaks her trepidation, a welcome distraction from this sensation into one of intrigue as she allows her eyes to follow the noise, her gaze landing on a beautiful stone statue of a proud man; a soldier with a sword by his side and a dog sat at his foot. A smile plays across Vicky’s lips as the face of the statue resembles a similarity to her Grandad. She turns back to the antiques appraiser and takes the necklace firmly in hand “No thank you!”. She says.

Vicky weaves her way to the front of the crowd, she stands admiring the statue. A woman with kind eyes is talking passionately about the figurine. Vicky’s admiration turns to daydream as she imagines herself pirouette in the grand hall of the impressive Royal Ballet school. ‘This statue would certainly be very fitting for such a place!’ She thinks. A dog barks and jumps on her in a frenzy, snapping her back to reality, he dives into her bag and snatches the remnants of a sandwich, Vicky unprepared and unbalanced, falls to the ground. After profuse apologies from the owner, who has gone rushing after the dog shouting profanities in his direction drawing many smirks from onlookers, Vicky gets to her feet “It's ok, I wasn't going to eat that anyway!” she teases. She brushes herself off, box in hand: empty. “Oh you got to be kidding me!” Her eyes dart around, frantically searching the ground, “Why didn’t you put the lid back on” she mutters to herself. All she can see are people’s feet. “Excuse me, sorry excuse me please, I’ve lost something,” a few onlookers hear this and shuffle out of the way, some attempt to help, “I’ve dropped a gold necklace, can you see it?” A good few minutes pass by which feel like an eternity, the search yields no results.

Just when all hope seems squashed the antiques expert with the friendly eyes approaches Vicky and holds out a delicate, manicured hand “Is this what you are looking for?'”

Vicky looks up to see her necklace shimmering in the dimming light of dusk.

“Yes thank you so much!”

The lady smiles “Oh and this?” She picks up the little black book, “I saw it fall out of your backpa-' Her sentence trails off as she studies the page that the book fell open on.

The woman’s face turns to one of shock, her jaw dropped. Vicky perplexed pipes up jokingly “Alright I didn't think my drawing was that bad!!!”

The woman calls over to her colleague who swiftly comes to her side, her face equally as stunned as she absorbs the page before her. The colleague nods to her with a confident look of validation and awe. Finally, the woman looks at Vicky and exclaims “It's not the drawing dear, it's the writing! Who gave this to you?”

“My Grandad gave it to me, it belonged to my Great, Great, Great… well, a many number of Great Grandad’s ago. He worked for a poet who gave it to him as a gift knowing he was also fond of poetry. Why?” Vicky replies.

The lady blinks a few times taking this information in, then smiling, she reveals: “This is the work of Shakespeare! This is his writing”. She turns to her colleague “How absolutely marvellous! Do you know the last thing I auctioned of his work fetched close to ten million.” They stand in utter awe. “I mean, just look at this” She reads Shakespeare’s handwriting:

‘When you do dance, I wish you

A wave o’ th’ sea, that you might ever do

Nothing but that.’

A broad grin beams, lighting up Vicky’s face. She takes out her phone and types out a message: ‘Our dreams really do come true!’ and presses send to Anya. She fastens the necklace around her neck, looks at the little black book for a while, then up to the sky and exclaims “THANKS GRANDAD!”.