In the Woods

It was Katy's diary, the one Rosalind had told us she'd got bored with and thrown away. The Cameron Academy's cleaning lady, in an unaccustomed fit of thoroughness, had found it taped to the back of a framed poster of Anna Pavlova that hung on the studio wall. She had rung Simone, agog with excitement, when she read the name on the cover. I should have given Simone Sam's number and hung up, but instead I left the joyriders' statements unchecked and drove down to Stillorgan.

It was eleven in the morning and Simone was the only person at the Academy. The studio was flooded with sunlight and the photos of Katy had been taken off the notice-board, but one breath of that specific professional smell-resin, hard clean sweat, floor polish-brought it all back: skateboarders calling on the dark street below, rush of padded feet and chatter in the corridor, Cassie's voice beside me, the high singing urgency we had brought with us into the room.

The poster lay facedown on the floor. Dusty sheets of paper had been taped to the back of the frame to form a makeshift pouch, and on top of them was the diary. It was just a copybook, the kind kids use in school, lined pages and the cover that grubby recycled orange. "Paula, who found this, had to go on to her next job," Simone said, "but I have her phone number if you like."

I picked it up. "Have you read it?" I asked.

Simone nodded. "Some. Enough." She was wearing narrow black trousers and a soft black pullover, and they somehow made her look more exotic, not less, than the full skirt and leotard had. Her extraordinary eyes had the same immobilized look they had held when we told her about Katy.

I sat down on one of the plastic chairs. "Katy Devlin VERY PRIVATE KEEP OUT THIS MEANS YOU!!!" the cover said, but I opened it anyway. It was about three-quarters full. The handwriting was rounded and careful, just beginning to develop touches of individuality: strong flourishes on y's and g's, a tall curled capital

S. Simone sat opposite me and watched, one hand laid over the other in her lap, while I read.

The diary covered almost eight months. The entries were regular at first, maybe half a page a day, but after a few months they became intermittent, two a week, one. Much of it was about ballet. "Simone says my arabesque is better but I still have to think about it coming from the whole body not just the leg specially on the left the line has to go straigt through." "Were learning a new piece for the end of year show it has music from Giselle + I have fouettés. Simone says remember this is Giselles way to tell her boyfriend how he broke her heart + how much shell miss him this is her only chance so that has to be the reason for everything I do. Some of it goes like this" and then a few lines of labored, mysterious notation, like some coded musical score. The day she got her acceptance from the Royal Ballet School was a wild, overexcited burst of capital letters and exclamation marks and stickers shaped like stars: "IM GOING IM GOING IM REALLY REALLY GOING!!!!!!"

There were passages about things she did with her friends: "We had a sleep over at Christinas house her mum gave us weird pizza with olives + we played truth or dare Beth fancies Matthew. I dont fancy anyone dancers mostly dont get married till after their career so maybe when Im thirty five or forty. We put on make up Marianne looked really pretty but Christina put too much eye shadow she looked like her mum!!" The first time she and her friends were allowed into town on their own: "We took the bus + went shopping to Miss Selfrige Marianne + I got the same top but hers is pink with purple writing mine is light blue with red. Jess couldnt come so I got her a flower clip for in her hair. Then we went to Mac Donalds Christina stuck her finger in my barbcue sauce so I put some on her icecream we laughed so much the gaurd said hed put us out if we didnt stop. Beth asked him do you want some barbcue icecream?"

She tried on Louise's pointe shoes, hated cabbage and got kicked out of Irish class for texting Beth across the aisle. A happy child, you would say, giggly and determined and running too fast for punctuation; nothing special about her except dancing, and contented that way. But in between: terror rose off the pages like petrol fumes, acrid and dizzying. "Jess is sad that Im going to ballet school she cried. Rosalind said if I go Jess will kill her self + it will be my fault I shouldnt be so selfish all the time. I dont know what to do if I ask Mum and Dad they might not let me go. I dont want Jess to die."

"Simone said I cant get sick any more so tonight I said to Rosalind I dont want to drink it. Rosalind says I have to or I wont be good at dancing any more. I was really scared because she got so mad but I was mad too and I said no I dont beleive her I think it just makes me sick. She says Ill be sorry + Jess isnt allowed to talk to me."