The Secret Code of Monsters.

Chapter 85 Kate and Marissa Part 85
"You know that there is no one better than you in terms of dancing and singing at the same time as you," Paret said, "but what's the point of passing through me? You don't think that I have the final say in every repertoire and every selection, do you?"

Pasetti bowed his head: "I'm sorry, Mr. Paret."

"What have you done to me? Child, no one can help you with this matter."

Paret looked at the girl in front of him. From the time she was chosen by him until today, she seemed to have never gone through the winter of her life. So the old man softened his tone and was not as harsh as before.

"Listen to me, Pasetti. I'm going to recommend you as one of the two candidates."

"But you have to understand: with your current skills alone, you won't be able to pass the final selection of the troupe - this is not an ordinary small troupe. I can only go this far, and after that it depends on you."

"Do you get me?"

Pasetti pursed his lips and nodded.

"very good."

"Go back and practice more. Although I don't think you can be completely transformed in just one week... No, don't cry, it doesn't matter. Even if you are eliminated, you are still young. You can jump a few years and become a supporting role of number six... or even number five. It will always be no problem-"

Kate Pasetti wouldn't.

She wants to be the protagonist, no, at least an important supporting role.

The old man looked at the girl who was about to cry, and saw the disappointment that she was trying to hold back but still flowed from her eyes, and he sighed deeply.

He pondered for a few seconds and made a decision.

"Maybe I can introduce you to someone, a former student of mine..."

He glanced around, bent down, and whispered a name.

Kate covered her mouth and raised her head suddenly!
"You mean-"

"Yes, yes, relax, Pasetti. She's not here." The old man laughed and pressed his hands down: "All right, you young people like her - I didn't know girls could love her so much."

"She's very famous..." Pasetti argued in a low voice.

"She wasn't as tenacious as you back then." The old man recalled his former student and sighed, "But her talent is like an inexhaustible river... I will recommend you to her, Pasetti."

"If you can get her approval, then it will affect the final choice..."

"Do you understand what I mean?"

Kate nodded seriously.

That day, she walked briskly like a rabbit that had got a bag of carrots.

"I can dance! I can dance!!"

She stepped over the sewage ditches that crisscrossed the doorstep, over the crushed cardboard boxes and filth on the ground, the hungry boy and the broken and rotten wooden planks, and returned to the brick house happily.

The smell of feces and urine no longer made her frown.

She walked briskly.

"I can dance mom!"

She shouted in the house, spreading her arms and spinning to fan away mosquitoes and flies.

My mother coughed from time to time in the hut, curled up on the wooden bed, wrapped in linen like a dying egg that no longer rose and fell.

"mom!"

Marissa pushed aside the quilt and let out a long breath.

Kate then realized that the room was freezing cold.

"The fire," she yelled.

"There's no fire." Mother said casually, grabbing a few paper boxes from her arms and putting them aside. Including the ones she had made before, there were already quite a few. "Go sell them tomorrow."

After saying this, he coughed a few more times, used the coughing to warm his hands, rubbed them a few times, took out a piece of hard black bread from under the pillow, put it whole into his mouth, softened it with saliva, and sipped it in small sips.

"What are you yelling about?"

"I can dance!" Kate smiled again, held her head high, and told her mother loudly, "I can dance!"

“Yeah…” Mother shrank her neck and coughed. “Cough cough…I…”

"Mother?"

"Cough cough cough...I...cough..."

"you are sick!"

The mother glanced at her daughter who was half-kneeling beside the bed and then realized what was happening. She then silently curled herself into the linen cloth.

Kate held her mother's hand, a little irritable and anxious: "I have to go to the pharmacy, I will go tomorrow...tomorrow!"

"In two days, in two days..." Marissa squeezed her daughter's wrist, the glue on her fingers was frozen and hard, "When you are elected, you will have money, right? Right?"

Kate's eyes lit up.

"Is it?" the mother asked with difficulty.

"Of course! I'm going to meet a big shot soon! Let me tell you, that's the most glorious thing recently..."

The mother and daughter talked quietly by the flickering candlelight.

There was a boom.

It's raining outside again.

…………

……

On a thunderstorm night, there is no need to waste candles. Occasionally, a short flash of thunder will reveal dancing shadows behind the window.

She hid from the mud leaking from the roof, wrapped in a black cotton coat, like a bloated but agile cat, repeating in her mouth:

"Stretch forward and flat..."

"Standing..."

"At this time, pay attention to the position of your eyes and chin..."

A week is not enough time for a dancer who doesn't know how to continue to improve.

Kate Pasetti could only dance, and dance.

Dance in class, dance after class, dance in the mud, rain and darkness.

She was barefoot, her toes were red from the cold; she could only wrap herself in thick clothes, her ankles felt like they were stepping on snow, but her body was hot and sweating;
When she was thirsty, she drank water from the water tank, then urinated in the basin, and collapsed at the door at dawn the next day. When she was hungry, she ate bread and some vegetables that her mother got from somewhere, and she enjoyed eating them in small pieces like rose petals.

She danced for two days, then three days, until she fell down, sprained her ankle, and it became red and swollen, and she cried in pain.

Still didn't get a nod from Teacher Paret.

The look in his eyes when he looked at her was full of regret, just like the way the blacksmith looked at her after she rejected his son.

The time is getting closer.

Instead, she kept backing away, often making mistakes even in the most basic steps.

A week of continuous rain, wet toes and hair that had hardly dried. It stuck to her scalp, and Kate felt that no matter how thick the powder was, it couldn't cover up the stench on her body.

"Talent..."

What a desperate chasm.

She knelt in the mud, her mother's snoring accompanied by the sound of rain.

Two days to go.

She got nothing but a red and swollen ankle.

Thunder boomed.

After a loud rumble that rolled down the long street...

She seemed to hear a soft, slow knock on the door.

She tilted her ear and squatted on the ground to listen for a while.

Make sure it's a knock on the door, not the sound of horse hooves.

"Marisa..."

Mother was sleeping soundly.

Kate quietly went to the door, put her ear to it, and listened for a while.

knock knock.

Behind the door, the person knocking was the door of his own home.

"Who's out there?"

She was a little scared.

However, no one answered the door.

"Who's outside? I will never open the door!"

knock knock.

The knocker insists on knocking on the door at a certain fixed frequency.

This behavior, which was not shaken by the will of the woman inside the door at all, quickly turned her fear into curiosity - who was outside?

Who would knock on the door of this brick house in the rain for twenty minutes?

They have nothing.

Who's knocking at the door?
She leaned against the window, but it was dark where the door was.

knock knock.

Almost half an hour.

She became more and more curious.

Who's outside?

No one spoke.

The unhurried knocking sound continued.

She grabbed a small awl with a broken handle, hid behind the wooden door, and reached out to open the door a crack.

Just then, a flash of lightning broke through the darkness.

She was horrified.

That's one that needs to bend down to get in...

monster.

(End of this chapter)