Dancing Lessons

Chapter One

You can be two different people. Most of us are thousands of different people in the course of our lives, one for each context. There are actors who can change the shape of their face just with their expressions--just with a random bunching and stretching of muscles. So, when you say to me, 'I can't believe you didn't spot her for what she was', I would invite you to consider Marinette.

Without the mask and the costume, she's fragile as a china doll--with full cheeks and pink, glossy lips that look as though they've been varnished. In the time before, it was tough to see her walking down the street without wincing, because she was so perilously Marinette--always late for something, always a fraction of a second away from falling over, caring so much and feeling every setback, every snide remark, every thoughtless comment like a hammer blow.

I didn't know how she survived, but she did. She even excelled at it. She had to wade through the air that other people slid through, but she stood up to bullies, she encouraged her friends, she ran for election as student representative, and did her homework, and made beautiful things just for fun.

But you still knew it hurt her. You could still see her screwing up every fibre of her being in concentration whenever she raised her voice. Beautiful and disastrous. But, of course, I didn't know that then.

Now pull back from Marinette--maybe you've taken your eyes off her for a second, and you look back and she's not where she was, but you just assume that she's fallen into a bush or crawled under a park bench in sheer despair--and there is Ladybug.

For anyone who's ever seen her stride up to the mayor and demand his attention, or stand her ground in front of a nine-foot supervillain made of boulders, or sail through the air on the end of that yo-yo, or come up with a spectacular plan when she appears to be falling to her death from the top of the Eiffel Tower, the sweet, china-cheeked Marinette does not spring to mind.

Ladybug moves like a cross between a detective and a drill-sergeant--like everything is interesting and nobody is watching. Not a trace of clumsiness or self-consciousness. Not much grace either, but you get the feeling she had a look at grace early on and instantly dismissed it for wasting her time.

It's impossible to describe her--how she teases and poses and strides and struts and tells people what they are going to do in a voice so authoritative that you can see their muscles bending to comply before their brains have a chance to intervene. She is bossy and stubborn and won't take advice from anyone. She's a pillar of good sense and moral rectitude. She's my Ladybug.

Now guess--if you haven't already--which of these two lovely ladies I fell in love with. I'll give you a clue: it was not the one who was in love with me.

I'm two people as well, of course, but not in quite the same way. It isn't a confidence thing. Difficult to see how it could be, because I've had people looking at me--staring and sighing and even drooling over me--since I was inappropriately young for the experience.

But I'm happy on the rooftops. I'm happy wearing the mask and having no name and saying nothing of consequence. Most of all, I am happy being with her. The sound of carnage and destruction makes my heart hammer these days, because I know she isn't far away. I know I'll have a chance to be quick and survive on my wits and maybe--just maybe--be looked at by her.

Down on the ground, I am... well, nothing. Devastatingly handsome and rich, but trapped and sad and empty and inward-looking. We'll come back to that. But maybe mine is the more astonishing transformation. To go from pouting, air-headed model-boy to Cat Noir takes some doing, and I'm not sure it's the magic that's responsible. Only happiness--sheer, stupid, temporary happiness--can change you that much.