The Land Where Dancing Was Forbidden

One day Linda, a 4 year old girl was sitting on the floor of her bedroom playing with her dolls making them dance together when her father came into her bedroom and shutting the door behind him went over and drew her bedroom curtains closed before saying,
"Its time for your secret dancing lessons, Linda".
Linda put her dolls to one side and got to her feet.
"Daddy", she asked, looking up at him,"Why is dancing forbidden?".
"It wasn't always so", said her father,  "Once upon a time everyone in the kingdom used to dance.
Infact they loved it so much that people used to dance practically all of the time.
They would dance in their houses and they would even dance outside in the streets.
Grown ups would dance and little children would dance; parents would dance with their sons and daughters like I'm doing with you; brothers would dance with their sisters like I did with my sister; people would even dance with their dogs and cats.
People would dance in the workplace and when children went to school they would even dance there too with the teacher and the other pupils; dancing on the playground and all over the classroom.
And when they weren't dancing together then they danced on their own.
This land was a happy place to live back then.
One day though, sadly, a band of evil old witches who were all dried up inside like dry twigs used their power to throw our king in jail and take over the government of the  land and they didn't like dancing so they passed laws forbidding anyone to dance, they even banned music because they worried that it would make people feel like dancing and they banned films about dancing and books about dancing and even pictures of people dancing too.
"Dancing is horrible", the chief witch declared to the people of the land, "And from now on anyone caught dancing will be put in jail".
But even though it became illegal to dance it is hard to make people stop doing something that makes you feel so good and so people, the people of my generation, continued to dance in secret.
They couldn't dance outside anymore ofcourse because if they did the police would arrest them and take them off to jail but people, drawing their curtains continued to dance in their houses.
Parents, in secret continued to teach their children to dance just like I'm teaching you; telling them not to believe what the witches said, that dancing was good and families, like we do, started to dance together secretly in their homes or, like we do, invite round the families of friends and neigbours to have secret dancing parties.
In school, sadly, your teachers have to teach pupils that dancing is bad but even most of them, you know, in secret, close the curtains of their houses and dance around"
"But why do the witches hate dancing so much?", asked Linda.
"Well you've seen the trees on a windy day haven't you? And the the birds sailing and whirling in the sky or the bees buzzing about in circles and figures of eight?", said her father, "All of nature is dancing; the dance of life that never ends and when human beings dance they join that dance of life. The witches want to seperate human beings from nature because, in the connection of human beings and nature, there is power".
"I'm glad I dance with you and mommy, daddy", said Linda, "I like dancing. It makes me feel happy".
But then they heard the sound of Lindas Mom, her 14 year old big sister Kathy and her 9 year old brother Jack come in from a shopping trip and Lindas dad took her down stairs.
"Your just in time", Lindas Dad said to her Mom, "Now me, Linda, Kathy, Jack and you can all have a dance together".
But then Lindas mom got out some strange clothes from a shopping bag that were shiny and stretchy that she handed to Linda.
"What are these mommy?", asked Linda confused.
"Thats your dancing costume just like mommy and kathy wear sometimes when we're dancing", she said, "I bought it off of a man, downtown, who has a secret supply of dance outfits".
"Pretty", said Linda excitedly, holding up the costume and looking at it, "I can't wait to put it on".
But then Lindas dad thought it would be a good idea if they all got changed into their dance costumes and so they all went upstairs to get ready and when they came back down, he drew the living room curtains; put on some dance music and Lindas mom asked her to twirl around and everyone said how pretty she looked in her costume.
Lindas dad even handed her his old baton to twirl as they danced together; then whirling him around her dad danced with her brother while she danced with mom and then dad and her big sister Kathy danced together while she danced with her brother and her mom taking hold of a baton danced on her own and while her mother was dancing she started to sing.
"Daddy", asked Linda worried, "Isn't mom frightened that someone might hear her singing".
"Don't worry", said her dad dancing with her again while her brother danced with Kathy, "The house is sound proofed so you can sing as loud as you want and no one will hear".
And, demonstrating, while they danced together, Lindas dad started to sing really loud and then her whole family did too.
But then their pet dog, an alsatian called Duke, hearing the singing came into the room to see what was happening and her mom started to dance with the dog.
Just then however, while they were all singing and dancing and Linda was feeling a glow of happiness that she only ever felt when she and her family were dancing together, suddenly she heard someone bang on the door of the house and she was frightened that it might be the police.
Maybe someone had heard what they were doing after all?
But then her dad went to the door and it was just the man and woman from next door and their kids, a six year old boy called Simon and a 10 year old girl called Susan.
Her dad said he had invited them round earlier.
And when they took off their coats she saw that the neighbours all had their dance costumes on aswell and then she danced with Simon and his dad while her dad danced with Susan and her mom and it was so much fun that she didn't want it to end and even when everyone was tired out and the neighbours had gone home she went on dancing on her own.
She even dreamed about dancing as, when her bedtime came, she lay in bed and pretended to dance with her teddybear.
But then the next day when she went into school something else amazing happened.
When all the pupils were seated, Mr Hope, her teacher drew the curtains of the classroom closed and then, instead of textbooks, he got out a big stack of magazines and put a magazine down on the desk infront of every child, opening it up.
And inside every magazine there were pictures of people dancing.
Then he started to dance on his own and while he was dancing he put all of the kids in the class into pairs and said that he wanted them all to dance together and, because Linda didn't have a dance partner, he danced with her and it was so much fun, all the kids in the class dancing together round about her and her dancing with Mr Hope.
And after that they did dancing every day after lessons.
Mr Hope said dancing was an extracurricular activity. He even brought in dance videos for them to watch with the sound off so that the teachers in other classrooms couldn't hear.
But then one day, Linda came into school and Mr Hope wasn't their teacher anymore.
He'd been replaced by some woman called Miss Latimer who was like a dry twig and didn't want to dance with them  and Susan thought she might be a witch.
"Why isn't Mr Hope our teacher anymore", she asked Miss Latimer.
"Because Mr Hope taught things that were forbidden", her teacher replied.
"Are you going to dance with us like he did?", asked LInda.
But Miss Latimer said that she wouldn't discuss Mr Hope any further and the rest of the day was gloomy because all of the children missed dancing with Mr Hope.
And then Linda started to worry about the police again. She saw a man on a subway train just start dancing on his own and then two transport police officers came onto the train and arrested him and she wondered if the police were going to arrest her mom and dad.
Then one afternoon, while her sister Kathy was having a sleepover with her friends Rachel and Helen, her dad came into  Kathy's room and started to dance about and then they all started to dance together and they sounded as if they were having so much fun that Linda knocked on the door and asked if she could join in but then the next day Helen told her parents about it and they told the police.
Then, later that day, while she and her brother were dancing upstairs she heard, from downstairs, the sound of the front door burst open and it was like a cold wind suddenly entered the house.
Running to the top of the stairs and looking down they saw a gang of dark shadows with tall, pointy hats gripping hold of her mother and father, dragging them away.
Fortunately then their aunt and uncle came to take them otherwise they might have been put in a foster home and they managed to speak to their mom and dad on the phone but Linda was so scared because she didn't know what was going to happen to them.
And sometimes their uncle would come into their room to have a secret dance with them and he would dance with Kathy and Jack but whenever he asked Linda to dance she always said she didn't want to because now she understood just how dangerous dancing could be.