A 19-year-old in her first season as an apprentice with a classical ballet company, dancing six days a week, has asked to be moved from second cast to understudy in the only solo she was given this season, and for three weeks has slipped out of company class before the final section rather than finish it. She now arrives forty minutes early to tape her right foot, which she never used to do. It has been building for about four months with no single day it started, no fall and nothing she remembers going wrong this season. The ballet mistress sent her, because apprentice contracts are reviewed at the end of the season and she would rather know now. She looks fit, composed and tired, and her first question is how long she will be out.