IT COULD be a Cinderella story, except life isn't like a Disney fantasy. At least, it hasn't been for the teenagers from the fire-ravaged Victorian towns of Kinglake, Flowerdale and Yea participating in the 90th Annual Yea Debutante Ball.
But on May 29, teenagers from the three communities will come together to recreate their own stylised version of the Disney classic. At their third rehearsal, the excitement is building.
Blonde hair pulled back into a spiky ponytail and a purple bandanna wrapped around her head, Brooke Lloyd and her partner, Will Graf, are trying in vain to learn the Pride of Erin waltz. It's not going so well.
Judith Evans, the Yea Anglican Church's faithful pianist, is playing patiently. But Bruce Kindred, the ball's organiser for 13 years, is not so placid.
"It's good training for them, although you wonder at the moment," he said.
"Thanks, Mrs Evans," he interrupts. "One, two, three," he says as he pushes Lloyd and Graf on their way.
At 72, and a former principal of Yea High School, Mr Kindred is accustomed to dealing with teenagers - although he says this group is "rowdier" than others.
Although the debutantes and their partners are busy chatting to avoid dancing, they all admit that the rehearsals have proven a welcome distraction from the fires that have otherwise been the focus of their lives.
"It is very important," says 16-year-old Brad Exton, who remembers the day that took his father's property in Kinglake as "just the blackest black; midnight black".
For Lloyd, deb ball rehearsals have not proven so much a distraction as a reminder.
Her deb partner and best friend, Mackenzie Buchanan, was trapped in his grandmother's home in Kinglake and died with his younger sister and uncle.
"It was a pretty bad day," Lloyd states matter-of-factly of the day now known as Black Saturday.
"Everyone in Yea was scared, everyone was pretty distraught. You heard about all these deaths; everyone was trying to get in contact with people."
She later saw Mac's brother down the street, who confirmed the news. But not making her debut, despite Mac not being there to walk her down the stairs, was never an option.
Graf, a good friend of Mac, didn't think too much about it.
"I forgot if I asked her if she needed me to, or if she asked me. it just sort of happened," he said.
How the night itself will feel for them both remains to be seen. "It's going to depend on who is there and how everyone else is acting," Graf says. "Me and Brooke will be wearing some of Mac's bandannas and stuff and I've got a pair of his undies I'll probably be wearing," he jokes.
The theme for the ball will be gold, in honour of the fires. But as for the true meaning of the event, Will is sceptical. "It doesn't mean that much to me. I'm just doing it for Brooke. Oh, and it's cool to be able to dance, I guess."
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