Cheerful girl can parrot Miss Pavlova (9)
I believe the answer is:
pollyanna
'cheerful girl' is the definition.
The definition suggests a singular noun which matches the answer.
'parrot miss pavlova' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'parrot' could be 'polly' (I've seen this before) and 'polly' is found within the answer.
'pavlova' could be 'anna' (I've seen this in another clue) and 'anna' is present in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'can' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for pollyanna that I've seen before include "Over-cheerful person" , "eternal optimist" , "Over-optimistic person" , "Naively optimistic type" , "Incurable optimist" .)