Bollywood Dreams

by Arlene Phillips

  The Students at Step Out Studio

  For Abi, who has always

  inspired me

  Contents

  Title Page

  The Students at Step Out Studio

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Enter Arlene’s World of Dance

  The Alana Dancing Star Series

  Copyright

  ‘Alana, please come to the front of the class!’

  Alana’s teacher Miss Walcott was standing with her hands on her hips and a menacing look in her eye. Slowly, Alana came to stand beside her.

  ‘Would you like to explain what this is?’ asked Miss Walcott. She held up a plastic plant pot, containing a few pieces of dead cress.

  ‘It’s … my science project,’ said Alana, hesitantly.

  ‘And do you feel that it has been a success?’ asked Miss Walcott.

  ‘Erm – not exactly,’ replied Alana.

  ‘Not exactly,’ repeated the teacher sarcastically. ‘Well, I am not exactly pleased with your work lately, Alana. I think the time has come for me to call your mother to discuss what we can do about it.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Walcott,’ muttered Alana, her heart sinking.

  ‘Now, go and sit down,’ ordered the teacher.

  Alana scuttled back to her seat and her best friend Meena smiled at her sympathetically. But Alana couldn’t bring herself to return the smile. She spent the rest of the lesson staring into space and trying not to cry. If Miss Walcott told her mum how badly she’d been doing at school recently, her mum might make her stop going to dance classes. And dancing meant everything to Alana – she couldn’t imagine existing without it.

  At break, Alana and Meena huddled on their usual bench in the playground with their friend Alice.

  ‘What happened, anyway?’ asked Alice. ‘I mean, don’t take this the wrong way, but even my four-year-old brother can grow cress. You practically just have to look at it and it gets taller.’

  ‘Mine was growing fine,’ said Alana gloomily, ‘but then I was practising the jive in my bedroom, and when I went into an American spin I knocked the pot off my windowsill and it all went everywhere. I tried to plant it again but I must have killed it.’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Meena. ‘Our maths project is due in next. Maybe if you make a good job of that, Miss Walcott will change her mind about calling your mum.’

  ‘But my maths is rubbish!’ wailed Alana. ‘I got a C minus for my last homework, even though I spent ages on it.’

  At that moment, Alana was interrupted by Lara, who came dashing up waving a piece of paper. Lara was Alice’s best friend. ‘Look, girls, I saw this in the local paper,’ she panted, when she was close enough to be heard. ‘Meena, you’re obsessed with Bollywood – I bet you could get the part!’

  ‘Get what part?’ asked Meena, taking the paper.

  ‘Bollywood Dreams!’ she read aloud. ‘Open auditions are being held for a female dancer aged between ten and twelve years old, to perform in the most exciting new show in town. Candidates must have some experience of Bhangra dance and should be dressed in an appropriate costume.’

  ‘You have to give it a go,’ said Lara.

  ‘It sounds cool,’ Meena replied, ‘but just because I’m always watching Bollywood films doesn’t mean I know any of the dance steps.’

  ‘True,’ said Alana. ‘I wish Miss Trina would teach Bollywood dance at Step Out Studio.’ Step Out Studio was the place where she and Meena went for dance lessons every week.

  ‘Well, I think it’s a shame if you don’t try,’ Lara insisted. ‘Look, the auditions aren’t for a month. Couldn’t you learn a routine in that time?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Meena sighed. ‘There’s no one to teach me, and I don’t have a costume or anything.’

  Meena’s mum had asked Alana round for supper that night, so after school the two girls headed back to Meena’s house. As they walked, Meena couldn’t stop thinking about the audition and wishing she could take part. Meanwhile, Alana was worrying about her failed science project, and whether Miss Walcott actually was going to phone her mum. All in all, it was a silent journey.

  The girls cheered up, though, once they stepped inside Meena’s warm and noisy house. Her mum bustled into the hallway to greet them, closely followed by her twin brother and sister, who threw themselves at the girls and gave each of them a big hug. Delicious supper smells drifted down the corridor and Alana could see Meena’s granny in the kitchen, stirring something on the cooker. ‘Supper in half an hour!’ she called.

  The girls went into the living room. Meena put on her favourite Bollywood DVD and they both sat down to watch. Then, when the first dance number came on, Meena jumped back up and danced along, trying to copy the moves.

  ‘That looks great, Meena,’ said Alana, watching her. ‘You say you can’t do Bollywood, but look at you – you’re doing it!’

  ‘Well, not exactly,’ said Meena, looking embarrassed. ‘I’m just messing around copying what’s in the film, like I always do, but I don’t know any genuine Bhangra steps. It’s not like doing a dance I’ve been taught properly by Miss Trina.’

  ‘But maybe if we watch the film really carefully, you could put your own routine together!’ suggested Alana.

  Meena was starting to look interested. ‘We could give it a go, I suppose,’ she said, hesitantly. ‘But even if I managed to sort a routine out, I wouldn’t have anything to wear. The only Indian clothes we have in the house are saris that belong to my mum and granny and they’d just look embarrassing on me.’

  ‘Let’s worry about that later,’ said Alana, jumping up briskly. ‘Now, run the DVD back to the beginning of this dance and let’s see if we can work out how they do the first few moves.’

  But just then came the cry of ‘supper time’. The girls groaned – they’d been starving when they came in, but now they were desperate to try out the dance.

  It seemed to take forever for the family to get settled round the table and for Meena’s granny to serve up the food. As soon as they were allowed to start, the girls gobbled down their lamb curry, puris and a big bowl of aloo gobi as fast as they could. Meena’s granny watched them with her eyebrows raised. ‘I’m certainly glad you’re enjoying my cooking,’ she said sarcastically.

  ‘Mmmm, ’slovely thank you,’ replied Alana with her mouth full.

  The moment they’d finished, they asked to be excused, then dashed back to the living room to put on the DVD again.

  They spent the rest of the evening playing and replaying the first part of the dance. Meena tried out the steps over and over, and Alana watched her carefully and corrected her as best she could.

  Eventually Meena’s mum put her head round the door. ‘It’s time to go now, Alana,’ she said. ‘Your mum will be wondering where you are. Put on your coat and I’ll run you home.’

  ‘I honestly think you can make a go of this!’ Alana said to Meena as she was leaving.

  ‘Do you think so?’ asked Meena, her eyes sparkling. ‘I’d give anything to dance in a real Bollywood show – it would be so amazing. I don’t know what I’d do for a costume, though.’

  ‘I bet we’ll think of something,’ replied Alana – though she wasn’t exactly sure what.

  All the way home Alana’s head was full of the rhythms of the Indian Bhangra dance. But when she walked through the door, her heart sank. Alana’s mum was standing in the hallway next to the phone, with
her hands on her hips. Her lips were pinched together in a way that Alana knew meant trouble.

  ‘Come here, young lady,’ ordered Mum. ‘I need to talk to you.’

  ‘What about?’ asked Alana’s little sister, Abi. ‘Can I stay?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ snapped Mum. ‘Go and play in your room. I’ll call you when we’re finished.’

  ‘Ohhh – it’s not fair!’ whined Abi. ‘I never get to be there when something interesting is happening.’ Then she saw the look on her mum’s face and decided it would be better not to say any more.

  ‘Now, Alana,’ said Mum when Abi had scampered upstairs. ‘I’ve just been speaking to Miss Walcott on the phone.’

  So Miss Walcott had called! And all about some stupid cress, thought Alana.

  ‘I think you know why,’ Mum continued.

  ‘Erm, not exactly,’ replied Alana, playing for time.

  ‘She said that your science project was a complete disaster. And what’s more, she said that your work has been poor all term and you’re always daydreaming in lessons.’

  ‘But it wasn’t my fault about the cress!’ Alana exclaimed. And she explained about the accident in her room when she’d been practising the jive.

  ‘But this is exactly what I’m worried about!’ cried Mum. ‘All you think about is dancing dancing dancing. If you’re not practising pirouettes or the waltz, or some silly streetdance, you’re reading dance magazines and watching dance shows on TV. What about your schoolwork? You know you can’t make a career out of dancing!’

  ‘Yes, you can!’ Alana insisted. ‘Loads of people dance for their job. Anyway, I don’t even know if I want to make a career out of it – but I love dancing more than anything else in the world!’

  ‘Well, I can’t have your teacher phoning up to complain about your work, Alana. I want to see some improvement soon, or I’m going to have to tell Miss Trina that you won’t be coming to Step Out Studio any more.’

  Five minutes later, Alana was on the phone to Meena, in tears.

  ‘What am I supposed to do?’ she sobbed.

  ‘The next big project we’ve got is maths, and that’s my absolute worst subject. I always do badly, however hard I try. The numbers just get all mixed up in my head.’

  Meena made sympathetic noises, but you could tell she didn’t really know what to say.

  Alana took a long time to get to sleep that night. She lay in bed looking round her room at all her beloved dance posters and certificates and trophies. Then she wound up her musical jewellery box and opened it up to watch the miniature couple waltzing round and round. At last, she fell asleep, and dreamed she was dancing round and round on the jewellery box, waltzing in circles without any schoolwork to interrupt the dance.

  The next day was Saturday, and as soon as Alana woke up, all of her worries came flooding back.

  I can’t even imagine having to give up dancing, she thought with a shudder. So I’m just going to have to do well in this school project somehow.

  She made herself a slice of toast and Marmite, then when she’d finished eating, she took out her maths books and started trying to study. But she felt so anxious that the numbers seemed to make even less sense than usual. The harder she tried the worse it seemed to get.

  ‘It’s useless,’ she groaned to herself, her head in her hands. ‘I’m never going to be able to do it!’

  ‘Do what?’ came a small voice from the doorway.

  ‘Abi! How long have you been standing there?’ Alana demanded crossly.

  ‘I only wanted to see if you’d play with me,’ Abi replied, her voice shaking a bit.

  Alana immediately felt guilty for sounding so snappy. Why shouldn’t she play with Abi – it wasn’t like she was managing to get anywhere with the maths project, so she might as well take a break.

  ‘OK then, what d’you want to play?’

  ‘Can I look at your jewellery box?’ asked Abi, stroking the velvet lid longingly.

  ‘So long as you’re careful with it you can,’ said Alana. So Abi turned the little key on the side to wind it up to make the dancers go round. As the music played, she ran her fingers gently through the jumble of necklaces and bracelets that Alana kept in the box.

  ‘Ooh, this is so pretty – can I try it on?’ she asked. It was a gold-coloured necklace that Meena had brought back for Alana from India a couple of years before, when she’d gone to visit her cousins.

  ‘Yeah, all right, but try not to get it tangled,’ Alana said.

  At that moment there was a ring on the doorbell. ‘It’s Meena for you!’ Mum called up the stairs. ‘She wants to know whether you’d like to go round to her house.’

  ‘Coming!’ yelled Alana. ‘Abi, I have to put my stuff away now, cos I’m going out.’

  ‘Ahh – can’t I still play with your jewellery when you’re gone, pleeease?’ begged Abi.

  ‘No way!’ said Alana. ‘I’ll get back to find that something’s got broken, or has disappeared. Now, give that necklace back, please!’

  Once Alana had closed up the jewellery box, she ran downstairs and grabbed her coat – then the girls went straight out of the door.

  ‘I thought we could practise more of the Bollywood routine,’ Meena suggested.

  ‘Yeah!’ replied Alana, all thoughts of schoolwork completely forgotten. ‘Now that you’ve got the hang of those first few steps, I bet we’ll be able to copy the rest of the dance, no problems.’

  So as soon as they arrived at Meena’s house, the girls started to play the DVD again, pressing ‘pause’ every few seconds so Meena could go over what they’d just seen.

  Halfway through, Meena’s mum came in to watch. ‘What are you up to, girls?’ she asked. When Meena explained, she clapped her hands in delight. ‘It would be fantastic to see you performing in a Bollywood show!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘I know,’ Meena replied, ‘but the problem is I’ve never studied this kind of dancing at Step Out Studio, so I don’t know how to do the right moves.’

  ‘You spend so much time watching those films, I’m surprised you can’t do them in your sleep,’ her mum said.

  ‘It’s not as easy as that,’ replied Meena, laughing.

  ‘Maybe so,’ said her mum, ‘but you keep practising and I bet you’d stand a chance of getting the part.’

  As Alana listened to the conversation, she couldn’t help wishing that her own mum was so supportive.

  Once Meena’s mum had gone out, the girls went back to the DVD, rewinding and watching again and again. But as the dance number progressed, the camera angles kept changing, making it more or less impossible to see the moves properly. One of the dancers would be in the middle of a complicated turn, and the camera would cut away to another dancer so you couldn’t see how the move ended. Then another time, the backing dancers would be doing a sequence of steps, when suddenly the camera would zoom in on a soloist who was doing something different.

  Eventually, Meena pressed ‘stop’ and flopped down on the sofa. ‘It’s hopeless,’ she moaned. ‘We just can’t get a good look at all the steps, and we don’t know enough Bhangra moves to be able to make up the bits we can’t see.’

  ‘Maybe Miss Trina would be able to help,’ said Alana.

  ‘I suppose we could ask her when we go to our next class,’ replied Meena, a bit doubtfully. ‘I don’t know if she knows anything about Bollywood. But maybe if we showed her our routine so far, she’d be able to suggest some more steps.’

  When the girls got to Step Out Studio for the following week’s class, Keisha, Matthew and Chloe were already there.

  ‘Did you hear about the Bollywood show that’s coming to town?’ asked Keisha excitedly. ‘It would be so much fun to be in it, but I don’t expect any of the Step Out students will be auditioning.’

  ‘Actually,’ replied Meena, ‘I was thinking of giving it a go. I’m not sure whether to or not, though. I don’t stand much of a chance because I haven’t been taught how to do it.’

  ‘I think you
definitely should,’ insisted Matthew. ‘You’re a great dancer, and the choreographer will be able to see that when you audition. Even if you don’t know all the right moves, you’ll be given lots of coaching if you get the part.’

  ‘You’re not talking about Bollywood Dreams are you?’ came a sneery voice from behind them. The girls swung round to see Verity standing there, with a scornful expression on her face. Verity was tall, gorgeous, good at dancing – and horrible to almost everyone, all of the time.

  ‘I’m going to audition,’ she continued. ‘Daddy has hired me a private teacher. The guy starred in that Bollywood film that came out last year – Mumbai Nights. So he knows all the best moves to teach me.’

  ‘WOW!’ squeaked Chloe. ‘You’re so lucky! You’ve a really good chance of getting the part, Verity!’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Verity replied, looking pleased.

  Chloe was so good-natured that she always saw the best in everyone. She could never understand that Verity was not as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside.

  ‘I’m getting an outfit made specially for the audition,’ boasted Verity. ‘The dressmaker is just waiting for the silk to be shipped from India.’

  The other students said nothing.

  Matthew looked a bit disgusted, Alana looked gloomy, and Meena seemed as if she was about to cry.

  There wasn’t time for any more discussion anyway, because at that moment Miss Trina clapped her hands for the class to begin. They were practising the jive that day – the dance that had got Alana into so much trouble when she spun round and knocked the cress off her windowsill. Normally she loved the jive, but today she couldn’t get her problems out of her head – the failed science homework, the maths project she didn’t know how to do, her mum’s threat to make her give up dancing … she was so worried that she didn’t put any of her usual energy and joy into the dance.