Perfectly Prima

by Whoopi Goldberg

“Leonardo da Vinci,” says Brenda.

  “Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens,” says Terrel.

  We all stare at her. That is the least Terrel-like thing I’ve ever heard her say.

  “Like in The Sound of Music, remember? Where those kids are all talking about their favorite things with the nun lady.” Terrel looks pleased with herself.

  Ms. Debbé tilts her head. “That is the idea, yes. I take it from your choice that you will dance like a copper kettle for the performance? Or you would rather do the Woolen Mitten dance, perhaps?”

  Terrel shakes her head quickly. “Can I have another favorite thing?” When Ms. Debbé nods, Terrel says, “Grocery shopping.”

  Liking grocery shopping might sound even weirder than liking copper kettles to most people. But I’ve seen Terrel go shopping with her dad and all her older brothers. She organizes everything beforehand—it’s more like she’s invading a country than getting groceries. She has the list, and she sends all her brothers out on missions to get various things while she and her dad arrange everything neatly in the cart. It’s as if she’s an orchestra leader conducting a symphony, and I admit that it is very impressive to watch. Partly she likes the satisfaction of getting everything done efficiently and correctly. And partly she just likes bossing her brothers around.

  Ms. Debbé adds this to the list without comment, as if grocery shopping were a perfectly normal favorite thing. “How about you, my dear young ladies?” she asks, looking at JoAnn, Jessica, and me.

  In the last recital, we all got stuck wearing big fuzzy purple costumes, because we were supposed to be monsters. Al got to be the Sugar Plum Fairy. Even though she didn’t want to be the Sugar Plum Fairy, her costume was so beautiful. It had sparkles and a big puffy skirt. I still remember standing in front of the mirror with her, her looking like a princess and me looking like an oversize furry grape. I need to say something fast, before JoAnn suggests we do the Dance of the Car Mechanics, or Jessica says we should dress like iguanas.

  “Princesses,” I say.

  “Sisters,” Jessica says at the same time.

  JoAnn doesn’t say anything after all. She must still be horrified at the idea of dancing her feelings in front of a bunch of people. “Oh, man,” I hear her say under her breath.

  “You are grateful for princesses?” Ms. Debbé looks at me.

  “Yes,” I say resolutely. I am definitely not going to be a purple fur ball this time. “I am extremely grateful for princesses.”

  Ms. Debbé thinks for a moment, then claps her hands together. “We can put your grateful ideas together—sister princesses. The dance will be ‘The Three Princesses.’ Lovely.” When she turns away, JoAnn sticks her finger down her throat.

  Ms. Debbé continues to ask for ideas from the other girls. Tiara Girl, apparently, is grateful for caviar.

  “What the heck is caviar?” Al whispers.

  “Fish eggs,” Brenda whispers back. “Rich people eat it.”

  “Fish eggs?” Al looks ill. “If I were rich and had to eat fish eggs, I’d pay someone else to do it for me.”

  Before long, Ms. Debbé has worked out all the dances. Epatha, Terrel, Al, and Brenda will do the Rainbow dance. In the dance, they will glide around “like you are perhaps sliding on ice skates,” Ms. Debbé says, gesturing toward Al. They will also pull lots of colored banners from the sides of the stage. “This, it will be very much like the grocery shopping,” Ms. Debbé says to Terrel.

  “How?” Terrel asks.

  “You will be plucking the banners like you pluck apples and tangerines from a supermarket display,” Ms. Debbé explains, as though this should be obvious. “Then you will wave the colored banners around like rainbows. And what did your friend Mr. da Vinci use to paint with? Colors!” she continues, beaming at Brenda.

  Only Ms. Debbé could see a connection between banners, grocery shopping, and Leonardo da Vinci.

  “Well, at least we don’t have to dress up like brussels sprouts,” Terrel whispers.

  “Now. To the barre for our exercises,” Ms. Debbé says.

  Just before class ends, Ms. Debbé claps her hands again for attention. “There is one very exciting thing I have not told you yet.” She notices that the tiny cat girl is heading for the door. Ms. Debbé clears her throat. “Have I said the class is dismissed? No, I think I have not. Please sit for one moment.”

  The cat girl drops to the floor so fast it looks as if she’s falling down a manhole.

  Ms. Debbé continues. “You all have heard me speak of Miss Camilla Freeman, the very famous dancer.”

  “Once or twice,” Epatha whispers. Terrel snorts. Ms. Debbé starts off each new class term by showing us a very special pair of Miss Camilla Freeman’s autographed toe shoes.

  Brenda looks slightly sick to her stomach, because of certain recent toe shoe–related incidents. “I hope this doesn’t have anything to do with me,” she whispers. She’s so rattled that she forgets to talk backward.

  “Well,” Ms. Debbé continues, “some of you”—she looks in our direction—“know that I renewed my acquaintance with Miss Camilla Freeman at her recent book-signing. She and I had a lovely chat. Now that she is back in New York permanently, she has agreed to come to our Thanksgiving recital.”

  I feel as if I’m in an airplane and my stomach just jumped out the window and is plummeting to earth. The thought of Miss Camilla seeing me making a fool of myself onstage sends cold, clammy shivers all through my body.

  “So we will work extra hard, and practice at home as well. Yes?” Ms. Debbé says.

  Given the way she is staring at us, there’s no question about how we should answer. We all nod like bobble-head dolls.

  “Good.” She nods sharply at the cat girl. “Now class is dismissed.”

  “That’s cool about Miss Camilla. And those dances sound pretty good,” says Epatha as we change back into our sneakers after class.

  “As long as I’m not up there on that stupid stage by myself again,” Al says, sounding relieved.

  “It’ll be fun to be princesses,” Jessica says to me. “That was a good idea, Jerzey.”

  I nod, distracted. How can I avoid making a fool of myself in front of Miss Camilla? Maybe I can catch some tropical disease so I won’t be able to dance in the show. Maybe I can hypnotize Miss Camilla so she thinks I’m invisible.

  Maybe I can actually learn the dance right this time.

  Unfortunately, the last possibility seems the least likely.

  Chapter 4

  “Who wants more mashed potatoes?” Mom asks.

  “Me!” says JoAnn.

  Mom passes the bowl to her.

  “I would like some, please,” says Dad.

  “You want more, too?” JoAnn asks, grinning. But she knows he’s just trying to get her to be more polite. They’ve had this conversation about, oh, a million times.

  “As a matter of fact, I would. Thank you,” he says. He stretches out the thank you. She passes the bowl to him.

  “It’s hopeless, Daniel,” Mom says. “Maybe we should send her to charm school.”

  JoAnn stops cold, her fork in the air midway to her mouth.

  “To what?” she asks.

  “It’s a place where they teach girls to be little ladies,” Mom says. “Your ballet school doesn’t seem to be doing the trick.”

  “Excellent idea,” Dad responds. He winks at JoAnn so she knows they’re kidding. She slumps back in relief.

  We’re sitting around the big oval table in the dining room. Dad’s at one end, and Mom’s at the other. Jessica and JoAnn sit across from Mason and me. During the week, Dad usually wears his tie at dinner. He teaches African Studies at the university, and even though his students wear holey jeans and T-shirts, he always dresses up for class. He says it “elevates the level of discourse.” But since this is Saturday, he’s wearing jeans, which he never looks quite comfortable in.

  Mom, on the other hand, is still dressed for work. Ever since Mason started school
, the number of hours she works has been creeping up, but she’s never had to work on weekends before.

  “JoAnn, is that your skateboard under the table?” Mom asks.

  “Um…I don’t know,” JoAnn says.

  “Well, I know,” Mom says. “Take it up to your room. Now. Someone’s going to break their neck on that thing.”

  JoAnn lopes out of the room chomping on a roll, her skateboard under her arm.

  “How was ballet?” Dad asks.

  Jessica takes another roll from the breadbasket. “Good,” she says. “We talked about our Thanksgiving recital.”

  I look down at my plate. My peas keep rolling into the mashed potatoes. I lay my knife down the middle of my plate to divide it into Pea Land and Potato Land, but some of the peas are already ruined by potato gunk. I’ve been too busy worrying about Miss Camilla to concentrate on proper pea-and-potato separation. I spent all afternoon trying to come up with a plan to become a great dancer fast, but couldn’t think of one single idea. I start to feel sick to my stomach.

  “Are you all right, Jerzey Mae?” Mom asks, concern in her voice.

  “Yes. I’m fine,” I say. I take a bite of potato that hasn’t been contaminated with peas, but it tastes like sawdust.

  “What’s the theme this year?” Mom asks.

  “Gratitude,” Jessica says, biting into her roll. “We’re all going to be princesses.”

  “Yuck,” Mason says. He’s been busily building a pea wall using the mashed potatoes as cement. As usual, his basketball is right under the table. He keeps his feet on it like it’s a step stool. It’s as though he thinks he’ll lose his super powers if he’s not touching it all the time. “I wish I had a brother.”

  Dad notices Mason’s potato wall. “Mason needs to go to charm school, too,” he says.

  “Mason, you know you’re not supposed to play with your food.”

  “Why can you play with Legos and not with food?” Mason asks.

  Mason is always asking questions that seem easy to answer at first. But then you think about them and realize they’re not. Why aren’t we supposed to play with food? I don’t see any reason not to, as long as you keep the peas and potatoes in their proper areas.

  “Because we said so,” Mom says, a response she falls back on quite frequently.

  A skateboardless JoAnn comes back into the room and sits down.

  “Now, kids,” Mom says, “we need to have a talk.”

  I’d almost forgotten about those changes she mentioned earlier. Just what I need—something else to worry about. We all stop eating and look at her.

  “You know I’ve been working more these days,” she begins.

  “Yeah. You haven’t played Legos with me at all this week,” Mason says, staring at her reproachfully.

  Mom nods. “I know, honey. But I’m doing work that’s important. And you’re all going to need to help out.”

  “We already clean our rooms and stuff,” JoAnn says. This is not entirely true. Jessica and I clean our rooms. JoAnn’s room looks as though a chain of tropical storms had swept through it.

  “Since when have you cleaned your room? And that’s not what I mean, anyway,” Mom replies. “I’m going to be working later on Tuesdays, and I’ll also need to go in on Saturdays for the next few months.”

  “And I have meetings on Saturday mornings,” Dad says.

  “So Mason will be going to ballet class with you for a while,” Mom says. “I’ve already talked with Ms. Debbé, and she says it’s okay.”

  I drop my fork, which falls to the plate with a clatter. The last thing I need is Mason running around the ballet studio singing the Robo-Knights song or conking Miss Camilla on the head with his basketball.

  I hope Mason will object, but instead he looks like he just got picked to play basketball with the New York Knicks.

  “Will Epatha be there?” he says, just as I say, “Does he have to?”

  “I assume Epatha will be there,” Mom says to Mason.

  “And yes, he has to,” Mom says to me.

  “Yes!” Mason says triumphantly. Mason is in love with Epatha. He says he’s going to marry her. I think he is mainly in love with her because her family owns an Italian restaurant and her mom stuffs him full of spaghetti and linguine every time he walks in the door.

  “Why can’t he go to Mrs. Whitman’s?” I ask. She takes care of us sometimes if Mom and Dad both have to work late.

  Mom sighs. “Your father and I are both very busy. It would take twice as long to drop you girls off at class and take Mason to Mrs. Whitman’s. We’re lucky your father and Mr. Lester are friends; otherwise I’m not sure Ms. Debbé would have agreed.”

  Mr. Lester is Ms. Debbé’s son. He teaches at the Nutcracker School, too. He and Dad met when Mr. Lester was researching a ballet based on an African folktale two years ago. That’s how we all ended up going to the Nutcracker School.

  “But how will we be able to focus in class?” I say. “You want us to get the full benefit of our ballet education, don’t you?”

  “Getting the full benefit of our education” is always a good angle to try with our parents. But I can see from the look in Mom’s eye that it’s not going to work this time.

  “Mason can bring his coloring books and his schoolwork,” Mom says, plucking a roll from the serving plate.

  “And my basketball,” he adds.

  “And his basketball. He’ll just sit quietly while you’re taking class, won’t you, honey?”

  Mason nods, his eyes wide. He looks like a little angel.

  I glare at him. He’s not fooling me.

  “But Mom—”

  “Jerzey Mae, that’s enough. Your sisters don’t have a problem with this. Right?” She looks at them.

  JoAnn shrugs. “I don’t care.”

  “It might be kind of fun to have him in class,” Jessica says. Jessica is an optimist. (That was one of our advanced reading-vocabulary words last week. It means someone who looks on the bright side of things even when she shouldn’t.)

  I stab at my potatoes with my fork. “Well, he’d better not distract us or get us in trouble or embarrass us or anything.”

  Dad starts to clear the table. Mom stands up to help him.

  “Of course he won’t,” Mom says, stacking Jessica’s plate on top of her own. “He’s just a little boy. What possible harm could he do?”

  I don’t know. But I’m afraid we’re going to find out.

  Chapter 5

  Al, Brenda, and Terrel are sitting on the bench in the waiting room when Jessica, JoAnn, Mason, and I walk into the Nutcracker School.

  “What is he doing here?” Terrel asks, staring blankly at Mason.

  “Mason’s coming to class with us for a while,” Jessica says.

  Terrel continues to stare. She’s younger than the rest of us, so she’s actually only a year older than Mason. But she seems like a grown-up already, because she’s so good at telling everyone what to do.

  “What’s he going to do while we’re in class?” I ask Jessica quietly. “There’s no way he’ll just sit there and draw for an hour.”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “We may need to take turns playing with him. It won’t be so bad, since there are three of us.”

  As if I can afford to miss a third of every ballet class when I’m terrible already. I wonder what two-thirds of “terrible” would look like. I’m sure it would not be pretty.

  Some of the other girls in the class gather around Mason. “You’re so cute!” one of them says. He gets a big grin on his face as they coo at him.

  “Are you going to be a basketball player when you grow up?” one asks.

  “Yup,” he says, casually spinning the ball around on his finger, a new trick he just learned.

  The girls giggle and clap. Mason’s smile gets bigger and bigger.

  “I thought he’d hate being around a bunch of girls,” JoAnn says to me. “Sheesh.”

  Epatha arrives, and Mason dashes over to her. “Hi, Epa
tha,” he says. “Hey, Mason,” she says, pulling off her fuchsia sweater. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Epatha has a bo-o-oyfriennnd,” says Tiara Girl, who has been observing the fuss over Mason from the corner of the room.

  “You bet I do,” Epatha says, patting Mason’s hair. “Right, Mason?”

  He nods vigorously.

  Tiara Girl, disappointed that she’s not getting a rise out of Epatha, goes back to applying glitter lip gloss.

  Mr. Lester appears in the doorway. He’s tall and handsome, almost like a movie star. The only non-movie-star-like thing about him is that his teeth are not quite straight. They are very shiny and white, though, so if they were straight they would be perfect.

  “Go on upstairs, girls,” he says. “And boy,” he adds, grinning at Mason.

  Ms. Debbé is waiting in the dance studio. She is wearing a flowing orange and magenta tunic, her hair swathed in a matching turban with glinting sequins.

  “Ah. This must be Mason,” Ms. Debbé says.

  Mason stares at her in awe. “Are you a genie?” he asks.

  “Am I…pardon me?” Ms. Debbé says.

  “Come on, Mason,” Jessica says quickly. She takes him over to the corner, pulls a book out of his backpack for him, then slips back into place beside me.

  “Sit, please, ladies,” commands Ms. Debbé.

  A basketball silently rolls into the center of the room. Ms. Debbé’s eyebrows rise up to her turban. Mason stares goggle-eyed at the ball, not knowing what to do.

  JoAnn quickly grabs the ball and rolls it back to him.

  “We will try to keep the ball-rolling to a minimum, yes?” Ms. Debbé says to him.

  I don’t know if Mason knows what minimum means, but she keeps staring at him until he nods.

  For the first part of class, we do the normal things. We go to the barre and do our warm-ups: pliés and grand battements.

  I stand between Jessica and Al at the barre.

  “Other way,” Al whispers as I turn in the wrong direction.

  “Outside foot, not inside,” Jessica says as I try to kick with the foot that’s closest to the barre.