Perfectly Prima

by Whoopi Goldberg

I nod.

  “Then, my dear, you can’t quit. You just have to find a way to do what you want. One thing you might start with, though, is getting rid of that ‘perfect’ idea,” she says.

  I just stand there, not knowing what else to say but not wanting to leave. “I am very sorry about my brother’s rat and the bad luck,” I finally say.

  She looks puzzled for a moment, then smiles. “You have read my book!”

  I nod.

  “I have to admit your brother’s rat did take me by surprise.” She smiles. “But that furry-animal superstition was just silly. I finally got over my fear of them three years ago. Now I have a pet chinchilla named Edward.” She turns to the mirror, applies her lipstick, and blots some of it off with a tissue.

  I wonder if the other stuff in the book is wrong, too. “I tried doing five hundred pliés, and eating celery, and wearing a scarf, and singing at night,” I tell her. “Nothing worked. I’m still bad at ballet.”

  She looks at me seriously. She acts like she’s talking to another grown-up, not just a kid. “Something that works for one person may not work for another. You need to find your own path, my dear.”

  “But how?” I ask.

  “That, I don’t know. I do know that if you truly want to dance, you’ll find a way. Often the answer is right under our noses,” she says.

  I look under my nose. There’s nothing there but the bathroom sink.

  Miss Camilla puts her purse strap over her shoulder. “I’ll be coming to your recital. And I’ll be very disappointed if you’re not dancing in it. Good-bye, my dear.”

  With that, she leaves.

  Chapter 11

  I sit in my room alone that night, hugging my knees. Jessica’s been shut up in her room cuddling Shakespeare and feeding him all his favorite foods since we got back. JoAnn’s at basketball practice. The house is unnaturally quiet.

  I can’t do the dance.

  I can’t disappoint Miss Camilla.

  What am I going to do?

  I have no ideas.

  I decide I’d better go get the muddy lucky scarf so I can wash it out before Mom sees it. As I cross the hall to Mason’s room, I notice that there’s no basketball-bouncing sound coming out of his door. That’s why the house is so quiet.

  His door is open just a few inches. I peek inside.

  As I watch, he stands on his left leg and executes a perfect pirouette.

  I stare.

  Then he does a chassé. Which happens to be the next move of our dance.

  As I peer through the crack in the door, he does our entire dance. Or at least something closer to our entire dance than I could ever do on my own.

  I go back to my room.

  I can’t believe it. My little brother—my annoying, scarf-stealing, celery-chomping, basketball-bouncing little brother—is a better dancer than I am.

  I’m flooded by all sorts of feelings—jealousy, anger, frustration. But there’s something else there, too: a tiny sliver of hope.

  I think of what Miss Camilla said. If you want to do something, you do whatever you need to do.

  Even if it means asking your little brother for help.

  I cross the hall to Mason’s room again. Now he’s playing with a remote-controlled truck, driving it around an obstacle course he’s made from wooden blocks, some books, and his stuffed alligator.

  “Hey, Mason,” I say.

  “What?” He steers the truck neatly around the alligator’s tail before smashing it into a pile of blocks, which crash to the ground.

  The words stick in my throat, but I finally get them out. “Can you help me learn our dance?”

  He looks up at me. The truck lies on its side, its wheels whirring. “You want me to help you?”

  I nod.

  “Why should I?” he says. “You don’t even like me.”

  His words shock me. The sad look on his face is even worse.

  “Mason…of course I like you. You’re my little brother.”

  “But you never want to play with me. And you’re always telling me I do everything wrong.”

  I’m about to object. But then I realize something. He’s right. I don’t ever want to play with him, because I’m too afraid of having my things messed up. And I do always tell him he’s doing things wrong, because he doesn’t do things exactly the way I would do them.

  It dawns on me that I’ve been pretty mean to Mason. Especially during the last few weeks, when I’ve been so worried about the recital.

  No dance, even a dance in front of Miss Camilla, is worth that.

  I crouch down by where he’s sitting. “I’m sorry, Mason,” I say. “I haven’t always been very nice to you. I just like having things a certain way. And I get upset when other people…”

  I’m about to say, mess them up, but I realize that’s not fair.

  “…do things differently. But you’re my little brother, and I care about you a lot.”

  He looks at me with his big brown eyes. “Really?”

  I nod.

  Mason reaches up and hugs me. I hug him back, hard.

  Then I stand up to go.

  “Wait,” he says. “I’ll teach you. If you still want.”

  I think about it. “Okay,” I say. “But if I’m mean to you, you walk away. Deal?”

  “Deal,” he grins.

  Chapter 12

  We go back into my room, since it’s bigger, and close the door.

  “Wait a minute,” Mason says. “Before we start, you’ve got to promise you won’t tell anyone I can dance. Because ballet dancing is for girls.”

  I decide that now is not the time to point out that Mr. Lester isn’t a girl, and that there are a bunch of older boys who take ballet at the Nutcracker School. “I won’t tell. Promise.”

  “Okay,” he nods. “So, you start with your right leg.”

  I stand behind him and stand on my right leg. We join hands and walk, then chassé. He turns to do the pirouette, but I get lost.

  “Like this, Jerzey,” he says. “Right foot in front of left foot.” He shows me, but when I try, I get the steps all mixed up, as usual.

  Mason is very patient. That’s one thing about little kids: they don’t mind doing the same thing over and over. When he was little, he wanted Mom to read him The Little Engine That Could at least three times each night. He still finds one book he likes and reads it again and again. His tolerance for repetition is definitely a good thing now.

  “No, put your right foot in front of your left. Then do the turn,” he says, for the fifth time.

  But even though he’s patient, I struggle. It’s just like in dance class. My heart starts pounding, and I feel all shaky. The more we practice, the worse I get. After he shows me one step ten times and I still mess it up, I finally crack.

  “I just can’t do it!” I yell.

  Mason squints. “Are you being crabby with me?” he says. “Or are you just being crabby, period?”

  “Not with you,” I say. “I’m just mad at myself. I’m a horrible dancer. I’ll never, ever get it right.” I draw in huge breaths to try to stop from crying. I collapse on my bed, blinking hard. “Maybe I really should just drop out of ballet.” The image of Miss Camilla’s face pops into my head, but I shoo it away.

  Mason stands quietly looking at me for a minute. “Want me to show you again?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “I can’t. Maybe later.” But a little voice in the back of my mind says there’s not going to be a later. This is the end of the line for the dancing disaster. I am completely, utterly hopeless.

  Mason looks a little relieved. “Okay. Then will you play basketball with me?” he asks.

  “What?” I ask, sniffling.

  “Will you play basketball with me?” he repeats.

  Play basketball? Me? He’s crazy. But then I think, why not? I can’t dance. At least I can try to be a good big sister for once.

  I nod.

  Hardly knowing what I’m doing, I wipe a tear away with my sleeve and pul
l on my pink coat. Mason gets his jacket from his room, picks up his basketball, and leads me downstairs.

  “We’re going outside,” he yells to Mom and Dad.

  We head to the basketball court silently, Mason dribbling the ball. Two of Terrel’s big brothers are at the far end of the court as usual, shooting hoops. They wave at us and we wave back. It’s cold enough that our breath looks like big puffs of cloud around us. I stick my hands in my pockets to keep them warm.

  When we get there, Mason stands in the circle of light that floods the court and tosses the ball to me. “Catch,” he says.

  I surprise myself by actually catching it.

  “Try dribbling it,” he says.

  I bounce the ball up and down on the asphalt. When it gets away from me, Mason runs after it and tosses it back. The ball makes a satisfying thwack when it hits the ground. I bounce it up and down, trying to keep it in the same place with every bounce.

  “Toss it here.”

  I awkwardly toss the ball to Mason. He bounces it a few times, does a graceful spin, and swishes the ball into the basket. He does a victory dance and bounces the ball left, right, and everywhere as he comes back over to me.

  He tosses me the ball. “Now you try it, Jerzey,” he says.

  I hold the ball still. “I can’t do that.”

  “Sure you can. I’ll try to block you.” He stands in front of me, waving his arms. I duck around him, run to the other side of the court, and try the jumping spin he did. I miss the basket, but not by too much.

  “There you go!” he says. “Try it again.”

  I do, and this time I move more smoothly. I still don’t make the basket, though.

  He gallops around me. “Now, this is what you do if there are people trying to block you. You have to face them.”

  I run alongside him, the cold air rushing past me. Mason makes a face, and I crack up.

  He does a fancy spin, flicking his leg out as he dribbles. “Bet you can’t do that.”

  “Bet I can,” I say, grabbing the ball and doing what he just did. He tries to get the ball away from me, but I spin around to stop him, then toss it neatly into the basket.

  “I did it!” I cry.

  He smiles. “That was real good, Jerzey. But I bet you can’t do this.”

  He grabs the ball and takes three long steps, jumps, does a spin, and flicks the ball into the basket.

  I grab the ball, dribble it away from the basket, and turn to face him. “Oh, yeah? Watch this.”

  I take three long steps, too, then jump and do the spin. I don’t quite get the ball into the basket. But I’m close.

  He takes the ball, bounces it to center court, and does the same moves again, except this time he adds a leap after he shoots the basket. He offers me the ball. Without a word, I take it. Gallop, spin, toss, catch, leap. This time the ball swooshes into the basket. I do Mason’s victory dance. I’m out of breath, and my heart is pumping like crazy. And I realize I’m happy for the first time in what seems like weeks.

  Mason stands there staring at me. “Hey, Jerzey! You did it.”

  I dribble the ball. “Yup. I’m a basketball star now,” I say.

  He shakes his head. “I mean, you did a bunch of your dance!”

  I stop dribbling. “What?”

  “Not exactly in the right order,” he says, “but you can do all the moves.”

  When I continue to stare uncomprehendingly at him, he sighs.

  “Don’t you get it? The gallops are almost exactly like those—what do you call them?—the sashays.”

  “Chassés?”

  He nods. “And the spin with a leg flick is almost that peer thing.”

  I realize he means pirouette. I finally catch on. “You mean…I really can do all those moves?”

  “Sure you can,” he says. “Maybe you just get all freaked out because you think you’re bad at it. But you probably didn’t think you were bad at basketball, because you’d never done it. I must be one really great teacher.” He smiles proudly.

  I am so thrilled to find out that I can do it, I really can, that I run over and give him a huge hug.

  “Eww! Jerzey! Cut it out!” he hollers, glancing across the court at Terrel’s brothers, who are grinning at us. But I think he’s really not as mad as he sounds, because on the way back home, he reaches out and takes my hand.

  “Thanks,” I say as we climb the steps. “You saved my life.”

  “No problem,” he replies. “But it’s our secret, right?”

  “Right,” I say. “Definitely our secret.”

  Chapter 13

  Over the next few days, I practice the dance in my room. I practice a lot. Mason comes in and helps sometimes. But what he taught me must have stuck in my head, because I can actually remember the steps now.

  And whenever I start to get frustrated, I just imagine I am hanging out with Mason on the basketball court, trying to one-up him by doing higher jumps or longer gallops. I keep thinking of the cold air rushing against my face, the clouds of breath hanging around us, and the fun we had.

  I hate to admit it, but I don’t have fun a lot. I feel satisfied when my pencils are lined up just right, or when a new book is exactly the right size to fit into an empty space on my bookshelf. And I like being with my friends, for instance, when we all go to Bella Italia, Epatha’s parents’ restaurant, and eat garlic bread and talk. But I don’t laugh very much. I think about things too much, and I get tied up in knots, and I worry.

  So, fun is kind of new for me. I can tell Epatha has fun when she dances. It’s as if she’s using the dance to tell everyone a little bit about herself. I never would have thought that I could feel as though dancing were fun.

  But maybe I can.

  Before the next class, I march up the stairs to the studio with more purpose than ever before. For once, I’m not scared that I’ll be awful. For once, I know the steps cold.

  I can hardly wait for the moment when we break up into groups to practice our dances. The Rainbow girls go first. Their dance looks great, except for one part where a banner flutters the wrong way and trips Terrel. She gives the banner the scariest look I’ve ever seen. I’ll bet it won’t dare trip her ever again.

  “Wonderful, girls,” Ms. Debbé says as the music ends and they take their bows. “Now, Princesses.”

  She presses the button on the CD player, folds her arms across her chest, and waits.

  The music starts. Jessica, JoAnn, and I join hands and walk in a circle. Then we do the chassés.

  It doesn’t take long for my sisters to realize that something’s up. Jessica is ready to push me gently in the right direction for the pirouettes—but I go in the right direction on my own. JoAnn braces herself for the moment when I usually crash into her after the leaps—but I move smoothly past her, just like I’m supposed to.

  I sneak a peek at the other Sugar Plums. Terrel’s eyes are about to pop out of her head.

  Epatha gives me a huge thumbs-up. Brenda looks around nervously, as if maybe she had accidentally slipped into a different version of reality and needed to find a way back home. And Al just beams.

  When we finish, the room fills with cheers and clapping. Epatha lets out a hoot so high and loud I think the window’s going to shatter. “Fabulosa, my friend,” she says. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  I have never seen Ms. Debbé look shocked before. But she looks shocked now. “Jerzey—however did you learn so much so quickly? Your sisters, they helped you?” she asks. She looks questioningly at Jessica, who shakes her head, and JoAnn, who does the same.

  “Uh…” I look over at Mason, who’s been watching the whole time. He shakes his head violently. “I guess I just finally got it.”

  I feel a tiny tug of guilt that I’m not being 100 percent honest, and that Mason isn’t getting any of the credit. After all, without him I’d still be careening off the stage into people’s laps. But he doesn’t want me to tell, and frankly it would be embarrassing to admit that my seven-year
-old brother is my ballet tutor.

  Ms. Debbé doesn’t question my answer. She just nods and says, “Bien. Très bien, Mademoiselle Jerzey.”

  And those five words from her mean more to me than anything anyone else has said.

  Chapter 14

  A few weeks fly by. Before I know it, it’s the Tuesday afternoon just four days before our show.

  Mom drops us off at the dance studio for our final costume fittings. All the classes are here at once, so there are kids everywhere. The kids from Ballet One are running around in the main studio shrieking at each other. A few harried parents try to get them to calm down, but it’s impossible to keep a bunch of kindergartners in dragon costumes from racing around and breathing fire at each other.

  Al calls to us from the top of the staircase. “Come on, you guys—Mom’s up here.” Al’s mom is a designer and hatmaker. Our class’s costumes have gotten decidedly more interesting since Al moved to town.

  We thump upstairs, but it’s so loud you can’t even hear us. I cover my ears. I feel my shoulders start to tighten up—I’m not good with chaos, as you probably know by now.

  “Come on,” Al says again as we reach the top. She pulls me with one arm and Jessica with the other. “Wait till you see your outfits. You’ll keel over.”

  We go into the second-floor studio. Al’s mom is dressed in a sky blue suit studded with large, colorful fabric circles that puff out a bit. “We saw a balloon stampede on TV, and she got inspired,” Al tells us. “There’s a hat that looks like a hot-air-balloon basket, but it kept falling off whenever she leaned over to pin up a kid’s costume.”

  Al’s mom waves at us, then goes back to sewing up the back of Epatha’s rainbow costume. It’s really cool—a green bodysuit that covers her from the neck to the ankles. She looks like a green crayon, but in a good way.

  “Come here,” Al says. She’s standing at a portable clothing rack where a bunch of long garment bags are hanging. “Look!” She unzips one of the bags and pulls out the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen. Silver sequins shimmer on the pink top. Layers and layers of pink tulle float around it, forming the skirt.