“Okay, then you have to compensate for it. You’ll have to pivot your hips again. Like in the backflip. Maybe move into a few crow steps? Instead of just throwing your weight back to land on your feet, tighten your muscles and pivot into the crow step.”
“Yeah, that’s a really good idea, Jen!” I told her. “I’ll definitely try that.”
* * *
I had a soccer game that evening, and all the gymnastics and jumping on the trampoline had definitely improved my balance and stamina. The muscles in my legs flexed as I ran up and down the field, passing the ball deftly to my teammates. I headed toward the goal and caught a pass that Tanner sent straight to me. I weaved around a player, dribbling the ball with my feet using some of the footwork I had learned in dance.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw an opposing player running toward me. I clocked Tanner, but he was completely surrounded. I looked around, but there was no one else near me. I shifted my weight as another player came at me and tried to steal the ball. I easily outmaneuvered him and continued my streak up the field. The player coming at me from the side had almost reached me, and the goal was straight ahead. I saw the player drop down and slide, clearly intending to trip me, take me down and steal the ball.
I didn’t even slow down. My heartbeat was steady, sounding like a drumbeat in my ears. I got my foot under the ball and launched it upward, then followed it. I leaped up, using my arms and tightening my muscles to propel me forward. I flew over my opponent. I jumped so high that I glanced down and saw the other boy staring up at me in total shock. I landed solidly, right behind the ball, and took two steps forward before firing the side of my foot forward and sending the ball flying past the goalie and directly into the back of the net. It was the winning goal!
The crowd went absolutely wild. They were on their feet in the stands, screaming. My teammates ran down the field and grabbed me.
“That was unbelievable!” Aiden screamed.
“Dude, that jump was unreal!” Tanner yelled, slapping me on the back.
I looked at the stands and saw my parents standing with Jen, clapping wildly as Jen waved a hand-lettered sign that said, Go, John, Go! I grinned and waved at them as the team celebrated our victory.
“Nice job, McCaffrey!” the coach yelled over the din. “Looks like all that dancing paid off!”
“Thanks, Coach,” I called before my teammates hoisted me onto their shoulders and carried me around the field.
It was just like in a movie.
Twenty-Five
I was managing to juggle soccer, practice for the Cultural Center and keep up with my homework. At this point, everyone in school knew about my dancing. Tanner really had done me a favor. I didn’t have to hide anymore, and the range of reactions from people was kind of funny. Kids I didn’t even know came up and told me they thought it was kind of cool. Jen decided she might like to take the class with Santee and the girls sometime. The librarian pressed a couple of books into my hands about the history of First Nations people and their celebrations. There was still the odd idiot…like the racist jerk who started whooping and dancing around me in the hallway. But I just kept walking, and Aiden checked the kid into the wall with his shoulder. It was kind of worth it to see the look on the kid’s face when he bounced off the wall. Aside from rare instances like that, people were actually pretty cool.
Like my math teacher, Mr. Beckham. He had handed back my algebra quiz along with a high five that morning.
“Good job, John. Nice to see you can solve equations as well as you multitask. Really good work.”
I liked Mr. Beckham and grinned back at him. “Thanks, sir. I try.”
The fact was, I was doing pretty well, all things considered. But the next day was Saturday—time to go back to the Cultural Center for the Pow Wow group. I was beyond nervous. I had started to second-guess the backflip, and I was still stumbling on some of the tricks. I kept running through my routine in my head and messing up the sequence of the steps.
It was late. Or early, depending how you looked at it. The moon was huge and full, and it lit up the backyard with a soft glow that made the lawn look like it was alive. I stepped into the backyard and stopped, feeling the grass under my bare feet. I put earbuds into my ears and strapped my iPod to my arm. I closed my eyes and ran my fingers down the cord, pressing Play and waiting for the familiar drumbeats to start pounding their way into my head and flowing down through my body.
Under the full moon, I heard the music. I felt it. And with no one watching and no concern about the boys at the Cultural Center, I opened my eyes and started to dance.
Twenty-Six
I had spent the early hours of Saturday morning drinking coffee and pushing scrambled eggs around a plate, picking at a piece of toast and nibbling a fruit salad in turn. I ate almost none of it.
“Did you sleep?” my mother asked, walking into the kitchen and cinching her robe tightly around her waist.
“Not much,” I admitted, holding out my coffee mug for a refill. She glanced at it, then at my face, as if trying to gauge my caffeine level. She must have deemed it acceptable because she stood over me and filled up the mug.
“Hey.” My father walked in and pulled his favorite chipped blue mug out of the cupboard over the sink. “Did you get any sleep?”
I exchanged glances with my mother, who winked at me and shrugged.
“Not much. I couldn’t sleep, so I was up early running through my routine.” I put my cup down on the table and took a deep breath, willing my hands to stop shaking. I wasn’t sure anymore if it was nerves or caffeine causing that.
My father sat down across from me and leaned over, putting his hands on my knees. He was usually a man of few words, but he looked me in the eye proudly and nodded.
“You’ve got this, son. Remember who you are.” He patted my leg again and stood up, taking his coffee cup with him as he left the room. I raised an eyebrow at my mom as Jen walked into the room. I was surprised my father had even that much to say before his morning coffee. His words resonated, but before I had a chance to think much about them, Jen’s voice cut into my reverie.
“So? Ready to go in front of a bunch of racist jackoffs and dance your butt off?” she asked, biting into a chocolate-chip muffin.
“Jen!” my mother and I both yelled.
I stifled a laugh. “They’re not all so bad,” I told her. “But yeah…I don’t know. I’m second-guessing the flip.” All I could imagine was trying to flip, falling short and landing on my head.
“Shake it off, bro. You’ll be fine.” She was being flippant, but she didn’t know how big a deal this was. It could make or break my experience at the Cultural Center and determine whether I stayed or not. And it scared the hell out of me. She glanced away from picking the chocolate chips out of her muffin and adding them to the pile on the edge of her plate and saw my terrified expression. “John! I didn’t mean to freak you out! Do you need a paper bag to breathe into or something?”
“No.” I held a hand up in front of me. “I’ll be okay.” I tried to take a deep breath, but I couldn’t seem to get enough air into my lungs.
“Mom!” Jen yelled, jumping up from the table and dropping her muffin. “John’s dying or something!” She ran around the table to me. “Put your head between your knees, John! Here! Breathe into this!” Jen grabbed the bag her muffin had been in and thrust it into my hands.
Mom ran over to me. “Jen! Stop manhandling him.”
I breathed deeply into the paper bag, the smell of chocolate-chip muffins filling my nose. That actually made it worse. Now I felt like I was going to throw up too. I sat up and pushed the bag into Jen’s hands while my mother rubbed my back.
“I’m okay. I’m okay,” I told her. “I just…realized how much I have to lose. And how much I want to stay there and learn.” I tried again to keep my hands from shaking.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” my mother asked, looking at me worriedly.
“Yeah. I’m
good.” I tried to sound convincing.
It must have worked, because my mother nodded. “Okay then. Good.” She looked at the clock and then flew to her feet. “Oh my goodness! Get dressed! We should have left by now! Jennifer!” She spun toward Jen, who had a forkful of fruit halfway to her mouth.
She dropped it in surprise. “What?” She hopped off her stool and grabbed a paper towel to clean up the fruit.
“Get ready! We have to leave in five minutes!” Jen rolled her eyes and sauntered out of the room.
“John!”
“Right here, Mom.”
“Get dressed! We’re going to be late!”
“I am dressed. I’ve been dressed for hours,” I told her, sipping at my bitter coffee.
“Oh. Good. Okay then.”
“Mom?” I said.
“Yes?”
“You should get dressed.”
“Oh!” She looked down at her robe. “Yes! I will.” She kissed my cheek. “I’m proud of you, John.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I said as she ran off to get dressed.
Twenty-Seven
My stomach was in knots the entire ride into the city. I even decided to forgo my usual hot chocolate and maple-dip donut at the obligatory stop at Tim Hortons. My father was driving and my mom was singing along to the radio while my sister talked about her latest art project and how she thought she might like to try a dance class sometime. I was too anxious to talk much.
“Are you nervous, nikosis?” my mother asked, craning around in her seat to look at me. I shrugged at her, not trusting myself to speak. I felt like I was going to throw up. But I had worked day and night to perfect a routine—and my family was going to be there for moral support. And we were going to show Matt once and for all that I belonged there just as much as he did.
My father pulled into the parking lot of the Cultural Center, and I took a deep breath, trying to calm my nerves. I was ready for this.
I couldn’t wait to see the look on Matt’s face.
I walked into the studio and stood beside Jasper. “Hey.” I nodded at him. “Pow Wow’s coming up.”
He lifted his eyebrows in response.
“Think you’ll go?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Not to compete,” he quickly added. “Maybe in another year. But I always go for the Grand Entry.” He looked around the room, maybe to see if Matt was lurking around to catch him talking to me. Or maybe just to see if we were about to start. “Are you going?”
“Yeah. I’ve never danced in a Pow Wow before. I’ve been to a bunch of them. But I’ve always just watched.”
Jasper nodded. “You’ll really like it,” he said. The room was filling up with boys, and for some reason, Jasper was still talking to me. Matt was standing off to the side with a few of his friends, stretching, when my father walked in.
“Dad!” I called out. “Hey, Dad, over here!” I waved my arm in the air as if we were in a crowd of hundreds instead of a room with a dozen boys in it. Jasper looked at me with a slight frown, probably thinking I was crazy. Matt poked one of his friends and started laughing. Exactly what I had expected.
“Dad, this is Jasper.”
My father smiled at him.
“Nice to meet you, sir.” Jasper politely shook his hand.
“Looks like we’re being taken over by white people!” I heard Matt tell his friends. “Next thing you know, they’ll be sending us off to school, trying to colonize us!” A couple of his friends laughed, but some of them looked away uncomfortably. My grandfather had been in a residential school. I suspected the other boys had relatives who’d been in the schools too. It wasn’t funny.
“Mr. McCaffrey!” Sam called out, walking over and holding out his hand. “Glad you could join us. Everyone, this is John’s father.”
“No kidding,” Matt muttered.
“John, is the rest of your family joining us?”
Before I could say anything, Matt interrupted. “Isn’t this the Native Cultural Center?” he asked. “I mean, we’ve put up with this guy playing Indian for weeks, but now we have to entertain his family too? How pale is this place going to get?”
“Matt!” Sam started, but I cut him off, striding away from my father to stand directly in front of Matt.
“I’ve had enough of your racist comments,” I told him.
He looked at me, startled.
“You’ve been insulting me since the day I got here, and you don’t know anything about me. I have as much right to be here as you do. My mother…” I looked around for her and Jen, and saw them standing by the door. I gestured toward them. “My mother’s maiden name is Greyeyes. She’s Cree. Nihtâ-nîmihitow. That means ‘She dances well.’”
Matt looked absolutely shocked.
“Miyokosisâniwiw,” my mother said. I knew what that meant: He is a fine son.
I nodded at her proudly. “These are my dances too,” I told Matt. “I let you take that away from me, but not anymore.”
Twenty-Eight
They had started the same way they always did, shuffling around in a circle and moving to the drums. My mother, sister and even my father joined us in the circle, tapping their feet and stepping forward with the group. When we stopped moving, I was the first one to step into the middle. I stood still for a minute and closed my eyes, listening.
I waited for my cue, opened my eyes and took three running steps before leaping into the air. I fell back to earth and began to spin, lifting my knees and stomping my feet. I shifted my weight suddenly and dropped down onto my right hand, kicking both of my feet up into the air before pivoting my hips back down. I barely registered the group cheering as I kept dancing. My knees were high as I spun around and then sank down into the splits before using the muscles in my legs and abs to push myself back up to standing. The roar of the group followed me as I kept dancing, kept spinning and turning on one foot, then the other. I was almost at the end. I had almost reached the climax of the number. The drums and voices got louder, and I slid to a stop right in front of Matt before gathering myself, tensing my muscles and leaping into a perfectly executed backflip, just like Jen had taught me. I landed it with razor-sharp precision as the drumbeats ended.
I heard the gasps, followed by cheering, as my family, Sam and the other boys erupted in applause. I stood still, breathing hard and taking the moment in. I had done it. I had shown everyone that I belonged there. I had held my head up high and danced my heart out.
I had remembered who I was.
MELANIE FLORENCE is of Cree and Scottish descent. She is the author of the OLA Best Bets award-winning book Righting Canada’s Wrongs: Residential Schools; Missing Nimama, which was awarded an Honourable Mention by the OLA; The Missing, One Night; and Jordin Tootoo: The Highs and Lows in the Journey of the First Inuk to Play in the NHL, which was chosen as an Honor Book by The American Indian Library Association. Melanie works as a freelance journalist and her byline has appeared in numerous magazines, including Dance International, Writer Magazine, Parents Canada and Urban Male Magazine. She currently lives in Toronto with her family.
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