by Sheryl Berk
To my beautiful ballerina, Carrie.
Oh my gooshness . . .
I love you to the moon and the stars!
Contents
Chapter 1: Step to It
Chapter 2: Practice Makes Perfect
Chapter 3: Big Apple Bound
Chapter 4: Grace Face
Chapter 5: All Aboard!
Chapter 6: “Rock” and Roll
Chapter 7: Not-So-Lucky Stars
Chapter 8: The Tiny Terror
Chapter 9: And the Winner Is . . .
Chapter 10: Sweet Revenge
Chapter 11: Candy Couture
Chapter 12: I Spy
Chapter 13: Time to Shine
Chapter 14: Ancient History
Chapter 15: A Little Bit of Luck
Chapter 16: The Big Day
Chapter 17: Sister Act
Chapter 18: Cop and Robbers
Glossary of Dance Terms
A Note on the Author
Also by Sheryl Berk
Chapter 1
Step to It
Scarlett Borden wrapped her waist-long wavy red hair into a tight ballerina bun and secured it into place with about a dozen hairpins. She checked every angle of her hair in the dressing-room mirror and tucked a stubborn curly strand behind her ear, hoping it would stay there. That loose curl was all Miss Toni would need to see and she’d go ballistic (“Sloppy hair equals sloppy feet!”). With only three days left to the City Lights dance competition in New York City, her dance coach’s nerves were on edge. Something as minor as a stray curl could easily set her off.
“Look out, there’s a storm brewing,” Scarlett’s best friend—and Dance Divas teammate—Rochelle Hayes said, swinging her dance bag off her shoulder and tossing it on a bench. She’d just come from her solo rehearsal and was dripping in sweat, or as Miss Toni preferred to call it, “glowing.”
“What happened now, Rock?” Scarlett asked. “Please don’t tell me you forgot your pointe shoes again?”
“I told Toni, I do much better barefoot!” she protested, demonstrating a graceful grand jeté. “She freaked the minute I walked in the door barefoot.”
Scarlett sighed. “Of course she freaked! She gave you three warnings.”
“Pointe shoes hurt!” Rochelle groaned, rubbing her toes. “And I showed her I could do it. She threw the sheet music on the floor!”
Scarlett knew her friend was playing with fire. The last time any student had disagreed with Miss Toni—much less refused to wear her costume choice (even the giant pineapple hat for the hula number)—she not only got cut from the group number but was also asked to leave the studio . . . forever. There were tons of dance studios in New Jersey, but few that had Dance Divas’ reputation.
“Rock, you’re my rock,” Scarlett said, and put her arm around her friend. “I need you on this team.” How many times had her BFF come to her rescue when she was feeling frustrated or freaked out over a dance routine?
“You’re always there for me,” Scarlett insisted. “What about the time the giant spinning teacup in our ‘Tea for Two’ duet got stuck? You totally saved the day!”
“I pushed it,” Rochelle said, then shrugged. “It was nothing.”
“It was something, which is why I am repaying the favor. I am not letting you get kicked off this team!”
She dug Rochelle’s pointe shoes out of her bag and handed them to her. They looked brand new, probably because Rochelle had refused to break them in. “Please, I’m begging you, just put on the toe shoes for group rehearsal.”
“Fine!” Rochelle replied. “But for you, not for Toni. My mom says she’s crazy.”
Scarlett nodded. Yup, there was no doubt that Antoinette “Toni” Moore was nuts. All the students at Dance Divas Studio in Scotch Plains, New Jersey, knew it. But they also knew that she won national championships. She got kids into music videos, and four of her older students had landed jobs on Broadway in just the past year alone. If you wanted to be a professional dancer one day, this was the only studio in the tristate area worth going to.
Plenty of Scarlett’s classmates at Whitley Middle School commuted an hour into New York City to study with preprofessional ballet troupes and wondered why Scarlett refused to leave Dance Divas. Maybe it was because Miss Toni saw something more in her than just a ballerina on a barre. She pulled emotions out of her that Scarlett didn’t even know she had. When Scarlett performed one of the lyrical or contemporary numbers Toni choreographed for her, she felt like she was flying across the stage and exploding like Fourth of July fireworks with every leap and acrobatic flip.
“Dance is making magic every time you step on that stage,” Toni told her. And Scarlett believed it. None of the other ballet classes she’d taken since she was two had ever done this for her. Even though Toni drove her crazy, they had a connection; they understood each other.
But some girls on her dance team accused her of being Miss Toni’s pet, especially Liberty Montgomery, the new girl who had joined the team in September. She could dance anything Toni threw at her: modern, lyrical, tap, Irish step. Liberty was a one-girl dance recital.
“You sickled your foot!” Liberty protested the last time they had been assigned to a trio together. She demonstrated how Scarlett accidentally rolled her ankle inward. “And you’re a beat behind me and Rochelle. You’re a disaster.”
Liberty was in fact even harder to please than Miss Toni.
“It’s not just you; it could be any of us,” Rochelle assured her. “That girl just hates to have anyone stand in the way of her spotlight.”
Rochelle had her own issues with Liberty, which started the first day she arrived at the studio.
“You do hip-hop, right?” she asked Rochelle.
Rochelle nodded. “Yeah, I’ve taken hip-hop for a long time.”
“My mom says hip-hop is like the diet soda of dance. It’s not the real thing.” Liberty smirked. “And my mother is a big Hollywood choreographer, so she would know. A few pops and locks do not a dancer make.”
Rochelle fumed. “I do a lot more than just pop and lock!” She demonstrated a smooth jazz-funk move across the floor.
“What do you call that?” Liberty asked.
“It’s krumping, and a little freestyle,” Rochelle explained.
“It’s ridiculous,” Liberty said. “It requires absolutely no technique or talent whatsoever.”
“Then you do it!” Rochelle shot back.
“And make you look worse than you already do?” Liberty grinned. “My mom always tells me to be kind to people who are less fortunate.”
Scarlett had to admit that despite Liberty’s attitude problem, her mom did have a pretty impressive résumé.
“She choreographed Adele’s last video,” Scarlett pointed out.
“Says who?” Rochelle asked.
“Well, Liberty told me—”
“Scarlett, she lies. A lot.”
Bria Chang, their other teammate, strolled into the dressing room, her pointe shoes hanging from ribbons around her neck. Her head was buried in a pre-algebra textbook.
“Bria, you think Liberty is a big show-off, don’t you?” Rochelle asked.
“Did I miss something? I always miss something!” Bria sighed. “I’ve got this test in math tomorrow, and I am seriously gonna fail it.”
“We were just talking about Liberty’s mom and how she’s a big Hollywood choreographer,” Scarlett explained.
“Supposedly . . . ,” Rochelle chimed in. “I don’t believe anything that comes out of Liberty’s mouth.”
“Well, there’s one way to find out for sure,” Bria said, opening her laptop and searching “Jane Montgomery” on it.
“Sorry, Rock . . .” Bria showed her the Wikipedia page. “It says she did Adele’s video, a couple f
or Katy Perry—”
“Okay, so she’s not lying . . . this time. That doesn’t make Liberty the world’s greatest dancer, does it?” Rochelle asked.
Scarlett suspected that having a famous choreographer for a mother was part of the problem. Mrs. Montgomery was often at the studio, peeking through the windows and watching Liberty rehearse. Afterward, she’d pull her aside and whisper in her ear. Whatever she said, it must not have been good, because one time, Liberty ran past her into the bathroom, sobbing.
“I think Liberty’s mom puts a lot of pressure on her,” Scarlett told her teammates.
“Well, my mom puts a lot of pressure on me!” Bria piped up. “She said if I fail this math test Friday, I’m grounded for life!”
Bria was always struggling with one subject or another. On more than one occasion, her parents had threatened to pull the plug on her competing with Dance Divas.
“How did you do on the Spanish quiz yesterday?” Scarlett asked. “¿Muy bueno?”
“I don’t even know what you just said, so how do you think I did?” Bria moaned, scooping her long glossy black hair into a ponytail. “If I don’t get at least a B on this math test, that’s it—no City Lights this weekend. And my mom means it!”
“Do NOT let Toni hear you say that,” Rochelle said, then shivered. “She will freak if you drop out last minute.”
“I know. And with all these rehearsals, I have no time to study! What am I going to do?” Bria looked desperate.
Just then, Scarlett noticed the clock on the dressing-room wall.
“OMG, it’s four thirty-three!” she screamed, grabbing Rochelle and Bria by the hand and pulling them with her. “We’re late for rehearsal by three minutes. She’s going to have our heads!”
Chapter 2
Practice Makes Perfect
Scarlett, Rochelle, and Bria bounded into studio 2 just as Toni was taking her place in the front of the room. Liberty, of course, was already at the barre, warming up. The girl was a human pretzel; she could bend and twist in every direction! Her shiny blond hair was pulled back in a braid. Ugh, Scarlett thought, tucking a stray strand behind her ear again, I wish I had straight silky hair like that! She also noticed Liberty’s custom dance outfit: a hot-pink cropped mesh top and matching shorts with the word “STAR” bedazzled on the butt. Scarlett looked down at her black leotard and pink leg warmers and wrapped her arms over her chest. She felt positively plain and boring standing next to Liberty.
“Nice of you to join us, ladies,” Toni snapped.
Then she gave them “the look.” Scarlett knew it well—she actually had nightmares about it sometimes. It said, “You have disappointed me; you are dead meat!” all in a single icy-cold stare.
The strange thing was that Toni was beautiful. She had porcelain-white skin, wavy dark hair that fell softly around her shoulders, and pale-blue eyes. Scarlett’s little sister, Gracie, thought she looked like Snow White.
“More like the Evil Queen,” Rochelle had said, chuckling. “There is nothing princess-like about her.”
But Scarlett could see it: Toni had once been a kinder, gentler person. She’d even watched some of Toni’s old performances on YouTube, when she was just Antoinette Moore, a young teen dancer at American Ballet Company, floating across the stage in The Nutcracker to the “Waltz of the Flowers.” This was not the same woman who stood before them, day after day, stamping her foot on the wood floor and barking orders. Even with Toni’s hair pulled into a severe bun and her signature bright-red lipstick, Scarlett could see there was something soft about her.
“I want to see perfect pirouettes piqué.” Toni’s voice brought Scarlett back to attention. “Shoulders down! How many times do I have to correct you? We have three days, and this number is a big hot mess! Scarlett, front and center!”
Scarlett obeyed, taking her place in front of the other girls.
“Miss Toni! I can’t see with Scarlett’s big butt blocking my view,” Liberty complained.
“Well, there’s nothing to see,” Toni replied. “You should know this number cold by now without having to follow me. Five-six-seven-eight . . .”
They rehearsed for two hours without a break. The number was a strange contemporary piece set to the tap-tap-tap sounds of a computer keyboard. No music; just strange computer blips and bells. Onstage, there would be a giant video screen behind them, projecting fake e-mails and text messages. The routine was called, “Cyberbully,” and in it, Scarlett played the victim of mean girls bugging her online.
“I want to see the pain in your face,” Toni instructed her, “as if these words are like knives cutting into you.”
Scarlett winced. That wasn’t hard to imagine. All she had to do was recall some of Liberty’s nastiest insults.
Scarlett flitted from girl to girl, trying to escape their clawing arms. It was dramatic and unsettling.
Toni seemed satisfied. “If this doesn’t win Saturday, I give up,” she said under her breath.
At the end of rehearsal, she gathered the girls around her in a huddle, like a football coach handing out plays to his team. “I want you to know that Saturday’s competition is going to be tough,” she began. “Some of the best studios are coming to compete, and we cannot afford to make any mistakes. Is that clear?”
Scarlett was used to the speech. It always began with something like “Don’t mess up!” and ended with “Do I make myself clear?” To Toni, every competition was a matter of life and death, because her reputation was riding on it. But what she forgot was that none of the girls liked to lose either. It felt awful to spend dozens of hours on group routines, solos, and combinations, only to be handed a second- or third-place trophy. Every one of them wanted to win first place—in every category.
“I said, is that clear?” Toni boomed. Four heads nodded. “We leave for the city at eight a.m.”
Liberty raised her hand. “Miss Toni, Saturday is my eleventh birthday, and my mom was planning on having a party for some family and VIP friends later in the day. I think maybe a countess and . . .”
Toni placed a hand dramatically over her eyes, as if to block out Liberty from her vision altogether. “I don’t care if Queen Elizabeth herself is coming to tea at your house. You’ll be there!” She said each word with the razor-sharpness of a battement at the barre. “Is. That. Clear?”
Liberty gulped. It was the first time Scarlett had ever seen her know-it-all teammate at a loss for words.
Toni turned and faced the rest of the group. “That goes for all of you. Anyone who is not interested in following my rules . . . there’s the door.” She pointed to the studio exit. “I don’t care if you like me, and I don’t care if you like one another. But we are a team, and we act like one. We let nothing stand in our way of winning.”
On that note, Toni walked out the door, leaving the girls to think about what she’d said.
“My mom is not going to be happy.” Liberty sighed. “She called the caterer and everything.”
“Give me a break.” Rochelle groaned.
“Nothing like team spirit,” Scarlett said. “Can we all just try to get along?”
“Oh, and who appointed you cheer captain?” Liberty shot back. “After I win the crown for Junior Solo this weekend, I’ll be Toni’s favorite—not you.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Rochelle said, defending her BFF. “Unless they give out prizes for the biggest mouth. In that case, you’ll win for sure.”
Liberty bristled. “At least I have a solo. Toni cut yours this week. I wonder why? Maybe because you stink?”
“Not as bad as your feet stink!” Rochelle shot back, holding her nose.
“Aw, someone’s a sore loser! What’s the matter? Miss Toni thought you weren’t good enough to compete?”
“Liberty, cut it out!” Scarlett cried. “It’s none of your business. Stop or I’ll—”
“You’ll what? You’ll run to Miss Toni and rat me out? Aw, I’m really scared.” She picked up her ballet shoes and wa
ved them in Scarlett’s face, taunting her. “See ya Saturday, girls,” she said, and smirked. “I can’t wait.”
Scarlett had a sinking feeling in her stomach that this weekend wasn’t going to go as smoothly as planned.
Chapter 3
Big Apple Bound
Just as Miss Toni had promised, the Dance Divas’ bus pulled up in front of the studio at 8:00 a.m. sharp. It was hard to miss the studio, even from a mile away. There was a bright gold sign on the roof and a giant pair of pink ballet slippers in a star. Miss Toni had personally designed the logo.
Scarlett’s dance bag weighed a ton and was digging into her shoulder. Meanwhile, her mom had both hands full, lugging a duffel filled with costumes, makeup, and hair tools outside to the curb.
“I feel like I’m forgetting something,” her mom, Hillary, said to Bria’s mother, Aimi. “I know I packed the curling iron and the blow-dryer, but did I bring the flat iron?”
“I have an extra one if you need it,” Aimi assured her. “I always bring two in case one breaks.”
“Or someone like me forgets,” Hillary said with a chuckle. “I swear, I’d forget my head if it wasn’t bobby-pinned to my shoulders!”
Bria rolled her eyes. “My mom, she is so perfect,” she whispered to Scarlett. “She never forgets anything. Not the capital of Wisconsin. Not the formula for finding the area of a trapezoid . . .”
“I guess your math test didn’t go so well?” Scarlett tried to sympathize.
“I won’t get the grade until Monday. Which is probably the only reason I am allowed to compete this weekend.” Bria sighed. “She doesn’t care about my dancing. She just wants me to get straight As like she did her whole life. She was so smart that she skipped two grades and went to college when she was sixteen!”
“I bet your mom could never do a dive front walkover like you!” Scarlett reminded her. “Or twenty-five pirouettes in a row. You’re amazing!”
Bria shrugged. “My older sister, Lily, is amazing. She got to go to the New Jersey state senate last year and read an essay she wrote about serving chocolate milk in school cafeterias. When she grows up, she wants to be a journalist like my dad, covering wars and politics and stuff. It’s not easy being in my family!” She held a stack of textbooks in her left arm and her laptop in her right. “I have two hours till we get to New York. I have to study.”
