Time for Change

by Varian Johnson

Standing there in the studio, I couldn’t help but think that my love for ballet was being flipped off, too, one class—or maybe one poem—at a time.

  No More Ballet?

  If I do not go en pointe

  would there be a point to that?

  What if my heart’s not in it

  when other people’s are?

  And what if—

  What if—

  Can I even think it?

  What if I did no ballet at all?

  Could I?

  Would I?

  Could I really give up my

  ballet shoes and the barre?

  Pliés and chassés?

  Tendus and fondus?

  What would happen to my feet

  if they could no longer leap

  along the Liberty floor?

  Would I be me anymore?

  Later that evening, I curled up on the couch and texted Teagan. Something Amelia said had stuck with me.

  I’m sorry I wasn’t prepared today. I know that our poem being such a mess meant we missed an opportunity for good feedback. We’re a team, you and me. I’ll try to be a better teammate next time.

  A few minutes later, Teagan texted back.

  It’s okay. And I’m sorry I was so mean. I wasn’t being fair. We both have a lot going on.

  I breathed a sigh of relief that she wasn’t angrier with me. I typed another message.

  Thanks for understanding. Can you send me your new lines so I can get familiar with them?

  Sure thing! Are you okay with the changes?

  My fingers hovered over the phone. Was I? Teagan was probably right—maybe the Enchilada Princess line was distracting.

  Yes, I’m okay with them. A second later, I added: So we’re okay?

  Yep, Teagan responded. We’re best friends. We’re always going to be okay. And you can make it up to me by helping me win the three-legged race at the carnival on Sunday!

  I typed in a bunch of fall-themed emojis, then two octopuses. Deal!

  A few minutes later, I knocked on Red’s door on the way up to my room.

  “What?” he said, opening the door, then started to close it again when he saw it was me.

  “I-I, I just wanted to say—”

  “Be quick,” Red said. “I’m talking to my mom.”

  “Oh, okay,” I said. “Just … I’m ssss-sorry for not-not being more pr-pr-prepared today.”

  Red sighed. “I know you’ve been working hard on your solo, Gabby,” he said. “But every poem counts the same. Just remember that, okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Thanks. Say hi to Aunt Tonya for me.” Red nodded and closed the door.

  “Maya,” I said, when I got to my room and found her waiting for me. “You don’t know how to add more hours to a day, do you? That’s what I need.”

  She just swished her tail as if to say “I’m a cat, silly, not a wizard.”

  “All right, then,” I said. “It’s going to be another early wake-up call tomorrow. You’ve been warned.”

  Did you get the pic I sent?” Aaliyah asked in the hallway before school on Thursday.

  “Yes!” I said. “Your mummy costume is going to be amazing!”

  “Thanks! The gauze is soaking in tea at home today so it will look all old. How’s your costume going?”

  “Ugh,” I said. “I think I found a wig worthy of the Bride of Frankenstein, but I need to put a white streak in it. And I don’t have a dress to wear yet. My mom and I had to cancel our shopping trip last weekend because I had too much other stuff to do.”

  “Hmm …” Aaliyah looked me up and down. “I might have something you could wear.” She snapped her fingers. “Hey, what if I came by Sunday to help you finish?”

  Aaliyah at my house? That would be weird. Teagan was pretty much the only friend I ever had over. But I did need the help.

  “You know, that would be really great,” I said. Then I snapped my fingers. “But Teagan and I are supposed to go to the carnival at her school. You can’t come Saturday instead?”

  Aaliyah sighed. “I promised that I’d help my mom on Saturday. She’s got a big event to prep for.”

  I wasn’t sure, but it looked like Aaliyah’s shoulders were sagging. I thought she was just being nice … but maybe she really wanted to hang out this weekend. “You know what? Teagan said the carnival was all weekend. I bet we can go on Saturday instead. You should come over on Sunday.”

  “Really? Do you want to double-check with Teagan first?”

  I shook my head. I knew it wasn’t a sure thing that Teagan could go to the carnival on Saturday, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it didn’t matter. My Bride of Frankenstein costume had to come first. Along with pointe and poetry, leadership was one of my Big Dreams. And I had a duty as ambassador to really put my all into the ScareFest.

  “Come over on Sunday,” I said to Aaliyah. “I’ll text you my address.”

  That night, once I finished my homework, I grabbed my laptop to video chat with Teagan. Maya purred loudly in my furry chair, as if to rival the video chat ringtone.

  “Hey!” I said when Teagan appeared onscreen. She was sitting at her kitchen table—I recognized the faux-wood wallpaper behind her. “Are you doing homework?”

  “Yeah, but I can talk for a second,” she said. “I’m working on my Pascal coding project.” She began bouncing in her chair as she described her progress. I only understood every fifth word, but I was glad to see she was still happy about school.

  “That sounds so great,” I said after she finished. “So … about the carnival this weekend. What if we go Saturday instead of Sunday? And then we could work on our social butterfly costumes afterward?”

  She looked back at me, worry across her face. “You can’t go Sunday?”

  I shook my head. “I thought I could, but it’s the only day I can work on my costume.”

  She frowned. “Your butterfly costume? But you said—”

  I looked down at my lap. “No. M-M-My costume for the Kelly Halloween contest.”

  “Oh.” She pulled a pencil from behind her ear and began twirling it. “Well, I can’t go on Saturday. The robotics club is taking a field trip to Temple University to view the computer labs.”

  “That sounds like fun.”

  She just shrugged. “Yeah. Maybe. But if you’ve seen one computer lab, you’ve kind of seen them all.”

  Who was this girl I was talking to on the screen?! Certainly not Teagan. She lived for anything that had to do with electronics and computers. “I guess I have to skip the carnival, then. I really wish I could go, but you know how it is. The ambassadors are counting on me.”

  “Yeah, I understand.” She put her pencil behind her ear again. “I should get back to work. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “See you at poetry.”

  She waved good-bye, then disappeared. After shutting my laptop, I went to pick up Maya, only to realize she’d slipped out of the room. I needed to hug something—I felt like I was a dart in one of those balloon carnival games and had just popped Teagan’s excitement. So I walked over to my closet and pulled out Otto Octopus.

  You would think that with eight arms, Otto Octopus would have been a good hugger, but he was nowhere near as cuddly as a cat.

  I got a text from Teagan Sunday afternoon, right as I was finishing my lunch.

  Hey. I made some changes to our poem. I was thinking that instead of these lines:

  A friend is a gift

  like a chest full of treasure.

  The more friends you have,

  the greater the pleasure.

  We could use these:

  Some friendship is a treasure,

  all the riches you’d desire.

  But true friends work best

  when only two are required.

  I had to be honest: While I understood her reason for taking out the Enchilada Princess part, I didn’t see how this change was going to improve our poem.

  More t
han that, I didn’t agree with what her new lines said. True friendships weren’t just limited to two people. Sure, Teagan was my best friend, but I had other true friends. Isaiah and Red. And Aaliyah, too, I thought.

  Can I take a closer look and we’ll talk tomorrow? I texted back.

  Okay.

  Great! Have fun at the carnival! I pressed SEND and headed upstairs—Aaliyah would be here soon and I still needed to clean my room. I had just made my bed when another text came in. It was from Amelia, with a photo attached.

  Look what popped up online on my page—this was four years ago today! You’ve grown as a dancer so much since then! Can’t wait to see how much you’ll grow in the next four years! Xoxo!

  The photo was from right after Amelia came to teach at Liberty. Teagan and I had been “helping” her clean up after one of her classes. In the photo, I was sitting on the floor with Amelia’s pointe shoes on my feet—they were much too big, of course—with the ribbons pooled around my ankles. Teagan crouched behind me, her arm wrapped around my shoulder. We both had several teeth missing from our gigantic smiles.

  I put some clothes in the hamper. Four years from now. Would I even still own pointe shoes? Ever since I’d written that poem about no more ballet earlier this week, I’d been pretending I was going to quit, just to see what that felt like. When Sondra and Aaliyah made Monday night plans to prepare food for the ScareFest, I thought how I could have helped, too, if I didn’t have ballet. Before I grabbed my dance bag for tap on Wednesday, I took out my ballet shoes and pointe shoes. My bag felt lighter, but so did I. And yesterday, while I completed my ballet homework, I thought how I could have been writing poetry instead.

  A line from Monday’s poem came back to me as I wiped some dust off the dancer figurine on my dresser: Would I still be me without ballet in my life?

  I wasn’t totally sure, but I was leaning toward yes.

  There was just one thing still worrying me. Well, two someones worrying me: Mama and Amelia. Every time I imagined telling them I wanted to quit ballet, I could hardly keep from crying. They’d worked just as hard as I had to get me to this point. Like Amelia said, we were a team. Could I let them down like that?

  I couldn’t figure out how to respond to Amelia’s text, so eventually I just sent a heart emoji. The doorbell rang a second later.

  Of course Aaliyah would be right on time.

  I took a deep breath to clear my head, then headed down the hallway. Aaliyah met me halfway up the stairs, a few strands of hair poking out of her usually perfect bun. She wore an old pair of jeans and a thick, oversized sweatshirt. It was the first time I’d ever seen her look so normal.

  “Your mom said I could come on up. I brought everything I could find that I thought might work for your costume.” She held two plastic bags with fabric spilling out of each.

  “Thanks,” I said as we entered my room.

  “Cool! You have a loft bed!” Aaliyah said. “I’ve always wanted one of those!”

  I nodded at Aaliyah, wondering what her bedroom looked like. An image popped into my head: a tidy space, perfectly clean with pencils and craft supplies arranged in neat bins along some shelves.

  She dropped her bags on the floor. “And who’s this?” She went over to my bed and picked up Otto.

  “Oh, just something I won at a carnival once,” I said, grabbing him back. For some reason, I didn’t want Aaliyah touching him.

  “Cute!” Aaliyah said, then she kneeled down in front of the bags. “First things first—let’s see how this dress looks on you.” She pulled out a long, flowy white dress with sheer arms and boxy shoulders. It looked really similar to the one in the Bride of Frankenstein movie!

  “That’s perfect!” I said. “But it’s really long!” I could have climbed on Aaliyah’s shoulders and the dress would have covered us both.

  Aaliyah pulled out a box of safety pins. “Don’t worry! We can fix that, no problem. Want to put it on?”

  She stepped out of the room as I changed. When I glanced in the mirror, I couldn’t help but laugh. The sleeves went way past my fingertips, making it look like I had skinny, floppy wings.

  “You can come back in,” I yelled through my laughter.

  She opened the door, then giggled. “Yep, too long and waaaaay too big.” She took a pin out of the box. “Just keep still.”

  “Are you sure this is okay?” I asked. “I don’t want to mess up your dress.”

  “It’s my stepsister’s, not mine,” she said. “And it’s no problem at all. My sister’s already outgrown it, and I don’t see myself wearing it.”

  “You have a stepsister?” I shook my head. “Every time we talk, it seems like I learn something new about you.”

  “Same here,” she said. “Like I didn’t know you had a cat until I got here. Your mom said she’s named Maya. Like the poet?”

  I nodded. “Yep. I got the idea to name her after Maya Angelou after we read—”

  “ ’Life Doesn’t Frighten Me,’” Aaliyah said. “In class last year.” She smiled at me. “Don’t forget, I was there, too.”

  I laughed. Aaliyah had been in my class … but we hadn’t been anywhere close to being true friends. Or even good friends. Or even people who liked standing next to each other, if I was being honest.

  “So how are your poems going?” she asked.

  Teagan’s request popped into my head.

  “They’re fine, I guess. But both still need work, and the competition is only two weeks away.”

  “Isaiah was telling me all about the slam,” she said. She took a long time with the next pin. “I was thinking about coming. Would that be okay? I wouldn’t want to make you nervous.”

  I’d been so glad to see Aaliyah in the crowd during my ambassadors speech. She’d made me feel anything but nervous. “I would love for you to come,” I said. “And Isaiah would, too, I bet.” Aaliyah smiled big.

  “We could practice your poems after I finish the dress,” Aaliyah said, moving to work on the sleeves. “Would it be helpful for me to say Teagan’s part for the duet?”

  “I … um …” I shook my head. “Th-Th-Thanks for offering, but I d-d-don’t think—”

  “Oh, it’s okay,” she said quickly, her fingers fumbling with another pin. “I was just trying to help.”

  Honestly, it probably would have been nice for her to recite Teagan’s part. But just like it felt weird for her to touch Otto, Aaliyah saying Teagan’s words seemed wrong.

  After we fixed the dress, we got to work dyeing a streak of white in my black wig, then spraying the hair so it stood up just like in the movie. This costume was starting to come together! And that was good—Halloween was only two days away!

  As Aaliyah went to put some supplies in her bag, she noticed the black leotard and leggings I’d pulled out a week ago, hoping to get started on my butterfly costume.

  “Are those your ballet clothes?” she asked. “Oh! Are you using them for your butterfly costume? They’re perfect! But where are the wings?”

  “I haven’t made them yet.” I sighed. “At least, I really wanted to make them, but now I’m thinking I’ll just buy some tomorrow night. There’s just no time …”

  “Good luck trying to find some the night before Halloween,” she said. “The Halloween store probably looks like a tornado blew through.”

  I hadn’t thought about that.

  “But you know what?” Aaliyah said. “My mom made some wings for my little cousin last Halloween. You probably already have the stuff you need—just wire hangers and some old tights or panty hose.”

  “That sounds perfect,” I said.

  “I can look up instructions right now.”

  I was so happy to have the wings figured out, I could have hugged Aaliyah. But I didn’t. Were we hugging friends yet? I wasn’t sure.

  “What is it?” she asked. “You had a funny look on your face all of a sudden.”

  “Oh, nothing,” I said. “Just … thank you for all your help.”

&nbs
p; She shrugged. “No problem. That’s what friends are for, right?”

  DREAM BIG—new lines

  A social butterfly

  turning into a busy bee

  I spread my wings

  and spread myself thin

  across all my favorite things

  The tiny tap dancers in my stomach

  push the butterflies to my throat

  and I’m afraid

  all the seeds in me

  won’t bloom

  They need so much water!

  And care!

  And light!

  I do what I can

  I make sacrifices when necessary

  But also:

  I’m not the only gardener

  When I think of my dreams

  I remind myself

  that it’s okay to need some help

  pushing my way up

  until I reach the sun

  building my cocoon

  until I can fly free

  I shivered in the chilly October breeze. Next to me, Teagan pulled her beanie down lower. Red told us to meet here for poetry today, by the big heart mural the community painted on Liberty’s brick wall this summer. Bria, Alejandro, and Isaiah were nearby, kicking around acorns under the ancient oak tree that stood at the corner of the building.

  “So …” I said to Teagan. “Did you win any giant sea creatures yesterday to keep Colonel Cephalopod company?”

  I was expecting Teagan to at least giggle at that, but all she did was shake her head.

  “But the carnival was fun?” I asked.

  “It was okay,” she said. “It would have been a lot more fun if you were there.”

  “I know. I would have loved to meet your friends at school. Next time, okay?” I squeezed her hand.

  “Yeah,” Teagan said. She squeezed my hand back, but for a split second, I felt that weirdness in our usual be-with-you-ness. Maybe I was still just feeling uncomfortable about those lines she wanted me to change. Since we didn’t have much more time before Voices, I decided to just go along with them, but I still didn’t like what they said.

  Or maybe I was just cold. Where the heck was Red?

  As if on cue, Red burst out of Liberty’s front doors. “Land of the Free Verse! Let’s get the power flowin’!”