by Sara Leach
“Excuse me,” Jasmine said.
One of the girls looked up. Jasmine saw that she was wearing an InMotion hoodie.
“Oh look, it’s a Moondancer.”
“Yeah,” Jasmine said. Nice comeback.
“You here to get beaten again?” the girl asked.
All thoughts of Will flew out of Jasmine’s head. “Are you?”
The girl wrinkled her nose. “Obviously not. Don’t you remember? We won last time.”
“That’s right,” a voice said from behind Jasmine. “And that will be your last time.”
Jasmine smiled as she recognized Shira’s voice.
“Now let us through!” Shira said, and she stepped in front of Jasmine and pushed her way past the other girls.
“Hey, keep your hands off my costume!” one of the girls said.
“Don’t worry—I don’t want to touch you,” Shira said.
Jasmine hurried by the other girls in Shira’s wake.
“I can’t believe you said that,” she whispered.
“Why? They’ve been saying awful things to us for years. It’s time someone gave them what they deserve.” She slowed and turned to look at Jasmine, her hand on the door to the change room. “You ready?”
Jasmine shrugged. “I’m nervous.”
“You didn’t look it when you were talking to them.”
“I felt it.”
“Everyone feels nervous. Nerves are good. As long as they don’t take over.” She pushed open the door, and the noise of more than fifty girls getting ready spilled out into the hallway, along with the fruity smells of hair spray and makeup.
Jasmine took a deep breath to try to steady her nerves and almost choked on the hair-spray fumes. She followed Shira into the room and over to the other Moondancers.
Miss Carina was standing beside a coat rack. “Good morning, girls. Hang your garment bags here.” She paused and, as she eyed Jasmine, added, “Please.”
Jasmine smiled. “Good morning.”
“Once you’re all in costume, we’ll find a spare room for warm-up.”
They pulled on their costumes—black tights, shorts and tunics with rhinestone trim. Miss Carina had decided long ago on a minimalist look for this dance. Looking around, Jasmine silently thanked their teacher for the choice. Some of the teams were wearing the worst costumes she’d ever seen. One group even had shimmery blue knee-length shorts with silver-sequined tube tops. Besides being tacky, they showed little rolls of skin around the armpits and stomach of any girl who wasn’t stick thin.
Moondance looked elegant. The girls had done their hair and makeup before arriving, but they spent a few minutes touching up, slicking back errant wisps of hair, reapplying lipstick and checking faces in mirrors.
“Right, girls,” Miss Carina called. “Line up so I can have a look at you.”
They formed a line and Miss Carina walked up and down, inspecting them. Jasmine figured it wasn’t much different from an army inspection.
Miss Carina nodded. “You look beautiful, girls, and sharp. I have a good feeling about today.”
Jasmine and Shira turned to look at each other. Their eyebrows shot up. A compliment—that was a first.
“Follow me,” Miss Carina said. “There’s a room at the end of the hall we can use. We have half an hour before you go onstage.”
Jasmine’s stomach fluttered as they followed Miss Carina out the door. In just over half an hour, they’d be done. No time left for fine-tuning or practicing. Just a chance to get their bodies warm so they could do their best out there. They’d be competing against teams from all over the province. The competition would be even more difficult than it had been at the preliminaries.
The room at the end of the hall was empty. Jasmine could understand why. There were no windows, and it was dark and stale smelling.
“Nice room,” Melanie said.
“It isn’t pretty, but we’ll have it to ourselves,” Miss Carina said. “Spread out and we’ll do a quick warm-up.”
There wasn’t much room to spread out, but they found space where they could.
They began the warm-up sequence without music. Jasmine breathed deeply as they began their pliés, ignoring the musty smell. She would think of this move while she was onstage and try to remember the joy it brought her.
As they were doing their kicks, the door opened.
“Uh-oh,” Felicity said.
Miss Brandi poked her head into the room.
Miss Carina’s leg thunked to the ground. “This room is occupied,” she said in a stiff voice.
“I can see that,” Miss Brandi said. “I suppose we can’t share it.”
“No, we certainly cannot,” Miss Carina said.
“Fine. We’ll look for you from the stage when we get our trophy.”
There was a short silence as the door closed behind her.
“I can’t believe she said that!” Chelsea shouted.
“No wonder they’re so mean,” Melanie said.
Miss Carina clapped her hands. “Girls! Get into your spots—we need to keep going with warm-up.” Her face was flushed.
Jasmine raised her hand.
“Yes?” Miss Carina said.
Jasmine took a breath. Miss Carina looked as if she might bite someone’s head off at any moment. Jasmine wanted to tell her that even though the last few weeks had been tough, she’d still rather dance with her than with Miss Brandi. She decided to go with a simple “Thanks. For everything.”
The other girls nodded in agreement.
Miss Carina smiled. Her shoulders dropped three inches. “You’re welcome.” Her eyes took in all the girls, then focused on Jasmine. “I’m looking forward to working with all of you on the lyrical dance team next year.”
Chapter Eleven
Jasmine stood in the wings of the stage, waiting for their cue. They were dancing on a proper stage. Things felt more official than they had for the preliminaries. But they also felt scarier. Jasmine’s stomach flip-flopped. She tried to calm herself by breathing slowly and going over the moves of the dance in her mind.
“Relax,” Shira said. “You’re awesome. Dance the way you did in practice.”
“Except that instead of a mirror there’s an audience full of people and a bunch of judges,” Jasmine said.
“Forget about them,” Shira said. “Imagine a room full of monkeys.”
Jasmine started to giggle and punched Shira in the arm. “Don’t make me laugh!”
The stagehand nodded to them and whispered, “You’re on.”
Chelsea, who stood at the front of the line, turned back to make sure they were all ready, then led them onto the stage.
Jasmine was thankful that the first pose involved kneeling with her head down. She couldn’t bear to look at the audience while she waited for the music to start.
The first notes sounded, and Jasmine carefully counted the beats, raising her arms like a butterfly with the rest of the back row. As she stood, she realized she was doing exactly what she’d always done, focusing on the steps and the counts. What had happened to feeling the emotion of the dance?
She had a moment of panic. She was letting the team down. What was she supposed to be feeling right now? Joy at the new day. But Jasmine didn’t feel any joy right now.
At that moment, she looked out at the audience and caught sight of Will, her grandmother and her mom. All three of them were sitting on the edges of their seats, huge smiles on their faces.
They didn’t care whether her team won. They were here to enjoy watching her dance. That right there was reason for joy. And suddenly, Jasmine didn’t need to worry about the steps anymore.
She began listening to the music, not to remember exactly what she should be doing, but to know how she should feel
. Her joy turned to sadness during her partner work with Chelsea, then to fear as they moved across the stage and to anger when she encountered the forest creatures.
She felt her joy come back during her duet. Her back roll went off without a hitch. When Shira tapped her on the shoulder, she really felt she was hugging a long-lost friend.
As they formed a line for the triple pirouettes and axels, Jasmine’s heart jolted. Would she make it? She couldn’t let the team down now. Her eyes sought out Will again. There he was, smiling like a maniac and bending his arms. “Deeper!” he mouthed.
She knew exactly what he meant. Plié. Her smile grew wider. She’d done it before, and she could do it now. With a deep bend in her knees, she pushed off and spun once, twice, three times, finishing with the music, even if a little dizzy.
They leaped and turned their way down the line in their celebration moves. Jasmine soared as she jumped up, threw out her arms and tucked in her legs. Almost before she knew it, they were running back to their circle, holding hands and swaying. Jasmine felt like they should be coming together for a big group hug. This was her team. Will was right—they were amazing.
They joined hands for the layback. Jasmine gave Chelsea an extra squeeze on the arm, and they smiled at each other before leaning backward. Jasmine was vaguely aware of whoops and applause from the audience as she pulled herself up, spun and slid to the floor.
She paused, enjoying the sound of the audience cheering, then pushed herself up and ran to the final pose. They’d done it. She didn’t know about anyone else, but that was the best she’d ever danced. She’d hardly been aware of the audience at all, let alone the judges. It was the most fun she’d ever had onstage. She didn’t care if they won or not. She wanted to perform all over again.
“Ready, and…” called Chelsea.
They rose and filed offstage to the sound of cheering from the audience.
Miss Carina was waiting for them backstage, tears in her eyes.
“Oh no,” Shira said. “Were we that bad?”
Miss Carina shook her head. “You were beautiful. I’m so proud of you.”
Jasmine chewed on a cuticle as they waited for the judges to make their announcement. Her team had joined the audience to watch the last few dances.
There was a lull as the judges left the theater to discuss their notes and choose the winners. The noise level rose as the audience began talking.
“Warning, hot boy approaching on the left,” Shira said, nudging Jasmine in the ribs.
Jasmine turned around. “Shira, it’s just Will.”
“Exactly,” Shira said.
Jasmine kicked Shira, trying to ignore the way her heart had started racing. “Hey, Will. What did you think?”
“You guys rocked,” he said, perching on the arm of Jasmine’s seat.
Shira batted her eyelashes at him. Jasmine wanted to throw up. “What about InMotion?”
Will twisted his lips. “They were pretty good too, like always. But I think you were better.”
The emcee walked onstage, and a hush fell over the crowd.
“Guess I’d better get back to my seat,” Will said. He leaned over and pecked Jasmine on the cheek. “Good luck.”
Jasmine and Shira watched him walk away.
“So gorgeous,” Shira said.
“Cut it out.”
“Ooh,” Shira said. “I think you’re jealous.”
“Am not.”
“That’s okay,” Shira said. “I’ll back off.”
“Shira! We’re only friends.”
“Right.” Shira snickered. “That’s why you’re touching your cheek where he kissed it?”
Jasmine dropped the hand to her lap. She hadn’t realized she’d been doing that. Before Jasmine could respond, Robyn leaned over and asked, “Do you think he was right when he said we were better than InMotion?”
“I don’t know,” Jasmine said. “But you know what? I don’t really care.”
“Huh?” Robyn said.
“We danced our best, and I don’t know about you, but I loved being onstage today. If we win, it will be like a bonus. If we don’t win, I still had fun.”
Robyn raised her eyebrows as if she didn’t really believe Jasmine.
The emcee had finished his preamble. “And now, in third place, InMotion!” There was an intake of breath along the row beside Jasmine as the InMotion girls ran for the stage, a lot more subdued than when they’d placed first in the preliminaries. What did this mean for Moondance? Had they not even placed? They hadn’t seen the other teams, so they had no idea.
“In second place, for the very first time, Moondance Studio!”
Jasmine leaped to her feet with her teammates, and they ran for the stage.
“And our winners, Pemberton Dance!”
As a group of girls in blue leotards ran to the stage, Jasmine looked down the line of her teammates. Their faces glowed as they clutched their second-place ribbons. Beyond them, the InMotion girls held their third-place ribbons and stared at the crowd with small smiles.
Sure, it felt good to beat InMotion, but she had spoken the truth earlier. If they hadn’t placed, she wouldn’t have cared. They’d danced their best and they’d danced as a team. Jasmine had reveled in the joy of dance and the joy of performing. And that was definitely something to celebrate.
Acknowledgments
As I wrote this story, I heard the voices of my dance instructors, past and present, urging me to point my toes, straighten my legs and keep my core muscles engaged. I’m grateful to you all for helping me find the joy in music and movement.
Thanks to Sarah Harvey for her excellent editorial advice and to Stella, Nancy, Libby, Becky, Katherine, Mary and Sue, who helped make my manuscript so much better before it hit Sarah’s desk.
Without my cheering squad in Whistler and Vancouver, writing wouldn’t be nearly so much fun. Thank you Duane, Ben, Julia, Johanne, Norm, Heather, Doug, Connor, Annie and Lucy for championing my work, reading my drafts, loving me and making me smile.
Sara Leach lives in Whistler, BC. When she isn’t writing, she works as a teacher-librarian, hikes, skis and dances. She especially loves tap and jazz. Her other books with Orca include Jake Reynolds: Chicken or Eagle? and the Red Cedar Award-winning Count Me In. For more information, visit saraleach.com.
