Mercedes rolled her eyes. “Talk about dance therapy! The dude is crazy for Layla, and she’s, like, clueless!”
“I’m starting to get it,” Layla admitted with a smirk.
Miss Ginger gave Layla a big hug. Then she leaned over and told Diamond, “There is nothing stronger than a diamond, my dear. Welcome home.” She gave Diamond a quick kiss on the cheek and breezed out of the room.
“I missed Miss Ginger,” Diamond admitted. “I missed all of you. I dreamed of dancing while I was locked in that room.” She looked away, toward the window.
“When do you think you’ll come back to school or dance class?” Layla asked.
“Not for a while,” Diamond’s mother replied. “We want to give her time to heal physically as well as emotionally. Plus, she needs time to eat piles and piles of her mama’s turkey and gravy.”
“And ice cream,” Diamond said. “I want a gallon of butter pecan ice cream.”
“We shoulda brought you some,” Mercedes said. “But we didn’t know how you’d, uh, be . . . ”
“It’s okay,” Diamond said, filling in the empty air. “You know, I never woulda thought that I’d want to cuddle with my mother all day. But that’s where I am.”
Her mom reached over and smoothed Diamond’s hair.
“Hey, I didn’t tell you—my dad came home,” Layla said.
“Oh, that’s awesome,” Diamond said. “You two probably have lots of catching up to do.”
“Yeah. It’s not all pretty, but I guess we’ll survive.”
“You know, it’s gonna take me a year just to recuperate from the millions of questions the police asked me,” Diamond said, closing her eyes once more. “Over and over—the same questions.”
“Did they catch the guy?” Mercedes asked, wondering how she hadn’t thought to ask that yet.
“Oh, yeah. He was pretty busted up—I know he at least had a broken leg and a bloody arm—and one of the policemen told me he was taken to a hospital in handcuffs.”
“Not this one?” Layla asked, looking around nervously.
“That was one of the first things I asked!” Diamond replied. “He’s way across town. On his way to prison.”
“Will you have to go to court to testify?” Mercedes asked.
“Yeah, eventually. These things take a while, the cops said, but probably so. I’m not afraid to face him. I intend to tell every nasty little detail of what he did to me.” She narrowed her eyes. “I want him in jail for the rest of his life, so that no other girl will have to go through what I did.”
“I don’t think I could have made it,” Mercedes admitted, taking up Diamond’s hand again.
“Yeah, you would have. I guess you just do what you have to do,” Diamond said. “He’s done this before, can you believe it? In other cities.” She paused. “There are videotapes on the Internet. Of everything he’s done,” she added slowly.
“I’ll be right there by your side, Diamond,” Mercedes exclaimed as she figured out exactly what Diamond meant.
“We all will,” Layla said. “Especially me. I’ll tell you all about my little adventures while you were gone when you’re stronger.”
Mrs. Landers stood up and began tucking the blanket more tightly around Diamond. “Thank you girls for coming, but I want Diamond to get her rest now. You can come back and visit when she comes home, okay?”
Mercedes and Layla each gave Diamond a hug, whispered their good-byes, and left the room.
Halfway down the hall, Mercedes leaned against a wall and eased down to the polished floor, collapsing in huge gulps of tears. Layla sat beside her and cried just as hard.
42
DIAMOND, Three Weeks Later Saturday, May 11 2 p.m.
“This ought not to be written in ink but in a golden splash.”
—from Peter Pan
Diamond opened the door to the Crystal Pointe Dance Academy, walked into the main dance room, and inhaled deeply. It smelled of cocoa and costumes, of perspiration and popcorn, of happiness and hope. Happy smells a lot like leftover sweat, she thought with a smile. The room was silent, and Diamond stood very still. She could feel the music she’d missed, as if the rhythms hovered just beyond her ability to recall. She visualized every single movement, leap, and twist, every single chorus and lyric and song. She felt a little trembly.
Miss Ginger touched her arm gently, and Diamond, startled, jumped.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” Miss Ginger said gently.
“I was just remembering the music,” Diamond explained. “Remembering everything.”
“Take your time. Walk around. Let all the good memories come back slowly,” Miss Ginger told her.
“I love this place,” Diamond said, breathing deeply once more. “The dance posters, the sheer curtains in the windows, that ridiculously beautiful chandelier. It’s like coming home.”
“You know what they say—home is where you feel loved,” Miss Ginger replied with a knowing nod.
Diamond dropped her dance bag to the floor and looked around, as if seeing the place for the first time. The lumpy spot on the marley floor. The small crack in the far right mirror. The red paint spots that had dripped on the white wall last summer during a fix-up party. The ballet barres, well worn in the middle. The costumes on display upstairs. The trophies, dusty in the display case.
“Thanks for letting me come in alone, Miss Ginger,” Diamond said finally. “I don’t think I’m ready to face the whole group yet.”
“I understand completely,” Miss Ginger said.
“I danced in my head a lot while I was, uh, gone,” Diamond said.
“Did it help?”
“Yeah. Helped keep me from going crazy, I guess,” Diamond admitted.
“Are you ready to hear some music?” Miss Ginger asked.
“In a minute. Can I ask you something first?” Diamond took off her tennis shoes and slid the familiar pointe shoes onto her feet.
“Sure.”
“Do you think I’ll ever be normal again?”
Miss Ginger took a moment before answering. “Nothing will ever be exactly the same,” she said finally, honestly. “But maybe normal is not the word you’re looking for. You’re a gifted dancer. You’re a loving daughter and sister. You’re an outstanding student. Why lower your standards to just plain normal?”
Diamond frowned. “You know what I mean.”
“I know you can focus on the past and let it destroy you, or you can focus on the future and let it lift you up. It’s your choice, Diamond.”
“I still have really bad dreams.”
“Of course you do! But, in time, they will fade. Your mom told me you were seeing a professional counselor, right?”
“Yeah. She’s nice. And I guess she’s helping a little. It’s too soon to tell.” Diamond grinned then. “But she can’t dance.”
“Let’s get some music going then, okay?”
“Can you play ‘Faith’ by Jordin Sparks?” Diamond asked.
“Great choice,” Miss Ginger replied. “Ready?”
Diamond nodded.
The piano plaintively plinked out the intro, and Diamond moved to the center of the empty room and just listened to the words as the piece swelled to its completion. Miss Ginger hit PLAY again. The song was about sad eyes, stolen smiles, and dark, dark skies. But the song was most powerful when Jordin sang about seeing the stars, about having faith—“When you fall the hardest, you find how strong you are . . . ” The song began for the third time.
Then, gradually, slowly, Diamond began to dance. Her body echoed her pain and agony as she moved across the room, the heavy-toed pointe shoes barely making a sound as she embraced the music. She didn’t look at herself in the mirror as she spun around, balancing on one foot and using her free leg and her arms to propel herself around in a whipping motion until she was dizzy. She twisted and swayed. She let the tears fall.
Finally, Diamond lifted herself up in a relevé, a smooth continuous rise onto her toes. She was loo
king at the ceiling, but reaching for the sky—forever, finally rising above it all. She balanced on one foot, then slowly slid the other leg up, up, up. She lifted that leg as if it were weightless, stretching it, stretching it, her body an arrow of beauty.
Then, ever so slowly, she rolled out of the extension and dropped gracefully to a sitting position on the floor. The song reached its conclusion, and Diamond sat there, taking deep silent breaths. The song played one more time, echoing against the walls.
When it ended, she looked up at her teacher. “I want to dance again,” she said emphatically. “I want to dance forever.”
Songs Used
“Beat It” by Michael Jackson
“Candyman” by Christina Aguilera
“Butterfly” by Mariah Carey
“Almost There” from the movie The Princess and the Frog
“Boom Boom Pow” by The Black Eyed Peas
“Rumour Has It” by Adele
“Tender Shepherd” from the Mary Martin version of Peter Pan
“Where Do Broken Hearts Go?” by Whitney Houston
“Tick Tock” from the movie Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
“Everybody Hurts” by Avril Lavigne
“Mirror” by Monica
“Sister” by Cris Williamson
“Firework” by Katy Perry
“Bluebird” by Sara Bareilles
“Beautiful Flower” by India.Arie
“Black Butterfly” by Deniece Williams
“Heaven & Earth” by Kelly Rowland
“Dance of the Swans” from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake
“Kiss Kiss” by Chris Brown
“Just the Way You Are” by Boyce Avenue
“Agony” from the Broadway musical Into the Woods
“Faith” by Jordin Sparks
SHARON M. DRAPER was winner of the 2011 Jeremiah Ludington Award, which recognizes lifetime achievement and significant contribution to children’s literature, and the 2011 ALAN Award, which honors those who have made outstanding contributions to the field of adolescent literature. Her most recent novel, Out of My Mind, was a New York Times bestseller and recipient of three starred reviews. She is also a two-time Coretta Scott King Award–winning author, most recently for Copper Sun, and previously for Forged by Fire; recipient of the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Author Award for New Talent for Tears of a Tiger; and recipient of the Coretta Scott King Author Honor for The Battle of Jericho and November Blues. Her other books include Romiette and Julio, Darkness Before Dawn, Double Dutch, and Just Another Hero. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she taught high school English for twenty-five years. She’s a popular conference speaker, addressing educational and literary groups both nationally and internationally. For more information visit her online at sharondraper.com.
Jacket design by Debra Sfetsios-Conover
Jacket photograph copyright © 2013 by Paul Draine
ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
Simon & Schuster
New York
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Also by SHARON M. DRAPER
Out of My Mind
Copper Sun
Double Dutch
Romiette & Julio
The Jericho Trilogy:
The Battle of Jericho
November Blues
Just Another Hero
The Hazelwood High Trilogy:
Tears of a Tiger
Forged by Fire
Darkness Before Dawn
Ziggy and the Black Dinosaurs:
The Buried Bones Mystery
Lost in the Tunnel of Time
Shadows of Caesar’s Creek
The Space Mission Adventure
The Backyard Animal Show
Stars and Sparks on Stage
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ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Sharon M. Draper
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Draper, Sharon M. (Sharon Mills)
Panic / Sharon M. Draper.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: As rehearsals begin for the ballet version of Peter Pan, the teenaged members of an Ohio dance troupe lose their focus when one of their own goes missing.
ISBN 978-1-4424-0896-8
ISBN 978-1-4424-0898-2 (eBook)
[1. Dance—Fiction. 2. Kidnapping—Fiction. 3. Sexual abuse—Fiction. 4. African Americans—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.D78325Pan 2013
[Fic]-dc23
2012016339
Panic Page 18
