About the Book
Four friends. One dance school. A whole lot of drama.
Can Ashley, the new girl at Silver Shoes, find a way to keep dancing the style she loves?
After managing to convince the other girls that she isn’t a spy from rival school Dance Art, Ash feels like she is finally starting to fit in at Silver Shoes. It’s love at first dance when Ash decides to do hip hop classes, and soon she is popping and locking as though she’s been doing it all her life. But when her family’s financial troubles mean that she might not be able to continue the lessons, Ash’s dreams are shattered. How is she meant to ‘hit it’ when her mum can’t even afford to buy her new dance shoes?
Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Character Profile: Ashley Jenkyns
How to do a Perfect Front Aerial
Glossary
About the Author
Copyright Notice
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Chapter One
Four o’clock.
There was nothing else for it. I couldn’t put it off any longer.
I’d dawdled all the way to Silver Shoes, but now I was here, ready to try my first hip hop class.
My stomach felt funny, sort of inside out. I’d been excited all week but suddenly my shoes weren’t new enough, my hair wasn’t cool enough, and I was sure my hip hop moves would totally blow.
My name’s Ashley Jenkyns, by the way. I’ve only been going to Silver Shoes for a couple of months. Before that I went to Dance Art Academy. I don’t really miss it, though – especially some of the girls there!
I love Silver Shoes. The teachers are fun and friendly, and the dark halls and cramped corners feel cosy and welcoming. There’s always something happening here.
Like when I stood in front of those big double doors leading into Silver Shoes. Half of my body was tingling with excitement and the other half was so nervous and whispering things at me like, ‘Go home, Ashley, you’re gonna be no good.’
But I wouldn’t know if I didn’t try.
I crept to the change room to get into my dance gear. Yuck. My Chucks were looking a bit tatty. I hope no one noticed.
I’ve wanted to try hip hop for sooooo long! Dance Art never ran hip hop classes. I guess it was too ‘improper’ for them. They have their noses stuck up in the clouds over there.
It’s pretty scary when you try a new style or class for the first time. I don’t mind making a clown of myself, as long as it’s on purpose. So I didn’t want to turn up and look silly or not fit in. Or worse, have all the attention on me. That’s what happened when I first came to Silver Shoes. There was this jazz audition and one of the dancers, my friend Ellie, fell over and glared at me like it was my fault.
But we’re okay, now. Most of the time. She’s one of my best friends at Silver Shoes, along with Riley and Paige.
I wished they were here with me now, eating lolly snakes and making jokes. But we all have our favourite styles: Ellie loves jazz, ballet is Riley’s thing, and lately Paige has been getting into ballroom. Hip hop is my style – at least, I hoped it would be.
I’ll tell you why I love it.
My sister, Bridget, has this boyfriend and he calls himself Brimax. They’re both eighteen. When I was little (well, it was about two years ago, so little-ish) I asked him why he had such a stupid name. After Bridget yelled at me for being rude (I don’t know why, Brimax found it funny), he told me it was his stage name.
‘Stage name? Why do you have a stage name?’ I asked.
‘Because I’m a dancer,’ he said. ‘I’m a dancer and I don’t have a stage name,’ I said.
‘It’s my breakdancing name,’ he told me. ‘My real name’s Brian. But after a while, when they get to know your style, your crew will always pick out a name for you.’
‘What would my stage name be?’ I asked.
‘Annoyanator,’ said Bridget.
‘AshFunK,’ he said.
‘Cool. What are some of your moves?’ I asked him.
He showed me, right there beside the kitchen table. Wow. At Dance Art we’d been in the middle of lots of boring training for our classical exams, which kind of sucked, so when he showed me all these acrobatic, hard-hitting moves, I thought it was amazing.
‘That was so cool,’ I said.
‘You want to come watch a battle?’ he asked me.
‘No, she doesn’t,’ said Bridget, straightaway.
‘Yes,’ I said, just to annoy Bridget.
So that weekend we went to this gig where Brimax and his crew were performing. Really I think Bridget liked having me there, because she kept holding my hand and telling me not to leave her alone.
I wasn’t going anywhere! The dancing was the best thing I’d seen in ages. It was like what you’d see on hip hop and pop video clips and everyone looked like they were having a blast. Pointed feet and straight backs seemed to be the last thing on anyone’s mind.
The music was loud, people were doing amazing tricks and busting out funky moves. There was massive energy everywhere.
I knew I’d found my style.
But I didn’t have a chance to try the classes until I came to Silver Shoes. They do trial classes for free where you can see if you like the style enough to sign up for the term.
So finally, finally, here I was! Dressed and ready for the class. No more putting it off.
I took a big breath and walked out of the change room and towards studio two. Then I pushed open the door and went in.
Chapter Two
Hip hop music thumped towards me and there was a group over in the corner trying to spin on their heads.
I slouched in the doorway, trying to stand like how I imagined a hip hop dancer would stand. Clearly I got it all wrong, because no one even looked at me.
Way to go, AshFunK.
I swaggered (but really stumbled) over to the side of the room where everyone was waiting around to start.
Jay, the hip hop teacher, looked up from where he was flicking through his iPod. He gave me a big grin. My friend Paige would have died right then. She has the biggest crush on him. He’s super tall and has the friendliest smile and the biggest brown eyes. If Paige sees him in the halls walking by and flicking his long hair off his face, she squeaks and suddenly finds the floor very interesting.
‘Hey Ash,’ he said, coming over. ‘Hey,’ I said, and tried to think of something cool to say. My brain hummed like our fridge when you open it late at night.
‘Awesome to see you in class,’ he said.
‘Thought I’d show you how it’s done,’ I joked.
‘Well, you’ve brought the right attitude.’ Jay laughed.
‘Now I just have to try not to fall on my face,’ I said.
‘Hey,’ said Jay, ‘even if you do, own it. Nobody ever knows any different. That’s what hip hop’s all about – putting your own personal style on it.’
‘Look at me,’ I said. ‘Do I look like I have much style?’
My t-shirt was this holey hand-me-down from Bridget. It was still too big and said ‘Sun Surf Sand’ on the fr
ont.
‘Totally stylin’.’ Jay grinned.
I laughed.
‘Come on,’ he said, herding me over to the dance floor. ‘Don’t be shy. Stay at the back to start with if you want, to get a feel for it.’
I headed to the back. There were more boys in hip hop than there were in jazz class. I felt a bit more at home here than I did when surrounded by prim and proper girls in pink leotards. I’m kind of a tomboy outside dance class. I like surfing, scuba and going out on my uncle’s boat. If I’m not dancing, I’m in the water. I even have a plush turtle as my dancing good luck charm!
There were a few people I hadn’t seen around Silver Shoes before. I spotted Serah, though, who was in my jazz class.
I also saw Tove.
Tove is the closest friend of Jasmine de Lacy, who’s probably one of the best dancers at Silver Shoes. You know how I was talking about Ellie? Well, Jasmine is Ellie’s number one dance enemy, which means she is also the enemy of Ellie’s friends.
Tove was trying very hard not to look my way. Jasmine always made a point of saying hip hop was not a true dance style. I wondered what she’d say if she knew Tove was here doing hip hop.
We started to warm up and stretch. I began to relax. A lot of people find warm-up boring, but I like it. There’s no competition or pressure to learn anything, you can just loosen up to awesome music and get in the zone.
I love hip hop tunes. I even love them when Brimax comes over to see Bridget and cranks them up loud enough to hear from five houses down the street.
Jay got us working our hips and stomach. First our hips were going left to right, then front to back, then circling, then swaying. Next Jay made us shake our bums in all these different ways! Everyone started laughing. I was really enjoying myself, especially when I saw how much Tove seemed to like shaking her bottom around. We did lots of chest and back isolations, and then we went through stretches that made our shoulders and neck loose.
‘Get loose, get loose,’ Jay said, making a sign with his hand. Then he turned his hand upside down. ‘But not too loose!’
Everyone laughed. I guess it was a personal joke in class.
Before we learnt the weekly choreography, Jay got us doing all these moves that he said were ‘essential if you’re gonna be a stylin’ hip hopper’. He set his iPod to a hip hop megamix and then we hit the floor. Jay called them out as he took us through them: ‘jerk’, ‘lock’, ‘walk-it-out’, ‘reebok’, ‘wopping’, ‘cranking’, ‘kick step’ and then some silly, fun ones like the ‘running man’ and ‘the wave’. Everybody took to the moves like they’d done them a hundred times, while I was falling over my own feet and my body made these weird angles that weren’t “stylin’” at all.
I won’t lie – I was totally awkward when I first started. I kept catching myself out, sitting too high in the steps and being too formal like I was still in jazz-ballet. But then I got to know the flow and rhythm of the moves, and I listened to the music and began to find my groove.
And then the best part – we learnt the dance!
Chapter Three
That was when the magic really happened.
Jay picked a Chris Brown song called ‘I Can Transform Ya’. It had all these robotic tones and a pounding electro beat. Jay called it ‘robo-crunk’.
We weren’t doing robot moves or anything like that, though. Jay’s choreography was based around the idea of being a ninja, and he teamed it with lots of isolations and footwork right into the ground.
As we learnt the choreography, I forgot that I was the ‘new girl’ at Silver Shoes, or that I’d never done hip hop before. I forgot that there was a hole in my tights and that my technique in other classes always held me back from getting put in the front row.
Technique may have been important, but Jay had this thing about ‘hitting it’.
‘When you slide and pop into this position, hit it,’ he’d say. Or, ‘When you drop to the floor, I want you to hit it.’
Or when we had to pause and then look to the front, he’d go, ‘This move is all about being on top of the beat, letting the music pull your head forward and then bam, you hit it – you land that beat and throw it away to the audience.’
When he watched us perform the choreography he’d just taught us, he would point at someone who did really well and yell out, ‘Yeah! You hit that!’
But it didn’t make the rest of us feel bad, or like we hadn’t done well. Sometimes that happens in jazz class when Miss Caroline praises Jasmine. That always makes Ellie huff and puff like a dragon.
What I liked best, though, was that Jay didn’t choreograph to counts. Everything wasn’t 1, 2, 3, 4, with a move to go with it. Jay’s style followed the rhythm and mood of the song, where a sound effect or word would be used to showcase a move, even if it didn’t fit within the regular beats of the music. And we were allowed to add our own ‘flava’ to it.
‘What you wanna do is highlight the moment the beat creates,’ Jay said. ‘That way, it’s more about expressing yourself rather than just getting all the steps.’
Jay was a cool teacher. I love Miss Caroline, of course. Miss Caroline owns Silver Shoes, and she teaches a lot of the classes. But Jay was like a fun big brother, which I liked, because I only have Bridget. He reminded me a bit of Brimax. I’m pretty sure they’ve danced in the same crew before.
‘Nice one,’ Jay said to me after the class, when everyone was cooling down or getting a drink. ‘I saw you hitting it. Who would have thought little Ash could bring it like that, hey? Miss Caroline would have a heart attack!’
‘I loved your class,’ I said, standing up.
‘Put it there,’ said Jay, holding out a hand for me to high five. ‘So how’d you go? A lot of people think hip hop isn’t technical, yeah, because you can use so much freestyle. But it’s hard work, am I right?’
‘Heaps,’ I said. ‘Just as hard as doing an amazing jeté while keeping perfect pointe!’
‘We’ve got our own technique,’ Jay said. ‘You gotta have that stance, that flow, that flavour. And then you’ve got transitions, flexibility, tricks, isolations, footwork.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Might need to work on a few of those.’
‘I hope so,’ Jay said. ‘You’re coming back, right?’
I decided at that moment to be hopeful. ‘Sure,’ I said.
Ugh. I imagined the conversation over dinner tonight. I already knew it wouldn’t be as simple as that.
‘Excellent,’ said Jay. ‘Ash in the house!’
‘Ash Attack!’ I said.
‘Smashley,’ Jay said.
‘AshFunk.’
‘Smashin’ Ash!’
‘An Ashley a Day Keeps the Doctor Away,’ I said.
‘Hmm,’ teased Jay. ‘Too long. Not your best.’
‘I’ll work on it,’ I said.
I ran into Tove as I was leaving Silver Shoes. ‘Oh, hi,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’
‘That’s okay,’ she said, and pointed at the wall. ‘Did you see that? Danceworks are running a competition to be the face of their new hip hop dancewear range. They want real dancers!’
‘Do you have attitude? All the right moves?’ I read off the poster. ‘Be the face of our new “Freestyle” dance range and win a whole new Danceworks wardrobe.’
‘How amazing would that be,’ Tove said.
Gosh. If anyone needed a new dance wardrobe, it was me.
‘Yeah,’ I said, walking with her. ‘Hey, it was cool to see you in hip hop class today. You were really good. You should totally enter the competition.’
‘Thanks,’ said Tove. She switched her bag to the other shoulder and smiled at me. ‘You should too.’
‘Ha,’ I laughed. ‘I’ll break the camera.’
When we rounded the corner, Jasmine’s mum was sitting behind the reception desk. Tove’s face glazed over and she went back to her ‘Jasmine’s number one sidekick’ face.
‘See you in class,’ she sniffed, before running over to Mrs de Lacy, who
gave her a huge perfumed hug and cried, ‘Tovey! How was your solo lesson? I hope you’re hungry. Jazzy wants to go to Groove Train for dinner.’
I had a feeling my dinner would be nowhere near as exciting.
Chapter Four
Hmm.
Tomatoes. Bacon. Pasta. Mum’s favourite ‘I’m working late, and this was cheap and easy’ meal.
Wait, I think she’d shoved a bit of corn in there, too.
Welcome to dinner at the Jenkyns house.
‘So, the trial class was really fun,’ I said, chasing some bacon under a pile of penne.
‘Oh, that’s good,’ said Mum. She looked really tired tonight. You could carry the shop ping in the bags under her eyes.
She’d been working reception and office work at the country club and I knew she didn’t really like it. But I guess she had to, now that her and Dad’s landscaping business had gone bust.
‘I think it’s a style I could really get into,’ I said.
‘That’s great, Ashley,’ said Dad.
‘Jay was saying there’d even be the chance to join crews and go in competitions and all that,’ I continued. ‘But they don’t call them competitions, they call them battles.’
My pasta was getting cold. I felt a bit sick, anyway. There was this big gluggy lump in my throat. I call it the ‘I know there’s no way I’ll ever get what I want’ lump.
‘He seems liked a nice young man,’ offered Mum.
‘I had the best time,’ I said.
‘That’s great, Ash,’ said Mum.
‘Really great,’ repeated Dad.
Everyone was silent. Bridget dropped her fork and it clanked against her bowl before falling into her cold penne.
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