I stood up straighter. I tried to hold my head in the confident way that Riley did. I pretended to hold a barre, bent my legs into plié position, and raised my arms into port de bras.
But I had big dark circles under my eyes. And my shoulders had a tired slope to them. My legs wouldn’t maintain turn-out either.
Riley poked her head around the door. ‘Paige?’
I jumped. ‘Oh, hi,’ I said. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Looking for you,’ said Riley. ‘Class is about to start. What are you doing?’
‘Trying to be like you,’ I said.
‘What?’ she asked, taking a step inside.
‘Nothing,’ I said.
‘You okay?’
Riley came and stood next to me. Her hair was messy, like she’d been running around outside for two hours. Mine was back in its usual too-tight bun, tied with a new pink ribbon.
She tried to smooth her hair down and then gave up. ‘Who cares,’ she said, when she saw me looking. ‘I dance with my feet, not my hair.’
Our ballet teacher, Ms McGlone, likes us to look very prim and proper in class. That means exactly the right colour leotard, no ripped tights, clean slippers and tidy hair. I’m too scared to look anything but perfect. Ms McGlone is tough!
But Riley doesn’t always follow the rules. A few weeks ago she forgot her tights and Ms McGlone said she couldn’t take class.
Riley just shrugged and walked out as if she didn’t care. I would have died!
‘I saw Ellie out there,’ said Riley. ‘She’s here for some musical theatre thing.’
‘Oh,’ was all I could say.
Ellie had ignored me at school. We usually do everything together. But at lunchtime, when we were with our group of friends, the only time she looked at me was to roll her eyes when I said I didn’t feel like playing chasings with the boys.
What I really wanted to do was go to the library and take a nap. It was only Monday, but I already felt like it was the end of the week.
‘You really okay?’ Riley asked again. ‘You look kind of … dead.’
‘I’m a bit tired,’ I said. ‘Yesterday Mum made me practise an audition piece for that ballet masterclass at Dance Art. Are you going?’
Dance Art Academy is Silver Shoes’ rival dance school. It’s a big, rich school with about a million students – they often win at competitions and eisteddfods.
Mum says that even with their fancy reputation she would never send me there because I wouldn’t get the quality attention I get at Silver Shoes. Also, she and Miss Caroline are friends from way back when they both used to dance professionally.
I don’t want to go to Dance Art anyway. Those girls are scary. It’s like a tribe of mini Jasmines.
‘Yeah, I saw that,’ Riley said. ‘Ms McGlone put my name down. She stopped me and Jasmine after class.’
‘It sounds very posh,’ I said.
‘Yeah, I guess,’ Riley said. ‘It would be cool to do it but I’m not fussed.’ She shrugged. ‘Come on, you got any snakes? I need the sugar.’
Lolly snakes are our thing – mine, and Riley, Ellie and Ash’s. We always have a packet on the go. It was my turn to bring them and I’d come prepared. We went to the change room and I rummaged through my dance bag (it has Cabbage Patch Kids on it – I’ve collected the dolls since I was little!) until I found the packet. Riley picked green. I picked red.
Ellie came in while we were munching on the snakes. She was singing to herself. Her voice was getting better. But she stopped when she saw us and her face went blank.
‘Hi Riley,’ she said.
Nothing for me.
Ellie came right over to where I was sitting but all she did was pick up a pair of chorus shoes that were on the bench. I saw she’d added tiny pink bows near the buckle. It was such an Ellie thing to do.
It made me really miss her.
‘You want a snake?’ I asked, holding out the packet.
‘Gross,’ said Ellie. She got the shoes and then glanced at my dance bag. ‘Lame,’ she said, although she’d never seemed to have a problem with it before. Then she spun on her heel and stalked off. ‘See ya,’ she said to Riley on her way out.
The snakes tipped over onto the bench and fell on the floor. My heart sank right along with them.
Chapter Five
On Tuesday morning my eyes felt like they’d been stuck together with fake eyelash glue. Even my backpack felt heavier as I trudged into school. It was only as I went to sit down at my desk that I noticed I had two different socks on.
Boy, was I tired. After ballet I’d stayed up late to finish off my school project because I didn’t get a chance to do it on the weekend with all that dancing.
Plus I’d been having the worst dreams. Nightmares about dancing witches, but also awful ones where I was at the ballroom competition and bad things kept happening. My skirt was tucked up into my leotard, or the audience started throwing old pointe shoes at me, or I kept treading on Benji’s feet so much that I broke all his toes.
Benji is also in my class at school, Our Lady of Lourdes. When I saw him at his desk I flushed bright red, as if he’d read my mind and found out I’d been dreaming about him.
At school we sit in a table of four, which changes every month. The current arrangement is two boys and two girls on each table. Ellie and I share a desk with these two boys, Larry and Rowan, who are best friends.
Somehow they’d realised Ellie and I were having a fight. All week they’d been saying stupid things and pretending to be overly polite to each other. Then they’d look at us and collapse into giggles.
Once upon a time, Ellie would have rolled her eyes at such silliness. Now she laughed right along with them. She wouldn’t look at me, even though we sat opposite each other.
During maths, the most boring subject in the world, she still didn’t make eye contact, and Larry and Rowan were cheating off each other on the maths problems. So I had nothing to do but look down at my desk.
All the ends of the numbers grew little hands and feet and started dancing across my page. There were tap shoes, ballet slippers, chorus shoes, hip hop sneakers, pointe shoes and more.
I wished I could dance away with them.
After maths and after either Larry or Rowan farted loudly and tried to blame it on the other, we had Australian history, where we were learning about famous national figures.
But I soon realised I wasn’t listening to our teacher, Mr Herbert, at all. I wasn’t doing anything.
There was a strange buzzing in my head. The other kids went out of focus until I could only see bits of them, like a nose or a finger, or the tip of an ear.
In the middle of it all, I thought, Do I even want to dance?
It was the scariest thought I’d ever had. Scarier than waiting to go on stage. Scarier than an audition.
My head drooped forward but I caught it in time and tried to focus on Mr Herbert. But then it nodded again and I felt my body slump forward. I was half-aware of falling into Rowan.
He turned around quickly and looked at me like I’d just appeared from another planet.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. ‘I didn’t mean to.’
Larry grinned at him. ‘She’s falling for you, Row,’ he whispered.
‘No, it was an accident!’ I said.
‘Can you shut up?’ Ellie hissed at us. ‘I’m trying to listen.’
But she wasn’t, really. I saw her notebook; it was covered in drawings of dance costumes.
I sat quietly then and tried to focus on Fred Hollows and Banjo Paterson and how they’d contributed to Australia. Ellie raised her hand.
‘What about famous Australian dancers?’ she said.
I waited for Mr Herbert’s answer. But it was no good. First, one arm went across my desk. I lowered my head onto it. Then my eyes closed. And then …
‘Paige!’
‘Huh?’
‘Paige, you’re talking out loud! Wake up!’
Somebody shook me awake. I
t took me two seconds to work out where I was and what had happened.
Oh gosh. This was worse than an audition or forgetting the steps on stage. Falling asleep in class and then sleep-talking out loud. And everyone was looking!
I began to feel sick. Rowan and Larry were giggling. Benji was watching me. And when I dared to glance at Ellie, I found her staring at me, too.
She took her hand off my arm. I saw a speck of worry in her eyes and then she rolled them again, crossed her arms and faced the front.
‘Paige?’ said Mr Herbert. ‘Are you all right? Do you need water and some fresh air?’
‘Yes,’ I managed to squeak.
‘Can someone take Paige outside for five minutes?’ Mr Herbert asked the class.
I looked at Ellie, but her eyes were glued to the whiteboard.
‘I’ll do it,’ said Benji. He pushed back his chair. ‘Come on, Paige.’
He grabbed a glass of water from the sink and I followed him outside. I wanted to cry and die of embarrassment all at once.
‘You okay?’ he asked me, as we sat down on a bench in the courtyard.
I just nodded and took the water.
I was so horrified at falling asleep and talking in class that I forgot to be uncomfortable about him sitting next to me and awkwardly patting my back.
I didn’t think this was what Fleur had in mind when she told us that we had to work on being ‘together’.
In fact, I was pretty sure Benji would never want to dance with me again.
Chapter Six
‘No, no, Paige, you must centre your body! You cannot dip forward or back because that will unbalance Benji. You must move as one.’
I sighed. ‘Sorry.’
Benji had been trying to spin me for fifteen minutes. It was only a one-legged standing spin, too – not even fancy – he basically stayed on the same spot, spinning me round and round.
But surprise, surprise, I couldn’t do it. I kept tipping onto him. Or I’d get off balance and pull him forward as I tried to get back my centre of gravity.
‘Try once more,’ Fleur coaxed.
‘I’m dizzy,’ I said, ‘and my back hurts. Benji’s gripping too tight.’
Benji seemed surprised at that because he looked at me and then shifted his hands behind his back.
Great. Now he was upset at me, too. It wasn’t even true. I just didn’t want to keep spinning.
Fleur gave me a long look. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Let’s have a short break. Then we’ll try the spin again later. Okay?’ She left the room, leaving me with Benji.
A huge silence fell around us, like that moment you watch someone forget the next step on stage.
‘I didn’t mean …’ I started to say.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said at the same time.
‘No, it was me,’ I said.
‘Are you okay from yesterday?’ he asked.
Another silence.
‘You weren’t really hurting me then,’ I said quickly, before he could get in. ‘I just … I’m not very good, that spin … I’m a bit tired …’
‘Yeah, sleeping in class.’ He laughed. ‘Pretty tired.’
‘You didn’t have to look after me,’ I said. My shoes felt too tight and I suddenly had to loosen the buckle. ‘But thank you.’
‘Cool,’ Benji said.
Cool? What was cool? That he didn’t mind looking after me? Or that it was fine to fall asleep in class? Which one? Why are boys so hard to understand?
Fleur came back in then and clapped her hands to get our attention. Like we needed an excuse to not look at each other! Lucky we were all right dancing with each other because when it came to talking we didn’t have a clue.
To give us a break from the lifts, Fleur made us practise our complete reverse turns (it basically means a fancy turn to change the direction you’re going on the dance floor). She kept yelling: ‘Paige, your head is facing the wrong way!’ or ‘Connect through the trunk, lean away at the chest’ or ‘That promenade must be closer!’
By that stage, Benji and I were dancing so close I could smell his shampoo. It smelled like apples and was nothing like what I imagined a boy would use.
‘So have you two heard about the showcase?’ Fleur asked before calling out, ‘Wrong foot, Paige!’
Benji shrugged slightly, which caused me to tip forward again and I banged my forehead against his ear.
‘Sorry!’ I gasped.
I got no reply but swore I heard a little snicker.
Fleur meant the mid-year showcase coming up at Silver Shoes. Each class gave a preview of the current competition dance and some people could do duos or solos if they wanted to.
Ms McGlone had told us at ballet last night that they were recruiting for performers. I’d pushed it to the back of my mind. I didn’t mind doing the group dances because I already knew them, but if Mum ever found out about it, she’d make me do something on my own. And I didn’t want to. I didn’t deserve to. Right now I couldn’t bear the thought of any extra dance practice!
‘Well, I was thinking it might be nice if you two did a ballroom routine,’ said Fleur. ‘A lot of people don’t know you’re taking private ballroom lessons. It’ll be a nice surprise for the other kids.’
My heart sank a little, and so did my shoulders, because Fleur yelled out, ‘Posture, Paige, watch your neck.’
I tried to flatten my back but only ended messing up the timing of my chassé.
Benji stopped dancing and stepped away from me. ‘I’m not doing ballroom at the showcase,’ he said.
Fleur threw up her hands. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m a hip hop dancer,’ said Benji. ‘I do hip hop. That’s what I want to be known for. I’m doing this because Mum made me.’
Was Benji embarrassed that he was my ballroom partner? Did he hate dancing with me?
‘What are you talking about?’ asked Fleur. ‘You enjoy the waltz, the tango, eh? The jive? I’ve taught you. You’re a natural.’
‘I don’t care!’ said Benji. ‘No one listens. I don’t want to do it!’
‘Benji –’
‘No!’ shouted Benji.
Then he walked right out of the studio.
‘He’s just having a moment,’ Fleur told me.
‘May I go look for him?’ I asked. ‘I should see if he’s okay.’
‘Well, you can’t waltz on your own,’ said Fleur.
I stepped into the dark hallways of Silver Shoes. I felt bad. I was so worried and stressed out about my dancing that I hadn’t really noticed Benji wasn’t enjoying himself either.
I turned a corner and was just going past the costume room when I heard my name called out.
It was Mum.
Chapter Seven
‘Paigey, come in here, I’ve got your costume all ready.’
‘I can’t, I’m looking for –’
‘Come on, sweetie, you’ll love it!’
Mum was surrounded by every colour you could imagine. There was tulle, silk, sequins, velvet, lycra and chiffon packed into every corner of the costume room. In her hands was my waltz dress.
So you know how our waltz had a music-box theme? I think Mum was inspired by that fairytale ‘The Steadfast Tin Soldier’, where the toy soldier falls in love with a paper ballerina. Except in our waltz, I was really upset at being stuck in the music box and Benji was the one who freed me.
For the costume, Mum had created an amazing fairy ballerina dress from that plain leotard she’d bought at Danceworks. She’d even added a tiny set of wings at the back. They were made out of scraps of chiffon and cotton wool, and decorated with tiny fake butterflies, rhinestones and dangling beads.
The leotard had green, gold and white sequinned beads over one shoulder, embroidered to look like wildflowers.
And the skirt! It was a big floating puff of yellow and white chiffon layers, some with a dash of the green sequinned beads.
It was so beautiful. I knew Mum had been working on it all weekend and yesterday. It was
so nice of her. But it also meant another thing:
There was no way I could EVER pull out of the ballroom comp now.
‘You’re going to look so pretty with this dress. You’ll win the comp for sure. How’s it going with Fleur? Did you and Benji work on the spin?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Good,’ Mum said. ‘Come on, try it on. I want to see how it sits.’
‘We’re in the middle of practice,’ I said.
‘Oh really?’ asked Mum. ‘Because I just saw Benji run past the door so I thought you were taking a break.’
Uh-oh. There was something in Mum’s voice that told me she had something up her sleeve.
Something that I wouldn’t like.
I changed into the dress and straightaway had the ‘costume effect’. That’s where you immediately feel like you become the character you’re dancing. I imagined my jewellery box with all the trinkets and love notes and old lipsticks around me.
Gosh it was a beautiful dress.
‘So, Paigey …’ said Mum, adjusting some beads on the shoulder-work.
She was so close I could see the creases in her eyelids where the eyeshadow was rubbing off.
‘How come you didn’t tell me that they’re asking for dancers for the mid-year showcase?’
My mind blanked, like I really was a wind-up ballerina and the key had just run down.
‘I forgot,’ I said.
‘You forgot?’ said Mum.
‘I think so,’ I said. ‘I’ve been so busy practising my audition for the masterclass that –’
p ‘Don’t you think it would be nice if you did something?’ asked Mum. ‘You want to get in quick, or the teachers will choose someone else. We can go tell Miss Caroline after class that you’re interested.’
‘But I’m not,’ I said, surprising even myself.
‘Pardon?’ asked Mum. She stopped pinning and looked at me.
‘Well, I’m already doing the group dances and I don’t really have time to be practising anything else. Plus, there are other girls who are better than me who should have the chance to do a solo. I know Ellie wants to …’
‘Nonsense!’ said Mum. ‘You’re one of the best dancers at Silver Shoes. Of course you should have an extra dance.’
Dance Till you Drop Page 2
