On Pointe

by Sheryl Berk

  Anya hit the Stopwatch button on her phone. At a mere minute and a half, Hayden broke out into a sweat. “This really hurts, ya know?” he said.

  “Does it?” Rochelle said, stifling a yawn. “Doesn’t bother me at all. I could do this all day …”

  Scarlett chuckled. She knew how much Rochelle hated toe shoes as well, but if it meant teaching Hayden a lesson, she wasn’t going to give up.

  “Ow. Really. I’m losing feeling in my toes!” Hayden grimaced. “Can we please quit it?”

  “Are you saying you can’t take it? You’re just not man enough to stand on your tippy toes as long as I can?”

  “Fine!” Hayden exclaimed, dropping back to the soles of his feet and untying the shoes. “These kill. You win. I’m sorry for what I said. I don’t think you’re a wimp. I think you’re incredible.”

  Rochelle blushed. “Okay, okay. I forgive you. But if you ever insult my muscles again, I am going to use them on you.”

  Hayden covered his face with his hands. “Please, don’t hurt me!”

  With the battle scene and “Waltz of the Snowflakes” under control, that left only one major scene in the Land of Sweets to tackle: Clara and the prince. Olivier took his position.

  “Where is Gracie?” Mr. Minnelli called. “We’re losing precious time!”

  “Go on,” Liberty said, giving Gracie a lastminute pep talk. “Remember everything I told you.”

  Scarlett didn’t like the sound of that. “What did you tell her, Liberty?” she asked.

  “I just told her that I believed in her, and that she was the star of this ballet. No one should stand in her way.”

  Gracie shouted back to the choreographer. “In a sec! I have to go freshen up!” Then she skipped off to her dressing room, leaving everyone waiting.

  Chapter 11

  Diva in Training

  Miss Andrea found Gracie at her makeup table powdering her nose and applying bubble gum–flavored lip gloss.

  “My dressing room is too small,” she told Miss Andrea. “I need more room for my stuffed animal collection. Could you maybe move some of the costume racks out into the hall? Or maybe just get me my own dressing room, so I don’t have to share with all those people who aren’t leads? Oh, and I’d like a big pitcher of pink lemonade before every performance …”

  Miss Andrea scratched her head. “Um, I’ll see what I can do, Gracie. In the meantime, we need you on the stage. Mr. Minnelli is losing his patience.”

  A young dancer who was playing a carousel pony walked by the dressing room doorway.

  “Hello!” Gracie waved at her. “Would you like my autograph? It’s gonna be worth a lot of money one day!”

  Miss Andrea ushered her down the hall and back to the wings. But Gracie was far from finished with her list of demands.

  “Oh, I also need to make sure that all my second-grade friends get the best seats when they come see me. So if you wouldn’t mind asking the people in the front three rows to move …”

  “Wow, what’s that all about?” Anya asked, overhearing Gracie’s long list of demands.

  “She’s become a bigheaded monster!” Bria exclaimed.

  “She’s become Liberty!” Rochelle chimed in.

  “Oh, you flatter me.” Liberty smiled, watching her handiwork. “If only I could be in Gracie’s ballet shoes.”

  Gracie finally assumed her position center stage.

  “I want to run through your scene with the dolls,” Marcus told her.

  “Just a sec!” Gracie replied. “I wanna show you something.” She turned to face the audience. “Spotlight over here!” she said, waving at the lighting director at the back of the house. “Everybody, watch me!”

  She launched into a frantic series of fouetté turns, leaps, and cartwheels around the stage. After she landed in a split, she sang out, “Ta-da!”

  Mr. Minnelli and Marcus were speechless.

  “I think he’s gonna kick her out of the show,” Bria whispered. “He doesn’t look too happy.”

  “Ya think?” Liberty smiled. She had her fingers crossed behind her back.

  “Well, that was … energetic,” Mr. Minnelli finally said. “But that is not my choreography.”

  “That isn’t even ballet,” Marcus added.

  “Gracie, I’d like you to please take your place and do what Mr. Marcus tells you to do,” Mr. Minnelli said, flustered.

  Gracie pouted. It wasn’t supposed to go this way. Liberty assured her that as the star, she could add her own “Gracie touch” to the performance.

  “But the choreography is boring,” Gracie protested.

  Scarlett gulped. She was insulting Mr. Minnelli right to his face!

  “Boring? How so?” The distinguished choreographer walked down the aisle to the stage to confront Gracie face-to-face.

  “It’s just … well, it doesn’t feel like an amusement park. When I go on the rides, I scream my head off and laugh so hard it makes my tummy hurt. It’s scarendous!”

  Mr. Minnelli scratched his head. “It’s what?”

  Scarlett stepped forward to translate. “It’s scary and stupendous at the same time,” she explained. “Gracie-ism.”

  “Ah, I see,” Mr. Minnelli replied, running his fingers through his beard.

  “This is not going to end well,” Bria said, covering her eyes. “Tell me when it’s over!”

  “You may have a point, young lady. I do feel the choreography might be a bit dated and in need of some freshening up.”

  Gracie smiled. “Told ya so.”

  “But that is my job, not yours. I appreciate your honesty and I will take it into consideration. In the meantime, please take your position.”

  Gracie stood next to Olivier.

  “What were you thinking?” he asked her.

  Gracie shrugged. She didn’t really have an answer. She knew that if she ever challenged Miss Toni on a dance, she’d be kicked off the Divas so fast it would make her head spin. But Liberty had told her this was different. She was the star and everyone had to answer to her.

  “Liberty told me to,” she whispered.

  “You know what my mom says?” Olivier asked. “If someone told you to stand on your head in a bucket of maple syrup, would you do it?”

  Gracie tried to picture it. “It doesn’t sound too bad—if you had a ton of chocolate-chip pancakes to go with it.”

  Olivier sighed. “It means you shouldn’t always listen when people tell you to do the wrong things.” He pointed to Liberty. “You sure she’s your friend?”

  Liberty certainly acted like a BFF. She paid attention to her and told her how great she was. Scarlett, Anya, Bria, and Rochelle never did that. But then again, it was kind of weird that Liberty suddenly seemed to be on her side.

  “I want energy, enthusiasm, wonder,” Marcus instructed them. “This is a magical land filled with amusement park rides and cotton candy clouds.”

  Gracie looked around the stage—she didn’t see a single cotton candy in sight. “Where? Where?” she asked.

  Marcus gritted his teeth. “All the scenery will be painted and in place for tech rehearsal. We’re just going to have to make believe for now.”

  If there was one thing Gracie was good at, it was making believe.

  “K-dokey,” she told her director. “I got it.”

  She flitted around the stage with Olivier, marveling at imaginary marshmallow mountains and gumdrop towers.

  “Good,” Marcus told them. “Take five.”

  Liberty skipped over to her. “That was so great, Gracie!” she cooed. “I just have one itsy-bitsy suggestion.”

  Gracie raised an eyebrow. “What?”

  “I think you should tell Mr. Minnelli you need an understudy. All the big stars have them on Broadway.”

  “They do?” Gracie asked. “How come?”

  “In case the star can’t go on—which won’t happen in your case, of course. But it sounds very official if you have one. I could be yours if you like—that’s what friends
are for.”

  “I dunno,” Gracie said, shuffling her feet. “I don’t think I need one, Liberty.”

  “Okay, okay, no prob. I just thought you wanted to be treated like a star—not just a little kid like Scarlett and Rochelle think you are.”

  “I am a star!” Gracie insisted.

  Liberty took her by the shoulders and pointed her in Mr. Minnelli’s direction. “Then go act like one.”

  Chapter 12

  A Brewing Storm

  Miss Toni had promised her Divas she’d be there for the final dress rehearsal of The Nutcracker, and Scarlett spotted her making her entrance to the playhouse right on time. She was dressed in a long black coat and black earmuffs placed precisely over her perfect ballerina bun. Even on a frigid, blustery day, her teacher looked regal and neat as a pin.

  “Hi, Miss Toni,” Scarlett said, waving to her. She nudged Anya, who immediately snapped to attention.

  “Girls, how’s the dress rehearsal going?” Toni asked.

  Anya shrugged. “Oh, you know. Just mousin’ around.”

  “I always enjoy watching the mice in The Nutcracker,” Miss Toni told her.

  “Really? Why?” Anya asked.

  “Because it’s a scene that’s fraught with drama and tension,” Toni explained. “And it requires a great deal of acting ability to play a mouse.”

  Anya sighed. “You can’t even see my face under the fuzzy head.”

  “But I can see the emotion your body conveys through dance,” Toni explained. “And I will know which mouse you are even without seeing your face—I guarantee it.”

  Anya suddenly felt a little better about her role. “Well, when you put it that way …”

  “I will be watching, so I hope you girls make me proud,” she said, warning her students. “My reputation is riding on it.”

  Scarlett nodded. “We won’t let you down, Miss Toni,” she said. “We’ve worked really hard, and Marcus says we’re doing a great job.”

  She noticed that her dance coach flinched when she mentioned Marcus’s name.

  “Yes, well, I’ll be in the back, taking notes.” She held up her dance journal. “Remember what I always tell you: strength, grace, precision.”

  At the ten-minute call before the curtain rose, Scarlett snuck a peek at the audience from the wings. In the front of the orchestra was Mr. Minnelli, Miss Andrea, and of course, Marcus. She scanned the darkened theater for Miss Toni and saw her way back in the last row—as far away from Marcus as she could get.

  “Places! Places! Party Scene dancers to the stage!” the stage manager announced over the backstage speaker.

  “That’s you, Gracie,” Liberty said, shoving her toward the curtain. She raised an eyebrow. “You okay? You don’t look so good. Are you coming down with something?” She felt Gracie’s forehead.

  “I’m okay,” Gracie insisted.

  “Oh good,” Liberty replied. “I wouldn’t want you to get all panicky and forget your dance or anything like that.”

  Gracie gulped. “I … I won’t.”

  “K-dokey,” Liberty said and grinned at her. “Good luck! Oh, wait! I shouldn’t have said that! Good luck is a really bad thing to say to a dancer. Oops!”

  Scarlett noticed her sister pacing in the wings. “Gracie,” she told her. “I just wanted to say—”

  “Oh no!” Gracie shrieked, interrupting her. “Don’t say good luck! It’s bad luck!”

  “I just wanted to say you’re going to be amazing,” Scarlett said.

  Gracie looked worried; her old stage fright seemed to be acting up. “You really think so, Scoot? This star thing is kinda scary.”

  Scarlett bent down and hugged her little sister. “I don’t think you can. I know you can! Just be yourself.”

  Just then, she noticed another figure making her way through the rows of seats in the orchestra section.

  “Is that?” Anya gasped.

  “Oh, yes it is!” Rochelle finished her sentence. “What is Mean Justine doing here?”

  “She’s here to see me,” Addison said as she appeared behind them. “Everyone wants to see me. I’m the lead.”

  “But I’m Clara,” Gracie piped up.

  Addison waved her hand at Gracie dismissively. “As if you could ever be as good as me.”

  Gracie gulped. She wished she could think of something to say back to her, something that Liberty had taught her. But all she could do was fight back the tears. Maybe Addison was right. Maybe she had been lying to herself all along.

  “You take that back!” Rochelle stood nose-to-nose with Addison. “Or else.”

  “Or else what? You’ll go running to your dumb Divas coach and tell on me? Who cares? Marcus listens to Justine, not to Toni.”

  She pointed to her City Feet coach in the audience. She did look very cozy with the Nutcracker director. She was leaning close, whispering something in his ear.

  “He obviously listened to her when she twisted his arm into giving you this part,” Rochelle added.

  “Yeah!” Anya and Bria said in unison, piping up.

  None of this appeared to bother Addison. “Say what ya want … but I’m the star of A New Jersey Nutcracker.”

  “There’s only one star here, and that’s Gracie,” Scarlett said, sticking up for her sister. “I’ve never seen anyone dance it better—not even Gelsey Kirkland.”

  “Or Barbie!” Bria added. “Just sayin’ … She had a Nutcracker DVD, too.”

  “Whatevs,” Addison tossed back. “We’ll see who gets more applause on opening night.”

  Gracie turned to her teammates. “Thanks, guys, for sticking up for me.”

  “Are you kidding? What are Divas for?” Anya said, giving her a hug.

  “Did you really mean what you said, Scoot?” she asked her sister. “About me being a star?”

  Scarlett smiled. “Of course I did. I’m so proud of you, Gracie. And I’m sorry if we were bad sports in the beginning. But I want you to know we all have your back now.”

  The rest of the girls nodded. “Don’t let evil Addison get to you,” Rochelle warned her. “She’s just jealous. I guess we all were a little.”

  “That’s okay,” Gracie said. “I forgive you. And I’m sorry if I was a little show-offy.”

  “A little?” Anya gasped. “Your head was so big, it was …”

  Olivier appeared in the wings carrying his giant papier-mâché Nutcracker head under his arm.

  “Bigger than that!” Anya said, pointing to the mask.

  “I know, I know,” Gracie said, sighing. “Liberty just kept telling me I should act like a star. I guess I was acting more like a brat.”

  “Yeah, demanding only pink M&M’s in your dressing room was a bit much,” Bria added.

  “How about the time you interrupted the rehearsal for an Instagram break so you could post for your fans?” Anya giggled.

  “Oh, and how about the time I told Mr. Minnelli he had to make Liberty my understudy,” Gracie blurted out.

  “Wait! Hold on! You did what?” Rochelle asked her.

  The girls were suddenly speechless. Of course that had been Liberty’s plan all along—to steal the role away from Gracie!

  “There is no way you are going to miss a single show,” Scarlett told her.

  “What if I get sick? Or panic? Or there’s a giant tornado that sweeps me away to Oz?” Gracie asked her. “Auntie Em! Uncle Henry!”

  Scarlett put her arm around her sister. “We’ll make sure you’re the one and only Clara. It’s like the mailman’s motto: ‘Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night’—or something like that—will keep Gracie from dancing tomorrow night!”

  Bria held up her phone. All day, she’d been checking a weather app that was tracking a nor’easter heading toward New Jersey. It was now flashing a red alert. “Um, how about a blizzard?”

  Chapter 13

  Snow Business

  After the dress rehearsal, Bria checked the weather app again. “It really doesn’t look good,�
�� she told her friends. She pointed to a big blue spot on a map of the tristate area. “The blue color is the blizzard approaching. And it’s right over New Jersey.”

  “What if we’re snowed in tomorrow? What if no one can get to the theater?” Anya asked.

  Miss Toni found them in their dressing room. “The show must go on,” she said simply. “I spoke to Mr. Minnelli, and he says that unless the roads are closed or it’s too dangerous to drive, he’ll open tomorrow night.”

  “To an empty house?” Scarlett asked. “Anya’s right. What if no one wants to come out in the snow?”

  “I promise I will be here,” Toni assured them. “So that’s one eager audience member you can count on.”

  “Did you like the dress rehearsal?” Gracie asked her nervously. “Did I do okay?”

  Toni smiled. “You did more than okay. Your arabesques were glorious. Marcus has really done amazing work with all of you.”

  “So you don’t hate him?” Gracie blurted out.

  “Hate him? No, I don’t hate him. We’re very old friends. Justine, on the other hand … she’s another story.”

  The next morning, Gracie jumped out of bed at 6:00 a.m. and ran to the window. The whole street was blanketed in snow.

  “Oh no! The nor’easter is here!” She raced into Scarlett’s room and shook her awake. “Scoot! It’s a blizzard! It’s really bad.”

  Scarlett peered out the window. It would have been a beautiful winter wonderland if it weren’t for the gusts of wind banging the shutters and bending the branches of the trees nearly in half.

  “Do you think they’ll cancel the show?” Gracie asked her.

  “I don’t know,” Scarlett answered honestly. “It looks like it snowed all night.”

  Just then, her phone rang. “Are you seeing this?” Rochelle asked her. “Did it have to be today of all days? Why couldn’t it have waited until Monday?”

  “It’s just flurrying now,” Scarlett replied optimistically. “Maybe it’ll stop.”

  Her mom appeared at the bedroom door. “The worst is over,” she reported. “But there’s over a foot of snow on the ground. I’m not sure we’re going to be able to dig out of this and get to Paramus.”