Amelia Bedelia Dances Off

by Herman Parish

  “I like dance class way more than I thought I would,” said Amelia Bedelia. “Thanks for the present.”

  Aunt Wanda smiled. “I’m happy to hear that,” she said. “I was afraid you really wouldn’t enjoy it at all!”

  “I like the other kids a lot,” said Amelia Bedelia. “They are so different from my friends at school and from each other.”

  “I’m glad you like that difference,” said Aunt Wanda. “That’s very grown-up.”

  “Sure, Aunt Wanda,” said Amelia Bedelia. “Differences make things different. It would be boring if everyone was the same.”

  “That’s very true,” said Aunt Wanda.

  They rode along in silence for a few blocks until Aunt Wanda said, “I’ve been thinking. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a recital?”

  “A recital?” said Amelia Bedelia. “You mean reciting poems and stories and stuff?”

  “No, not words. Dances,” said Aunt Wanda. “In a dance recital, dancers perform dances they’ve learned and show their family and friends what they’ve been doing in class.”

  “Great,” said Amelia Bedelia. “That sounds really fun.”

  “You could help me by being a choreographer—that’s what we call someone who plans a dance,” said Aunt Wanda. “The best dances tell a story to share an idea or emotion.”

  “Okay,” said Amelia Bedelia. “I’d probably be good at that. Did you know that Willow is a really good artist? And Brad skateboards. Gracie is also great at gymnastics. Alex and Alexandra can do almost any dance. Kids should do what comes naturally.”

  Amelia Bedelia’s entire dance class loved the idea of a dance recital.

  “We’ll do it for Dana!” said Willow.

  Those words, “Do It for Dana,” became their motto, keeping them planning, creating, and rehearsing even when they were tired and out of ideas.

  They had just begun figuring out what dances to include in the recital when a new group of dancers walked into the studio.

  “Aloha,” said a man wearing a shirt that also said ALOHA. “We’re from the Polynesian Society at the college. You booked us to teach the hula to your dance students.”

  “Oh, aloha! Welcome!” said Wanda. “We’ve been focusing on our recital, so we’re buzzing around like bees. Alexandra, take our guests to the dressing room so they can change while I set things up.”

  All of a sudden, another group of dancers walked into the studio. They were all wearing kilts.

  “Hi there, you must be Dana,” said a woman carrying a fiddle. “We’re from the Celtic Club.”

  Alex nodded toward one of the boys, nudged Brad, and whispered, “Nice skirt.”

  “Not as nice as mine,” said Brad. “I’m from the McDonald clan, and my tartan is awesome.”

  “I’m so glad you could make it,” said Wanda. She was definitely going with the flow. Dana must have invited the Celtic Club before she broke her leg. This was going to be an interesting class!

  At that moment the Polynesian Society dancers returned to the studio. They were all barefoot and wearing leis and grass skirts, even the boys.

  Alex and Brad just looked at each other and laughed.

  Amelia Bedelia, Gracie, Willow, Alex, Brad, and Alexandra sat on the floor in Studio One. The Polynesians danced first, moving two steps to the left, then two steps to the right, with flowing hand movements that told a story about fish swimming in the ocean, fisherman pulling them ashore in nets, and then everyone having a feast.

  Then the dancers from the Celtic Club demonstrated the difference between a Highland fling and Irish step dancing. Everyone watched the dancers step over and between a sword and scabbard in the Scottish sword dance. The dancers kept their arms by their sides or overhead, but their footwork was incredibly complex.

  “Amazing,” said Wanda. “This was a happy accident. It’s so interesting to watch these different dance styles from opposite sides of the world side by side.”

  “Yeah,” said Gracie. “The Polynesian dancers have simple footwork but very complicated hand gestures.”

  “And the Celtic dancers are stiff from the waist up,” said Willow, “but they express themselves through their feet.”

  “They have one thing in common, though,” said Alex. “All the guys wear skirts!”

  One of the Polynesian dancers pulled Alex into their group, put a grass skirt on him, then showed him how to sway his hips and tell a story with his hands. Alexandra could not stop laughing at the sight of her brother doing the hula. Then the whole class got a chance to practice with both troupes. Toward the end of the class, the Celtic dancers taught the hula dancers their steps, and the hula dancers taught the Celtic dancers how to sway and move their hands.

  Everyone was laughing and learning new things. Amelia Bedelia was working on her Scottish footwork when she bumped into Aunt Wanda, who was doing the hula.

  “I wish the whole world could be like this every day,” Amelia Bedelia said.

  “This is a start,” said Wanda.

  On the Saturday of the recital, Amelia Bedelia’s father dropped her off at Dana’s School of Dance early. She had misplaced the sock Gracie had given her for her bun, so she had grabbed a single sock from the laundry room.

  “Hold it. Where did you find my sock?” her dad said as she was getting out of the car.

  “It was in the laundry room, where Mom keeps all the lost socks,” said Amelia Bedelia.

  “Well, the other one is in my sock drawer,” said her father. “Thanks for finding it, honey. It’s my favorite!”

  Amelia Bedelia’s father grabbed his sock, gave Amelia Bedelia a quick kiss, and drove off.

  Amelia Bedelia was happy to help, but now she had no way to put up her hair. She couldn’t ask Gracie for another sock. That would be embarrassing. How could she make her bun? She searched through her backpack and discovered the perfect thing. It was a bagel she had forgotten to eat. She used her finger to enlarge the hole in the center, pushed her hair through it, and used bobby pins to secure the ends.

  “Perfect,” said Amelia Bedelia. “No one would guess that my bun is a bagel.”

  Aunt Wanda and the dancers set up chairs around the edge of Studio One. The audience grew quickly. Bob and Lois Quinn and their friends arrived on a bus. A few minutes after they came in, the bus driver walked in too. Dana zoomed in on her own chair—a wheelchair. She had her leg propped up in a cast. She parked next to Madame Dansova. The Españas came and the break dancers came and so did the Celtic Club and Polynesian Society troupes. And of course, there were parents, grandparents, and brothers and sisters and babysitters. Finally it was time for the recital to begin.

  “Thank you for coming out to support our kids,” said Wanda. “They have done a terrific job, learning all sorts of dances from various countries and cultures. They put this show together in honor of their teacher, Dana.”

  Everyone clapped as Dana spun her wheelchair around. “I would tell them to break a leg, but I beat them to it!” she said, smiling.

  “Break a leg?” whispered Amelia Bedelia to Brad. He lifted his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders. But then the audience laughed, so Amelia Bedelia decided it must be okay.

  Willow danced the first dance. She had hung up a roll of paper as tall as she was and put pots of paint and paintbrushes on the floor beneath it. The music started, and so did Willow. As a jazz saxophone solo played, Willow began a modern dance. Moving back and forth in front of the paper, she picked up brushes, dabbing paint here and there. When the music finished, so had she.

  “Hey,” said Bill. “I can see a guy playing a saxophone!” Sure enough, Willow had managed to paint an abstract portrait of a saxophonist. The applause grew louder and Willow bowed deeply.

  Brad then put on hip-hop music and danced some break-dance moves that he had adapted to his skateboard routine. He spun, leaped, zoomed, and rolled around the studio. His dance earned some oooohs and ahhhhs and lots of applause from the audience. While he bowed, hip-hop was replaced by Hawaiian mu
sic, and Amelia Bedelia, Alexandra, Gracie, and Willow entered the studio. They swayed from side to side, waving long pieces of blue fabric along the floor. It looked just like the ocean.

  Alex appeared, wearing a grass skirt. He set up a big cardboard palm tree that had been painted brown and green. Then he leaned against it, strumming a ukulele. When he put his hand to his brow to look out over the waves, the music changed to Scottish bagpipes and Brad returned, skateboarding between the waves. It looked exactly as though he was surfing, except that he wore a kilt and not a wetsuit. When Brad landed on the island, the music changed back to a Hawaiian melody. The girls danced off the stage while Alex showed Brad how to hula.

  In the audience, Amelia Bedelia’s father took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Did I just see a Scotsman surf to Hawaii and learn how to hula?” he whispered to Amelia Bedelia’s mother.

  “With dance anything is possible, dear,” she said, patting his arm.

  The music changed back to bagpipes again, and now Brad taught Alex the Highland fling. They leaped over his skateboard, jumping back and forth with their hands in the air as though they were doing a sword dance. Then they both stood on the skateboard and whizzed off the stage together, Alex carrying the palm tree under his arm.

  Their dance had given the girls a chance to change costumes for their performance. The long pieces of blue cloth still on stage were perfect for what was about to happen.

  Wanda stood up and moved to the center of the studio. “The class dedicates this next dance to their ballet teacher, Madame Dansova,” she said, nodding to the applauding audience. “The students wanted to perform a pas de deux, which means a dance with two people. However, they had trouble reading the French term. Our choreographer thought it was ‘pass the ducks,’ and so we like to think of this dance as ‘The Ugly Duckling Meets Swan Lake.’”

  Amelia Bedelia and Willow entered the studio first. They wore leotards with cardboard cutouts attached on either side. They each looked like a bright yellow rubber ducky bathtub toy. Swimming side by side, they were very wide. Behind them came Alexandra wearing a costume that . . . well, looked ugly. She kept trying to paddle past the two rubber ducks, but they wouldn’t let her. Finally she swam around them, heading toward the back wall. The duckies were so wide that the audience lost sight of her.

  When the two duckies parted, Alexandra had disappeared. Gracie, dressed as a gorgeous swan, had taken her place. The duckies dipped their heads as the swan passed between them. She was dancing on her tiptoes, en pointe. Gracie smiled and fluttered her white, feathery wings. The audience applauded and did not stop. Madame, who had started to laugh when Amelia Bedelia and Willow first appeared, had not stopped laughing the whole time. She stood and clapped the loudest. “Brava!” she yelled. “Brava!” As the four girls took their curtain call, Amelia Bedelia, hampered by the cardboard ducky costume, bent too far forward. The bagel that had given shape to her bun rolled across the stage.

  “A bagel?” said Madame Dansova. “I said a bun, Miss Bedelia!”

  Amelia Bedelia was glad that her hair was flopping in her face. It covered her blushing, bright red cheeks.

  After intermission, the audience returned for one final dance. There was now a patch of fake grass in the middle of the studio. Two pink plastic flamingoes stood on it. The audience, though, was focused on another pair—Alex and Alexandra. They were each standing on one leg, and they were dressed in pink leotards, with big black beaks strapped over their noses. Alex started strumming on his guitar. Suddenly, their feet came down hard at the same time.

  The twins launched into an incredible flamenco routine. Their feet seemed to talk to each other and to the guitar. At one point, Alexandra spread her wings like huge pink fans, just the way Senora España had spread her shawl. Maybe they had practiced a lot, or maybe it was because they were twins and thought alike, but Alex and Alexandra performed flawlessly.

  When they finished, everyone jumped up, applauding wildly and calling out, “Bravo! Brava! Olé, Pink Flamencos!”

  Amelia Bedelia’s mother had brought two bouquets of flowers from her garden. The class presented them to Wanda and Dana. They both bowed, then tossed the bouquets into the air so that flowers rained down on the dancers.

  Then Wanda pushed Dana’s chair, and a conga line formed behind her. Soon absolutely everyone was dancing. Amelia Bedelia grabbed the conga drum that Dana kept in the corner of the studio and began broadcasting the beat. Dancing and drumming with family and friends—this was Amelia Bedelia’s idea of heaven.

  “Let’s take it to the streets!” hollered Wanda. She held open the door to Dana’s School of Dance, letting the conga line snake outside to the parking lot. Tables had been set up along the sidewalk. There were all kinds of refreshments—cupcakes, cake, pie, cookies, watermelon, strawberries, and lemonade waited for the hungry performers and their fans.

  Amelia Bedelia carried the conga drum outside. Soon she was joined by Alex on the guitar and Alexandra on the ukulele. The beat was nutty and silly, but it was still music to Amelia Bedelia’s ears. All of a sudden, she was reminded of her favorite show, The World Is a Village.

  Amelia Bedelia was sorry the program was only in reruns these days. Their celebration would have made a great episode. There were dancers in amazing costumes, including Gracie with beautiful feathers under her arms, and giant flamingoes, and boys in grass skirts and colorful kilts. There was a banquet with tasty homemade food.

  Amelia Bedelia’s father gave her a kiss on the top of her head.

  “Hey, Bagel Bun,” he said. “Mmmmm! You smell like my favorite deli.”

  “Oh, Daddy,” said Amelia Bedelia.

  “What did you slick back your hair with?” he asked. “Cream cheese?”

  “Daddy—” said Amelia Bedelia.

  “Okay, I won’t tease,” he said. “Your mother and I are proud of you.”

  Amelia Bedelia’s mother grabbed Amelia Bedelia around her waist and pulled her into the conga line. She leaned down and said, “We mean that. You were brave to take dance lessons. You never complained. Never missed a class. You tried something new, something different. You learned a lot and had fun. Your dad and I could not be more proud of you.”

  Amelia Bedelia stopped in her tracks. She turned around and hugged her mother.

  “Family hug!” yelled Amelia Bedelia.

  “Let me in on this,” said her father.

  “Hey, you three busybodies! Is there room in there for one more?” It was Wanda, now bringing up the rear of the conga line.

  Amelia Bedelia’s father grabbed Wanda and pulled her toward them. “Extended family hug!” they all hollered.

  Then the four of them just stood there in one big, sweet, long squeeze, letting the music and laughter fill their ears.

  Ballet: Ballet is an artistic style of dancing that began long ago in Italy, France, and Russia. Ballets often tell stories with costumes and scenery (for example, The Sleeping Beauty or The Nutcracker), but ballets can also be a pattern of steps, usually set to music.

  Break Dancing: Break dancing started in the US in the 1970s. It’s often freestyle or improvised, with acrobatic moves similar to gymnastics. People sometimes call it breakin’, b-boying, g-girling, or street dancing; it’s part of hip-hop and is popular in movies and videos all over the world.

  Ceremonial Dance: In many countries and cultures people dance to mark important events. A ceremonial dance, for example, might welcome a new baby or bring luck to the hunt.

  Flamenco: Flamenco is a kind of folk dance that originated in Spain and is now taught all over the world. Guitar music, singing, foot stamping, hand clapping, and finger snapping can all accompany flamenco dance.

  Interpretive: Most kinds of dance have set steps, patterns, beats, and movements but when you dance an interpretive dance you make up your own steps inspired by what you see, feel, smell, hear, or imagine.

  Modern Dance: Modern dance originated in the US and Germany in the early 1900s. There are ma
ny kinds of modern dance, performed to many kinds of music, but typically a modern dancer has bare feet and dances with freedom and expression.

  Polynesian Dance: Many dances originated in the Pacific islands of Polynesia (such as Tahiti, Tonga, and Hawaii). The hula dance comes from Hawaii and is known for the complicated and beautiful hand motions that accompany the words and music.

  Rumba: Rumba is a form of ballroom couple dancing that originated in Cuba—now there are many styles and forms of rumba that are danced all over the world. The box step is a basic rumba form popular at parties and weddings.

  Salsa: Salsa is danced for fun at social gatherings and parties. It began in New York City, probably in the 1970s, but the roots of the dance can be traced to Cuba, Puerto Rico, and other Latin American countries. There are many different styles of salsa, and it’s almost always danced by two people.

  Celtic Dancing: In Scotland and Ireland, dancers have been performing reels and jigs and other pattern dances for many years at parties, weddings, and other gatherings. Highland and Irish step dancers often dance alone and sometimes participate in big competitions. Famous Highland dances include the sword dance and the Highland fling.