I Forgot to Tell You

by Charis Marsh

  “That was really fast,” Julian said, surprised.

  Taylor shrugged. “Acting auditions are way different than ballet auditions,” she said. “Like, they don’t care about everything, so they don’t need you to stay and take class for two hours. The lady just told me to do whatever I wanted for a few minutes, and there was no music. I did an arabesque and some fouettes.”

  “So weird.”

  “Julian Reese.” Julian got up and walked into the room, resisting the urge to nervously twist his hands.

  “Julian?” The lady behind the desk smiled at him. “How are you?”

  “Good.”

  “Okay then, now what we’re doing here is pretty straightforward: there are two dancers, a hip-hop dancer, and a ballet dancer, and they’re rehearsing really late at night and things start to get crazy.”

  “Okay.”

  “So, are you a ballet dancer or a hip-hop dancer?”

  “Ballet.”

  “Can you do hip hop? You said on your form that you’ve been dancing for quite a while, so you should be able to do hip hop, right?”

  “Er —” Julian felt lost in the face of such irrational logic. “I can definitely try if you want.”

  “Okay then. When you’re ready.”

  Julian stood there, waiting for some further instruction. “So like — just start dancing hip hop? Now?”

  “Yes.”

  Julian started to dance what little he could recall of the few hip hop moves he had learned, feeling incredibly awkward doing it to no music. He was very close to the table where the people watching him were. It felt very odd to be trying to do hip hop in ballet clothing and shoes. After a few seconds he gave up and just stepped into a pirouette and then slid into the splits, grinning. He stood up.

  “Thank you for coming out.”

  “Thanks,” Julian replied, then left the room.

  “How was it?” Charlize asked as they left the audition area.

  “I have no idea,” Julian said honestly. “I think that might be one of the weirdest things I have ever done in my life, and I have done some pretty weird stuff. Did I ever tell you guys about the time when I was little when my mom took me to one of her Wicca Womyn’s gatherings and they were all dancing naked under the full moon?”

  “No,” Charlize said, laughing. “Don’t tell me that was less weird than this.”

  “Okay, maybe not,” Julian conceded. “But it was coming up pretty close. I was doing hip hop in ballet shorts and ballet shoes, to no music.”

  “Was it fun, though?”

  Julian thought, and then he began to grin. “Yeah, it kinda was,” he decided. “It was fun.” They got in the car and drove back to the academy.

  Theresa accosted them as soon as they got in the doors of the academy. “Quickly, quickly,” she said. “There’s a space free upstairs. Come on, Mrs. Demidovski wants to see it soon.” They ran upstairs and into the small empty studio.

  “Were you waiting for us this whole time, Theresa?” Julian asked, surprised.

  “Of course,” Theresa said, sounding shocked that they had supposed that she wouldn’t. “I want you two to get this. Now, Taylor, come here. We are going to have to work very fast. You are going to have to be very smart for me, all right, princess? From here, no! Your hand goes here — Julian, can you be a love and run the CD player for me?”

  In an all too short amount of time, they had to go downstairs and join the large rehearsal. Mrs. Demidovski came up to them, looking worried. “You ready? You are going to be good?”

  “Yes,” Taylor said, sounding more confident than she felt.

  “Good. Don’t let Mrs. Demidovski down.” They walked into the room, and immediately could feel the sweat, so thick in the air that Julian could picture them being in Borneo. He wondered what kind of dances they had in Borneo. He’d like to go to Borneo one day, that’d be cool — or name a dance Borneo. Borneo, Borneo — it sounded like Romeo. Okay, that was it, it was way too hot. He unscrewed the cap on his water bottle and poured some into his mouth, but his cheeks were already rosy pink.

  Mrs. Demidovski went up to the front of the room and started to talk quietly to Mr. Moretti, who started to frown.

  Julian drank some more water and hiccupped. He began to stretch, the humidity made his body feel like elastic. It was great, as long as he didn’t faint. “Why is it so hot in here?” he whispered to Tristan at the side of the room.

  “I don’t know,” Tristan whispered back. “I think the thermostat or whatever controls the heating thingy might be broken.”

  “Taylor, Julian,” Mr. Moretti said angrily. “Mrs. Demidovski wants me to see you two dance the pas de deux you have been rehearsing.”

  Julian gulped and looked at Taylor. She looked just as nervous on the outside as he felt. Around them everyone had turned to look at them, and the heat made them look annoyed and unforgiving.

  “Quickly,” Mr. Moretti snapped. “Show me.”

  Julian looked back at Taylor, and then he began to grin. He’d forgotten; this was a weird day, nothing that happened really mattered. He was too hot, too tired, and felt too strange to be nervous. “Come on, Tay,” he said. “Let’s do this.”

  Chapter Seven

  Kaitlyn Wardle

  You know you’re cool when your iTunes most played list has Tchaikovsky and Delibes at the top :p

  Kaitlyn was not one of those people who liked to break the rules. She believed that rules were there for a purpose, and liked following them; it made her feel more important than those who didn’t. Sometimes, however, she was forced to break the rules. Like yesterday, when she had lied to some old dance friends. She stood in the room of Social Studies students, giving a presentation on Canadian pioneers that her mother had written for her, and let her brain drift off to what had happened yesterday.

  She had been talking to students from her old school, and of course they had asked her if they could watch her in Coppelia. She had told them that she didn’t know when it was yet, or anything really about it, which was a lie; what she didn’t know was if she was going to be dancing Swanhilda or not. After everyone had found out that Grace had probably not deserved to get the role, she had thought that she would get it, but now she just didn’t know. Nobody did. Even Taylor had been dancing the role the other day — what was next, little Chloe doing the role? Taylor probably wasn’t going to do it, she was still not that strong, but the point was that they had been considering her.

  Her teacher asked her a question on one of the PowerPoint slides that she had been showing, and Kaitlyn stared at her blankly. “I don’t know,” she said.

  She clicked the next slide; it had the answer. “Oh, it’s here.”

  Her teacher looked unimpressed. “See me after class, Kaitlyn. Everyone, I would like to remind you that you should be doing your own work, not your tutor, not your parents, not whoever you could bribe to do it.”

  Kaitlyn blushed. “I did do it.”

  “Continue your presentation, Kaitlyn. We’ll talk after class.”

  Kaitlyn was so unimpressed as she walked out of McKinley. Her teacher had zero proof, so all she had gotten was a pointless lecture, and now she was going to be late for class if she didn’t hurry up. Why were adults so annoying sometimes? She walked up to the bus stop, and saw to her surprise that Alexandra was also waiting there. “Hey, Lexi,” she said shyly. “How come you’re late?”

  Alexandra groaned. “Had to go see my counsellor. I have to do a couple of online courses in the summer, which is going to be so much fun to try and do while I’m at summer intensives.”

  “How come?”

  “I’m missing some courses that I need to fulfil for Human Kinetics at UBC.”

  Kaitlyn stared at her, confused. “What? Why do you need to do that for? Aren’t you going to be auditioning next year?”

  “Yeah,” Alexandra said. “But I still want to have everything ready in case. I think I want to do Human Kinetics if end up going to university, so I need to d
o these courses.”

  “Oh.” Kaitlyn thought about that as they waited for the bus. She was going to be in grade ten next year, and Mr. Briggs had said that they were going to be planning their courses for next year soon. She had never thought about what she wanted to take in university. She didn’t really like anything in school, and she’d never really thought about it; she was going to be a dancer, she didn’t need to. The bus pulled up and they got on.

  “How come you picked Human Kinetics?” she asked Alexandra, sitting carefully on the seat next to her.

  Alexandra shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “I kind of like everything a lot, and Human Kinetics seems the most natural thing to do after dance — and if I aim for Human Kinetics and then I apply and don’t get in, it’s easier to get into arts.” She opened up a small container of yogurt.

  “Is that soy?” Kaitlyn asked, wrinkling her nose.

  “Yes,” Alexandra said, shrugging. “It’s good — I’ve been thinking about trying to go vegan.”

  “I could never do that,” Kaitlyn said feelingly.

  Alexandra didn’t bother to answer, and to Kaitlyn’s embarrassment she put on her headphones and began reading To Say Nothing of the Dog instead of talking to Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn began to eat her crackers and cheese. Her mother had finally decided that she could be in charge of her own lunch once she discovered that Kaitlyn was eating other stuff anyway.

  Everyone else was already in the studio, so Kaitlyn hurried downstairs. Stupid teacher. At least she had contemporary with Sequoia for first class, so she didn’t have to put her hair up. She changed into a bodysuit and tights, pulled a pair of black shorts over top, and ran up to the class. “Sorry I’m late,” she said as she walked in.

  “No problem,” Sequoia said brightly. Sequoia had liked Kaitlyn a lot less ever since she hadn’t shown up to YAGP. She had clearly been looking forward to the exposure that Kaitlyn’s performance of her choreography would have given her. “We have just started working on a piece for June Show.”

  Kaitlyn stared at her, confused. “There are going to be two contemporary pieces in June Show?” she asked slowly. People had already been cast for the contemporary dance that the professional program students always did in the recreational students’ end of year showcase.

  “What do you mean two?” Sequoia asked sharply.

  “Well, Leah is doing a small one — just a few people are in that one, though.”

  The room was very silent as everyone watched Sequoia process this information. It seemed to come as quite a shock to her, and she folded herself into a cross-legged position, stretched out her hands, and chanted, “Om, Hiranya varnam harinim/Suvarna rajatasrajam/Chandraam hiranmayim/Lakshmim jatavedo ma avaha.”

  Her students watched her, not particularly surprised by her outburst. Sequoia’s eyes suddenly popped open, and she redid her blond ponytail with firm hands. “Well. I didn’t know that Leah was teaching at the academy now. I assumed that I would be the one to choreograph your contemporary piece, as I am your contemporary teacher — but I supposed that is too logical for the academy.”

  Her students watched her, warily. They had never seen her lose it before, and she looked dangerously close to it.

  “I suppose they didn’t feel the need to let me know that they weren’t going to use my work,” she continued.

  Her lip trembled. Kaitlyn watched her, eyebrows raised.

  “Nobody seems upset that I won’t be choreographing your dance,” Sequoia added in a tremulous voice.

  Nobody dared to speak. None of them liked Sequoia’s class: Tristan, Alexandra, and Anna hadn’t even bothered to show up today. It was a standing — and not particularly funny — joke that she had the most boring class in the world.

  “I do my best,” Sequoia said, and then her face collapsed and she began to cry. “Why does everyone hate me? We should be supporting each other; I support you guys as artists, why don’t you support me?”

  Because you aren’t any good, Kaitlyn answered her silently. She looked around; nobody seemed to know what to do.

  “Should I go get Mrs. Demidovski?” Jessica asked. Nobody answered, and Jessica ran out of the room, appearing a few minutes later with that solver of all problems, Gabriel.

  “Ah, ah, what is this?” he said uncomfortably. “Don’t be upset in front of the children.”

  “Gabriel,” Sequoia wailed, falling into Gabriel’s arms. He held her awkwardly, fully cognizant of the legal issues involved with hugging attractive contemporary teachers. “Did you know, I’m not choreographing the contemporary dance for them, Leah is! She doesn’t even teach at the academy.”

  “There, there,” Gabriel reassured her, patting her awkwardly on the back. He appeared to think that acting English was the best way to handle the situation. “Do you want some tea?”

  “Yes,” Sequoia said, rubbing her wet nose. “Do you have any organic tea?”

  “Hmm — yes,” Gabriel lied quickly. “Come along to the office, I will make you some nice organic tea.”

  The students stared at each other as she left. “Well, that was my favourite class that she’s taught all year,” Keiko said dryly.

  Kaitlyn giggled. “Me, too.”

  “Why did you get her to do your contemporary solo then?” Taylor asked quickly.

  “Mr. Demidovski basically forced me into it. He wanted her to feel welcome. And I didn’t realize how bad she was when I agreed.”

  They sat in silence for a moment, registering the tragedy of being tricked into having Sequoia choreograph your solo.

  Tristan popped his head in the door. “Hey, I just saw Sequoia in the office, crying at poor Gabriel. What happened?”

  Kaitlyn shrugged. “She just found out that Leah was choreographing the contemporary piece, and she freaked out.”

  “Ha-ha, awesome.” Tristan laughed. He still hadn’t forgiven Sequoia for telling him that he had to get in touch with his masculine side during the first class she had taught at the academy. “Get over here then. Anna’s here with everyone’s Yumiko orders, and she won’t let me open the box until you guys are there.” The room emptied swiftly with everyone wanting to see their orders.

  Kaitlyn walked more slowly after them. She hadn’t ordered anything this time. “Kaitlyn, look!” Taylor said, spinning around. She was wearing a hot-pink halter bodysuit with lime green edging, and Kaitlyn had to blink to look at her. “Wow.”

  “Good wow or bad wow?”

  “Good. You look like Barbie.”

  Taylor pouted. “I don’t.”

  “You do.”

  “Old Barbie, or new one?”

  “Uh, I didn’t know that there were two.”

  Tristan was pirouetting in his new stretchy green shirt with its orange stripes. Mr. Yu walked past them and then backed up. “Not uniform,” he said, frowning.

  Tristan nodded. “Isn’t it cool?”

  “Hm,” Mr. Yu said, his lip quivering with the effort of not laughing. “Cool? Okay, okay — you go change into uniform before class.” He walked off.

  “I hate uniform,” Tristan sighed.

  “I know.” Kaitlyn’s bodysuit had stretched out since September, and where it had been a nice dark colour, it was now faded. She’d had to knot up the straps to keep it from falling down her chest when she danced.

  Tristan suddenly climbed up on the top of the table in the lunch room and held out his brightly coloured water bottle as if about to propose a toast. “As everyone knows,” he began, “Anna has left the academy. It’s very tragic.” He paused, and everyone clapped automatically, Anna laughing. “Now,” Tristan began again, “as Anna will probably not want to continue bringing us our Yumiko fixes, this leaves a very important post empty. I would like to nominate myself for that post. All in favour of me being the new Yumi-boy, raise your hand.”

  They all raised their hands, including Anna.

  “All right then,” Tristan said, keeping a straight face. “I propose to take over my duties in June. Thank
you for your support everyone.” He hopped off the table.

  “Future politician in the making,” Alexandra said sarcastically.

  “I’d make an excellent politician.” Tristan grinned, looking like a cross between Jim Carrey and a Disney kid. “Look at this smile. I’d have everyone’s vote.”

  “Uh-huh,” Alexandra said.

  “I’d vote for you,” Julian laughed. “You’d just have to do a few things for me first.”

  Tristan put his hands on his hips and stared at an imaginary list in the air. “Hm. Legalize marijuana. Done. Moon Stephen Harper. Double done.”

  “It’s like you can read my mind,” Julian laughed.

  “Well, it’s pretty easy.” Tristan winked. “There’s not much to it.”

  “Hey!”

  Cromwell Gilly came around the corner and stopped, staring at them. His face lit up like someone had given him a new sewing machine. “Don’t all of you have class?”

  “Our teacher is currently in the middle of a nervous breakdown,” Alexandra explained, swinging her legs as she sat on the counter of the academy’s mini dance-supply store. “We have ballet in half an hour, though.”

  “Boys,” Cromwell Gilly said immediately, “go down and get the blue trunks on the left of the costume room door. We can get your costumes sorted out now.”

  Tristan, Kageki, Jonathon, and Julian went downstairs to grab the trunks.

  Cromwell Gilly flung open the doors of the large studio and proceeded to attempt to sort them. “People who are just dancing Villagers, here. Who is dancing flower pas? Who is Swanhilda?”

  There was a very dramatic silence. “Doesn’t anyone know what they are dancing?” Cromwell Gilly asked, exasperated.

  “Well, no,” Alexandra said quietly, “we don’t really. It’s a bit of a long story.”

  “I hate the Demidovskis,” Cromwell Gilly moaned. He sank to the floor, sitting there as he thought, tapping his exceptionally lovely leather shoes on the floor. The boys came up with the trunks. “Set them over on the side,” Cromwell Gilly said. “All right, here is what is going to happen: everyone who might possibly be playing Swanhilda, stand on the side, everyone else go pick a costume and only share it with someone who is dancing a different cast than you.” Cromwell Gilly waited patiently for them to do as he asked. To his surprise Alexandra, Kaitlyn, Grace, Taylor, and Aiko all were waiting at the side. He frowned. “You can’t all be potentially Swanhilda?” he exclaimed. “That’s five of you, and the show is in, what, a month?”