Katarina Ballerina

by Tiler Peck

  Katarina smiled at the vision in her head. “I think I’ll dance a ballet solo.”

  Amelie cocked her head at Katarina. “I didn’t know you danced.”

  “She’s been teaching herself,” Grant explained. “She’s pretty good.”

  “But…” Michael frowned in confusion. “Don’t you have to take, like, years and years of classes to do ballet? It’s not just like dancing along to music on the radio or something.”

  “Yeah,” Amelie said. “Are you sure you want to dance in front of the whole school if you’re just starting to learn how? I never would have played the piano in front of everyone when I was only a beginner.”

  Katarina’s beautiful vision was dissolving before her eyes. What if Amelie and Michael were right? What if she got up and danced in front of the whole school and made a fool of herself? Practicing ballet in her room at night alongside videos on the internet wasn’t real dance training. What if she did the talent show and everyone laughed at her? She might never feel like she fit in at school again, and the last thing she wanted was to feel like more of an outsider with her turned-in toes and curly hair. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t,” she said, her heart sinking into her stomach. “I doubt I could win anyway.”

  “Well, I think you should!” Grant protested. “You really love dancing, so who cares if you win or not?”

  “Do you really think I should?” Katarina asked.

  “Heck yeah, I do!” Grant said. “You can’t sign up until tomorrow morning anyway. Promise you’ll at least think about it?”

  Katarina nodded. She would definitely be thinking about it, probably all day long. “I will.”

  Chapter 3

  KATARINA HAD NO trouble keeping her promise to Grant. Not only did she think about whether or not to enter the talent show all day, but she thought about it all night, too. She tossed and turned so much that Lulu, who always spent the night at her feet, finally jumped off the bed and curled up on the carpet to get some sleep. Katarina’s mind wouldn’t stop racing. Grant was right that she loved ballet more than almost anything in the world, and the idea of showing everyone what she’d been working on all this time, while scary, was also really exciting. After all, if she wanted to be a real ballerina, she had to start dancing in front of people sometime, right? And if she won the prize money, she was sure her dad would let her start taking real ballet lessons.

  But she couldn’t quite shake her doubts, either. All she knew about ballet was what she’d picked up from videos on the internet and in the window at Electro-Land. What if she wasn’t any good? What if her classmates made fun of her? Katarina growled and jammed her pillow over her head.

  * * *

  “Katarina! Time to get up!” Her dad’s voice filtered through her fuzzy head and the pillow she was still buried under. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, looking at the light streaming in through her bedroom window, and wondered when she’d finally fallen asleep.

  “Hey, sleepyhead,” her dad said when she staggered into the kitchen. He handed her a glass of apple juice. “How’d you sleep?”

  As Katarina sat down at the kitchen table and sipped her juice, she thought about the hours she’d spent debating about the talent show in her head and the dream she’d had when she finally did fall asleep. Stef and Darci had been chasing her through the halls of the school, and she’d struggled to run away from them in ballet slippers that were as big and floppy on her feet as clown shoes.

  “Not great,” she said.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “But maybe this will cheer you up. I made your favorite, huevos rancheros!”

  Katarina brightened a little. She might not know what to do about the talent show, but her dad did make the best huevos rancheros. Actually, practically everything he made was the best. He worked at a real estate firm, but he was always talking about how he wished he could open up a restaurant of his own instead.

  Her dad handed her a brightly colored plate and then sat beside her to eat breakfast. “Are you okay, honey?” he asked. “You seem like you’ve been a little distracted.”

  Katarina sighed and speared a tomato with her fork. “I guess I have a dilemma.”

  “Want to tell me about it?” he asked. “Maybe I can help.”

  Katarina took a bite of the huevos rancheros. The eggs were fluffy and the salsa was sharp and flavorful but not too spicy. It was perfect.

  “Why did you decide to become a real estate broker instead of a chef?” she asked. “That’s what you really wanted to do, right?”

  He nodded. “I even went to culinary school for a year. But, well, life got complicated. It just made more sense for me to have a regular nine-to-five job than to try to open up a restaurant like I wanted to when I was young.”

  “Were you scared of failing?” Katarina asked, imagining herself falling onstage as she tried to do some ballet move and all of her classmates laughing at her.

  “I guess that was part of it,” he said. “What’s this about?”

  “There’s something I want to do,” she said, “but I’m scared it won’t go well. What if people make fun of me?”

  “Do you love this thing the way I love cooking?”

  She nodded.

  He covered her hand with his own. “Then you should do it. I wish I had learned to follow my heart and take chances when I was your age. If something makes you happy, you should do it no matter what anyone else says. Except… this thing isn’t illegal, is it?”

  Katarina laughed. “No!”

  “Just checking,” he said with a grin. “Then I say go for it!”

  “Okay,” Katarina said, her heart feeling suddenly light. “I’m going to!”

  “That’s my girl,” he said. “Now eat up before it gets cold.”

  Katarina was so happy with her decision to enter the talent show that she danced all the way to school, Lulu right on her heels. She got some strange looks as she skipped and twirled her way down the sidewalks, but she didn’t care what anyone else thought. She loved dancing, so she was going to do it! She gave Lulu a kiss goodbye at the corner by Mr. Rajan’s bodega and then practiced her leaps—which ballet dancers called “jetés”—all the way into the school. She pushed open the door to the front office and pirouetted her way inside, stopping only when she reached the desk.

  “Good morning, Miss Chen!” she said to the secretary. “I’m here to sign up for the talent show!”

  “Well, I can see that!” Miss Chen said, sliding the clipboard with the talent show sign-up list toward her. “I’m guessing you’ll be dancing for us?”

  “That’s right!” Katarina said, writing her name down on the list. “I’m going to do a ballet solo.”

  “I look forward to seeing it, dear,” Miss Chen said. “Now, you’d better dance off to class before the bell rings!”

  Normally Katarina liked school, but she couldn’t wait for the day to be over so that she could get home and start working. She’d never put together an actual dance routine before; she’d always just followed along with ballet videos or danced however the music she was listening to made her feel. But she knew that wouldn’t work for the talent show. She needed to have a dance memorized, which meant picking a song and choreographing a routine. She struggled to pay attention to the lessons Mrs. Piskin was teaching because ideas for her routine kept running through her head, and her toes kept dancing underneath her desk no matter how hard she tried to stop them.

  “So, I decided I’m going to do the talent show,” she told her friends as they sat down in the cafeteria for lunch.

  “That’s awesome!” Grant said, grinning. “You’re going to do great. I just know it.”

  “You think?” Katarina asked. “I’m excited, but I’m still pretty nervous, too.”

  “Yeah, you’ll be amazing,” Amelie said.

  “But I haven’t taken lots of real ballet classes or anything,” Katarina said, remembering what Amelie had said the day before.

  Michael shrugged. “Who c
ares about that? I haven’t taken any juggling classes, but I’m still going to win that grand prize.”

  “Ha!” Amelie said. “That’s what you think. You’ll have to come through me to get it!”

  “And me!” Katarina added.

  “Me too!” Grant chimed in.

  “Did you even come up with a talent yet?” Michael asked.

  “Nope, but when I do, it’s going to be great!” he said, and they all laughed.

  As soon as school was over, Katarina and Lulu ran home so Katarina could get started on her dance routine. The talent show was the next Friday, and there was no time to waste if she wanted to win that prize!

  The first thing she needed to do was pick a piece of music to dance to. Katarina had dozens of YouTube videos of beautiful ballet dances saved on her iPad, and she started scrolling through them, looking for just the right piece of music. After a little too long watching other ballerinas dance, she realized she’d known her perfect song all along: “Waltz of the Flowers.” Her mom had always played and hummed it, and it was a special song for both of them. Her mom had loved dancing to it as well. Having a little reminder of her mom with her during the show made Katarina smile. Plus, the song made her feet itch to dance, which she figured was a good sign!

  Her dad wouldn’t be home for at least another hour, so Katarina played the song at top volume and began to dance along. At first she just moved however the music made her feel, twirling up high on her toes when the music sounded light and joyful, moving her arms gracefully, like she was painting a big, beautiful picture. She spun with the beat of the music. Lulu even joined in, prancing around at Katarina’s feet as she danced. Slowly, Katarina began to create a routine made up of her own moves and things she had learned from watching ballet videos online.

  She was doing a spin when she caught sight of herself in the mirror that hung on the door of her closet. She frowned at the image looking back at her. That person didn’t look like a real ballerina at all! She was wearing a striped hoodie and scuffed sneakers and had a wild cloud of curls around her face. The next thing Katarina needed was a costume.

  Luckily, she was surrounded by inspiration. For months she’d been collecting pictures of ballerinas from magazines and getting her dad to print her favorite images off the internet at his office. There were dozens of paper ballerinas stuck to the walls of her bedroom, and she studied them. They were all a little different, but most of them had the same costume pieces in common: a leotard, a tutu, and toe shoes tied with ribbons.

  Of course, Katarina didn’t have any of those things. But she was pretty sure she could make something just like them!

  Taking a deep breath and bracing herself, Katarina threw open the door of her closet and a small avalanche of clothes and belongings came tumbling out. She knew, somewhere in all of this, she had a red swimsuit that had sleeves. She’d gotten it last summer to take swimming lessons at the YMCA. The suit would make a great leotard for her ballet costume. All she had to do… was find it.

  Katarina began combing through the pile. Lulu helped, digging through the clothes with her paws.

  “Maybe Dad’s right,” Katarina told Lulu. “Maybe it isn’t a good idea to just shove things into my closet whenever he tells me to clean my room.”

  Lulu barked.

  “Ooh!” Katarina said, spotting something. It wasn’t the swimsuit, though. It was a pair of pink shoes that she wore sometimes when she needed to dress up in a nice outfit. If she squinted at them, they almost looked like a ballerina’s pointe shoes. All they needed were ribbons.…

  There! Hanging above her head was a dress she hadn’t worn in ages, and it had a pink satin ribbon that went around the waist. The pink shoes and the satin ribbon, with the help of some scissors and thread, would make the perfect ballet slippers.

  Katarina dug a bit more. She’d kind of forgotten what was in her closet! As she moved over an old soccer ball, she saw a box in the back. Curious, she grabbed the box, carefully lifting the lid and pushing aside some tissue paper.

  Nestled in the wrapping was a pair of old, worn toe shoes. The ribbons were frayed, and the shoes were scuffed from lots of use. Katarina gingerly took out one shoe, holding it in the palms of her hands. She saw two initials in the back of the shoe.

  They were her mother’s.

  For a second, Katarina couldn’t believe it. She didn’t even know that her dad had hung on to them. And how did they get in the back of her closet?

  Maybe it was a sign that she was on the right track.

  After putting the shoes back—carefully, on a shelf this time—Katarina renewed her search, even more determined than ever to create her look.

  Finally, under a box of old Nancy Drew books, Katarina found her red swimsuit. It would make a perfect leotard.

  All that was left was the tutu—the hardest part. As much junk as there was in her closet, Katarina knew there was no tutu hidden in there.

  She had to get creative.

  Katarina wandered from room to room, looking for anything she could make into a tutu.

  “What about this?” she said to Lulu as they searched the bathroom, grabbing the fluffy blue loofah from its hook in the shower. “It kind of looks like a tutu, doesn’t it?”

  Lulu just stared back at her.

  “Except it’s really small,” Katarina said, her heart sinking. “I’d need, like, a hundred of them to make a tutu big enough for me to wear. Let’s keep looking.”

  There was nothing promising in the rest of the bathroom or the living room. She found one possibility in the kitchen—a box of coffee filters—but although they were frilly and stiff like a tutu, they presented the same problem as the loofah. She’d need a lot of them to make something she could actually wear. Katarina decided to put the problem of the tutu aside for a little while. She was sure she’d figure something out before next Friday.

  Instead, she got the tiny sewing kit down from the top shelf of the linen closet. Time to make her ballet slippers. She cut the thick satin ribbon from her old dress into four thinner ribbons. Then she sewed them to the sides of her pink shoes, crisscrossed the ribbons up her feet and ankles, and tied them in a bow, just the way the ballerinas in the pictures on her walls had done. She stood up and looked at herself in the mirror.

  “Wow, Lulu!” she said, stretching one foot out in front of her and pointing her toe. “I look just like a real ballerina!”

  Chapter 4

  KATARINA WORKED EVERY day on her dance routine for the talent show. She told her dad about the show so he could be sure to be there, but she wouldn’t tell him what she’d be performing. She wanted to see the look on his face when she surprised everyone with her ballet skills.

  The weekend before the talent show, Katarina and her dad went to her baby cousin’s birthday party in Brooklyn. As Katarina was wrapping the teddy bear they’d bought for her in tissue paper before putting it in the sparkly pink gift bag they’d take to the party, inspiration hit her.

  “Lulu,” she whispered so her dad, who was just in the other room, wouldn’t overhear. “Look at this tissue paper!” She folded the light, crinkly paper like an accordion and held it to her waist. She jumped up and down a few times and the paper fluttered prettily. “If I could get a lot of this, it would make a pretty good tutu, wouldn’t it?”

  When she’d finished wrapping the gift, she hid the rest of the tissue paper in her bedroom. And after her cousin had opened all of her presents, leaving bows and wrapping paper strewn across the apartment, Katarina walked around picking up every sheet of tissue paper.

  “Thank you, Katarina!” her aunt Marie said. “You’re so sweet to help clean up.”

  “Oh, uh, you bet!” Katarina replied. She happily took the trash bag Aunt Marie handed her. Cleaning up the mess was a small price to pay for getting all the tutu materials she needed! While she tossed the wrapping paper and ribbons into the trash bag, she picked up the tissue paper she collected, carefully straightened out the wrinkles, folded it neatly, a
nd stashed it in her bag.

  When she got home, she cut the elastic waistband off of an old Halloween costume she’d never wear again, borrowed her dad’s stapler, and began accordion folding the pieces of tissue paper she’d found. There were a dozen pieces of paper, and when she’d stapled them all to the elastic, she had a beautiful pink, shimmery tutu that she was sure looked as good as any costume a professional ballerina had ever worn. She couldn’t wait for the talent show.

  And she didn’t have to wait long. The days seemed to fly by until the day of the talent show suddenly arrived!

  Katarina tried to pay attention in school that day, but she was so nervous and excited that she couldn’t think about anything other than the talent show. When it was her turn to read her book report on Charlotte’s Web for the class, she accidentally started to read her history paper on how the Eiffel Tower was built instead. Then at lunch she grabbed what she thought was an apple out of the lunchbox her dad had packed for her. She bit into it, realizing only once she was chewing that it was actually an orange. She spit out the bitter mouthful of orange peel, and her friends laughed.

  “Are you a little distracted, Katarina?” Amelie asked.

  Katarina laughed too. “Just a little.”

  The four hours between when classes let out and when she headed back to the school were torture. She tried to practice but ended up just pacing the apartment until it was time for her and her dad to leave.

  “So, are you ready for your performance?” her dad asked as they walked up the front steps of the school, Katarina carefully carrying her ballet costume in a large plastic bag.

  “I think so!” Katarina said. It felt eerie being in the school after hours, with only the light from the streetlamps coming in through the windows.

  “Are you going to tell me what you’re planning to do now?” he asked as they made their way to the auditorium, where they heard the hum of a crowd.