Dancing Diva

by Whoopi Goldberg

  To anyone with a dream

  Text copyright © 2012 by Whoopi Goldberg Illustrations © 2012 by Maryn Roos

  All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Jump at the Sun Books, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Jump at the Sun Books, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011-5690.

  ISBN 978-1-4231-5466-2

  Visit sugarplumballerinas.com,

  www.jumpatthesun.com, and

  www.disneyhyperionbooks.com

  E2-20200225-PDJ-PC-VAL

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epatha's Guide to Ballet Terms

  Chapter 1

  “Epatha!”

  “I’m in the kitchen, Abuela,” I say. I’m standing at the sink, where a big plastic dishpan full of bright purple dye is waiting. I carefully examine my old spaghetti-sauce-stained leotard. (When your parents own an Italian restaurant, a lot of your clothes end up with spaghetti-sauce stains.) I’ll start with the sleeves, then see what happens.

  I dip the edge of the leotard into the dye and smile as the purple creeps up into the fabric. Then I dip the other sleeve in. But finally I can’t help myself: I push the whole thing into the pan. The dye water feels nice and warm, even through the rubber gloves I’m wearing.

  I lift the leotard out. Where it was crumpled up, there are streaks of white that make cool patterns. But mostly it’s purple, purple, purple. Fabuloso!

  Abuela appears in the doorway. “Another creation, Epatha? Precioso.” She leans closer and whispers, “I think you get this flair for bold colors from me. Not from Nonna.”

  As if on cue, Nonna, my other grandmother, comes into the kitchen. She is as short and stout as Abuela is lean and graceful.

  As usual, she’s wearing all black. She waddles over to the sink.

  “Bello, Epatha. Very nice. Colori vivi brillanti—but wearing bright colors is just fine. For children,” she says, glancing at Abuela’s flaming red pantsuit.

  Here we go again. Nonna is my dad’s mom. When my grandpa died, she moved from Italy to live with us. I was just a baby then, so she’s been here as long as I can remember. Abuela is Mom’s mom. She moved here from Puerto Rico a year ago, and I think Nonna’s still mad about it. They’re always bickering about something.

  “After you clean up, maybe you’d like some mantecaditos,” Abuela says. Mantecaditos are Puerto Rican butter cookies, one of Abuela’s specialties.

  “Hmph,” Nonna grunts. “I think she would rather have some of my biscotti. And you don’t need to clean up, cara mia. You have had a busy day at school. Go, relax. I will bring you a snack.”

  “I still need to rinse this out,” I say, holding up the leotard, which is dripping purple dye into the sink.

  “I will rinse, I will rinse,” Nonna says. “Go.” She pushes me away from the sink, I guess so she can start rinsing before Abuela decides she’ll clean up after me. But Abuela’s already at the kitchen cabinet loading up a plate with cookies she baked this morning.

  I shrug. It makes them happy to do things for me, and to tell the truth, I hate cleaning up dye—it makes a big mess. So I carefully peel off my gloves and head to my room. I know that in five minutes, both grandmas will be at my door with heaping plates of cookies. I’ll eat exactly the same number of each. I made the mistake of eating more of Abuela’s once, and Nonna stomped around in a huff for days. Then, when they’re not looking, I’ll stick the rest of the cookies in my sock drawer until I can smuggle them out to my friends.

  As I head down the hallway to my room, I remember I left my backpack downstairs in our restaurant.

  When I walk through the swinging doors at the bottom of the stairs and into the restaurant kitchen, a blast of warm, garlic-scented air hits my face. One of the kitchen guys is unloading the dishwasher. The sound of clattering silverware echoes off the shiny walls.

  Bella Italia is almost empty, which isn’t unusual for this time of day; it’s only four thirty in the afternoon, and the dinner crowd won’t start drifting in for another hour or so. Mom and Dad are talking quietly in a booth. This freaks me out a little. I’m trying to think of the last time I saw both of them sitting down in the restaurant. Usually they’re doing something: filling salt shakers, straightening napkins on the tables, or sweeping up after a toddler has decided to toss sugar packets all over the floor.

  “It won’t be easy,” Dad says. “How will she get to all those rehearsals if she gets in?”

  “We can figure it out,” Mom says. “Amarah can help, now that she’s in college. Most of her classes meet before noon. And it would be too bad for Epatha to miss out just because of logistics.”

  “What are logistics?” I ask. “What are you talking about?”

  They both jump up. “Nothing, querida,” Mom says.

  “What kind of nothing?” I ask.

  “Don’t worry—it’s a good nothing,” Mom says. “You’ll find out tomorrow at your ballet class.”

  Dad bolts for the kitchen, and Mom rushes after him. I’m left in the empty room with my mouth hanging open.

  Chapter 2

  The next afternoon, I bound up the stairs of the Nutcracker School. It’s a gorgeous April day. The trees are just starting to get tiny pink buds on their branches. For the first time this year, I’m not wearing my winter coat. I look fabulosa in my new purple leotard, and I can’t wait for everyone to see it. And more importantly, I’m dying to know more about the good nothing.

  My friends are gathered in our usual corner of the waiting room. Terrel, Brenda, and one of the triplets—Jerzey Mae—are clumped together talking as they put on their ballet slippers. Jessica, another triplet, is scribbling on a piece of paper. Al and JoAnn, the third triplet, are looking at a skateboard magazine. Since JoAnn recently broke her leg on a skateboard, this surprises me.

  “Don’t tell me you’re getting back on a skateboard,” I say, dropping my dance bag on the bench. “Ragazza pazza. You’re crazy, girlfriend.”

  “I busted my leg because I tripped on my skateboard. In my room. Not because I was riding it,” JoAnn says, with exaggerated patience. I get the feeling she’s said this a few times before. Probably to her parents.

  “When she actually rides a skateboard, she wears knee pads and a helmet and stuff,” Al adds.

  “Maybe you need to wear knee pads and a helmet walking around your room,” I say.

  “Not a bad idea,” JoAnn admits. Of the triplets’ rooms, hers is always the messiest.

  Jessica glances up from her paper. She looks me up and down. “Is that leotard new?” she asks. “It’s a beautiful color.”

  I proudly turn around, displaying my fabulous, newly purple creation. “Yes,” I say. “Fresh from Epatha’s House of Dyeing.”

  Jerzey Mae’s eyes widen. “Who’s dying? Is it contagious?”

  Brenda shakes her head. “Hypochondriac a such are you.” Brenda talks backward a lot of the time. We can understand her, but grown-ups can’t, which sometimes comes in very handy.

  “
What’s a hypochondriac?” Jerzey Mae asks, alarmed.

  “Someone who thinks she’s getting sick all the time,” says Terrel. “Like you.” She puts her sneakers neatly under the bench.

  “Not dying dying, Jerzey Mae. I meant fabric dyeing,” I say impatiently, eager to get everyone’s attention back on my new creation. “Do you like the white streaks?”

  “Nice,” Terrel says. “But couldn’t you get them to go in a straight line? They’re kind of all over the place.”

  I exhale. “They’re not supposed to go in a straight line, T.,” I say. “They’re creative! They go wherever they want to! That’s the beauty of tie-dye. Straight lines are boring.”

  I sit down on the bench beside Jessica.

  “Whatcha doing?”

  “She’s writing a poem,” Jerzey Mae says. “A sonnet.”

  “A what?”

  Jessica looks up. “A sonnet. It’s a kind of poem that has fourteen lines.” She starts talking about the rhyme scheme—something about A’s and B’s and C’s—but I’m stuck on the fourteen-line business.

  “Why does it have to have fourteen lines?” I say.

  Jessica shrugs. “It just does. That’s what a sonnet is: a fourteen-line poem.”

  This sounds crazy to me. “But what if you’ve got more than fourteen lines to say? Or less than fourteen lines?”

  Jessica laughs. “That’s just the way it works, E. When you write sonnets, you’re supposed to be creative inside the rules you’re given.”

  I snort. “Creativity and rules don’t go together.”

  “Tell that to Shakespeare,” Jessica says.

  “Your rat? Why would I talk to your rat?” Shakespeare, Jessica’s white rat, once made a visit to the Nutcracker School, when the triplets’ little brother, Mason, snuck him into class, but now he’s home in his cage. I hope.

  “Not the rat. Shakespeare the playwright and poet, the man that Shakespeare the rat is named after,” Jessica says. “He wrote over a hundred sonnets, and they’re plenty creative.”

  I’m about to tell her that they’d probably have been more creative if they had had interesting numbers of lines, like seventeen or nine or forty-seven. But just then, the waiting room door opens, and our teacher, Ms. Debbé, comes in. She always dresses in a very creative way, and today is no exception. She’s all in bright blue, from the top of her turban to the tips of her shiny boots. Her son, Mr. Lester, stands beside her.

  “What’s he doing here?” Terrel whispers. Mr. Lester teaches some classes at our school, but he usually doesn’t teach us. He spends a lot of his time working at the Harlem Ballet. When Ms. Debbé was a dancer, she danced with the Harlem Ballet. I’ll bet she thinks it’s cool that now her son is a director there.

  Then it dawns on me. The nothing! I’ll bet Mr. Lester knows what it is—and I’ll bet we’re about to find out.

  Chapter 3

  “There’s some big ballet secret!” I whisper to Terrel. “I heard Mom and Dad talking about it. They said we’ll find out today, and—”

  Thump thump thump. Ms. Debbé taps her walking stick on the floor. “The class, it begins,” she says, her French accent thick as ever. She turns gracefully and heads for the studio. Mr. Lester follows her.

  We drift to the doorway and clomp up the old wooden stairs. Once inside the studio, we go straight to the barre. Mr. Lester sits on a folding chair in a back corner of the room while Ms. Debbé leads us through our warm-up exercises. This is strange at first, but after a while I forget he’s there.

  “Demi-plié! Grand plié! Demi-plié! And up!” calls Ms. Debbé.

  I stand at the barre between Terrel and Jerzey Mae, who’s gotten so much better over the past year that I can hardly believe it. She’s just as good as anyone in the class now, although every once in a while she slips back into being old Jerzey Mae, turning the wrong way and crashing into one of us.

  Even though Terrel’s a year younger than the rest of us, she’s a really good dancer. When we turn to face in the other direction, her pivot is neat and clear—no wasted movement, nothing out of place. If you saw Terrel do a hundred pliés, they’d all look exactly the same.

  That’s not how I dance. To me, dance is about being creative. You can’t do creative things with your legs while you’re pliéing, but you can do all sorts of stuff with your arms. You can hold them out straight, or add little swirly movements, or swoop them around like you’re a falcon flying through the air.

  “Not so wild, Epatha,” says Ms. Debbé. “We are doing graceful pliés, not flapping our wings.”

  She knew I was being a bird—excellent! But I try to do what she says, and for the next few pliés, I imagine my arms are as soft and gentle as dandelion fluff.

  Just as I get itchy to try something else, we move on to battement tendus, where you slide your foot on the floor and point your toe. You’re supposed to slide it straight forward, then straight to the side, then straight back. But I think it’s more interesting to trace squiggles on the floor. As I go to the side, I imagine that my foot is a fish riding on an ocean wave. Up, down, up, down…

  “Epatha!” Ms. Debbé calls. “Straight and precise, please.”

  Needless to say, Terrel’s tendus are straight and precise. “Don’t you get tired of doing the same thing over and over?” I whisper to her while Ms. Debbé is correcting a girl at the other end of the barre.

  “Don’t you get tired of having Ms. Debbé yell at you?” she says.

  “But doing the same thing is—”

  “Epatha!” Ms. Debbé calls. “Concentrate, please.”

  Terrel may have a point.

  Class goes quickly, and soon it’s almost over. I expect Ms. Debbé to start working with us on some new dances, but instead she asks us to sit on the floor. Mr. Lester joins her at the front of the room. He’s holding a stack of papers.

  “Now. There are a few exciting things,” Ms. Debbé says. “First, I want to tell you again that you did a wonderful show last week.”

  Everyone claps, and I high-five each of my friends. Last week was major drama—we thought the ballet school was going to close, but, thanks to a cat that Jessica smuggled in to the school, we found a nesting peregrine falcon on the roof and had a big benefit concert that raised tons of money. It’s kind of a long story.

  “But it seems,” Ms. Debbé continues, “that there is more excitement in store for some of you. I will let Mr. Lester tell you about it.” She moves off to the side of the room.

  Mr. Lester starts right in. “I’ve already told your parents about this, but I asked them not to say anything to you.”

  Aha—so this is the nothing! I lean forward eagerly.

  Mr. Lester continues, “The Harlem Ballet is premiering a new ballet called Springtime in Harlem this May. Most of the roles will be danced by professional dancers, but there are also some parts for girls your age.”

  Excitement floods my body. “Yeesssss!” I say out loud. Even though I’m sitting down, I do a little victory dance. “We’re gonna be ballet stars! We’re gonna be ballet stars!” I chant.

  Jessica grins.

  I don’t get in trouble, because the whole room has dissolved into chaos. Mr. Lester claps to get our attention. “As I was saying, there will be parts for a number of girls. There’s also a bigger role for one girl.”

  My hand flies up in the air. “Me! Me!”

  Mr. Lester motions for me to put my hand down. “Since this is a professional production, we’ll be choosing dancers by audition. After class on Saturday, anyone who wants can stay to learn a short routine. Then the director of the show will decide which dancers will make up the group of girls, and who will get the bigger part.”

  “Aren’t you the director?” Al asks.

  Mr. Lester shakes his head. “I’m helping out with this production, but Alfonso Tonetti will direct.” He waves the papers he’s been holding. “Being in the ballet will require extra rehearsals, and of course you must be there for all the performances. If you want to
audition, have your parents fill out this commitment form. You need to bring it back, signed, on Saturday. No exceptions.” He begins handing out the forms.

  A small, dark-haired girl raises her hand. “I’m not going to be here on Saturday. I have a birthday party to go to.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mr. Lester says. “We’re only holding auditions on Saturday. If you’re not here then, you’re out of luck.”

  The girl opens and closes her mouth like a fish, but she takes a commitment form anyway. So do all my friends.

  A professional ballet! I can just see it now. There I am, in a beautiful costume, dancing under the spotlight. As we finish, the entire theater—and I’ll bet the Harlem Ballet theater is pretty big—explodes in applause. People run forward with huge bouquets of flowers for us. I take a solo bow as people cheer and scream…

  “Epatha!” Terrel says, sharply.

  I look around. The studio is empty. Even our friends have gone.

  “Where the heck have you been?” she asks. “Off in la-la land?”

  I stand up quickly. “I was just thinking.” I run to the side of the room to grab my bag, and then we walk out together. “Are you going to audition?”

  “Of course,” Terrel says. She doesn’t even ask if I’m going to audition. She knows.

  I feel bad for a second. Terrel and I are the best dancers in the class. But she dances like a mechanical doll. Everything she does is precise and perfect. But I dance with emotion and feeling, like the dance moves are building up inside me and have to come out. I’m sure that a professional ballet company is going to want someone who dances with true feeling for the starring role. That’s me. I hope Terrel won’t be too disappointed.

  Chapter 4

  The week seems to drag on forever, but finally Saturday arrives. We have class as usual; and then Ms. Debbé tells us that anyone who wants to audition should wait in the studio. She says that Mr. Lester and Mr. Tonetti have been held up in traffic, but are on their way.

  Only about two-thirds of the class stays, probably because the rehearsal schedule is a bit intense. That’s what I overheard Mom and Dad talking about. My friends and I are lucky. Our parents can trade off taking us to rehearsals—that is, if we all get into the show. I cross my fingers hard.