And All That Jazz (3 page)

On Saturday after dance class I decided to take ownership of the kitchen.

First I searched the fridge for vegetables. Then I went to the freezer and got out some crumbed fish – it said lemon flavour and I don't really like lemon, but sometimes you gotta make sacrifices. Then I went through the pantry and dragged out all the healthy-looking food I could find.

Mum came in, of course, and ruined it. It was her own fault because she told me she was teaching BodyPump all day at the gym. ‘What's burning?' she yelled as she came down the hall. ‘Eleanor? What are you up to?'

‘What are you up to?' Lucas mimicked behind her.

I was mashing up a banana when she came into the kitchen.

‘My god, Eleanor!' she said. ‘What are you doing? It looks like a bomb went off in here. Where's your dad?'

‘He's in the garden,' I said. ‘Not now, Mum.'

‘What do you mean, not now?' Mum asked. ‘Did he say you could do this?'

‘He didn't say I couldn't,' I said.

Mum crossed her arms. ‘Eleanor.'

‘I've got a dance competition coming up!' I said. ‘Miss Caroline gave me a solo! I need to be healthy and strong or I won't win. I heard some of the older girls talking at Silver Shoes this morning. They called this the “Raw Food Diet”, where you only eat raw foods. And it flushes out toxins.'

‘Oh, Eleanor,' said Mum. ‘You don't even know what toxins are!' She screwed up her nose and ran over to the grill, where I was cooking the fish. Well, more like burning it.

‘Eleanor, you can't cook fish at 280 degrees,' she said. ‘And a piece of cooked fish isn't exactly raw food, is it?'

‘I'm not eating raw fish!' I squealed. ‘Gross!' I went fishing with my uncle once and I'll never forget that cold slimy fish looking up at me from the bucket, blood and ooze dribbling from its mouth. Now I can only eat fish if it comes in the finger variety.

‘The girls said salmon is the healthiest fish you can eat,' I said. ‘We only had these fish fingers, so I used them.'

‘Well, they're burnt fingers now,' said Mum, as she switched the grill off and threw the fish in the bin.

‘Mum!' I said. ‘Look at this mess!' she said.

I looked around. The benchtop was covered in half-chopped vegetables, opened packets of nuts, and jars labelled with names like ‘quinoa'. Sure, a lot of the contents were on the bench and not actually in the jars, but it wasn't that bad. Oh, and then there was a puddle around the blender where I'd pressed the wrong setting and the lid had come off instead of mashing up all the ingredients.

Lucas dipped a finger into the mix before Mum could stop him. ‘Yuck,' he said. ‘Tastes like poo.'

‘How would you know what poo tastes like?' I said.

‘Eleanor, clean this up,' said Mum.

‘But I have to eat it!' I complained.

They were right, though. It really didn't look nice. And maybe it didn't taste like poo, but it sure smelled that way.

‘Don't be a goose,' Mum said, wiping Lucas' hands with a towel. ‘You don't need to go on a silly diet. You're ten years old. You're fit and strong as you are, and you eat healthy meals every night for dinner. I should know. I make them myself.'

‘Can we have sausages for tea?' asked Lucas, as if that was the right moment to be putting in dinner requests.

‘Maybe,' Mum told him.

‘I'm hungry,' I said. ‘I have to eat something.'

‘Look,' said Mum, ‘clean this mess up and I'll make you some pancakes for lunch.'

Cheater. She knew pancakes were my favourite food.

‘I want pancakes!' said Lucas.

‘Mum,' I said. ‘I'm supposed to be eating
raw
food.'

‘I'll put some berries on top,' she said. ‘That is, if you haven't used them all in this mess.' She poked around until she found a mixed punnet of strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. ‘Success!'

‘Success!' mimicked Lucas. ‘Pancakes, pancakes!'

‘Well?' said Mum. ‘Do we have a deal?'

‘I guess,' I said, trying not to sound too enthusiastic.

‘Go and find your dad,' Mum said. ‘Maybe he'll want some as well.'

‘I want to find him too!' said Lucas. ‘Give me a piggyback, Ellie.'

‘Jump on,' I said, and we headed out to look for dad.

I'm not gonna lie, I was kind of relieved. Pancakes sounded a whole lot better than the mush that had been sitting in the blender before me.

Do you ever have that feeling when you're exercising so hard you actually start to feel a bit sick? It's like all your lazy parts are hanging out in your throat, ready to come up.

That was me at dance rehearsal.

Miss Caroline was teaching me my solo. She'd choreographed this really high-energy jazz number, sort of cabaret style. I was a cancan dancer, and I had feathers and a hoop
that I had to fit into the routine. I really didn't want to drop the hoop. Imagine if that rolled off the stage and hit one of the judges in the face? How awful. Hopefully if I did drop the hoop it would roll off the stage and trip up Jasmine instead.

The steps in my dance weren't too complicated, but trying to use my props was the tricky part.

‘You have a very special energy and a great face for dance, Ellie,' Miss Caroline said. ‘And you're very theatrical. When you have a solo where you can act through the steps, you really shine. So in this solo I want to see lots of personality, you've really got to sell the character.'

Pretending that I was someone else added a whole new element to my dancing. I almost forgot my name was Eleanor Irvin and that I had to work so hard now because I fell on my bum in class last week and was about to
be upstaged by some new girl with holes in her tights. Instead I was Celeste, star dancer of the Cabaret Club in Paris, and people from all over the world came every night to admire my beautiful dancing and my perfect hoop work.

Towards the end of my solo rehearsal, Miss Caroline got Billie in to have a look at what we'd done. Billie is the Broadway/Musical Theatre teacher at Silver Shoes. I've always wanted to take her classes but Mum's pretty strict with her ‘three classes a week' rule.

Billie is cool. She dances in professional musicals all over Australia and she even worked in Asia once, doing a Disney show. She has this funky haircut that she dyes different colours and when she talks to you she always calls you ‘lovey' or ‘girlfriend'.

Billie danced along with the music as she watched me. She kept yelling out ‘More face,
more face!' By the end I thought I'd stretched my face so much it had turned into elastic, but Billie clapped and gave me a hug. ‘I love it!' she said. ‘Brilliant energy and great attack to your moves. You should come take one of my classes sometime, Ellie; we'd love to have you there.'

‘But make sure that back leg is straight on your jetés,' said Miss Caroline.

Gosh, that back leg of mine. Sometimes I think it bends just to annoy Miss Caroline.

I thanked them both and headed for the change rooms to get back into my normal clothes. There were all these shimmery shadows coming through the church's stained-glass windows and I felt like they were clapping and cheering for the amazing effort I'd just put in.

I felt great.

I was chasséing past the costume room when who should step out but horse-teeth Jasmine
and her little pet pony, Tove. ‘Here's a prop for your dance, Ellie,' Jasmine said.

Something flew by my face, but I was caught so unawares that I couldn't catch it. It bounced off my chest and I had to rummage behind the gross dusty heater to fish it out.

It was a red clown nose.

‘It's a clown's nose,' said Tove.

No, really? Thanks for that, My Little Pony. I stared at her and thought about how much she looked like a meerkat.

‘Because obviously with that dance,' said Jasmine very sweetly, ‘you're just clowning around. You'll never win. Why don't you leave the real dancing to the experts?'

‘Oh sorry, where will I find those?' I said, looking around everywhere but at Jasmine and Tove.

‘She means us,' said Tove. I really didn't think Tove was having a bright day.

‘Well,' I said, just as sweetly to Jasmine, ‘you do know that clowns are fan favourites. They win everybody's hearts. Takes a lot of skill to look like you're messing everything up.' I made my smile bigger. ‘You would know.'

And then, because I knew that the stupid clown nose was meant to freak me out, I reached up and put it on. Then I waved at Jasmine and Tove in a really exaggerated manner, bowed, and went on my merry way to the change rooms.

Gosh. Those two should really stick to munching hay and leave the insults to those who can actually pull them off.

Mum was teaching yoga on Friday night, and Dad was with Lucas at some birthday party, so I had to hang around at Silver Shoes after class until Mum could pick me up.

‘I can get a lift home with one of the other girls,' I said earlier that day.

‘No, no,' said Mum, ‘I'll come and get you. We can go somewhere for dinner to celebrate all the hard work you've been doing lately.'

‘We can celebrate after I win first place in my solo,' I said. ‘I don't want to jinx it.'

‘Not everything is about winning,' said Mum.

‘It is,' I said. ‘Remember when you got chosen to teach that new boxing class at the gym instead of that Donna lady you hate? I saw you dancing around the lounge to celebrate.'

‘You shouldn't spy on people, Ellie,' said Mum.

‘The lounge room doesn't have a door,' I said, then Mum told me not to be cheeky and that the conversation was closed – which only proved that she liked to win, whether it was a gym class or an argument.

I wished Mum would hurry up – I was starving. Silver Shoes was nice at this time, though. There weren't many girls around, only those who had solo or duo rehearsals, and the
halls were silent and shadowy. If I looked into the rooms, it felt like I'd caught them in the middle of a secret.

Eventually I got bored of pretending someone was chasing me through the dark corridors, and I wandered down towards the church hall, where the singing and drama classes were held. It didn't sound like anyone was doing either of those things, though. The music coming from the half-open door was deep and dramatic, and sounded like someone was dancing the tango.

I peered around the door. Someone
was
dancing the tango.

Someone called my best friend, Paige.

With a boy.

I didn't recognise him. I hoped he wasn't from an enemy studio, and he was here using
our
facilities. He and Paige were standing in front of the mirror in a tango
stance – his arms were straight and strong and Miss Caroline would have jumped for joy over the nice lines he created through his shoulders and back.

Paige had her ‘I don't want to' face on. She was leaning away from him and stumbling over her own feet as her mum and another lady coached her and the boy around the room.

‘Smoother, Paige, smoother,' the lady called out. ‘See how Benji moves as though he's connected to the floor? Try to move like him.'

Paige looked like the only thing she wanted to be connected to was a speeding car right out of there.

I had a bad feeling in my gut, like the moment before you forget a step on stage and the whole dance runs through your head in a split second but you can't for the life of you think of what comes next.

Paige was getting
even more
dance lessons. And she'd kept it a secret from me! Here she was, dancing with this boy in
our
Silver Shoes studios, sneaking around. Did that mean she was no longer going to be my duo partner? Had she dumped me for this Benji boy? As if I didn't have enough to worry about, with Jasmine and Ashley and the jazz competition coming up – now I had to worry about my best friend keeping secrets from me?

I made a face at her, which was kind of useless, because I was peeping through the gap in the door and no one saw it, but it made me feel better.

Then I felt worse. Because when I turned to stomp off, there was Ashley, lurking in the halls behind me!

Ashley saw my face. At least it hadn't been a complete waste, then. ‘They've been practising
a few nights a week,' she said. ‘I think they're going to be ballroom partners.'

‘Paige doesn't do ballroom,' I snapped.

Ashley shrugged and looked at the studio, like it wasn't obvious what I'd just seen Paige doing.

‘What are you doing lurking around anyway?' I said. ‘Are you spying for Dance Art?'

‘Of course not,' said Ashley. ‘I have to wait here until my sister picks me up, and she doesn't finish till six.'

‘Don't you have parents?' I said, in what Mum would call my ‘peevish' tone.

Ashley shrugged again. ‘They work until late, too.'

‘Oh,' was all I could think to say. I started picking at the paint on the wall.

‘I think Paige's mum is making her do it,' said Ashley, giving me a small smile. ‘The ballroom stuff.'

I knew she was trying to make me feel better, but instead I got angry. I didn't need some new girl from Dance Art trying to tell me all about my best friend.

‘If you really want to dance, nobody makes you do anything,' I said, tearing at the paint.

A big hunk of it came away in my fingers, revealing faded flowery wallpaper underneath. I looked at it in shock. Great. Now, to add to everything else, I was going to be accused of vandalising my own dance school.

‘Don't worry,' said Ashley, grinning. ‘If anyone asks, I'll just say I saw Jasmine hanging around here.'

I didn't grin back. ‘Okay,' I said. ‘Well, whatever. My mum's waiting so I've gotta go. Bye.'

The bad feeling in my gut got worse when I walked away after being mean to Ashley. But the bad feeling in my heart, knowing that Paige had kept secrets from me, was worse.