Dance Till you Drop (2 page)

‘I'm so glad we made it in time! How are you going, sweetie? Closing soon?' Mum asked the girl behind the counter.

We were at the Danceworks store, and the girl (it was Ash's big sister, Bridget) looked up from where she was tagging singlets.

‘Half an hour,' Bridget said. ‘Hey Paige.'

‘Hello,' I said.

‘You guys know what you're after?'

‘Absolutely,' said Mum. ‘Hairnets. Paige's hair just won't stay still! And a nice, plain leotard with a sweetheart neckline.' Mum turned to me. ‘Paigey, that's what I'm going to create your waltz costume around. Do we need anything else, bub? You excited?'

‘I guess so,' I said, but Mum was already flicking through the racks.

I already had about five unused leotards at home, so I didn't see why I couldn't use one of them.

‘We're going for a music-box theme, Paigey,' said Mum, holding up a long-sleeved number and then putting it back. ‘Benji's mum and I were talking. He'll be the soldier and you'll be the music-box ballerina. We reckon a lovely, soft yellow for the base colour? Some emerald greens in the skirt – that'll make your eyes pop. What do you think, honey?'

‘Yellow's nice,' I said, yawning.

There were two fluoro-pink glittery dance tanks hanging next to me that I knew Ellie would love.

Even though she hadn't talked to me since technique class on Thursday.

‘Then we'll do some gold detailing,' babbled Mum, ‘and use creamy white chiffon for the layers in your skirt, set against the green. I was at the craft store today and I saw some stunning silk butterflies for your hair. The wings were trimmed with these tiny crystals, so when you moved them it looked like they were flying and leaving a sparkly trail. You'll be such a vision, babe!'

Mum looked at me. I realised I'd been staring at the tanks, thinking about Ellie.

‘What's wrong, honey?' said Mum.

‘I'm just really tired,' I said.

‘Of course you are, darling,' said Mum, kneeling down to me with a leotard clutched
in her fist. ‘You've been dancing all week, and you've had those extra ballroom practices, too. I'm so proud of your dedication.'

‘I haven't been doing that well in ballet,' I confessed. ‘I think Ms McGlone is mad at me.'

‘Rubbish,' said Mum. ‘You should be mad at her for not making you the Ice Queen in the eisteddfod. You would have been better than Jasmine. Lovely girl, but …'

Jasmine is ten times better than me at ballet (and she knows it). She deserved the lead. And it doesn't bother me if I don't get the starring roles. It's a lot of pressure. I get so nervous as it is!

But Mum thinks I'm being under-used. Also, she doesn't like Mrs de Lacy, Jasmine's mum. She said Mrs de Lacy is a pushy know-it-all, and that she thinks Silver Shoes was created just to promote the talents of Jasmine.
‘A true stage mum, Paigey,' she told me once. ‘But I don't want to talk about it. Negative thoughts give you wrinkles.'

‘Anyway,' said Mum, looking at the leotard she was holding, ‘the colour of this one's nice, but I don't like the cut. Might have to try Transitions Dancewear.'

‘Do I have to do the ballroom competition?' I blurted out.

Mum paused. There was silence in the shop. Bridget disappeared out the back.

‘Why did you say that?' asked Mum. ‘Of course you have to do the competition! You've been so excited. And you can't let down Benji.'

‘He doesn't care,' I said.

‘Yes he does, Paige. Don't be silly.' She started looking through the costumes again very loudly. A coathanger fell on the ground.

‘It's just that Ellie's birthday party is on the same day,' I said.

‘Ellie will have plenty of other birthday parties,' said Mum.

‘But I really want to go,' I said, unable to stop myself talking. ‘I'm already dancing every single day, but I still don't think I'm good enough for the comp. Not yet, anyway.'

‘Yes you are,' Mum said. ‘You're my daughter, aren't you?'

‘But Ellie's birthday …' I said.

‘That's enough, Paige,' said Mum, firmly. ‘You're just tired. We'll get you a hairnet and then we'll go home and I'll make you a nice quinoa salad for tea.'

‘But …'

‘You don't have time to think about birthday parties anyway,' Mum continued. ‘You need to focus. The Royal Academy of Ballet is holding a masterclass weekend in June and it's very respected. I've already signed you up for an audition next Sunday.'

As if this week wasn't bad and busy enough, now I had to worry about a masterclass?

Worst of all, Mum had just dropped one of my most hated words:

Audition.

‘Hello, my name's Paige Montreal, I'm ten years old, and my favourite style of dance is lyrical.'

I thought about it a bit more.

‘Actually, it's ballet.'

If I was going to audition for a ballet masterclass, I'd better say my favourite style was ballet!

I looked at myself in the mirror of the drama studio at Silver Shoes – a small blonde
scaredy-cat. And I was only practising for the audition. It wasn't even the real thing.

I stood up straighter. I tried to hold my head in the confident way that Riley did. I pretended to hold a barre, bent my legs into plié position, and raised my arms into port de bras.

But I had big dark circles under my eyes. And my shoulders had a tired slope to them. My legs wouldn't maintain turn-out either.

Riley poked her head around the door. ‘Paige?'

I jumped. ‘Oh, hi,' I said. ‘What are you doing?'

‘Looking for you,' said Riley. ‘Class is about to start. What are you doing?'

‘Trying to be like you,' I said.

‘What?' she asked, taking a step inside.

‘Nothing,' I said.

‘You okay?'

Riley came and stood next to me. Her hair was messy, like she'd been running around outside for two hours. Mine was back in its usual too-tight bun, tied with a new pink ribbon.

She tried to smooth her hair down and then gave up. ‘Who cares,' she said, when she saw me looking. ‘I dance with my feet, not my hair.'

Our ballet teacher, Ms McGlone, likes us to look very prim and proper in class. That means exactly the right colour leotard, no ripped tights, clean slippers and tidy hair. I'm too scared to look anything but perfect. Ms McGlone is tough!

But Riley doesn't always follow the rules. A few weeks ago she forgot her tights and Ms McGlone said she couldn't take class.

Riley just shrugged and walked out as if she didn't care. I would have died!

‘I saw Ellie out there,' said Riley. ‘She's here for some musical theatre thing.'

‘Oh,' was all I could say.

Ellie had ignored me at school. We usually do everything together. But at lunchtime, when we were with our group of friends, the only time she looked at me was to roll her eyes when I said I didn't feel like playing chasings with the boys.

What I really wanted to do was go to the library and take a nap. It was only Monday, but I already felt like it was the end of the week.

‘You really okay?' Riley asked again. ‘You look kind of … dead.'

‘I'm a bit tired,' I said. ‘Yesterday Mum made me practise an audition piece for that ballet masterclass at Dance Art. Are you going?'

Dance Art Academy is Silver Shoes' rival dance school. It's a big, rich school with
about a million students – they often win at competitions and eisteddfods.

Mum says that even with their fancy reputation she would never send me there because I wouldn't get the quality attention I get at Silver Shoes. Also, she and Miss Caroline are friends from way back when they both used to dance professionally.

I don't want to go to Dance Art anyway. Those girls are scary. It's like a tribe of mini Jasmines.

‘Yeah, I saw that,' Riley said. ‘Ms McGlone put my name down. She stopped me and Jasmine after class.'

‘It sounds very posh,' I said.

‘Yeah, I guess,' Riley said. ‘It would be cool to do it but I'm not fussed.' She shrugged. ‘Come on, you got any snakes? I need the sugar.'

Lolly snakes are our thing – mine, and Riley, Ellie and Ash's. We always have a packet on the go. It was my turn to bring them and I'd come prepared. We went to the change room and I rummaged through my dance bag (it has Cabbage Patch Kids on it – I've collected the dolls since I was little!) until I found the packet. Riley picked green. I picked red.

Ellie came in while we were munching on the snakes. She was singing to herself. Her voice was getting better. But she stopped when she saw us and her face went blank.

‘Hi Riley,' she said.

Nothing for me.

Ellie came right over to where I was sitting but all she did was pick up a pair of chorus shoes that were on the bench. I saw she'd added tiny pink bows near the buckle. It was such an Ellie thing to do.

It made me really miss her.

‘You want a snake?' I asked, holding out the packet.

‘Gross,' said Ellie. She got the shoes and then glanced at my dance bag. ‘Lame,' she said, although she'd never seemed to have a problem with it before. Then she spun on her heel and stalked off. ‘See ya,' she said to Riley on her way out.

The snakes tipped over onto the bench and fell on the floor. My heart sank right along with them.

On Tuesday morning my eyes felt like they'd been stuck together with fake eyelash glue. Even my backpack felt heavier as I trudged into school. It was only as I went to sit down at my desk that I noticed I had two different socks on.

Boy, was I tired. After ballet I'd stayed up late to finish off my school project because I didn't get a chance to do it on the weekend with all that dancing.

Plus I'd been having the worst dreams. Nightmares about dancing witches, but also awful ones where I was at the ballroom competition and bad things kept happening. My skirt was tucked up into my leotard, or the audience started throwing old pointe shoes at me, or I kept treading on Benji's feet so much that I broke all his toes.

Benji is also in my class at school, Our Lady of Lourdes. When I saw him at his desk I flushed bright red, as if he'd read my mind and found out I'd been dreaming about him.

At school we sit in a table of four, which changes every month. The current arrangement is two boys and two girls on each table. Ellie and I share a desk with these two boys, Larry and Rowan, who are best friends.

Somehow they'd realised Ellie and I were having a fight. All week they'd been saying stupid things and pretending to be overly
polite to each other. Then they'd look at us and collapse into giggles.

Once upon a time, Ellie would have rolled her eyes at such silliness. Now she laughed right along with them. She wouldn't look at me, even though we sat opposite each other.

During maths, the most boring subject in the world, she still didn't make eye contact, and Larry and Rowan were cheating off each other on the maths problems. So I had nothing to do but look down at my desk.

All the ends of the numbers grew little hands and feet and started dancing across my page. There were tap shoes, ballet slippers, chorus shoes, hip hop sneakers, pointe shoes and more.

I wished I could dance away with them.

After maths and after either Larry or Rowan farted loudly and tried to blame it on the
other, we had Australian history, where we were learning about famous national figures.

But I soon realised I wasn't listening to our teacher, Mr Herbert, at all. I wasn't doing anything.

There was a strange buzzing in my head. The other kids went out of focus until I could only see bits of them, like a nose or a finger, or the tip of an ear.

In the middle of it all, I thought,
Do I even want to dance
?

It was the scariest thought I'd ever had. Scarier than waiting to go on stage. Scarier than an audition.

My head drooped forward but I caught it in time and tried to focus on Mr Herbert. But then it nodded again and I felt my body slump forward. I was half-aware of falling into Rowan.

He turned around quickly and looked at me like I'd just appeared from another planet.

‘I'm sorry,' I whispered. ‘I didn't mean to.'

Larry grinned at him. ‘She's falling for you, Row,' he whispered.

‘No, it was an accident!' I said.

‘Can you shut up?' Ellie hissed at us. ‘I'm trying to listen.'

But she wasn't, really. I saw her notebook; it was covered in drawings of dance costumes.

I sat quietly then and tried to focus on Fred Hollows and Banjo Paterson and how they'd contributed to Australia. Ellie raised her hand.

‘What about famous Australian dancers?' she said.

I waited for Mr Herbert's answer. But it was no good. First, one arm went across my desk. I lowered my head onto it. Then my eyes closed. And then …

‘Paige!'

‘Huh?'

‘Paige, you're talking out loud! Wake up!'

Somebody shook me awake. It took me two seconds to work out where I was and what had happened.

Oh gosh. This was worse than an audition or forgetting the steps on stage. Falling asleep in class and then sleep-talking out loud. And everyone was looking!

I began to feel sick. Rowan and Larry were giggling. Benji was watching me. And when I dared to glance at Ellie, I found her staring at me, too.

She took her hand off my arm. I saw a speck of worry in her eyes and then she rolled them again, crossed her arms and faced the front.

‘Paige?' said Mr Herbert. ‘Are you all right? Do you need water and some fresh air?'

‘Yes,' I managed to squeak.

‘Can someone take Paige outside for five minutes?' Mr Herbert asked the class.

I looked at Ellie, but her eyes were glued to the whiteboard.

‘I'll do it,' said Benji. He pushed back his chair. ‘Come on, Paige.'

He grabbed a glass of water from the sink and I followed him outside. I wanted to cry and die of embarrassment all at once.

‘You okay?' he asked me, as we sat down on a bench in the courtyard.

I just nodded and took the water.

I was so horrified at falling asleep and talking in class that I forgot to be uncomfortable about him sitting next to me and awkwardly patting my back.

I didn't think this was what Fleur had in mind when she told us that we had to work on being ‘together'.

In fact, I was pretty sure Benji would never want to dance with me again.