Bust a Move (15 page)

Sophie knocked on the door of the small house. No one answered. Fine. She wasn't going to go away that easy. She had homework to do. She had a book to read. She had a snack. She even had a flashlight. If she had to use the bathroom—well, she'd deal with that if she had to deal with that.

She didn't have to deal with that because about half an hour later, ill papi showed. “What are you doing here, Qian?” he asked. He sounded not at all happy to see her.

“I'm basically here for the whole group,” she told him. It was pretty much true. Everyone in the group was worried about ill papi. If she'd thought to ask them, they'd have wanted her to come. “We thought you might be sick or something. Or even dead. I'm here to find out.”

Ill papi threw his arms out to the sides. “I'm not dead. You can leave.”

Sophie stood up. “It would be better if you were dead. At least you'd have an acceptable excuse for missing the competition.”

“Competitions are tired.” Ill papi pulled a key out of his pocket and stepped around Sophie to put it in the lock. “Real hip-hop is on the street. That's what I'm doing from now on. You can keep doing the plastic stuff if you want.”

In another second, he'd have the door open. Then he'd go inside and lock it behind him.

“That's so completely bogus,” Sophie burst out, hot anger flaring inside her. “I know why you didn't go to the competition, and it has nothing to do with dancing. It's all about J-Bang.”

As soon as she'd seen that ill papi was totally okay, she'd known the truth.

Ill papi couldn't get the key into the lock. His hand was shaking too much. “You don't know what you're talking about.”

“Yeah, I do,” Sophie said softly, her anger fading away as fast as it had come. “I do. I talked to him, ill papi. I know.”

Ill papi stopped trying to unlock the door. But he didn't turn around to face her. “Know what?” he muttered.

“I know he's not your dad,” she said quietly.

“He told you that?” ill papi burst out, still not looking at her.

Sophie reached out to touch his back, then pulled her hand away when he turned around. “Just say I'm sorry to everyone, okay, Soph?”

“Say it yourself.”

He shook his head.

“Nobody cares who your father is—or isn't. Everyone just wants you back. Partly just 'cause we want to win the world championship, and we can't do it without you,” Sophie said.

“You won the competition okay on your own,” ill papi pointed out.

“The small time,” Sophie answered. “Just the Southeast. We're talking the world.”

Ill papi didn't say anything for a moment. “You called me ill papi when you talked to him, right?” he asked Sophie.

She nodded. What kind of question was that?

“That's why—that's why he acted like he didn't know who I was. You should have called me Tim. I wasn't ill papi back when I was four, and that's the last time the guy bothered to look at me.”

Oh, wow. Sophie couldn't even wrap her head around that. “I'm sorry,” she whispered. “So that's why you didn't go to the competition. You didn't want to see him. Or you didn't want him to see you, anyway.”

“Just leave, okay?” ill papi said.

But how could she leave? He was getting that thing again—that thing where it looked like he was moving out of his own body.

“Wait. Let me tell you about my dad, too. You think yours is so bad. My dad does this thing when we go to restaurants. He orders ice cream, then when he gets it, he tries to send it back because it's cold.”

Ill papi smiled a little. So Sophie kept on going.

“Yeah. That's what he thinks is funny. And when he's at the grocery store, he asks for the Regular K. You know, instead of the Special K. And then, what's even worse, he laughs—a lot. He laughs because he thinks he's the funniest thing ever.”

“He's whack, like you,” ill papi said. “I can't go back, though. Not after what I did. Not showing up at the competition like that. I didn't even tell Gina or Maddy I wasn't going.”

“Why don't you talk to them?” Sophie suggested. “Just Gina and Maddy. Tell them the truth. It's nobody else's business.”

“Nobody's going to want me back. I screwed everyone over.”

“You're whack. Haven't you been listening? Everyone wants you back,” Sophie told him. “I want you back,” she added, heart suddenly thumping so hard, she could hardly hear.

 

 

 

Devane stared at the blank sheet of paper. She knew what she wanted to say. She just didn't know exactly how to say it.
You know how to start it at least,
she told herself.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Lane,
she wrote, using her best handwriting and her favorite pen, the one with the purple ink.

“Who are you writing? That's not homework. You're supposed to be doing homework,” Tamal told her.

“So are you,” Devane answered.

“I'm done. I just had one math sheet.” Tamal flopped down on his bed, picked up a small rubber ball, and tossed it at the ceiling.

Devane tried to ignore the
whomp whomp
of the ball and think about Emerson. What did she want to say about Emerson?
Emerson is a killer dancer. We need her on our crew.

No. Devane crumpled the paper. That's not what you wrote to somebody's parents. Maybe she shouldn't write about Emerson first. Maybe she should write about Hip Hop Kidz first.

That gave her an idea. She reached under her bed for the metal box her mother had given her to keep her important things in. The brochure for the Kidz was right on top. Devane read over the part about the Performance Group. Yeah, those were the kinds of words she needed. “Teamwork.” “Challenge.” “Commitment.” Those were parent kind of words.

She began the letter again.

At first, that hadn't been at all important to Devane. The most important thing to her had been, well, Devane. Getting solo time for Devane. Getting Devane noticed. Getting Devane discovered. Getting Devane to superstardom.

And she still cared about that. A lot. She wasn't crazy.

But she was starting to feel the love-for-the-team thing, too. Emerson had dragged Devane back to the group even though Devane had done her dirty because it was good for the group. And what was good for the group was good for everyone in the group. Maybe not every second of every day, but most of the time.

Devane tapped her pen against her lip for a moment, then began to write again.

“You're writing about that girl who made you apologize to everyone, aren't you?” Tamal asked. He was back over her shoulder again.

“No one makes me do anything,” Devane told him. “But I am going to make you very sorry if you don't leave me in peace.”

“I'm going to go see if there are any cookies left. I think Mama hid some.” He wandered out of the room.

“Hidden. As in ‘keep out, Tamal,'” Devane muttered. But let him get in trouble if he wanted to so bad.

A little flattery couldn't hurt. And anyway, it was definitely something Devane's mother had wanted her to understand. Devane's mother had done almost as much to make Devane see that quitting the group was wrong as Emerson had.

 

Devane hesitated. She wanted to get this in the mail. And she knew everyone in the group would sign it if she asked. So it would be okay to sign for them, she decided.

She had practiced her own signature a bunch of different ways, so she used some of those handwriting styles for some of the kids. She got Tamal to sign a couple of names. And she copied the handwriting from a couple of signatures on the Declaration of Independence from her history book for the rest.

Then Devane carefully folded the letter, addressed it, and took it downstairs to the mailbox. “This is it, Emerson. For you and maybe even for me.”

Ill papi took a long pull on his chocolate milk shake, then scrunched up his face like he'd tasted something foul. “You're going to have to get me a new one,” he told the drone behind the Mickey D.'s counter. “This one's cold.”

“Huh?” the McGirl said.

Ill papi and Sophie cracked up and took their food over to a table. “So does your mom think your dad is funny?” ill papi asked.

“No way. She thinks he's a big idiot. She's embarrassed to be seen with him when he does his shtick.” Sophie dumped all her fries onto a napkin and pushed them into the center of the table where they'd be easy to reach. “But she likes him most of the rest of the time, so it's okay.”

“My mom . . . she always thinks every guy she goes out with is perfect,” ill papi admitted. “Until—” He shook his head and took a bite of his burger.

Sophie wanted to hear the rest of that sentence, but she didn't want to make ill papi feel uncomfortable by asking.

“Does your mom go on a lot of dates?” she asked. Then she felt a wave of heat flood up the back of her neck. Even saying the word “date” in front of ill papi freaked her out. That was what happened when you entered the LIKE zone. You couldn't have a normal conversation with a guy who used to be just your friend anymore.

“Yeah,” ill papi said. “All the time. If she's not, she gets all weird. She starts thinking she's ugly, then she starts eating a lot of ice cream, and then she starts thinking she's fat and that she's really ugly, then she stops wanting to get out of bed. And that's when she starts eating nothing—”

Ill papi lowered his eyes to the table. Like he couldn't believe he'd said all that.

“That's not so abnormal. For girls. I mean, not for me. But she's not the only one,” Sophie told him.

Ill papi snorted out a laugh. “Like your mother does that.”

“Well, my mother's married, so she doesn't really go out on dates.”

“I wish my mother didn't. She's happy for a while. But then she gets dumped, or she finds out that the perfect guy is really scum, and she crashes. Bad. She's never just normal.” Ill papi took another bite of his hamburger. “Liking people like that is stupid. I'm never doing it.”

Sophie felt a jab of pain shoot through her, icy and unexpected. “Never, huh,” she tried to joke. “That's a long time.”

Like he was going to end up with you anyway, Soph,
she told herself.
You're friends again now. That's better. The LIKE zone equals pain, remember?

“So here's the part where I bribe you,” Sophie said, doing a screeching subject change—to the subject she was supposed to be on anyway. “How about if everyone in the group chips in to buy you a nice warm milk shake after every class? Then will you come back?”

Ill papi didn't answer her.

“We seriously all want you there,” Sophie urged. “We'll only be mad if you don't come back.”

“I have to see,” ill papi finally said.

 

 

 

Both of Emerson's parents came into her room as she was working on her English essay. Both. Uh-oh. She'd be eating dinner with them in about half an hour. What could possibly be so important that it couldn't wait until then? It couldn't be anything good. Nothing in her whole life was good right now.

“We got a letter today that we thought you might like to take a look at,” her father said. He handed her a plain white envelope addressed in perfect handwriting. Emerson pulled out the single sheet of paper inside and began to read: