Dazzling Danny (3 page)

“Joking!”

In desperation, I said, “I’ll do your turn at cleaning the car!”

‘And I get to keep the money?” said Carrie.

I had to say yes, or she wouldn’t have signed. She’s a very grasping sort of person.
But she’s ace at doing Mum’s signature! I think she’ll probably be a forger when she grows up.

Next day, I gave the slip of paper to Miss Pringle.

“Wonderful!” said Miss Pringle.

I still wasn’t sure.

I remember it was on a Friday we had our first rehearsal. The reason I remember is that while Miss Pringle was telling us where to go, Clint Parker flipped a rubber across the room and hit Lucy Flowers on the head. Lucy shrieked, and Clint was sent out. As he went
he shouted, “See if I care! It’s Saturday tomorrow. No more school,
yeeee–eah
!”

Miss Pringle just carried on like nothing had happened. She told us that the dancers were to go to the Big Hall, the singers to the Small Hall, and the speakers should stay in the classroom. I got up to leave, and Darryl said, “Where you off to?”

“Going to rehearsal,” I said.

“Speakers are in here,” said Darryl.

“Yeah,’ I said, “I know.”

“So where’re you going?”

There are times when Darryl can be
so nosy.
But we usually tell each other everything, so I suppose I couldn’t really blame him.

“You’re not going with the
girls
?” he said.

He knew I couldn’t be going with the
singers. I said that I would tell him later and ran off before he could ask any more questions.

Miss Pringle took the dance rehearsal. We started off doing the steps she’d shown me just the other day. I could remember them quite clearly, and even the order they came in. The girls were well impressed! They didn’t know I’d already learnt them, and Miss Pringle didn’t let on. Some of the girls were really slow. Leanne Walters, for instance, and Saru Sathay. They had to go over and over the same steps, and still couldn’t get
them right.

The only one who picked them up as quickly as I had was Coral. She was good! Coral was playing the other lead part. She was the Girl, I was the Boy. Miss Pringle said that she was going to give us some special numbers to do on our own.

“Just the two of you… I’ll work out something exciting!”

I’d been a bit anxious in case any of the girls might laugh, me being the only boy, but none of them did. They didn’t seem to think there was anything peculiar about it. It’s
funny, with girls. There are times they can be just
so–o–o
superior, like when they gang up on you and giggle. It’s very off–putting, when they do that. But then at other times they can be quite nice. I am not really sure that I understand them properly. Mum says that one day I will. (Dad says you never do!)

Darryl was waiting for me as we came out of the hall. He gave me this odd look.

“Never knew you could dance,” he said.

I told him that Miss Pringle had made me. “I didn’t want to! She said I’d got to.”

I wasn’t sure whether he believed me or not. I mean, teachers
can
make you do things. They make you do things all the time. But they don’t usually make people take part in end of term shows if people don’t want to.

“She’d have been upset,” I muttered. “I was the only one she could find.”

“Way out!” said Darryl.

But Darryl is my friend. He is OK! What I was dreading was when Clint found out. I knew that he would, because there wasn’t any way of keeping it secret. Not that I really cared about Clint. Not really. The people I most wanted to keep it from were Mum and Dad.

Every weekend, me, Mum and Dad would all go running round the park. I don’t
specially like running; I found it a bit boring, to be honest. I had these landmarks. Run, run, run… oak tree. Run, run… clump of nettles. Run, run… litter bin. Run, run…
broken fence. Sometimes I counted, one, two, three, four… seeing if it came to the same number every time. Sometimes I made up footie teams. Now I started going over dance
steps, feeling them in my feet as I ran. The only trouble was, it made me want to stop running and start dancing! I had to be careful, because Mum always made sure to hang back and keep an eye on me. She hoped that one day I might join the Athletics Club and get on to a team.

The only reason I went on running was to keep Mum and Dad happy. Carrie had given it up. She’d suddenly said one morning that she didn’t want to do it any more. “It’s just a waste of time!” Carrie didn’t seem to mind about hurting Mum and Dad’s feelings. She’d announced the other day that she was going to be a doctor when she grew up. Mum had cried, “Oh, that’s a great idea! Then you could specialise in sports injuries.”

Carrie had made this impatient scoffing noise and said, “I don’t want to have anything to
do
with sports!”

Mum’s face had fallen. I had felt really sorry for her! I’d heard her telling Dad later, and Dad had said, “We must let her do her own thing.” Sadly, Mum had agreed. And then she had cheered up and said, “There’s always Danny! He’s still enjoying it.”

This was why I didn’t want them to know about the dancing. I thought they might think it was a bit cissy.

Clint thought it was cissy, but then he would. He thinks reading books is cissy. He thinks everything is cissy that doesn’t involve fighting. He came prancing up to me on Monday morning with his hands all limp, going, “
Gir
ly!
Gir
ly!” I tried to do what Miss Pringle does and pretend he wasn’t there, but he stuck his face in mine and went, “Girly
wirly! Girly wirly!”

Coral was with me. She’s quite tough, is Coral. I think she must have learnt kick boxing because next thing I know her leg’s flying through the air and Clint’s staggering backwards, howling as he goes.

“
You
just leave people alone!” yelled Coral. “You’re an idiot!”

After that, he only had a go at me when Coral wasn’t around. I didn’t really care about
Clint; like Coral said, he was an idiot. But I did worry about Mum and Dad! I didn’t like keeping things from them. I specially didn’t like having to tell lies. It wasn’t something I’d ever done before. I mean, OK, I’d told them
little
lies. Like it wasn’t me that left the bathroom tap running, and I had no idea how muddy footprints had got on the sitting–room carpet. That sort of thing. But not huge walloping lies like, “I’m staying late at school because of library duty,” or computer club, or book circle.

Carrie got to know about it. She would! She came up to me and said, “Why are you pretending to be doing things when you aren’t really?”

I said, “What do you mean, I’m not really?”

“You’re dancing in the show!” said Carrie.

I scowled at her. “How d’you know?”

“I know everything,” said Carrie.

I knew how she knew. Leanne’s sister was in her class. That was how she knew.

“Why don’t you just tell them?” said Carrie.

I said, “’Cos I don’t want to, and you’re not to, either!”

Carrie looked at me, with her head to one side. “What’ll you give me to keep quiet?”