My Seventh-Grade Life in Tights (11 page)

“I’m just showing him around. This is Dillon. He sent in a video for the summer scholarship.”

“Oh, hey, Dillon. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Sarah beamed me an
I told you so
smile.

“Well, good luck,” the girl said. “If Sarah’s rooting for you, then you must be pretty impressive.”

Sarah waved and walked off. I followed her through a set of doors toward a hallway. “Okay, why are we really here?”

“Because you need to see what it’s really like at a studio.”

“Trust me, I’ve heard enough from Kassie.”

Sarah stopped in her tracks. “That’s the thing. She’s put this idea in your head that studios are terrible, but they’re not. It’s just like at school when the teachers give you a ton of homework. They’re doing it because it’s supposed to help you get ready for high school.”

Kassie had never put it that way. According to her, the bossiness was just a way for them to control the dancers. “So, um, do teachers really force all those moves on you?”

“That’s called choreography, Dillon. It’s a part of dance.”

I nodded. So maybe Kassie
was
right.

“But they don’t force it. They work with us. And sometimes we even get to suggest moves. The choreographer always has the final decision, but choreography’s sort of this conversation between the dancer and the teacher. Like a partnership.”

“What about all the rules? Doesn’t that keep you from expressing yourself?”

Sarah rolled her eyes like she was already tired of my questions. “You can’t dance without rules, Dillon. Dance is a sport. And sports have rules.”

“But why? Dance is all about expression, and expression shouldn’t need rules.”

She pulled me down the hallway. “Take a look. The dancers here follow rules. They do what they’re told and they dance what they’re supposed to. You tell me. Are they not expressing themselves?”

I peeked in the windows as we passed, watching instructors model moves, dancers flowing in lines that were so straight it made a yardstick look curvy, and teams running routines in different styles. Contemporary, ballet, tap, hip-hop, jazz, everything.

It was incredible. I’d never seen so much dance in one place. And none of the students looked miserable. None of the teachers were snarling or foaming at the mouth like I halfway expected them to be.

It was just…dancing.

So. Much. Dancing.

The pictures from the website couldn’t capture the epic level of technique I was seeing. If heaven was a dance studio, it would’ve looked like this.

Something was happening in my head. Like my brain was getting pulled in two.

On one side, Kassie’s voice was telling me,
Don’t listen to her, Dillon, she’s lying! Studios are everything that’s wrong with dance!

On the other side, I heard Sarah. Telling me the exact opposite of everything I’d heard Kassie say.

When I’d fallen into this whole mess, I’d known exactly what I wanted. To get some dance help and sneak back out before things got complicated.

But now?

Seeing the big
what if?
staring back at me? Seeing real dancers in a real studio churning out moves that I only dreamed of doing?

I wasn’t so sure anymore. The last thing I wanted to happen was to disappoint Kassie in some way. She was one of my best friends. And sometimes I wondered if we could be even more than that. But for the first time, I started to wonder if she wasn’t telling me the whole truth about dance studios.

My head throbbed.

“Can we go? My parents are probably waiting on me.”

“But I want to introduce you to the judges.”

“No!” I blurted out. The last thing I needed was more reason to start doubting the direction I was supposed to be heading in. “They’ll, um, be mad if I’m too late.”

I could feel Sarah waiting for me to say why I really wanted to leave. But I couldn’t. Finally she sighed, saying, “Fine. But that just means we’ll have to work that much harder in practice.”

We walked back to her dad’s SUV. We didn’t speak the entire way back to school. Not like we had anything to say. When we pulled back into the school parking lot, I got a reply from Kassie.

Kassie:
OMG rly? have fun and don’t come back a studio rat ROFL!

Reading it made me sick to my stomach.

Not because the idea of completely ditching Kassie’s plan and actually trying to win disgusted me.

But because for the first time it didn’t.

A
fter Monday ended, my entire week was just a blur of school, football, and dance.

But there was one thing that kept breaking through the haze. One thing that wouldn’t stop peeking out, whispering for me to come closer.

The scholarship.

At the end of summer, it’d been nothing more than a stupid idea.

But now it was a thought I couldn’t shove away. Part of me regretted letting Sarah take me to Dance-Splosion. The other part couldn’t stop thinking about it.

And all the dancing.

On Friday, my friends and our parents met at Davie’s Diner to get mentally prepared for the dance-off. Mom and Dad sat with all the other parents. That was the good news.

The bad news?

“We finished it!” Kassie said, sliding a piece of paper in front of me as I sat down.

The speech.

Carson grabbed her arm excitedly. “We’ve been working on that all week. Austin was no help, by the way.”

He shrugged. I would’ve been surprised if Austin
had
helped. The speech wasn’t long, but they definitely didn’t waste any words with their trash talking. There was stuff in there about how studios kill creativity, how the teachers only care about making money, even a line comparing the students to livestock. It was sort of horrible.

The parent table erupted into laughs at the back of the diner. We turned to see what was going on. My mom was standing up, wearing a homemade T-shirt that I guessed Carson’s parents had made.

All in puffy glitter-glue letters.

Carson’s head fell into his arms. “Ugh, can I ride with one of you tomorrow?”

“Stop, they’re just proud of you,” Kassie said, giving my mom a thumbs-up.

“No, they’re ruining my life. Do you know how embarrassing they are?”

“Geez, would you give it a rest?” I said. “They practically worship you, man. Seriously, I wish for once my big problem was that my mom and dad supported me a lot.”

Carson’s face went pale. Which was impressive, since he was already the color of milk. He pulled his arms into his lap and stared at the table.

A ball of regret instantly sprouted in my gut. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.” I sighed and slumped forward, almost stabbing myself in the eye on the ketchup bottle. “Please don’t hate me.”

“Nah,” he said. “I can’t stay mad at that face.” He smiled. Not the usual full-mouth Carson smile, but at least it was something.

“Um—okay.” Kassie cleared her throat. “Now that
that’s
over. The speech. What do you think?”

I picked it up. “You really want me to say this? Onstage?”

“I mean, it doesn’t have to be exactly that,” Kassie said. “You can put your own words in. I’m sure you’ve got plenty to say after seeing the studio.”

“Actually—” As soon as I said it, Kassie’s smile disappeared. But I had to finish. If I didn’t, I’d regret it. “It wasn’t like that when I went. It was sort of okay. I mean, it wasn’t, like, perfect or anything, but—”

“Oh, well, I’m glad you didn’t think the dance studio was perfect.” Kassie shoved her back against the booth. “It’s just the one place that almost made me want to quit dancing, is all.”

“Whatcha guys wanna drank?” the waitress asked, sneaking up on us.

We each told her, and when she asked if we were ready to order our food, Carson said, “You should probably give us a minute. Or five.” As soon as the waitress left, he leaned forward. “Are you forgetting something? Sarah knows Kassie’s not competing. Which means she’s just stringing you along for whatever reason.”

“I don’t think she is, though,” I said, peeling off a layer of the napkin in my hand.

“Then why would she keep helping you?”

I shrugged. “Maybe she actually wants me to win.”

“Yeah, right,” Carson said.

“Look, I’m not saying what Dance-Splosion did to Kassie was right, because it wasn’t. Like, at all. I’m just saying maybe the place has changed. Maybe we don’t really need to sabotage the contest.”

“I’m with Dill,” Austin said. “I never thought we needed to anyway.”

Kassie beamed him a narrow-eyed glare. “Yeah. We know, Austin.”

“Can we not do this right now?” Austin shoved his glasses up his nose. “Tomorrow’s the dance-off. We need to stay focused and positive and junk.”

“I’m not the one who’s in love with Dance-Splosion all of a sudden.”

“Kassie, I’m not…” I dragged my hands down my face.

I
wasn’t
in love with Dance-Splosion. But after seeing what the place was really like, I just wasn’t mortal enemies with it anymore. Plus, Austin had a point. The last thing we needed was to go into tomorrow’s contest all weird and mad at each other. I scooted in the booth closer to Kassie.

“Look. You’re right,” I said, looking down at the speech. “I only saw a piece of the studio. You’re the one who spent all that time in there.”

Kassie slowly relaxed. Austin’s mouth fell open, probably ready to ask why I’d just changed my mind. I kicked him under the table before he could.

“So you’re not going to dump us for a studio, then?” A tiny smile worked its way onto the corners of her mouth.

I held a hand out, palm down, above my head—“Dizzee Freekz”—and another one way below the table—“Dance-Splosion.” Austin was still staring at me, looking completely betrayed, so I added, “And we’ll have all summer long to work on Austin’s movie.”

“Good answer,” Carson said.

Kassie nodded. “Exactly. Especially since I do
not
want to miss seeing Carson decked out in zombie makeup.”

Carson ran an imaginary comb through his blond hair. “I’ll be the most fabulous undead you’ve ever seen. Like James Dean. No! James
Dead.
”

“Who’s James Dean?” Austin asked.

“Seriously? You want to be a director and you don’t know?”

Austin looked at me. I shrugged. I had no idea who the guy was, either.

When the waitress came back, we each put in an order. Kassie warned us to go light on the meal, but I didn’t listen. I had about a million things I was worrying about and I needed to bury them all under a chili cheeseburger with onion rings.

Fortunately, it worked.

Unfortunately, the lump of food stayed wadded up in my stomach all the way until morning.

When we got to the mall the next day, I almost asked Mom and Dad to carry me inside. Even the swishing motion of walking made the inside of my stomach boil.

The food court had a small stage set up right in the middle of it. I got a whiff of something cooking over at the Frank-N-Furters stall. Not good. I ran over to a garbage can, ready to say goodbye to the corn nuggets I’d ordered halfway through dinner. But I forced my stomach to go back into hibernation mode.

“Dillon! Over here!” Kassie yelled.

She was standing in a wide hallway at the back of the food court. There was a tall piece of cloth strung up behind her, with a pair of dressing room signs over two curtain doors. One for boys and one for girls.

“Dude, look at what her mom made!” Austin handed me a pin. It was about as wide as a soda can top and had Kassie’s Dizzee Freekz design printed on it.

“That is so cool!” I said.

“Thanks,” Kassie said. “I sort of stole Austin’s business card idea.”

“I’m just glad you put the YouTube link on them.” Austin reached into Kassie’s backpack and pulled out a handful of pins. “I’m gonna go pick out a good spot to film and pass these out to people.” He yanked his half mask down and disappeared into the crowd of mall-walking senior citizens and kids on leashes.

“Thanks for doing that for him,” I said.

“I want people to see our dances. We’re a good crew.” Kassie smiled and my heart instantly tore in two. But I guess that’s what I deserved for giving Dance-Splosion permission to crawl inside my head. I’d imagined myself in some of those classes about a million times. And in each one, there wasn’t a shred of ninja freestyling. Just real moves. Real technique.