Step Up and Dance (7 page)

By the time I walked out to the carpark to find Dad, I was almost calm. It felt good to be finally away from the bright lights and watching eyes.

‘You're late,' Dad said, as soon as I fell into the seat beside him.

‘Sorry.' I seemed to be saying that a lot. ‘I . . . took longer getting changed than usual.'

Dad looked again at the clock display, but he didn't take it further.

‘Did you see the game?' I asked breezily and pushed my shoes into the pompom bags on the floor in front of me. A heavy tiredness had sunk into my legs. My head felt numb.

‘It was an important win,' Dad said, leaning forward in his seat as he changed lanes.

‘Did you see us dance the opening number?' I asked tentatively.

‘No. They cut straight to the game.'

I breathed a sigh of relief – my stuff-up hadn't been recorded for eternity. Just in that dark place where you keep memories that you'd rather forget.

Dad glanced at me in the dim light, then back at the road. ‘Magic's in the quarterfinal, so you have an extra game?' he asked with a slight growl. The cabin lit up as a car loomed behind us, then drove past.

I nodded. ‘But Megan's happy to drive me,' I said slowly. ‘Just for the quarterfinal, will you let me get a lift with her, Dad?'

I could see the muscles bulge in Dad's jaw. His hands gripped the steering wheel. But he didn't say anything for a while. When he did speak, it came out like a slow sigh, ‘Saph, I'm not in the mood.'

I didn't blame him really. Working sixty hours a week, then having to drive me around on his night off.

But part of me must have blamed him – for being tired, or just for being stubborn – because I blurted out, ‘Well, I've organised a lift to stop you having to do this. Don't try to make me feel guilty!' The high whine of my voice seemed to linger in the air.

Dad shook his head. ‘You're too young,' he growled.

I snorted and crossed my arms.
Yeah? Abe would agree with you on that.

I set my face in an angry pout, and gave Dad the silent treatment for the rest of the drive home. It had been the night from hell.

Get this for an awesome daydream: a bright flat next to the beach, perhaps sharing with Summer, or just me on my own. Lazy chai teas down the street before driving to dance training in the city. Then long nights of slick professional dancing. A dream life, where I'd meet my dream man . . .

‘
Guten Morgen
, Saph,
bin ich Sie uns könnte verbinden froh.
'

On Monday morning, my wonderful daydream was interrupted by a bouncy German teacher. Mr Kissinger was rocking on his feet, and nodding eagerly.

‘Sorry, Sir?' I stretched out my legs, trying to shake off the daydream.

‘Good morning, Saph. I'm glad you could join us,' Mr Kissinger translated and did an enthusiastic jig.

Everyone had the same blank stares and slouched shoulders, so I don't know why Mr Kissinger had singled me out. As usual, Jay was sitting across from me, and avoiding looking my way (
What am I, the Invisible Bimbo?
), stretching his long legs out like two thick trip-wires.

‘Now, Saph. Please read out the essay topic,' asked Mr Kissinger. He was making me tired from all that bouncing.

I peered up at the screen, forcing my eyes to focus. ‘
Echtes Glück
,' I said with pretty good pronunciation, if I do say so myself.

Mr Kissinger's smile was one of relief. ‘And translated?'

‘Um . . . er . . . right happiness.' But that didn't sound right. ‘No!
Real
happiness,' I called quickly.

‘
Wunderbar
!' Another relieved smile. ‘Or “genuine happiness” if you like.'

Silence and distant stares from the class.

Mr Kissinger gestured to the screen like a butler introducing the Queen. ‘Class, I'd like to introduce your essay topic. Essay topic, here are the people who are going to write about you.'

Uncomfortable rustling from the class. Now he had our attention.

‘Four hundred words. In German. Due in two weeks,' said Mr Kissinger.

Lots more shuffling and uneasy murmurs. Four hundred words! In English that would be fine, but 400 words in German was like doing a foreign language marathon. Especially since we would be looking up 350 of them in the dictionary.

‘Four hundred words, Sir?' Someone voiced the disbelief on everyone's faces. Annette Braun – who had white eyebrows and German parents – was the only one not frowning.

Jay had picked up his dictionary in both hands as if it could save him from this hell.

‘Now, now.' Mr Kissinger held out his hands to calm the class and sat on his desk. ‘Do your first draft in English. Don't worry about your vocab, write from the heart. Then I'll help you …' He stood up to make his point. ‘I'll help all of you translate.' He started pacing calmly – thank goodness, I was way over the bouncing. ‘This is an exercise in genuine expression. And a great way to expand your vocab.'

I settled back in my seat, thinking about the essay topic. Now it didn't seem quite so bad. Genuine happiness . . .

Soon we were working on our own, brainstorming ideas while Mr Kissinger cheered us on and typed up prompts on the screen. ‘When do you feel most alive? What stops you feeling happy? Strip away life's comforts and how do you feel?'

Starting was easy.
Happiness is dancing in front of a crowd and making their eyes pop with each kick.

But what else?
Happiness is sipping hot chocolate with my best friend, Summer.
That was a no-brainer.
Happiness is looking at Damien Rowsthorn's legs.
I stopped and read over my work. Then I crossed out my last sentence. Mr Kissinger was cool, but not
that
cool. I kept scribbling.

Pulling on a fresh pair of dancing tights.

Eating chocolate and not getting fat.

Getting my licence and buying my very own cool little car.

Real happiness will be turning eighteen.

Four hundred words here we come! This was too easy.

‘Eating chocolate and not getting fat, eh?' The empty space beside me was suddenly overtaken by two tanned arms placing books and a laptop on the table. Enemy alert!

‘Sorry, that seat's taken.' I wasn't ready for Jay to come and sit here. Not when he could see my work! I rested my forearms over my page of scribbling.

‘Now it is.' Jay folded himself into the seat and flashed me a grin.

I went back to scribbling, writing any old stuff and ignoring the enemy beside me.

But he started talking to me as if we were friends. ‘I hear you've signed up for girls basketball?'

‘Yeah, well, I'm a girl of many talents.' I shrugged as if the basketball prank was a bit of a yawn. But my heart was doing star jumps.
Was he going to own up to signing me up for basketball?

‘Well, Mr Sandown is really keen.' As Jay played with his pen, the muscles in his arms tightened and bulged slightly. I was so close I could see the pale hairs on his tanned skin.

Annette Braun was chatting away in German to Mr Kissinger as he sat on the table next to her.
Puh-lease!

‘Hey, did you catch the Magic game on Saturday night?' Jay asked.

Saturday night? Not Saturday night! A stumble and loss of timing, beetroot face
. . .

‘Is that a trick question?' I asked, with a quick glance his way.

‘I know you were
there
,' Jay said smugly. ‘But did you
see the game
.' He didn't pause to let me answer. ‘From where I was sitting it looked like you were fluffing up your pompoms. Or was that your hair?'

Fluffing up my hair!
I couldn't let him get away with that. I wracked my brain, trying to remember what had happened on the basketball court that terrible night. It helped that I had overheard a couple of fans talking on the way to the carpark.

‘Well, for your information, Tyson Andrews going off with a bad knee nearly cost us the game. But Damien and that other old guy did some top plays and saved the day.' It sounded pretty good at least. I flicked back my hair and smirked at Jay.

He had one dark eyebrow raised. The corners of his mouth were lifting slightly. ‘Not a bad assessment . . . except I would have said that Grant Cunningham and “that other guy” saved the day.' He actually made the quotation marks in the air with his hands.

I shrugged as if to say
well
,
that's your opinion
, and I kept working, or trying to, as a torrent of questions formed in my mind. Where did Jay sit during games? How closely did he watch the dancers? Had Jay seen my stuff-up in the opening number?

I put down my pen. ‘So your family has season tickets for Magic games? Where do you sit?' Now it was my turn to pretend we were friends.

Jay shifted in his seat. ‘On the park side …'

‘Saph and Jay. I hope you're talking about the essay topic,' Mr Kissinger called and started bouncing again.

I picked up my pen and kept working. Jay did too.

After a few minutes, I reached over and wrote on Jay's page,
Where on the park
– But I didn't get to the end of my sentence.

Jay grabbed my hand. He peered at the back of it with his nose scrunched up.

‘What
is
that?' he asked quietly.

His hand felt warm, before I pulled mine back and crammed it between my knees.

‘Why is your hand
orange
?' Jay was peering at me as if I had some disease.

I scrunched up my face, feeling my cheeks burn. Orange hands and red cheeks. Not a good look.

‘Fake tan,' I said in a low voice. ‘We use it for cheerleading.'

‘Fake tan?' Slowly Jay's look of horror turned to one of pure glee. ‘
Fake
tan?'

I clenched my jaw tight and flashed Jay one of Dad's Greek stares of fury. ‘Yeah? You already know heaps about fake stuff Jay. Like . . . fake letters?'

When I said that, Jay stopped smiling, shook his head and started working again.

I did the same. I wrote
Happiness is standing up for my rights
on my page and kept jotting down ideas. Real happiness . . .

Except, I wasn't sure what I was doing anymore.

Real happiness is eating chocolate and not getting fat.
That wasn't happiness; that was a fantasy. It wasn't real.

Now I couldn't think. I couldn't even spell. My mind was full of fake tan and thick make-up, basketball scores and the layout of the Magic home stadium.

How could Jay just waltz in, say a few things, and turn everything upside down?

CHAPTER
5

When I got to the dance studio for cheerleading practice it had turned into a zoo. A bunch of mothers were crouched on the floor, trying to squish their tiny tots into bright pink tutus. In the middle of it all, Lesley seemed to have grown an extra pair of hands – pinning one costume, scribbling lists on a bit of paper and calming one of the nervous mums.

‘Eisteddfod time,' said Bec from the doorway, watching with her arms crossed.

‘I need to do a wee!' cried one of the tiny tots, clutching desperately at her tutu before being scooped up by her mum.

Bec and I stood back from the doorway as the pink ball of tulle rushed past.

‘Get used to it, hon!' Bec called after them with a wry smile.

I laughed, then leaned again on the doorway, watching one of the little girls admiring herself in the mirror. Slowly she lifted one leg, then pointed her toe, transfixed by the look of her own leg in tights.

I smiled. Then rested my head on the doorway and sighed.
Those were the days.
That was when dancing made my heart sing, and we had a whole year to learn two easy numbers. Practising in the lounge room until Dad kicked me out. Counting down the days until the best day of the year: eisteddfod.

All that seemed like a long time ago. Princesses and fairies were a world away from corporate sponsorship and television broadcasts.

‘Get warm people!' called Lesley through the pin sticking out of the corner of her mouth. ‘We have to finish the opener today. And I have three new time-outs to do.'

With a smile for one of the tots as I passed, I headed for my usual spot at the barre and began the steady soothing routine of warm-up kicks. They felt good, like a satisfying stretch in the morning.

This was what it was all about – the height of a kick after years of practice, an automatic point, the way my muscles knew precisely how to lift my leg and turn out just so . . . Dancing might have become work for me now, but there was still nothing else in the world that could make my body feel like this.