“Yes, this is my first time at camp,” I say.
“Well, you’re going to love it. It’s the best.” Nio is so excited he’s practically bouncing in his seat.
“Really?” I raise my eyebrows.
“Yep. You get to dance for two weeks and nobody, you know, makes fun of you. So, what kind of dance do you do?”
“Ballet,” I say automatically.
“Really?” Nio says. “I didn’t think Camp Dance did ballet.”
“I know.”
“So, I don’t mean to be rude, but why are you here?”
I twist my ponytail around my fingers. “The summer ballet program I was supposed to attend got canceled, and my parents had already planned a trip to Italy. They needed to send me somewhere.”
“Wow, that’s, like, years of therapy waiting to happen,” Nio says.
“Thanks.” I slump in my seat. We’ve already left the city, and I can only see highways and bridges against the backdrop of the mountains.
“So, what section did you sign up for?” Nio asks.
“What do you mean?”
“When you filled out the registration form, you had to sign up for a dance section. You know, like contemporary or ballroom.”
I hesitate. “I didn’t fill out any forms. I guess my parents must have…” I imagine Dad choosing “jazzy tap-tap” or “hippity-hop” for me and feel sick to my stomach.
“Oh well, I’m sure you can choose when you arrive. Your section is important, because that’s your main dance class every morning.”
“What about you?” I ask. “What kind of dance do you do?”
“All of it.” Nio smiles. “But I like contemporary best.”
I’m about to ask Nio what’s so great about contemporary, but he is already standing up. “Time to see who’s here,” he says and saunters toward the back of the bus.
Three
The bus ride takes forever. I try to keep myself occupied by rehearsing in my head all the dances I’ve ever learned, starting when I was four and wore a bumblebee costume, all the way up to my last performance in the pink tutu. I can’t believe that was only two weeks ago.
Nio comes back to his seat from time to time to tell me about campers from previous years. He says, “Chelsey is back. She sang ‘Tits and Ass’ from A Chorus Line last year.” Or “Logan, who is my best Camp Dance friend, got a nose ring!” Or “This girl Jezina from two years ago says she can do a backflip.” I pretend to be interested. Mostly I just smile and nod because the bus is so loud. One group of girls belts out “Do-Re-Mi” from The Sound of Music until they’re overtaken by other girls singing a rap song full of swearing. A counselor asks them to stop, but the bus doesn’t get any quieter. I sink low in my seat and try to stick my fingers in my ears without other people noticing.
I’m not good with lots of noise. Dad says being an introverted dancer is weird, but I don’t feel shy when I’m dancing. Still, at the end of the day, after being surrounded by other dancers, I want to be by myself. It makes me worry about camp. What if I need to be alone? I’m hoping there’s a bathroom with a door that locks.
After four hours of noise, we finally pull off the highway and onto a long road through a grassy field. When the bus stops, I’m the first one off. It’s incredibly beautiful in the Okanagan. Living in Burnaby, I’m used to rainy weather and lots of green grass, trees and bushes. Here, I’m surrounded by yellow and brown sun-scorched fields, and in the distance is Kalamalka Lake, glimmering like a blue eye.
I read in the brochure that Camp Dance has ten cabins, a soccer pitch and a baseball diamond, a small beach and a dock area on the lake. I can see the dining hall at the top of a steep hill. In front of me is the main camp building, which I already know has five dance rehearsal studios and a performance hall with a stage. Everyone from the bus streams into the performance hall, and I follow. At one end of the large open room is a raised platform with a curved edge. I guess that’s the stage.
As more campers come in, the room gets noisier and noisier. It’s even worse than the bus. I stand to the side as kids start forming groups. In one corner, dancers raise their wriggling fingers higher and higher, yelling, “Jazz hands, jazz hands, jazz hands!” Other kids make a circle around dancers taking turns freestyling hip-hop moves. The kids in the loudest and smallest group drum their tap shoes against the edge of the wooden stage. Nio has joined a quieter bunch of campers copying a counselor who leads them in an elaborate seated dance with their arms waving above their heads.
I want to bolt out of the building. Where is Mrs. Mamdou to play the piano and Mrs. G to bark out commands at a row of silent, serious girls at the barre? I find myself reaching into my pocket for my phone again, but I only find some lint. I’m walking quickly toward the exit when a counselor wearing a hot-pink Camp Dance T-shirt taps me on the shoulder. She’s the tall one I noticed earlier, the one with the hawk tattoo. She also has short dark hair, a nose ring and muscled arms.
“Are you Meg Farahni?” she asks over the noise. I nod, and she beckons for me to step onto the porch. The sun makes me squint, but I’m so happy to be away from the noise I don’t care. The counselor holds out her hand. “I’m Tara, and you’re going to be in my cabin. Welcome.” When she smiles, her eyes wrinkle up as if they are smiling too. “Your father called last week to ask about camp and to tell me about you. He says you’re a ballerina looking for new experiences.”
“Uh, sort of,” I say.
“Well, I think you’ll find Camp Dance pretty different from your usual ballet classes, but I hope you’ll feel welcome. The kids here are very open-minded.”
I’m not sure what to say, but it seems rude to say nothing. I swallow and whisper, “I will.”
“Great. Now, before we go in and announce cabins, you should choose a main dance section. Your parents forgot to fill that out on your form. Have you thought about what you want to do?”
I look over my shoulder into the hall. The ballroom dancers have taken over the back of the room, performing something that looks both corny and complicated. There’s no way I can do that, or hip-hop, or tap. And what was with that jazz hand stuff? Just then Nio waves at me from his group. They’ve finished their arm-waving routine and are now watching one of the older campers perform a dance that involves a lot of rolling around on the floor. It’s strange but also graceful. I really don’t want to go back inside the hall, but Tara is waiting for me to choose. I look at all those strange faces, all those people I don’t know, and then I see Nio again. At least he’s friendly, and I’ve met him. “I guess I’ll try that,” I say, pointing toward Nio’s group.
“Contemporary,” Tara says. “That’s a good choice for a ballet dancer. And I teach that class.” She makes a note on her clipboard and waits for me to go inside. I take a deep breath and enter the din of the hall. Luckily, everyone is so busy talking that no one pays any attention to me as I walk toward Nio.
Before I can even sit down, Nio wraps his arms around me, squashing me in a giant sweaty hug, almost knocking me over. “You chose us! We’re going to have the best time ever.”
I can’t help smiling at his enthusiasm.
Four
To calm myself down, I think about tendus. There are seventy-two different ballet steps, but a tendu, the brushing of the foot across the floor until it’s pointed to the front, side or back, is my favorite. It’s simple but elegant. Some people twiddle their thumbs or gnaw their nails; I do tendus. Since I can’t stand up and practice tendus in front of everyone, I imagine myself at the barre while the camp director welcomes the campers, reviews the rules and announces the cabins.
When Tara calls my name, I try to hold my head high as I cross the hall, even though I want to keep my chin close to my chest and scurry out. I follow the other girls, who rush back to the bus to get their stuff and then carry their bags across a field to a row of cabins. Tara helps me with my bag.
When I get to the wooden cabin I understand why the other girls were hurrying. Bunks
are chosen by whoever gets to them first. I look around the dim wooden room with its two tiny windows and wooden rafters. Even though everyone has taken off their shoes, the floor feels gritty. The only spot left is an upper bunk right by the door. All the other girls are laughing and talking and unpacking their clothes into the drawers between the beds. Some of the girls tape pictures from their dance recitals to the walls. Tara has the radio playing a Top Forty station. No one talks to me; they’re all too busy saying hi to everyone they already know.
I shove my T-shirts and shorts into a shallow drawer, and then I look through my fashion scrapbook for something to decorate the wall. I decide on a series of prom dresses from Teen Vogue. Just as I’m taping them up, a girl with short, spiky, dirty-blond hair comes over to talk to me. She’s wearing an off-the-shoulder T-shirt with a picture of a car on the front, cut-off denim shorts and a pair of scuffed boots that make her outfit more interesting than any of the other girls’ mall-inspired clothing. “Interesting,” she says, pointing to the wall. “Everyone else has recital pictures of themselves.”
I’m not sure what to say. “I’m Meg,” I finally reply.
“Logan.”
“Oh, are you Nio’s friend?”
“Yeah, how do you know him?”
“We sat on the bus together.”
Logan nods slowly. “He’s my best friend here.”
“Lucky you.” I try to smile. “So you must be in contemporary.”
“What else do you know about me?” Logan folds her arms across her chest.
“Um, nothing. I was just going to say that I’m doing contemporary too.”
Logan licks her lips. “Great, that’s great. Nio and I have already planned some moves.”
“Yeah, I don’t really know how to do contemporary yet.”
“Then why did you sign up for it?”
“I just, well…I’m not sure.” I tug on my ponytail. It seems too complicated to explain to Logan.
She gives me a weird look.
Luckily, Tara chooses that moment to announce that unpacking time is over and everyone is to meet in front of the cabin under the trees. I quickly finish taping the dress pictures and file out with the other girls.
“We’re going to have an awesome couple of weeks,” Tara says, “because everyone knows Camp Dance is the best!” The girls cheer around me, and I try to smile. Tara continues, “I know almost all of you from previous years, but there are some new faces, and we need to get to know everyone, so we’re going to play a couple of quick games. The first one goes like this. I’m Tara and I really like birds.” She points to her hawk tattoo, then turns to me. “Repeat my line and then add something about yourself.”
I swallow and repeat Tara’s line and then add, “So, I’m Meg and I like ballet.” I’m relieved to be at the beginning of the game so I don’t have to remember much. The other girls’ names pass in a blur of favorite songs and singers. Only Logan is memorable because she does karate as well as dance. She also wrinkles her nose when she repeats my line about ballet, which makes me a little uneasy.
I daydream through the rest of the icebreaker games. All I want is five minutes of quiet to think about the day and to worry about contemporary dance. While the other girls play charades, which I suck at because I don’t know the musicals they keep choosing, music blasts over the pa system. “Attention, campers! It’s dinnertime,” a voice rings out. “The first one to the dining hall who can name this song gets to open freestyle tonight!”
“They’re playing ‘It’s a Hard Knock Life’ from Annie,” Jodie, a girl with dark curly hair, squeals. She and her friend Cassidy start racing up the hill to the dining hall. I turn to admire Cassidy’s hair, which is long and blond with the tips dyed purple. The other girls saunter up the hill behind them.
“What’s open freestyle?” I ask Tara.
“Oh, our evening program on the first night is always a dance showcase. The first person to the dining hall gets to go first.” Tara starts walking up the hill.
I follow along beside her, twisting my fingers behind my back. “Does everyone have to dance?”
“No, only if you want to.”
I unclench my fists.
Dinner is macaroni and cheese, which everyone is excited about. I’m too nervous to eat much. At least I don’t have to worry about who to talk to, because the dining hall hums with the voices of a hundred kids, mostly girls, all talking at the same time.
After dinner, the other girls dig through their bags looking for costumes, trying to decide if they will dance in the opening freestyle. I lie flat on my bed, trying to block out the sound of my cabin mates.
“I might dance, but then again, I might be too nervous.”
“I will if you will.”
“Then you have to go first.”
“We could do it together, but only if we do that routine—you know, the one that goes like this.”
I bury my head in my pillow so the others won’t see me sticking my fingers in my ears.
“Okay, time to go—it’s seven o’clock.” Tara starts bustling everyone out, despite protests that they need one more minute in front of the mirror or need to change one last time. Maybe no one will see me up on my bunk, but Tara pokes her head up by my pillow. “It’s showtime!” She holds out her hand to help me down.
Open freestyle is a new kind of crazy. Most of the dancers seem content to get up on stage without choreographed routines and make up a dance on the spot to their favorite song. This is both impressive and terrifying. What if you can’t think of what to do next? There are younger kids who do acrobatics, a pair of girls who perform a jazz dance, a bunch of boys who break-dance and then a long series of tap dancers. Jodie and Cassidy tap a musical-theater number they know well, their excitement showing on their faces. Jodie doesn’t even seem to care that she slips at the end. She just gets up, bows again and prances offstage.
When I finally crawl into my bunk that night, I’m so tired I could cry. I’m hoping to fall asleep immediately, but my sleeping bag smells weird, and I miss my bed with its pink sheets. I can’t stop thinking about the day, about the bus and the hill and the lake and all the noise. I stretch out and point and flex my toes. Tomorrow I’ll have to find time to do some ballet exercises; otherwise I’ll be really behind when I get back.
Just when I’m starting to fall asleep, I hear someone whisper-yell “Fashion show!” I open one eye enough to see Logan spring out of her bunk wearing a silver tank top and a hot-pink feather boa with her pajama bottoms. She struts the length of the cabin, turns and poses at the bathroom door, then starts prancing between the bunks. The other girls cheer her on. Logan looks ridiculous in her pajamas yet stylish, like she should be in an Alexander McQueen runway show. I’d add a pair of big sunglasses or maybe a checked hat to her outfit.
I’m about to offer my own sunglasses when the cabin door opens and Tara pops her head in. “Busted. Get back to bed.” Logan shimmies her way back to bed and I lie staring at the ceiling, wishing it was me who was brave enough to prance around in front of everyone.
Five
I am dreaming of performing a sissonne, a jump from two feet onto one, when a blast of Elvis over the pa system wakes me. I want to bury my head under my pillow to make the music go away. Instead, I get out of my bunk to be first in the bathroom. I dress quickly so I can walk to the dining hall alone, before the other girls get up. It’s another beautiful sunny day, the camp grass already drying out. From the hill in front of the dining hall, I can see the lake sparkling and the brown and yellow hills surrounding the water.
The dining hall is quiet this morning, with only the clink of silverware and the scraping of chairs breaking the silence. I make myself a cup of tea and nibble a piece of toast. The other girls from my cabin slowly take their places around the table. “Campers,” the director announces over the pa system, “eat a good breakfast, with either an egg or some peanut butter. It’s going to be a big morning of dance.”
After breakfast
and a short cabin cleanup, it’s time for the main dance class of the day. I square my shoulders, pull my hair into a ponytail and take a casual look around to see what the other girls are wearing. Most of them have on dance tights and fitted T-shirts or workout tops and shorts. I pull on a black leotard and shorts. At least my clothes won’t make me stand out.
I walk slowly across the hot, dry field to the dance studios. Cassidy and Jodie catch up with me and start singing and pretending to do a ballet dance around me. I can’t help smiling at their silliness. They’re friendly, even if they are kind of immature, and by the time I arrive at the contemporary-dance studio, I feel more relaxed.
The studio has a wall of mirrors and the ballet barre across one wall. I tap my foot against the floor; it will be good for jumps. I take a deep breath, kick off my flip-flops and sit down to stretch, my legs spread wide in a V and my chest resting on the floor.
A few moments later Nio comes in with Logan.
“Whoa.” Nio gasps, lifting a hand to his forehead in mock surprise. “Could you be any more flexible?” He sits down beside me and stretches his legs out in front of him, pretending not to be able to reach farther than his knees. I quickly pull my feet together and sit with the soles of my feet touching.
Nio looks up at Logan. “This is the girl I was telling you about. Meg.”
Logan looks down at me. “Oh, the ballet girl.”
I nod. “Hi.”
“Yeah, ballet’s cool,” Nio says.
Logan scrunches up her face. “It’s kinda boring…”
I wish I was the kind of girl who would stand up and show her how amazing ballet is. Instead, all I do is duck my head.
“No, watch this.” Nio stands up, clasps his hands to his chest and does a drag step into a leap, followed by a pirouette.
My heart expands. “You do ballet?” I ask.
“I take a few classes for technique.” Nio leaps again.
Logan yawns.
“I know that sequence,” I say, and I stand up and do a chassé, a quick gliding step with my right foot ahead of my left, into a pose with my head tipped back and my arms over my head.
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