by Laurence Yep
“I’ve done some sketches, but so far nothing’s jumped out at me,” I confessed.
“I’ll pull out some books to give you ideas while you cut the cloth for the cape,” said Mom, scanning the bookshelf in the corner. “Be sure to cut the cape as a trapezoid—narrower at the shoulders and wider at the bottom so that it’ll really swing.” She pointed to her throat. “And cut a strip for the collar, too, so that we can fasten the cape around the neck.”
I found some fabric scissors and began to cut the material, making the cape long enough to reach my waist. Then I cut a strip of fabric for a collar and trimmed away the loose threads along the edges.
By then, Mom had set a stack of books on the floor. I handed the cape to her, and she sat down behind Henrietta, her trusty sewing machine. With the familiar brrrr of the machine in the background, I started looking at the books and tried to think about my own costume. But my mind was still stuck on the cape. As pretty as the shimmery green cloth was, it needed something more.
“Mom, can I make a design on the cape with sequins?” I asked.
Mom kept her head bent over Henrietta. “Sure. You know where the sequins are,” she said. “If you baste them in place, I can sew them on later.”
So I went to the shelves stacked with plastic bins, sorting through the ones with the tiny shiny sequins until I decided on a bright magenta. I took the bin and a needle and thread over to my desk.
Now, what design should I create? I wondered, staring at the sequins. Of the many images running through my head, one leaped out at me. I’d make the sample cape for Luisa, with a design of a ship with three masts on the back. Anything less would have been an insult to a captain like her.
As I sketched the design on a piece of scrap paper, satisfaction grew inside me, as warm and comforting as the sound of Tutu purring—or the whir of Mom’s sewing machine. It felt good to be working with Mom in the sewing room again.
“Here you go,” Mom announced finally, holding up the hemmed cape.
“Thanks!” I said. As I studied the cape, I knew I had been right. The cape needed some sort of picture on the back of it. “I’m going to put this on it,” I said, showing Mom my design.
She glanced at my sketch. “Nice,” she said. “I can’t wait to see it! But it’s way past lunchtime. I should make some food. Can you take it from here, hon?”
“Yup, I can handle this,” I said.
“Okay then,” she said, kissing the top of my head before stepping out of the room.
As impatient as I was to finish the cape, I kept checking the design I was creating against my sketch to be sure it was just right. By the time I was done, yummy smells were slipping under the door from the kitchen, and my stomach began to growl.
While we sipped French onion soup for lunch, Jade told me more about the exhibit. “When I saw the Nereid there, I knew that’s what I wanted to report on for my visual arts class,” she said. “She was standing like this.” Hopping up from her chair, she raised her arms into an arc over her head. It would have looked more graceful if Jade hadn’t still been holding a soupspoon in one hand.
“The near-what?” I asked.
“Nereid. Nereids were goddesses in Greek legends who danced with the moon,” Jade explained as she danced a few steps across the kitchen floor. “Do you want to see the postcard I bought of her?”
“Sure,” I said quickly. I was definitely curious about this Nereid.
Jade left the kitchen and returned a moment later to show me a painting of a girl who seemed to be hovering over a dark sea of water. She wore a short, ivory-colored dress that gleamed like the whitecaps surrounding her. She was so light that her feet barely touched the water, and as she twisted at the waist and stretched her arms upward to hug the moon, her whole body curled as gracefully as the shining ribbons of spray that rose from the waves.
“She’s beautiful,” I said. “She looks like a sea fairy.”
“I love her smile,” Jade murmured, tracing it with a finger. “She looks so happy.”
As Mom, Dad, and Jade told me more about the exhibit, my eyes kept straying back to the postcard Jade had propped up against a bowl. I wish I could dance like her, I thought enviously.
When lunch was finished, I started stacking the plates, but Jade said, “Leave that to me.”
“But it’s my turn to do the dishes,” I said.
“I may not be able to help with your costume,” Jade said, “but I can at least give you time to work on it yourself.”
“Don’t you have to practice dancing?” I asked. “Or work on your school report?”
“I’ll do all that later,” Jade said firmly, and I could tell she meant business.
I couldn’t remember the last time Jade had offered to do dishes for me, so how could I turn her down? I did have to design a costume, after all. “Thanks, sis,” I said. “What would I do without you?”
Jade paused and then said, “Oh, I think you’d be just fine.” Something about her tone sounded odd, but when I gave her a questioning look, she just smiled and gave me a playful pat. “Get going already, Isabelle!” she said. “You have work to do.”
Because Mom’s job at the Smithsonian Institution was restoring antique textiles and clothing, she had a lot of books on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century fashion. I spent the afternoon leafing through a stack of them in the sewing room, looking at the pictures. Unfortunately, the books gave me too many ideas, so before my head exploded with pirate designs, I put the books away to look at later.
After dinner, I carefully folded the cape and tucked it into my bag so that I could show it to Luisa on Monday. It was only eight o’clock, but the lower floor of our house was dark. Up above me, I could hear the boards creaking as Dad walked around my parents’ bedroom. I heard music from the bedroom I shared with Jade, and the rhythmic sound of her dancing feet.
I could have gone upstairs, too, but today had felt like a piece of my favorite chocolate. I just wanted to sit somewhere by myself and remember the sweetness. So I went into the living room.
As I walked through the doorway, I created a slight breeze that made Mom’s artwork, a mobile called “Pond Dreams,” spin and move. Shadows danced across the floor. Traffic had thinned out on the freeway near our house, so the sound of cars came and went like the whoosh of ocean surf.
Tutu was asleep on a chair. Her fur seemed to shine like pale fire, and I realized that the light in the room was too strong to be coming from just the streetlamp outside.
I sat down, careful not to wake Tutu, and looked out the window. The full moon floated in the night sky like a pale, round lantern. Its soft light spilled across our neighbors’ houses and flooded into our living room, coating everything with a silvery finish. It made everything seem strange and dreamy.
Staring up at the moon, I could see its face so clearly. It was smiling—just as I was. So I sat there for a long time, keeping it company.
“What are you looking at?” Jade asked as she came into the room and sat down beside me.
Silently, I pointed at the moon.
“Oh,” Jade said softly.
I felt ribbons of moonlight curl delicately around my ankles, pulling me to my feet. The floor spread in front of me like a calm, dark sea, and the bright moon kept tugging, urging me to dance with it.
Stretching out my arms, I leaped forward, and I saw Jade rising beside me, too. As the moon wrapped its silvery light around us, I felt as weightless as the dancer on Jade’s postcard.
Suddenly, I stopped dancing. “I know just what I want to be for the pirate routine,” I whispered, as much to myself as to Jade.
“What?” Jade asked, her arms poised in midair.
“A sea fairy!” I announced happily as I spun again beneath the spotlight of the moon.
After my high-powered rehearsal with Jackie, it was nice to get back to my normal routine at school on Monday. But as soon as Jade and I entered the building, kids began to come up and ask me about Jackie.
Ev
en Gemma, a friend of Jade’s with curly brown hair, fell in step beside us and asked, “Did you really work with Jackie Sanchez one-on-one, Isabelle?”
“Well, Luisa and I both did,” I answered honestly.
“This is so not fair,” Gemma moaned. “Why didn’t Jackie Sanchez ask me to be in her tour?”
It felt odd to have everyone’s attention on me instead of on my sister. At first, Jade was smiling. She seemed to think the situation was funny. But as more students crowded around, she held up her wrist and tapped her watch.
“Gotta go,” she said. As my sister disappeared down the hall, leaving me surrounded by a ring of admiring students, I felt as if the whole world had turned upside down.
When I finally reached my locker, Luisa was just closing her own. She seemed relieved to see me. “Have people been asking you about our rehearsal with Jackie?” she asked.
“Yeah, weird, huh?” I said. “But who told them?”
Luisa jerked her head at Gabriel, two lockers down. “Blame Big Mouth there,” she said, rolling her eyes.
Gabriel didn’t look sorry at all. “Hey, if magic doesn’t work out, maybe I’ll get a job on one of those TV gossip shows,” he joked.
Sliding my book bag off my shoulder, I set it on the floor and carefully took out the cape. “What do you think of this?” I asked my friends.
Luisa reached for the cape right away. Fastening it around her neck, she did a spin, laughing as it billowed around her. “I love it,” she said.
Gabriel pointed at the ship outlined in magenta sequins on the green cloth. “Did you design that one for Luisa?” he asked. “She’s really more of a shark than a ship.”
Luisa made a face at him. “Well, yours should have a parrot. A real squawky one,” she retorted. She folded up the cape carefully and handed it back to me.
Gabriel just laughed. “Later,” he said as he headed off to class.
That afternoon, it felt a little funny to step into the modern dance studio again. Jackie Sanchez wasn’t there to greet us—just my regular classmates warming up.
I didn’t expect to be in the spotlight still, but as Luisa and I stretched, some of the other former pirate dancers peppered us with questions. What was Jackie like? What was she going to do with a smaller cast of pirates? Did she make us do any special exercises?
It was as if we were celebrities just because we had spent a few hours with Jackie. All the attention had been fun at first, but now it was getting annoying. Jade got that sort of treatment at school because everyone knew she was destined for great things. Did my sister ever get tired of it?
When Mr. Amici came into the studio, he cleared his throat noisily. “The last time I checked,” he said, “this was a modern dance class, not a tea party.”
We all hurried onto the floor to begin warming up as Mr. Amici walked around, making sure that we were stretching properly. He wore a turtleneck and loose yoga pants—all black, as usual. I wondered if he’d worn black when he was Jackie’s teacher, too. Then I remembered the small crack in the mirror and had to bite my lip to keep from giggling.
Suddenly Mr. Amici’s shadow stretched over me. “I hope rehearsals went well on Saturday, girls,” he said, looking at Luisa and me but speaking loudly enough for the whole class to hear. “You can learn a lot from Jackie, you know—not just about technique but also about what it takes to become a great dancer. I’ve never seen anyone work harder than she did when she was a student here. It was her work habits as well as her talent that made her a star. Keep that in mind, you two.”
“Yes, sir,” I said with a gulp.
He nodded and said, “Good.” Then he pivoted and faced the rest of the class. “So today, I want all of you to dance like something that floats.” He swept his arm in a wide arc. “And by the end of the dance, we should know exactly what you are.”
One student puffed out his cheeks and danced like a balloon. Another was a kite. Luisa ran, twirled, and bounced all over the studio, and we finally guessed that she was a boat on a stormy sea.
As soon as Mr. Amici had announced the exercise, I thought of my sea fairy. When it was my turn to dance, I moved on all fours across the floor, arching my back and lowering and lifting my head like foam floating over rolling waves. Then I rose up like sea spray lifted by the wind. And I began to dance as I had last night with the moon.
I thought I’d done a good job being the sea fairy, but no one could guess what I was. And when I told them, Mr. Amici scratched his nose. “It was a good attempt, Isabelle,” he said. “It just needs a bit more work.”
I sank back down beside Luisa, trying to hide my disappointment. Being a sea fairy was a lot trickier than I’d thought it would be.
The next Saturday in the studio, I handed Jackie the sample cape. I held my breath as she lifted it up in front of a window. In the morning sunlight, the cloth glowed like pale emerald glass.
“Ooh, I love the design and the colors, Isabelle,” she said. “It’s wonderful!”
“It’s fun to play with, too,” Luisa said.
“Oh? Show me,” Jackie said, handing her the cape.
Luisa took the cape and fastened it around her neck. As she began to spin, the cape rose around her.
“Yes, yes,” Jackie said eagerly. “And then there’s this, too. Grab the hem with both hands, Luisa.” Jackie put her own fists below her waist. Then, turning her back on us, she extended her arms behind her and alternated swinging them up and down.
When Luisa tried that, her cape spread like butterfly wings. I suddenly realized that if lots of dancers did that at the same time, we’d form a solid wall of whirling, swirling green. “Maybe all nine of us could play with our capes at the same time during the show,” I suggested.
Jackie’s eyes gleamed as she pictured it. “Yes, the cast can do that during the entrance and exit,” she agreed. “You really have a knack for this, Isabelle.” Then she frowned. “But are you sure that you and your mother can make enough capes for everyone?”
I nodded eagerly. “I can cut the material for the capes, and my mom can hem them. But we’ll need more material,” I added. “May I text my mom and tell her?”
“Yes, please do,” said Jackie.
So I pulled out my phone and sent off a quick text to Mom. But then I had another idea. “Maybe all the capes could have designs,” I said to Jackie. “Jacob’s and Saafi’s could have crowns because they’re doing Shakespeare. We could have a violin for Ryan and musical notes for Hailey. And flowers for the Waltzing Flowers, of course!”
Jackie stared at me. “You’re a regular little firecracker, aren’t you, Isabelle?” she said, breaking into a laugh. “But have you had time to think about your own character’s costume yet?”
I hesitated. The sea fairy had seemed like such a good idea, but then I’d bombed in Mr. Amici’s class when I’d tried to dance the part. “You said to think outside the box,” I began nervously, “so…maybe I could be a sea fairy. And when I see Luisa dancing, I start to imitate her—sort of like the copycat game last week.”
Jackie folded her arms. “Interesting,” she said. “What’s your costume going to look like?”
“I was thinking that I could wear an ivory leotard and tutu,” I said, recalling Jade’s postcard. “Like a sea fairy that’s the same color as the whitecaps on the waves.”
Jackie nodded. “I like it,” she said, which made me tingle with relief. “It’s good to make yourself look different from Luisa, whose costume will be very colorful. And next week I can bring a simple prop or two that could help with your sea fairy routine.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Absolutely. I know lots of stage tricks,” Jackie said with a wink. “But for today, let’s concentrate on learning your solos. Luisa, I’ll demonstrate yours first.”
I got goose bumps thinking that Jackie was going to dance for us. This was like having our own private performance!
She started the pirate music, nodding her head along with the first few notes.
“We’ll begin with a hornpipe move,” she said, hopping on her right foot while bending and raising her other leg. Then she hopped on her left foot and lifted her right leg.
“Now, watch carefully,” Jackie said, skipping sideways in one direction and then back toward where she started. “And then this.” She skipped forward a step, and then skipped forward again with one leg bent and raised. She did another skip on the same foot and kicked the other leg upward. Then she reversed it all so that she wound up back in the same spot.
Some of the hornpipe steps looked familiar, but Jackie had added new arm movements, maybe because she had seen last week how flexible Luisa’s shoulders and arms were. Jackie spread her arms to the sides, bending her elbows and pointing her hands downward. At the same time, she rolled her head around like a rag doll.
She swung her arms and kicked her legs as if she were just discovering them. And she seemed to love having them—maybe for all the ways they bent and wriggled. Her joyful movements became more and more smooth until she was gliding across the stage as gracefully as a butterfly.
I almost clapped when Jackie finished demonstrating, but I caught myself.
“Now we’ll try it together one step at a time,” Jackie said.
Luisa rose hesitantly, uncertainty clouding her face, but Jackie repeated the steps at a much slower tempo this time. Instead of playing music, she kept time with her hands, singing, “Da, DUM, da, DUM” while Luisa moved in slow motion. I tried the steps, too. I couldn’t help myself! Every now and then, Jackie would adjust one of our arms or legs with a tap of her hand.
After Luisa had practiced the steps a few times, she looked relieved to realize that she could actually do the routine. When she tried it at full speed, she struggled with a few combinations, but Jackie didn’t seem to mind demonstrating them for her again.
“Good,” Jackie said approvingly as Luisa finished her routine.
“I made a lot of mistakes, though,” Luisa said.