by Laurence Yep
My mouth began to water at the aroma coming from the microwave. Mom’s lasagna smelled delicious, as usual.
Jade and I ate our dinner silently. It wasn’t until we were nearly full that Jade spoke again. “Just how are you visualizing your routine?” she asked.
She was sounding a lot more like the big sister I remembered—the one who would drop everything to help me. I guess she was feeling a little better now that she knew Mr. Kosloff wasn’t going to drop her from her big role in The Nutcracker.
When I told Jade how I visualized the steps in my routine as toys in a toy chest, she pursed her lips. “Well, that all sounds good,” she said. “So maybe we just need to go back to basics like Mr. Kosloff said. We’ll concentrate on your pirouettes.” She glanced at the clock. “But we’d better wait until tomorrow. I’ve got science homework to do tonight.”
I was ready to crawl into bed and fall asleep myself, but it was time to change from ballerina into student. “And I’ve got to study for a math quiz,” I confessed.
I guess solving our other problems was just going to have to wait.
On Monday, I had trouble maneuvering through the crowd in the hallway at school. Luisa was leaning against a row of lockers when I joined her. “You got here just in time to watch. Some kids talked Gabe into doing a magic trick,” she whispered, nodding toward our friend, who was on the other side of the corridor.
“Is this your card?” Gabriel was asking a red-headed girl. He fanned out a deck of cards. Only the queen of hearts was faceup among them.
“Yes, that’s it,” the girl gasped.
When Gabriel saw me, he gave me a warm smile. He flipped the queen over and tucked it back into the deck. “Well, thanks everybody,” he said. “But I’ve got to be going.”
“Do another trick,” a boy urged. “I’ll choose this time.”
Gabriel surprised me when he didn’t do more. Instead he held up his hands. “Sorry, folks,” he said. “That’s it for today.”
He joined Luisa and me as the disappointed crowd started to break up. “Luisa told me about yesterday,” he said. “You okay?” He looked concerned.
“Yeah, if you’re not in the show,” Luisa declared, “then I’m not either. I’ll quit.”
Good old Luisa. I didn’t know many dancers—or friends—who would make that kind of sacrifice. “Thanks,” I said, “but everything’s fine. Mr. Kosloff just told Jade and me not to let things distract us.” I added with a grin, “So did Jackie Sanchez.”
Gabriel let out a whistle. “Jackie Sanchez spoke to you?” he said.
I motioned to the distance between us. “I was this close to her,” I bragged.
Luisa smiled wickedly. “Just wait until I tell Renata,” she said.
“Don’t do that,” I said. “She’s already so pumped full of jealousy that she might explode.”
Luisa’s eyebrows twitched. “That’s the idea,” she joked.
With a grin, I turned to Gabriel. “So just how do you do that card trick?” I asked.
Gabriel let out a mock sigh. “I keep telling you,” he said. “A true magician never reveals his secrets.”
“And I’m going to keep asking until you spill,” I prodded.
Gabriel hesitated. “If I tell you the secret for this one trick,” he said, “will you promise to stop bothering me and never share the secret with anyone else?”
“I swear,” I said.
“Same here,” Luisa said. We leaned in closer to our friend.
Gabriel fanned out the deck in his hands. “Pick a card,” he instructed me.
I slid the four of diamonds out of the middle of the deck.
“As I ask you to show the card to everyone else,” he said, “no one’s watching me turn the deck over in my other hand.” He nodded toward his left hand. “So those cards are all faceup.” When he lifted the deck again, his hand was covering it, so I couldn’t see that the cards were showing their fronts now. “Then, without letting me see the card, I ask you to put it back in.”
Turning the four of diamonds over so that it was facedown, I eased it back into the deck.
“I ask you to concentrate on what the card is and maybe tell some jokes,” Gabriel explained. “In the meantime, no one’s noticed that I’ve lowered my hand with the deck and reversed it so that all the other cards are facedown again.” He fanned out the cards so that only the four of diamonds was faceup. “But yours is there plain as day.”
He stowed the deck away. “The real secret is that I get people to see what I want them to see and not notice what I don’t want them to,” he said. “It’s called ‘misdirection.’”
“Misdirection,” I repeated. “That’s a great trick, Gabe.”
In fact, I wish I could use that in dance, I thought as I followed my friends down the hall to our lockers. Wouldn’t it be great if I could misdirect the audience’s eyes away from me every time I was about to do a pirouette?
As soon as school was over, Jade and I headed straight home and went into the living room.
Jade crouched by the sofa. “Isabelle, help me shove back the couch,” she ordered.
We wound up moving all the furniture against the walls to clear even more space. That set Mom’s artwork, “Pond Dreams,” twirling above us.
After a visit to a water lily pond at Kenilworth Park, Mom had fit different fabrics over wires and hung them from the ceiling. Together, they formed a water lily in bloom among green lily pads and rippling water. The slightest breeze set the parts in motion so that the mobile was constantly changing, just like the real pond.
The single water lily floating in the center caught my eye, as always. The V-shaped ripples on the pond surrounding the lily all seemed to point toward it. The dangling art caught Tutu’s eyes, too, because she hopped onto the sofa and then sprang toward the mobile. As she fell short and the fabric shapes spun faster, an idea began teasing at the back of my brain. Before I could put my finger on it, Jade twirled her hand around and said, “Okay, make like a top, Isabelle.”
As I took my position on our homemade stage, Jade sat cross-legged on the sofa. I stood up on my right leg and bent my left, beginning my pirouette. I started out strong, as usual, but slowly the room began to tilt around me as I lost my balance. I stumbled out of the turn but didn’t fall.
“Again,” Jade said. And again and again. After my sixth botched pirouette, Jade rose from the couch. “I think I see the problem,” she announced.
I stood to the side, and Jade moved to the center of the floor. “You’ve been concentrating so much on your footwork that you forgot about your arms,” she said. “You’re holding them too far away from your sides. When you turn, centrifugal force pulls your arms out, and that throws you off balance.” As Jade demonstrated a pirouette, she kept her arms far away from her ribs as she spun, and sure enough, she wobbled toward the end. “You’ve got to keep your arms in closer.”
Raising her arms in perfect form, she tried the pirouette again and did it easily. “Now you try,” she said, sitting back down on the couch.
I bent my arms and held them slightly away from my sides, trying to copy my sister. I squeezed my eyes shut for just a moment, imagining the spinning toy top. Then I opened my eyes and began. This time, when I spun, I did it without tilting.
Jade clapped her hands together. “You’ve got it!” she cheered.
I turned again and then again, just for the sheer joy of it. “Mr. Kosloff was right,” I said happily. “It’s back to basics.”
Now I was more determined than ever to help Jade, too. “What can I do for you?” I asked her.
Jade shrugged, resigned. “Unless you can take a few inches off me,” she said, “there’s nothing.”
I stood there, feeling bad for Jade, when a furry missile shot by me. Tutu’s paws stretched for the water lily again, but she missed badly and landed sprawled in the center of the floor. Her attempt had set the ripples and water lily swaying. I stared at the rippling V’s for a moment, and then I remem
bered what Gabriel had said about his magic tricks. Misdirection. He made people look where he wanted them to look.
I spoke slowly as I thought it all through. “What we need to do is get people noticing your dancing,” I said, “rather than how tall you are.”
Jade looked skeptical. “And how are you going to do that?” she asked.
I pointed to the ripples in Mom’s hanging artwork. “We get people looking at your legs and not your head,” I said simply.
“I don’t think Mom’s going to let me wear her artwork,” Jade joked.
But I was too caught up in my idea to even smile. “Have you got an old practice skirt?” I asked.
“Sure,” Jade said.
With Tutu trailing us, we went upstairs, where Jade pulled a gray skirt out of her dresser drawer.
“That’ll work,” I said, grabbing the skirt and turning to head back downstairs. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
I took the skirt into Mom’s sewing room and sat down at the desk, sketching out a quick design. Then I opened the doors of the white armoire, searching for fabric scraps and scissors. I found some soft lavender fabric. Perfect.
I slid the gray skirt onto one of Mom’s dress forms and sat down to start trimming strips of lavender fabric. When I had a pile of strips, I began basting, or loosely stitching, the strips onto the skirt in a series of V’s. They looked like a formation of birds flying through the air.
When I was finished, I inspected the skirt. My heart was beating fast, as if I had just finished an intense dance routine. I slid the skirt carefully off the dress form and ran back upstairs to the bedroom, where Jade was sitting on the bed doing homework.
I nervously held up the skirt. Would Jade be as excited about it as I was? I wondered. “This is rough,” I said, “but I’m hoping it will do the trick.”
Jade cocked her head, as if she wasn’t quite sure what to make of the skirt. She reached for it and then slid off her jeans and stepped into the skirt. Standing in front of our full-length mirror, she studied herself from different angles and twirled several times.
“Hmm, maybe,” she said, smoothing her hands along the waistband of the skirt.
“Let’s try your routine downstairs,” I said, “where there’s more room.”
So we headed downstairs with Jade’s laptop. When she was ready, I started the music for her dance with the prince. I held my breath as Jade made her first turn. As she spun, the whirling V’s of fabric acted like arrows, pulling my eyes down toward her legs. The skirt was working!
Jade was dancing as light and gracefully as ever. At least for now, she’d gotten back some of her confidence.
When she finished her routine, Jade looked down at her skirt. “It feels nice,” she said, a pleased smile playing at the corners of her mouth. Then she lifted the edge of the skirt, and her expression changed. “Oh, no!”
I could see that some of the basted stitches had broken, and one of the lavender strips was hanging down. “Don’t worry,” I said quickly. “It’s only basted together. Mom can fix it.”
Just then, the front door creaked open. “It’s only little old me,” Dad called. A moment later, I heard him rummaging around in the hallway closet. I figured he’d done some holiday shopping before his gig. He always hid presents on a shelf there, assuming that covering them with a blanket would fool us. It hadn’t worked since Jade was five and could drag a chair into the hallway.
Mom came home a minute later, and Dad started to shout frantically, “Stay outside! Don’t come in!” Poor Dad.
When the gifts were safely hidden and Mom was allowed inside, she and Dad came into the living room together. Mom noticed Jade’s skirt instantly. “Are you trying out a new costume?” she asked.
Jade glanced at me. “We were just trying out one of Isabelle’s design ideas,” she said hesitantly. I could tell that she was still afraid to tell Mom and Dad about her height problem.
Mom fingered one of the hanging strips of fabric. “I could help you sew it up,” she offered.
“That’d be great,” I said.
Dad looked thoughtfully at me. “What inspired that masterpiece?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said nervously. “It’s sort of like when a new song comes to you.”
I glanced sideways at Jade, and Mom folded her arms. “You girls are acting weird,” she said. “Are you up to something? Tell me.”
I saw Jade’s cheeks redden, and I answered quickly, trying to defend her the way she always defended me. “It’s nothing, Mom,” I said. “We’re handling it.”
Jade smiled at me gratefully, but then she took a deep breath and confessed it all. “The truth is,” she said, “I’ve got this problem. I’m taller than the prince in The Nutcracker, so sometimes people laugh when we dance together.”
Mom sat down on the couch and pulled Jade toward her. “Oh, honey, is that what’s been upsetting you?” she asked.
“And we didn’t help any by talking about how much you’ve grown,” Dad said with a shake of his head. “Sorry.”
Jade played with a band of fabric on her skirt. “Isabelle came up with this idea,” she said. “Maybe the skirt will make the audience look down rather than up, so they won’t notice my height so much.”
“Show me,” Mom said, motioning toward the floor.
I started the music again so that Jade could dance. She did a few pirouettes and then asked anxiously, “So, what do you think?”
“I think it works!” Dad said. “Everybody’s going to be paying attention to your dancing and not to the shrimp next to you.”
Mom pressed her lips together thoughtfully before she turned to me. “You’re amazing, dear,” she said. “The design of the skirt doesn’t distract from Jade’s dancing. It enhances.”
I could tell by her expression, though, that she had more to say, so I lifted my eyebrows. “But?” I asked.
Mom tapped her chin. “Well, I think some lighter material would be good,” she said. “I’ve got something perfect for that. And maybe we ruche the bands.” Mom meant that she could sew pleats in the strips of fabric to give them ruffled edges.
I pictured the effect in my head, and I knew she was right. “Yeah, let’s try that,” I said.
“If you cut the material, I’ll do the sewing,” Mom proposed.
“Just help us fix the basting, Mom,” Jade interrupted. “You’re busy with the holiday fairs.”
“Not that busy,” Mom said.
Dad raised a hand. “Let’s make it a family project,” he said. “I can’t sew, but I can cut material if you show me what to do.”
Jade grinned at Dad. “Thanks,” she said, and I could tell that all was forgiven between them.
Then Jade spun around again, watching her reflection in a mirror on the wall. She liked what she saw so much that she did another spin, with all of her old confidence. As the skirt settled about her, she smiled at me in the mirror. That look was all the thank-you I needed.
The next day when I was having lunch with Luisa and Gabriel in the school cafeteria, I told Luisa that I thought we’d solved Jade’s problem.
“What problem?” Gabriel asked, popping a grape into his mouth.
“Some people were laughing because she was a little taller than her partner,” I explained.
“If you can shrink her, that’d be real magic,” Gabriel said. “I told you my secret. Now you tell me yours.”
“Well, it’s still sort of yours, Gabe, so thank you for that,” I made a point to say. Then I described the skirt to him and Louisa, even sketching it out on a napkin. “It’s helping Jade dance like her old self,” I said, “but we can’t really be sure it works until next Saturday. So keep your fingers crossed.”
“Toes too,” Luisa said.
She wanted Jade to succeed just as much as I did. I realized then how much pressure Jade was under. Sometimes it seemed as if the whole performance depended on her doing well. If Jade could conquer her problems, somehow the rest of us knew that we co
uld, too.
Please let the skirt work, I wished, trying to cross my toes inside my shoes.
During the week, Jade and I practiced at home every night, taking turns watching each other so that we could give each other advice. In her new practice skirt, Jade seemed as graceful as ever. As for me? I was willing to settle for not “bowling over” any furniture.
In spite of all of our practice, Jade grew quiet as we walked toward the theater on Saturday. I didn’t feel much like talking either—or even smiling. Maybe we were both too busy hoping that all of our hard work would pay off.
As we reached the stage door on the side of the HDC building, Jade reached for my arm to stop me. “Keep your mind on that toy top,” she said in a soft but firm voice. “Remember what Jackie said. Shake off any mistakes. Everything just bounces off you while you spin: sticks, stones, insults, jokes.” She swept her arm outward. “They just go flying off, right?”
“Right,” I said. “You keep that in mind, too.”
When we walked into Studio A and I saw Mr. Kosloff and Jackie Sanchez, I tried not to get nervous. Instead, I kept picturing that toy top whirling around and around.
Jade had worn a long, puffy coat to protect against the chilly morning air. As she took it off, Luisa asked, “Is this the skirt Isabelle designed? I like it.”
I glanced around, but no one else had noticed the skirt yet. And no one reacted to it during the party or battle scenes either. Without Paul dancing next to Jade, her skirt was just another rehearsal outfit.
But then came time for Jade to dance with Paul, her Nutcracker prince. I saw the ponytailed girl sitting next to the boy with glasses. They nudged each other as Jade danced a few early steps. When Paul finally stood up, I heard a giggle.
But as Jade and Paul began to dance, Jade’s footwork was perfect. She moved, spun, and leaped with her usual grace. And there was no laughter now. Instead, everyone grew still as they watched her. Jackie Sanchez leaned over and whispered something to Mr. Kosloff, and he nodded at Jade. I felt warm, thinking that my skirt had helped her a little bit.