Ill papi didn’t even look at her. Not that he usually looked at her. But after all this time, she thought maybe he would have missed her a little.
No. He walked straight over to Sophie. He leaned in close to her and whispered something in her ear—like he was her boyfriend or something. Whatever it was he said, it made Sophie laugh. Then she whispered something back that made ill papi laugh. And Sammi got hit with a full-on case of the jealouses. She was jealous over her little sister. That was so wrong. In so many ways.
“Ills, you’re back!” Fridge yelled. He wrapped his arms around ill papi, lifting him right off his feet.
Which ended Sophie and ill papi’s little whisper party, at least.
Fridge put ill papi down, and Max immediately leapt on him. “Where were you? Are you okay? Where have you been? Hey, we came in first at the regionals. Without you!”
“But there is no way we’re taking the nationals without you. So you better be at every class from now till then. And at the competition. Or I’m coming after you,” M.J. warned with a smile.
Sammi wished she could run over and grab ill papi. But she felt glued to the floor. All she could do was stare.
Ky said something to her, but Sammi didn’t quite understand it. “What?” she asked, her eyes still on ill papi and the fan club. Was he ever going to look over at her?
Ky repeated whatever he’d said, but Sammi didn’t catch it that time, either. “Sorry, what?” she said, without turning toward him.
Ky said the words again, louder. But Sammi was trying to hear what Sophie was saying to ill papi now. Something funny. He was laughing again. Everyone was laughing.
Sammi realized she still hadn’t heard what Ky wanted to tell her. She looked over at him, but he was gone. He was sitting across the room with his back toward her.
She’d really hurt his feelings. She took a step toward him, then hesitated. Maybe ill papi would come over and say hi in a second. Then Sammi would go apologize to Ky.
“Look who’s back!” Gina exclaimed as she walked into the room.
“We know! Ill papi!” Sophie cried. Then she noticed someone else standing next to Gina and gave a gigantic squeal. “Emerson!” She raced to the front of the room and wrapped her friend in a boa constrictor hug.
“Don’t break her, Soph,” M.J. teased. “We need her to be able to dance in L.A. With her and ill papi, we’re going to be the world champs. No doubt.” He clasped his hands over his head like a boxer.
Emerson gently pulled away from Sophie. “You don’t have to worry about that,” she told everyone. “If every bone in my body was broken, I’d dance. Team first, just like you guys said in the letter you sent my parents.”
She was still blown away that the whole group had done that for her. “Nothing I said to them made any difference. But my parents are really big on me honoring my commitments. So thank you for telling them that it was important for me to go to the world championship with you. Because we’re getting there, right?”
“Right!” a couple of people yelled back. But everyone else looked a little confused.
“We’re glad that letter worked,” Devane jumped in. “We wrote it together, and we all signed it. Max came up with the part about how important teamwork is to the Hip Hop Kidz, remember?” Devane shot a hard glance at Max—and Max started nodding like a bobble-head doll.
“And M.J. was all about putting in how you made a commitment and you had to follow through,” Devane added.
“Yeah. Right,” M.J. said. “I’m a genius with the letter writing. But it was all Devane’s idea.”
“Well, thanks, Devane. I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t thought of it,” Emerson told her. Devane had really come through for her big time.
“I owe you a thanks, too, Devane,” Gina said. “This letter you pulled together sounds impressive. It was a great thing you did for the team. Let’s everybody give Devane a big round of applause.”
“I can’t believe your parents let you come back after one letter,” Sophie said to Emerson when they finally stopped clapping. “I mean, I thought we’d have to plan out something like a bank robbery where we blasted you out of your room with dynamite in order to get you back.”
“I didn’t think there was any possible way my mom and dad would ever allow me to come back, either,” Emerson answered. “But like I said, commitment is a big deal to them. Lying is a big deal, too. But commitment won because they didn’t want something I did to hurt all of you at the world championship. They didn’t think that would be fair. Fairness is a big deal to them, too.”
“Let’s give it up for Emerson and ill papi!” Devane yelled. “You know we’re going to represent at world now that we’ve got them both back!”
At least one part of my plan worked, Devane thought as she led the applause. The big, important part. Emerson is back in the group. And now the group has a shot at winning the world championship. More than that now that ill papi has shown himself again.
“Ill papi, you don’t know how glad I am to see you,” Gina said when the applause died down. “But unless you’ve been unconscious these past weeks or stranded on a remote island with no phone—you haven’t, have you?”
Ill papi shook his head. “No. Uh, sorry. I know I should have called you.”
“Yes, you should have,” Gina told him. “You know the rules. You don’t miss a class without notice. And you missed several classes and a competition. A competition everyone on your team worked very hard for.”
Uh-oh. This is not sounding good for ill papi, Devane thought. Gina is all about the team.
“I messed up. We could have lost the regionals because of me. And then we’d be through. No nationals or anything.” Ill papi scrubbed his face with his fingers. “If you guys don’t want me back, I get that.”
There were a bunch of “no’s” and “no way’s” and “uhuh’s.”
“I wasn’t going to say that,” Gina told him. “But missing the competition—and all the classes—without any notification, that’s serious. I have to put you on probation, ill papi. I need—we all need—to know we can trust you again.”
“That’s fine,” ill papi agreed quickly. “Whatever. As long as it takes. I’m here.”
“But we need papi now,” M.J. complained.
“That’s not how it works. You know that,” Gina told him. “Now, I—”
“Gina?” ill papi interrupted.
She nodded at him.
“I wasn’t going to say why I didn’t show,” ill papi admitted. “But I guess . . . it doesn’t seem fair to everybody if I don’t. I don’t want everyone to think I’d just blow off the competition for no reason. Even if the reason wasn’t good.” He shrugged. “It seemed good to me then.”
“It’s up to you,” Gina said. “Just know that the reason won’t change my decision.”
“You don’t have to, ill papi,” Devane blurted. “It’s not our business.” She knew she wouldn’t want to have to spew any of her personal stuff in front of her friends.
“Yeah, it is. You’re my team,” ill papi said, glancing at Sophie. “The deal is, I haven’t seen J-Bang since I was practically a baby. I know I talk like we’re tight and all. But he doesn’t even live in Miami full-time, and when he’s here, he doesn’t come around. He’s my dad, but not, you know?”
“Dang,” Fridge muttered.
“Yeah,” ill papi said with a harsh laugh. “Anyway, I knew you’d find out if I was at the competition. You’d see him look at me—and not even know who I was. And after all the stories I’d been telling all the years I’ve been taking classes here . . .”
“I told everyone at school Star Jones was my aunt once,” Devane said. “In the third grade.” Actually, Tamal had done that. But Devane just wanted to make ill papi feel less like a chucklehead.
He smiled at her. “Anyway, after I cut out on the competition, I just stopped coming to class. Because I didn’t know what to say.”
“I really appreciate you telling us that
,” Gina said. “I know that must have been very hard for you. And I also know that we all have things that we’re ashamed of that we wouldn’t want the group to know.”
“Does that mean he’s not on probation?” M.J. pleaded.
“No,” Gina told him. “You heard what I said. The rules are the rules—no exceptions. But I know that you are going to bring down the house at the nationals. Especially because you’ll have Emerson performing with you. And Sammi. And you’ll also have Devane.”
“What?” Devane said softly. Although this was what she’d been hoping would happen. This was the other part of the plan.
Gina nodded. “Devane has really proven she’s a team player. We’ve all seen that, right? She organized that team picnic, and she did everything she possibly could to make sure the regionals ran smoothly for us backstage, and best of all, she took the lead in finding a way to get Emerson back on the team. I’m sure Maddy will agree with me that it’s time for her to come off probation and take her place as a full member of the Performance Group again.” Gina clapped. “Now, let’s get warmed up. We have competitions to prepare for.”
“Not before this.” Fridge ran over to Devane, lifted her up in the air, and kissed her head. Then he turned toward Emerson and gave a playful growl.
“Catch me!” Max yelled as she came charging at Devane. Then Sophie and Emerson and what felt like everyone else was hugging her.
“Okay, that’s all the time we have for the love,” Gina called with a smile. “We’re going to the world championship, right?”
“Right!” everyone yelled back.
A few seconds later, Devane’s favorite Missy Elliott track filled the room. “Just freestyle it for a couple of minutes,” Gina called. “Nothing too fancy. Get your muscles loose.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Devane caught sight of Emerson doing what Randall, the guy who taught the hip-hop basics class, called toss the pizza. She had her hips going back and forth and her arms over her head, hands twirling. And she was grinning like a fool. That part was pure Emerson.
Devane started tossing the pizza herself, and a second later she was smiling, too.
Y’all at the next competition best step back, she thought. Devane and Emerson are comin’ at ya. Her eyes swept over the room. And we’re bringing the whole team with us.
HIP HOP KiDZ®
DEF-initions
Air track: A windmill in the air.
Baby suicide: Handspring where the dancer lands on his/ her back.
Backspin: A spin performed high on the back with the legs tucked close to the body.
Bridge: A back bend.
Clowning: A mix of popping, locking, break dancing, and African tribal dance.
Cricket: This spin is almost identical to the hand glide except in this move, the dancer’s weight is temporarily transferred to the pushing hand, while the spinning hand lifts off the floor, is rotated, and is replaced on the floor.
Cross-legged flare: A more difficult version of a flare done with crossed legs.
Down rock: A floor move where legs and feet travel in a continuous circle around the hand that supports the dancer.
Flare: A move where the dancer is on the floor with the weight on his/her hands and swings the legs in big circles in front of and behind the arms.
Freeze: The dancer stops in the middle of a move and holds the position.
Hand glide: The dancer balances on one hand with the body horizontal to the floor as the other hand pushes the dancer so he/she spins around.
Hollow back: In this freeze, the dancer is in a handstand with the legs bent toward the back.
Jackhammer: This move is similar to the cricket except the dancer uses one hand to hop in a circle with no assistance from the free hand.
Kip up: A move where the dancer is flat on his/her back, rolls backward, kicks out the feet, and lands upright.
Krumping: Fusion of clowning and hip-hop.
Locking: A jerky style where the dancer moves through a series of ultra-quick poses.
Planche: In this freeze, the dancer is in a horizontal handstand where the legs are horizontal to the floor instead of vertical.
Pop out: When the dancer moves from down on the floor to up on the feet without using his/her hands.
Popping: A style where the dancer moves through poses in a more fluid way than in locking.
Top rock: Four-step, four-beat basic dance that many hip-hoppers use to launch into more complicated moves.
Windmill: The dancer rolls from shoulder to shoulder, spinning the legs around in the air continuously.
HIP HOP KIDZ
Wassup, peeps?
I started Hip Hop Kidz when I was five-and-a-half years old. Something I’ve learned a lot about while I’ve been in Hip Hop Kidz is teamwork. When we learn dances, everyone has their own parts that they do. So when you have performances, it is really important to be there so that there are not a lot of spaces in the dance. I can understand why the group was upset with ill papi for missing rehearsals and skipping the performance at the Southeast regionals. It’s kind of like letting down the other dancers if you don’t show, because then they have to figure out different formations and stuff to cover for you. I’ve been to a couple of performances where only a few people have shown up. We have to work really hard, and fast, to figure out what to do, and a lot of times people have to improvise. It’s disappointing, because even though we do our best, the dance doesn’t look as good.
I’m ten now, and I’ve had a lot of fun in the five years that I’ve been in Hip Hop Kidz. I’ve been able to perform at some really cool events and gotten to be a lot better of a dancer. I also have made some really good friends, learned to overcome nervousness about performing, learned not to quit things just because they are hard, and learned a lot about teamwork.
Olivia, age 10
Bust a Move Page 11