Step Up and Dance

by Thalia Kalipsakis

  For a moment she scanned the room, then pointed. ‘There.’

  And there he was. So tall. So beautiful. So close to being mine.

  With Lesley close behind me, I made my way across the crowded room. Everyone in here was tall – adult-sized and more. Sometimes it was difficult just pushing past them, as if they were too big to even see me.

  Then, at last, I was standing in front of the man of my dreams. He was drinking a beer and chatting to a tall woman in a long, backless dress. I glanced back at Lesley, who had stopped to talk to someone. Somehow she already had a glass of wine in her hand. She smiled and winked.

  I turned back to Damien, feeling tiny. He was even taller than he seemed from the side of the court. Hugs are going to be awkward, I thought. But hugs suddenly seemed a long way away. I just stood there like a puppy dog, waiting for Damien to notice me.

  After an embarrassing eternity, he glanced away from the tall woman.

  Our eyes met.

  I waited for the moment . . . the connection between us that I had dreamed of. But Damien just raised a bushy eyebrow and tilted his gorgeous head to one side.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he said.

  A rush of fire burned on my neck. ‘Um …’ I held out the piece of paper and pen, wishing I could turn and run.

  ‘Autograph hunter, eh?’ said the tall woman beside Damien. She was almost as tall as he was. Even their shoulders seemed to match.

  ‘Who should I make it out to?’ asked Damien. His voice was higher than I expected. As he took the paper and pen, our fingers didn’t even touch.

  ‘Um . . . Saph,’ I managed to whisper.

  Part of me still hoped he was acting, pretending not to know me. Maybe he would write a secret message on the paper, or just his phone number – anything to prove that the letter really had been from him.

  But when the paper came back all it had was Cheers, Saph! Damien Rowsthorn, scrawled across it in messy handwriting. Handwriting that I had never seen before.

  ‘Thanks,’ I managed. Then turned with my head down and my lips pressed tight. Don’t cry in here. Not here, Saph. Just get out.

  I lost Lesley then, dodging the bodies and brushing past a fat man in a way that would normally make me squirm. I made it out the door before a sob escaped my throat. The first meaningful relationship in my life had begun and ended in the time it took to raise an eyebrow.

  I ran down the bar steps and out to the back entrance of the stadium, hoping that Dad would already be waiting for me.

  But the loading bay was empty and dark.

  I pulled my bags from their hiding place and stood in the shadows, tears sliding down my cheeks. Where are you, Dad?

  After a while, my tears slowed and the night breeze cooled my cheeks. Then I frowned, suddenly thinking of another question – the real question of the night.

  If the Valentine’s letter wasn’t from Damien, then who had sent it?

  CHAPTER 2

  All through the next day I was either slapping myself on the thigh or sobbing with shame. At least, that’s what I was doing on the inside. On the outside, I lay on the couch with one leg hooked over the back, watching car racing with Dad.

  Even though Dad had no idea anything was wrong, it still felt good to be with him. And I didn’t have to do much either. A skid from one of the cars required a grunt. A proper crash required a gasp. In extreme cases, maybe a pile-up or a possible injury, Dad would say, ‘That was a bad one.’ And I would say, ‘Mmmm,’ or if I was feeling particularly talkative, ‘Really bad.’

  Most of the time I had no idea what was happening with the cars, it was my mind that was racing. How dumb can one girl be? To get excited about a forged letter was one thing. But to actually lie and sneak around in order to speak to someone who didn’t even know my name, that was stupendously stupid!

  After nearly two hours of roaring engines, Dad’s grunts turned into snores and I couldn’t pretend anymore that everything was normal. I shut myself in my room and pulled the blood-red envelope from its hiding place inside my German dictionary. I held it in two hands and sat on my rug, not wanting to look at it while lying on my bed.

  For two wonderful days, this envelope had granted my most secret wish. Now it had become something altogether different.

  For the hundredth time, I slid out the letter.

  Parts of it now seemed sleazy and fake, like the fact that his full name had been signed, and that the words from your secret admirer had been typed just above his signature. If only I had realised what it all really meant!

  But who on earth could have written the letter? And worse, why did they want to hurt me?

  Sentences that had once melted my heart now made my skin crawl. This person had been watching me for a year, peering at me from the stands like a gross Peeping Tom. Bleugh! I felt sick just thinking about it. But they also knew how I felt about Damien. That was the part that didn’t make sense.

  Summer knew that I thought Damien was the cutest on the team. But she had no idea how much I loved him. My dreams of Damien had always been so private, so close to my heart, that I had never really gushed about him like other kids do about their crushes. Still, someone had worked it out. But who, and how?

  Late in the afternoon my mobile beeped. A text from Summer: OK 2 CALL?

  I called her straight back.

  ‘So how was the date with lover boy?’ she asked. It felt good to hear her calm voice.

  ‘I …’ A lump formed in my throat. ‘The letter wasn’t from him.’

  There was silence at the other end, not usual for Summer. Then she said quietly, ‘Omigod . . . you’re kidding.’

  I started crying then, blubbering like an idiot, trying to talk, but not getting anything out. Of course the letter hadn’t been from Damien. Of course he wouldn’t write a letter like that to someone who was five years younger than him. Of course!

  But the letter had been so surprisingly wonderful that I had wanted to believe it was true. I had wanted it so much that I had let myself believe.

  ‘Hey, it’s okay. Don’t cry, Saph,’ came Summer’s voice, soft and worried.

  ‘I feel like such a fool!’ I blurted out.

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ said Summer. ‘Someone just played a dumb trick. That’s all.’

  ‘But whoooooo?’ I wailed.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Summer with anger in her voice. ‘But we’re going to find out.’

  ‘Wunderbar, wunderbar! Schön, schön . . .

  ‘Wunderbar, wunderbar! Schön, schön.’

  On the screen at the front of the room, a German rock band wiggled and made faces at the camera.

  Tittering spread through the class, but Mr Kissinger didn’t seem to care. He stood to one side, tapping his toes and nodding his head. Normally, you wouldn’t expect the words ‘cool’ and ‘teacher’ to fit in the same sentence, but Mr Kissinger was cool. His latest thing was to bring in German rock videos for us to hear pronunciation and see modern German culture. Well, almost modern. This band was clearly straight out of the 1980s. But you can’t blame the man for trying.

  I stared at the crumpled page in front of me, doodling a pattern up the side. The band was off its tree, but I was only half-listening. The other half of my mind was occupied by the list that Summer and I had scribbled over a lunch of deep discussion. It was headed Top Suspects in the Case of the Mean and Awful Valentine’s Letter from Hell. On the list was everyone who knew both me and Damien Rowsthorn. Problem was I couldn’t believe that any of them would have done it.

  All the dancers in the Magic Charms were on the list. They had seen me dance, of course, and might have guessed that I had a crush on Damien. But no self-respecting dancer would write ‘the things you do with your legs’, even as a joke.

  Next came Lesley, but the letter was way too childish for her. And surely there was no way she would have let me walk up to Damien on Saturday night if she knew why I was really there. Lesley’s pretty tough when we’re training, but she’s not
too bad the rest of the time.

  After that came the basketballers themselves, their manager and one of their fans who just seems to hang around all the time. But none of them really seemed to fit. And I couldn’t answer the big questions for any of them. Why on earth did this icky, sleazy person want to trick me like that, and how had they found out my address?

  ‘Saph, what do you think?’

  Suddenly I realised that the rock video had finished minutes ago. ‘Um . . . what was the question, Sir?’ I bluffed. ‘What do you think of the song, Saph?’ Mr Kissinger was smiling. He knew he had caught me out.

  ‘Well, they think life’s wonderful . . . and pretty?’ I tried.

  Mr Kissinger raised his eyebrows at me, meaning I’ll let you get away with it this time. ‘Anyone else?’

  Jay, sitting across from me, put up his hand. Normally, you wouldn’t expect a sporty kid to make it to Year 10 German. At least, not a boy. But Jay was different from all the other jocks at school. For a start he had brains, and he used them. Last term he did an amazing talk about the politics of soccer in Germany.

  ‘They’re being ironic,’ Jay said. ‘Like, everyone’s so fake, just say it’s wonderful, even if it isn’t.’

  ‘Wunderbar!’ clapped Mr Kissinger. ‘Anything else?’

  I unzipped my pencil case, and slid the crumpled list inside. Time to pay attention. German is not one of the classes that I can bluff my way through. Then I froze.

  Scrawled across one corner of my pencil case was the end of a conversation between Summer and me. It was from the year before, when I had first started cheerleading. On our way into home group Summer had asked me about the players. Like any decent conversation interrupted by school, we had finished it in writing, up the back of the room.

  Who has the best body? Summer had scrawled in the corner.

  And there was my answer, right on my pencil case for anyone to read.

  Damien Rowsthorn has the best EVERYTHING!!!!

  Suddenly I knew where I had been going wrong. I’d been trying to think of someone from basketball who knew about Damien Rowsthorn and could have found out my address. But that was back to front. The writer of the letter could be someone who already knew my address and had found out about Damien Rowsthorn. Like maybe someone from school? The bus I caught stopped right outside my house!

  Now all I had to do was work out who from school might be a basketball fan. Lots of kids, that’s who. But this person knew that I had been cheerleading for a year – they must regularly go to watch Magic play.

  If Summer had been in my German class, I would have written her a note right away. I needed her to do a bit of asking around for me. But I wouldn’t see her until home time.

  ‘Hast du etwas Zeit für mich …’ Another rock video started up.

  I settled back in my chair, trying to focus on the video. Across from me, Jay was tapping one foot under the table.

  Jay plays basketball . . .

  I kept staring at him, deep in thought. His long legs were folded like a cricket’s, cramped under the desk. Before long Jay shifted self-consciously and sat straight in his chair.

  I smiled vaguely and looked back to the video. Maybe I could get Jay to ask around for me? Doing German together meant that I knew him pretty well. I would almost count him as a friend. At least I knew he would ask around for me without being an idiot about it.

  ‘Neun und neunzig Luftballons …’

  This had been a very useful German class. I was hot on the scent of my enemy . . .

  ‘Jay! Wait up!’

  When the bell rang for the end of German, Jay was packed up and out the door before I could stop him. I wasn’t sure why he was in such a hurry. We were both headed to the same class – English, with dizzy Miss Ingleby. Miss Ingleby is always late and in a tizz. I think they had to schedule all her classes near the end of the day just so that she would make it in time.

  The flow of traffic in the corridor was slow, just as it always is near the end of the day.

  ‘Jay, wait!’ I tried again. But he had disappeared in front of four Year 12 boys – a moving wall as far as I was concerned. But slow school traffic can always be beaten, as long as you know the right shortcuts. I nipped through the office foyer, taking care to shut the doors carefully behind me. Students aren’t meant to go in there, but I walked straight through as if I was running an important errand. None of the office ladies even looked up.

  When Jay finally came out of the senior school building, I was waiting at the bottom of the steps. I rested my hip on the brick pillar, and smoothed a bit of hair that had fallen out of my ponytail.

  ‘Hey, how did you get there?’ asked Jay as he came down the steps to me.

  ‘I’m a magician,’ I said with a shrug.

  ‘Clearly,’ Jay laughed. He lifted his baseball cap and put it on again backwards. ‘Are you using your powers to stalk me?’

  I liked the way he looked at me, calm and direct. We headed up the path to the English portables, walking side by side. It was a narrow path, with a wall on one side and a thick hedge on the other, so we had to walk unusually close. I kept my arms tucked tight around my books.

  ‘Actually, I need to ask a favour,’ I said.

  ‘Fire away,’ said Jay, kicking a stone. It skimmed the wall and landed on the path a few metres ahead.

  ‘I got a letter, see …’ I started. ‘But it was forged,’ I explained. ‘I don’t know who it was from.’

  ‘Secret admirer, hey?’ said Jay, grinning.

  Secret admirer! My eyes narrowed. ‘Do you know anything about it?’

  Jay rubbed his chin, ‘Hmmm . . . Let me think…’ I stopped walking. It must have been one of his basketball friends. ‘Who was it, Jay?’ I asked quickly. ‘Tell me!’

  Jay stopped a few paces ahead and turned. ‘Tell me if you liked the letter, and I’ll tell you who wrote it,’ he said, still grinning.

  ‘I absolutely hated it,’ I said slowly, and added in some swearing just to make it clear exactly how I felt about the stupid letter. I didn’t want Jay reporting to his friends that I was okay about this.

  Jay’s smile disappeared and his forehead wrinkled. He grabbed his baseball cap and swung it around the right way, so that his face was in shadow again.

  A group of junior school kids walked past whispering and giggling.

  ‘But . . . I thought you liked Damien Rowsthorn,’ Jay said once they had passed.

  Damien Rowsthorn . . . My mouth fell open as my brain went into overdrive.

  ‘You did it? It was you, wasn’t it!’ Even as I said it, I couldn’t believe it was true.

  ‘Well …’ Jay kicked at the path with his shoe. ‘What’s so good about Damien Rowsthorn anyway?’

  I shook my head, feeling a bubbling rage start to form inside me. ‘He’s . . . he’s Damien Rowsthorn for heavens sake!’ I gestured with my free hand, angrily searching for words. ‘He’s gorgeous!’

  ‘Gorgeous is he? That’s all that matters is it, Saph?’ Jay had a bitter tone to his voice. ‘Just as long as the pretty people stick together.’

  Pretty people! What was Jay’s problem? He had sent me a cruel, forged letter and now he was having a go at me! What had I done to deserve this? I pushed past him, nearly shoving a Year 7 into the hedge as I went.

  I kept walking, not looking back, glad to leave Jay behind me.

  In a way I should have been glad that the letter was from him. Jay was better than some geriatric basketball weirdo or a child molester. But I hated the things he had just said to me . . . pretty people? It was as if he thought I deserved to have been tricked.

  When I got to the portable steps, I stomped straight up and into class, determined not to let Jay catch up with me.

  Miss Ingleby jumped up as if an elephant had charged in, which in some ways it had.

  ‘Oh, Saph!’ said Miss Ingleby, smoothing her hair and sitting back down.

  ‘Sorry, Miss Ingleby,’ I said. ‘I was in a bit of a rush.’


  The rest of the class wandered in. I pretended to be busy with my books and pens. But my heart was pounding and my hands were almost shaking. Why did Jay play such a cruel trick? I couldn’t let it end there.

  ‘Jay? You’re kidding!’ Summer screeched, when I told her at the bus stop. ‘Did he say why?’

  I hitched my bag higher on one shoulder and shrugged with the other one. ‘He . . . well …’ He thinks I’m a superficial bimbo. ‘Um, not really,’ I finished.

  ‘I would never have guessed,’ Summer said, and gave my arm a quick rub. ‘You okay?’

  ‘I dunno. I suppose …’ A breeze blew a strand of hair in my face and I pushed it away.

  Summer put her hands on her hips and kicked at her school bag. ‘Jeez, that boils me up.’

  I swapped my bag to the other shoulder but I didn’t say anything. I could tell she was working up to a ‘Summer moment’. She didn’t have long, her bus was due any minute. Then I would walk up the street to catch another bus to the dance studio.

  ‘Who does he think he is?’ Summer crossed her arms, and her nostrils flared. ‘He thinks he can treat girls like dirt.’ A bus pulled around the corner and started up the road, but Summer wasn’t finished yet. ‘Well, he can’t. I won’t let him.’

  I laughed and shook my head. ‘He didn’t count on the wrath of Summer, did he?’

  ‘We have to get him back.’ Summer picked up her bag. ‘We have to make him understand how crap that letter was.’

  I was still laughing as the bus stopped with a squeak and a hiss. It felt good to have Summer on my side, sticking up for me. The letter and the talk with Jay had left me feeling naked, as though Jay had X-ray eyes.

  ‘We’ll get him back!’ Summer kissed me on the cheek and winked.

  I smiled and winked back. ‘Revenge of the nerds!’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ said Summer and flicked her blonde hair as she walked to the waiting bus.

  ‘Revenge of the female sex!’ I called after her.

  ‘That’s better,’ called Summer as she disappeared up the bus steps.

  I hitched up my bag and started up the street. This was just the beginning – revenge of the broken-hearted girl.