by Sara Leach
“That’s good. But she still shouldn’t have said anything about next year. Not right now. Do you want me to go talk to her?”
Jasmine shook her head so hard she thought it might fall off. If her mom talked to Miss Carina, that would make things ten times worse.
“I want to help,” her mom said, her hands squeezing the steering wheel.
Jasmine sighed. “I know. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
Her mom nodded, and they rode the rest of the way home in silence.
That night Jasmine lay in bed staring at the ceiling, running the moves in her head.
“How’s it going?” her mom asked when she poked her head in to say good night.
Jasmine shrugged and didn’t say anything.
“I think you’re a beautiful dancer, no matter what Miss Carina says.”
“Thanks.” She tried to smile but couldn’t. “I’m thinking of quitting.”
Her mom gasped. “What?”
“She’s only keeping me on the team because it’ll be hard for her to change the choreography. If she doesn’t want me there, then I’m going to quit.”
“But you worked so hard to get on the team! And you love dance so much.”
“I used to love dance so much.”
“Well, you know I’ll support you whatever you do. I don’t like to see you unhappy. And I do worry that you’re working yourself too hard.”
Jasmine sat up. “Really, you’d let me quit, just like that?”
Her mother nodded. “If it’s what you want.”
“You aren’t even going to tell me that I’d be letting all my friends down if I quit? Or that I should try harder?”
“Do you want me to say those things?”
Jasmine flopped back on her pillow. “I can’t believe you’d let me quit so easily!”
Her mother threw her hands in the air. “What do you want me to say? I’m trying to be supportive here.”
“I don’t know!” Jasmine squeezed her eyes shut, wishing her mom would leave but also wanting her comfort.
“Maybe you should go see your grandma. She’s got lawn bowling tomorrow, but she’ll be home on Thursday. She might be able to help.”
Jasmine gave a small nod and rolled to face the wall. Her mom was right. Grandma Verbenka always helped her see things more clearly.
Her grandmother lived within walking distance of the Moondance studio, so Jasmine took the bus to her house after school on Thursday. She’d have time for a quick visit before dance practice.
Since the practice on Tuesday, she’d flip-flopped between wanting to quit and wanting to stay and show Miss Carina what she could do. Maybe her teacher had been trying to get her to quit when she called her into the office. Was this another one of her mind games? Well, Jasmine would show her. Or not.
Maybe her grandmother would be able to tell her how to show her emotions. Nobody else had been able to teach her how. Certainly not Miss Carina. Wasn’t that her teacher’s job? Should she be kicking Jasmine off the team when it was really all her fault?
By the time Jasmine arrived at her grandmother’s, she felt like there was a thundercloud building inside her.
Her grandmother’s pencil-thin eyebrows shot up into her dyed-red hair when Jasmine walked in the door. “What the matter with you, moya radost?”
“Dance,” Jasmine said, leaving her backpack by the door and giving her grandma a peck on the cheek. She smiled to herself at the irony of being called “my happiness.” It was her grandmother’s pet name for her, but it didn’t exactly fit this afternoon.
“I should have known,” her grandma said. “You look just like my mother.”
“Huh?”
“Pardon.”
“What?”
“You say pardon, not huh or what.”
“Oh. Sorry. Pardon?”
“You know that your great-grandmother was ballet dancer?”
Jasmine nodded. “Mom always tells me that Great-Grandma would have been proud to see me dance.”
Her grandma smiled and patted the couch beside her. “Dance genes skipped two generations.”
“I’m not exactly her caliber,” Jasmine said as she sat down. “Didn’t she dance in St. Petersburg? At the Vaganova something?”
“She dance in St. Petersburg, yes. Now company is called Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet. But back then city was called Leningrad, and ballet company called the Leningrad State Choreographic Institute. Is mouthful, no? When things weren’t going well, she looked like you.”
“When did you see her dance? I thought she had to leave the ballet when she was pregnant with you.”
Her grandma shook her head. “Leave the company, yes. But not leave dance. She love it too much to stop. Always dance, dance, dance, no matter where she was.” She pushed a plate of macaroons toward Jasmine. “Have some cookies.”
Jasmine didn’t like macaroons but knew her grandma would be offended if she didn’t eat one. She took a cookie, then settled back into the couch. She’d heard stories about her great-grandmother before, but she always enjoyed hearing them again. “Tell me about her.”
“She went back to teach at the ballet school when I was old enough. I go with her to class sometimes. That where I see her look like a storm cloud, like you, when things not going well.”
Jasmine forced herself to take a small bite of macaroon.
“In 1950, we leave. Defect. Because my father is in danger. His best friend arrested as a spy for the west. My father is guilty by association. He and my mom think he will be sent to Siberia. So when the ballet travels to west to put on show, she brings us with her, and we escape.”
Grandma Verbenka stared out the window, lost in thought. Jasmine wondered what memories she was reliving. She’d heard lots of stories from her mom about the hardships her great-grandparents had endured while defecting. They couldn’t just walk away from the Soviet Union, but had had to escape, putting themselves and their friends and family who remained behind in great danger. What had it been like for her grandma to do that as a little girl?
With a start, her grandmother focused on Jasmine again. “When we get to Canada, my mother sad, sad, that she cannot dance in proper company. Too busy caring for me. But she decide to form group of Russian dancers that put on a show for people from old country. They dance for fun, not a professional company.”
Her grandmother pointed to a photo leaning against the window. “Bring that here.”
Jasmine stood up and brought it over.
“This is her with Russian friends in Toronto,” her grandmother said.
Jasmine peered at the photo she’d seen so many times before. Her great-grandmother stood in the middle of a small group of women dressed in shabby gray dresses. They were all tall and thin and held their backs straight and their chins high.
“Not matter that she getting older, that not proper stage, that everybody dressed in old, simple clothes. When she dance, she doesn’t think about audience. Doesn’t think about moves she practice, practice, practice. She say her body know what to do already. When she go onstage to perform, all she think about is the feeling of the dance.”
Jasmine groaned. That word again. Feeling.
“What wrong? Are you sick?” Her grandmother sat forward and placed a hand on Jasmine’s forehead.
“I’m not sick. But I’m thinking of quitting dance.”
Her grandma gasped. “You! But you dance always! I remember you as little girl, twirling through my tchotckes. I was sure you knock them all over. Don’t you remember all the hours you and your little friends spend making dances in the basement?”
Jasmine did remember that. She and her girlfriends had spent whole afternoons choreographing dances based on moves they made up. Sometimes they had music, and sometimes they sang alon
g.
“Dance isn’t fun anymore though.”
Her grandma nodded. “Dance is work. That what your great-grandmother say.”
“So you don’t think I should quit?”
“That your decision, not mine. But don’t quit because is hard. Quit only if you don’t want to do it anymore.”
Jasmine paused. Did she still want to dance? Her grandma always had a way of getting to the important stuff. Really, that was all that mattered. Did she still want to dance? Yes.
“What time is class today?” her grandma asked.
“It starts at four.”
“Is five minutes to four.”
Jasmine gasped. “Oh no!” She jumped off the couch and ran for the door, then ran back and gave her grandma a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks.”
Her grandma nodded and shooed her away. “Run! Don’t be late!”
She was late. She arrived at five minutes after four, and she didn’t have her leotard on yet.
Miss Carina’s face darkened when Jasmine walked in the door. The warm-up had already started. “One hundred crunches!” she barked. “Twenty for each minute.”
Melanie and Felicity giggled.
Jasmine dropped her bag and glared at them, then lay down on the floor to start her crunches. A hundred was over the top. She’d only been five minutes late. But even worse was having her supposed friends laugh at her. Maybe she should have quit.
After fifty crunches her muscles started to feel tired, and she was breathing hard. By seventy she had slowed down. At the end of a hundred, her muscles were screaming and sweat was dripping off her.
She took her place in the warm-up. Miss Carina ignored her as she got ready for the kick sequence. Shira smiled and mouthed, “You did it!”
Jasmine tried to smile back, but she was too tired.
As she did her battements, she could feel herself getting more and more angry. Miss Carina had it in for her. Melanie and Felicity were so mean. Hadn’t they ever been late to class? She was tempted to quit right then and there. But that would give all three of them what they wanted. No, she’d show them. She’d stick with it.
“Point your toes, Jasmine,” Miss Carina called out.
“Straight legs, Jasmine—I’ve told you a hundred times.”
With each comment, Jasmine said nothing, as anger boiled inside her.
Finally, the warm-up was over. “We’re going to start with the traveling scene again,” Miss Carina said.
Great. The part she found hardest.
As they lined up with their partners, Felicity whispered to her, “Have fun doing crunches? Why were you late? Hanging out with Will?”
Jasmine had to hold her hands behind her back to stop herself from reaching out and shoving her.
“Five, six, seven, eight,” Miss Carina called.
Jasmine wasn’t sure if she remembered the steps. But she could hardly think about them anyway. Mostly she was thinking about how mad she was at Felicity. All of that anger went into her steps. The best part was when she got to lunge over her. It was so tempting to spit.
Miss Carina cut the music. “Jasmine!”
Jasmine turned. What now? She was so tired of being singled out. She knew she couldn’t dance as well as everyone else. Was Miss Carina going to let the class know too?
“You did it! That was the best I’ve ever seen you dance! So much emotion! So much anger!”
Jasmine could feel her mouth dropping open. “But I was hardly thinking about the moves at all,” she admitted.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! Don’t think about the moves. Your body knows what to do. Think about the feeling!”
“Uh-huh.” Jasmine couldn’t believe this was happening. She’d been so distracted and angry that she’d danced better than ever?
Miss Carina stared at her without talking for a moment. Jasmine’s tired muscles started to cramp with nervousness. What had she done wrong now?
Her teacher crooked a finger at her. “I’m moving you to the front.”
Chapter Seven
Miss Carina pointed to Chelsea and Melanie. “Switch places with Jasmine and Felicity.”
Jasmine tried not to meet Chelsea’s eyes as she passed her. Instead, she focused on feeling happy. She’d done it! She’d proven to Miss Carina that she did know how to dance. She was worthy of being on the team.
But now that she wasn’t so angry, would she be able to dance so well?
“Run that section again,” Miss Carina said.
Jasmine took a deep breath. She couldn’t blow this or she’d be sent to the back again. Think. What had she done? She’d been angry. She hadn’t thought so much about the moves.
So she had to feel angry again. Her eyes scanned the room. Chelsea and Darveet were whispering to each other and looking her way. Jasmine’s cheeks flushed. That wasn’t so hard. Now she had to hold on to the feeling.
The music started. Jasmine’s mind began to kick in. Jump. Point your toe more. She pushed the thoughts to the back of her mind and focused on how angry she was instead.
“Good,” Miss Carina said. “Let’s run it from the top.”
Doing the dance from the top proved to be harder than doing the part they’d just done. Jasmine didn’t need to be angry at the start; she needed to be happy. Finding something to be happy about right now was difficult.
When did she feel happy? She thought about the feeling she had every week at the start of warm-up, when they did their pliés and breathing. She imagined she was doing that exercise as she did the opening moves of the dance.
It worked. She felt light and happy, and she thought her body might look that way too. Dancing was more interesting this way.
“Nice, Jasmine,” Miss Carina said. “Melanie, you’re rushing.”
Jasmine faltered for a moment as she prepared for her chaînés. The look on Melanie’s face was evil. And it was all directed at Jasmine.
“Ignore Melanie,” Shira whispered after they’d run the number again. “She’s jealous.” Her friend gave her a squeeze on the arm. “You did it!”
Jasmine smiled and nodded. At least one other person in the room was happy for her.
“Let’s move on to the next section. We’re nearing the end of the dance,” Miss Carina said.
“It’s about time,” Shira muttered. “We only have a week left.”
“No kidding,” Jasmine said. “She’s leaving it so late.”
“I’d like to finish the ending today,” Miss Carina continued. “We have an extra two-hour practice on Saturday. We can clean it then, and that will leave us with two practices next week to polish it up.”
Jasmine had forgotten about the Saturday practice. She didn’t really want to spend her weekend in the stuffy dance studio, but it was better than feeling unprepared for the competition.
“The most serious part of our story comes when the traveler arrives at her destination only to find that she has no friends, and no one wants to approach her because she’s so angry.”
“This story’s quite the downer, isn’t it?” Shira said.
Miss Carina pursed her lips at Shira’s interruption. “As you know, it gets better. One girl is brave enough to approach her. As soon as she makes one friend, her anger falls away, and everyone else is happy to talk to her too.”
Jasmine wondered how the audience would figure all this out. Sometimes the dancers were the girl, sometimes they were woodland creatures, sometimes they were family, and sometimes they were friends in the new town. She guessed it wasn’t supposed to be taken too literally. Would anybody in the audience get it though?
“For the part where she is shunned, I want one person to play the traveler, one to play the girl who befriends her, and everyone else will be the townspeople.”
The g
irls had been taking a break and stretching while Miss Carina spoke. At her latest words, all eight of them sat up. Somebody’s water bottle clattered to the floor. Their teacher was announcing a duet. This differed significantly from the original dance.
Miss Carina’s eyes roamed over the eight of them, weighing her options. “Right. Shira, come here. You can play the friend.”
Jasmine smiled. Shira had never been singled out for anything other than mouthing off, yet she was a beautiful dancer. Putting emotion into her moves had never been a problem for her.
“And for the traveler…” Miss Carina paused and eyed everyone again. Jasmine felt like an orphan pup waiting to be taken home from the animal shelter. “Jasmine.”
Jasmine bolted to her feet. She’d known Miss Carina had been happy with her dancing, but happy enough to earn Jasmine a duet?
“I’m going to teach the rest of the group their part first. You two might as well learn it, but stand to the side so that I can work on the spacing.”
Shira grabbed Jasmine’s arm and dragged her to the side of the studio. It was a good thing too, because Jasmine was so stunned she could hardly understand Miss Carina’s words.
“This is so awesome!” Shira said.
“I’m glad it’s the two of us.” As Jasmine spoke, she saw Melanie and Chelsea looking daggers at them. She was doubly glad to have Shira beside her.
Jasmine tried to follow along as Miss Carina taught the class an entirely new sequence of steps, but her head wasn’t really in it. She was too excited about having a duet and too worried about what this was going to mean for her friendship with the rest of the team.
How had this happened to them? In the past, they had all worked together. It didn’t used to matter so much who was at the front, or who had a solo. Was it all because of the competition with InMotion?
After Miss Carina had finished with the larger group, she called Jasmine and Shira over to learn their parts. “I want you two to come for an extra practice on Saturday, before everyone else.”
Jasmine nodded. She could do that. Not that Miss Carina was asking. She assumed that her students were always at her beck and call.