“L-L-Liberty is more than just a center,” I blurted out. Everyone’s heads snapped toward me.
“It’s us, it’s me, it’s the heart of all who enter
It’s Mr. Harmon, Ssssssstan, Amelia, and Mama
It’s d-d-dance, it’s theater, it’s art, it’s drama
Liberty is where my words can be free
It’s us, it’s you, i-i-it’s everyone, it’s mmme—”
I was competing with feet pounding, Mama shouting, and art students laughing, and for all I knew, they were laughing at me. But I wasn’t done yet. I raised my voice above it all, words coming to me left and right.
“And now it’s been d-d-dark
No light, no sssssspark
We’re in this other place
My words, no l-l-longer safe
Are out in a world wh-where
E-E-Everyone can hear
Everyone c-c-c-can hear
Everyone can hear!”
A giant weight lifted off of me. All those words that had been storming around inside me were out now. The group applauded. Everyone, that is, but Isaiah. He sat perfectly still, deep in thought.
“That’s it!” he whispered.
“What’s it?” said Teagan.
“It’s time to bring the center to the wider community,” Isaiah said. “Where everyone can hear.”
“Huh?” Alejandro looked from him to me and back again.
“So far, we’ve tried to bring the community to us, right, with the rally? But that was only a small portion of people—just those who happened to pass by Liberty. We need to get out there, where everyone can hear. Great poem, by the way, Gabby.”
“Yes!” Teagan said. “Great poem. And I get it, Isaiah—‘all the world’s a stage’! We have to go out there and use it like one.”
“Not quite the right reference, but I do believe I’m wearing off on you,” Isaiah said. They started joking but I only half listened as I sat back down. That guy playing the drums had popped into my head.
“P-P-Performance in the park,” I said. “We could get some dancers, do some spoken word. Take the whole park by surprise by doing a random p-p-per … show.”
“Oooooo,” Bria said. “Like all those videos when guys propose to their girlfriends by getting their friends and family to dance!”
“Yes!” I replied. We could perform and tell them about Liberty and hand out cards. “Teagan, if there are one hundred fifty people in the park when we perform, how much money do you think we could raise?”
Teagan scribbled in Cody furiously. “Maybe six thousand dollars, if the average donation is forty dollars?”
It wasn’t twenty thousand, but it was something—more than a quarter of what we needed. Plus, whatever our friendship bracelets had contributed. That felt about right. That felt about equal to the damage I’d done by pushing that big silver button.
Mama’s and Daddy’s voices were right there in my head, though. It’s too big for just us kids to plan, especially with “time being of the essence.” I could hear their push back as if they were sitting right beside us. We couldn’t afford to push back, not now. Teagan, Red, and I needed to fix the mess we’d made, once and for all.
“I think it should be a sssssurprise,” I said. “All of the grown-ups are super stressed with everything else. Let’s make this, like, a gift for them and the community. We’ll surprise them by saving the day.” It was true I didn’t want to tell Mama because I didn’t want her to stop us, but I could also picture the mask of worry sliding from her face and being replaced with a huge smile when we told her we’d managed to raise a ton of money.
“Yes!” Bria exclaimed. “I love surprises. Did I tell you guys about the time we surprised my grandma for her birthday and her pacemaker went off? She’s fine, though, don’t worry.”
“Okay,” Teagan cut in. “Glad your grandma is doing all right, Bria. The city is deciding on their budget on the thirty-first. The last possible day for us to do the park dance is Sunday the thirtieth. I think we should do it on Saturday, the twenty-ninth, just to be safe.”
July 29. That was the day the show would have been. “Yes!” I said. “It’ll be like our own little Rhythm and Views!” Everyone agreed.
Teagan-the-Problem-Solver suggested we do it in Lincoln, the big park a few blocks away from Liberty, then shifted in her seat. “Is everyone here going to dance?”
“Yes!” Bria cried. Alejandro and Isaiah looked nervously away.
“I’ll do it if Red does,” Alejandro said. “He was bustin’ all those moves in poetry rehearsal and all.”
“You are not ready for all the moves I can’t bust,” Red replied. “But I’m in. Anything for Liberty. Isaiah, what about you?”
“‘Our doubts are traitors. And make us lose the good we oft might win. By fearing to attempt,’” Isaiah declared. “It means—”
“It means yes,” Teagan cut in. “I think we should post a video of the choreography of the dance we’re doing so anyone who wants to can learn and join in. Gabby, will you come up with the dance and record it for everyone else?”
“Sure,” I said, though I felt anything but. Choreograph a whole hip-hop dance? And for other people? I’d never done anything like that before. Whenever I wasn’t feeling confident about dancing, I always went to Mama. Suddenly, I was beginning to regret not involving the grown-ups in this. But I wondered if maybe Amelia could—shoot! I jumped up, grabbed my dance bag, and bolted for the other end of the room, pulling my ballet shoes out as I ran.
“Fill me in later! I’m late for ballet!”
I thought maybe Amelia wouldn’t notice, or that she wouldn’t care that I was late, but as soon as rehearsal was over and I was pulling my street clothes over my dance clothes, she came over to me.
“Everything all right, Gabby? It’s not like you to be late to rehearsal.”
“Everything’s fine, great. Actually, there’s something I want to ask you.”
“Go for it.”
I told her all about the park performance idea. Amelia needed very little convincing. “I’m in,” she said. “What can I do?”
There were a few minutes before Mama came to pick me up. We sat down and came up with a plan.
It turned out that not only was Amelia an awesome dancer, she was an awesome co-conspirator, too.
The first thing she did was somehow convince Mama and Daddy they needed a night to themselves. “A date night, Miss Tina,” she said to Mama one day after rehearsal. “To get your mind off of all the stuff happening with Liberty. You won’t even have to worry about Gabby and Red. I’ll stay with them.”
That’s how, on Saturday night, Amelia ended up in my room, standing beside me, our reflections sweaty and breathless in the mirror above my dresser. My mirror at home wasn’t anywhere near as good as the floor-to-ceiling mirrors in the dance studios at Liberty, but we’d still managed to choreograph a pretty good routine anyway, even with Amelia being such a bunhead. She might be able to do triple pirouettes on pointe, but I had mad hip-hop moves.
“It needs something more, though,” Amelia said. She paused a moment to use the bottom of her T-shirt to wipe the sweat off of her face. It was the most un-Amelia-like thing I’d ever seen Amelia do. I stared. “What?” she said.
“Nothing.” I used the bottom of my T-shirt to wipe my face, too.
Amelia smiled briefly, and then went right back to business “What are we missing?” she said, just as Red passed by in the hallway.
As if on cue, Red jumped into my room. “Me!” he said. “You’re missing me and my signature step, the ever-classic running man.” He attempted to demonstrate and kicked back too hard with his right leg. In an instant, he was on the floor flat on his stomach.
“If that’s your signature move, I’m a little afraid,” I said, laughing.
“Definitely the running man,” Amelia said, still giggling. “But we’ll have to teach that one to Red personally.”
Amelia and I worked in the running man whi
le Red went and got us some lemonade. “Thanks, cuz,” I said, taking a big gulp. “Want to see the finished dance?”
“Does your dad talk about computers constantly?” Red joked.
He did.
“Great,” Amelia said. “Red can be our audience. Let’s run through it once before we record it,” Amelia instructed.
“It. Looks. Awesome,” Red declared, when we were done.
Amelia held up her hand for a high five, the way she always did at the end of ballet rehearsal. “Ready to record the tutorial?”
“Um—”
“You are,” Amelia said firmly. “You can do this.”
I went down to the bathroom to change into the outfit Amelia had picked out for me: a pair of black leggings, and a lime-green tank top with a purple crop top over it. The crop top had the word Dream written across it, which I thought fit the moment because I couldn’t believe what I was about to do: record a video of me teaching choreography. A video that who knows how many people would see. My mouth went dry just thinking about it.
“Okay, so all you have to do is stand right here,” Amelia said, pointing to a spot a few feet away from the laptop. “Wait. Gabby, what’s wrong?”
“I’m just worried that—well, my stutter …”
“Don’t worry about that, Gabby,” said Red.
“At all,” added Amelia. “If it makes you feel better, here’s what we’ll do: Whenever you stutter a lot and want to stop and try again, touch your nose. We’ll stop and re-record. How does that sound?”
“Perfect,” I said.
“Great. Okay, the camera is here.” She pointed. “Green light means it’s on and you see how it says MOVIE RECORDING up here? That’s how you know the camera is rolling. Make sure you look into it while you’re talking. Okay?”
It was just like dance class. Amelia didn’t give me a moment even to think before she said, “Action!” and hit the PLAY button. And just like that, I was face-to-face with, well, me. Just me. I couldn’t even see Amelia or Red in the background. They had moved to the far corner of my room, out of sight. I thought about all the times I had taught myself new moves in my dresser mirror, talking myself through the instructions to each. This is just like that, Gabby, I told myself. And it’s okay if you stutter a little. Just say what you have to say.
“W-W-W-Welcome, everyone, t-t-t-to my, um, the L-L-Liberty Park D-Dance tutorial,” I said to the camera. “F-F-F-First, I will show you the ch-ch-choreography all the way through. Then, I will … will teach you how to, um, do each dance one step at a t-t-time. If you can’t get one, d-d-don’t worry. You know where to find me for some in-p-p-person help.”
I took a deep breath. It wasn’t perfect, but I’d gotten the words out. I’d said what I had to say, stutter and all. I looked over at Amelia and Red, who gave me double thumbs-up. You can do this, Gabby, I told myself, and launched into teaching the moves.
Sweat was dripping off my forehead by the time we got through filming the second verse of choreography. I only had to use our signal to back up and start over once when “slide” insisted on coming out as “ssssssssssslide.” But now that I thought about it, that might have actually helped get the essence of the step across. I took a swig of lemonade as Maya sauntered into the room and hopped up on Amelia’s lap.
“That was great, Gabby!” She stroked Maya from her head to the tip of her tail. Maya let out a big purr. “You were clear, concise, and had a smile on the whole time to boot. I’m not sure I could have taught those steps better myself.”
“I could have,” Red said, with a smirk. “That was pretty great, cuz, but we all know my pirouettes are spinny-ier and my leaps are leap-ier than yours. Shall I demonstrate?”
“NO!” Amelia and I said at the same time. Maya let out a big meow.
“See, even the cat thinks that would be a bad idea,” I said, laughing and shaking my head at Red. “But good to know you’re willing should I ever need a clumsy, overly enthusiastic assistant.”
“At your service, my lady,” Red said, sounding an awful lot like Isaiah.
“Before we film the last bit,” Amelia said, “maybe we should give people info about the rehearsal on Thursday?”
“Good plan.” Amelia said we’d want a rehearsal to go through everything in person, which meant we had to get everyone participating to the same place without any of the grown-ups finding out. My palms had begun to sweat just thinking about it. But Amelia had said, “Leave it to me” and when I argued, she had answered, “Gabby, am I an awesome co-conspirator or not?” I had to admit she was. Amelia said she’d find a way to get the adults out of the rec room on Thursday night and offer to run the scheduled All Company dance rehearsal, which would really be a secret park dance practice.
I pressed RECORD and gave the necessary details for Thursday, making sure to mention that we have only one week to pull this off, so people had to practice on their own before rehearsal. Then all we had left to film was the final chorus.
This last bit of choreography was the part everyone would join in on. It was my favorite part of the whole thing, because anybody—from the senior girls to the Tiny Tots to Alejandro and Red and their two left feet—would be able to do these moves. I wanted Teagan and Isaiah and everybody to feel the same rush I did when I got to shout with my body instead of my words. There was nothing like it.
“Okay!” I said, turning to Red and Amelia. “Let’s do this!”
People had eight counts to run to their spots, and then eight counts of punching their fists in the air. I got through teaching the next two phrases of movement with only one or two stutters and didn’t even bother to signal Amelia to stop. Her nodding told me I was getting across what I needed to get across to teach these steps. Who cared if there were a few extra syllables in between?
“G-G-Get ready, dancers,” I said, looking directly into the camera. “It’s time for the big ending!” Amelia gave me another thumbs-up.
“This is the very last moment, so I want everyone to dance as big as they can with as much energy as they can.” Beside me off camera, Red jumped to his feet, apparently ready to dance as big as he could with as much energy as he could.
“You’re going to step forward with your right foot, then your left foot.” I demonstrated, Red mimicking me just out of the frame. “Then you jump to cross your feet under you. After that, we’ll spin to unwind our feet—” As I turned slowly around, I saw Amelia struggling to hold a very wiggly Maya. Hang in there, kitty, I thought. We’re almost done. “W-W-We unwind our feet and then on the very last beat we’re going to—”
Suddenly, I had an idea. I made eye contact with Red, which wasn’t exactly easy because somehow his feet had gotten more crossed while he was unwinding.
“W-W-We unwind our feet and then we’re going to strike a pose, which my assistant, Red, will now demonstrate.”
“Yes!” Red said, jumping into the frame.
“No!” Amelia shouted half a second later. Maya dashed toward me in a furry blur. I stumbled and fell backward before Red had even hit his pose. Maya was on my chest and rubbing her face against mine in no time.
“Maya!” I groaned, picking her up. “Should we shoot that again, Amelia? Amelia?”
Amelia was doubled over in the furry chair, shaking with laughter. Red had lost it, too, and soon I couldn’t help but join in.
“Let’s keep it,” Amelia said. “Some people might come for the choreography, but stay for the cat.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I am. Cats are like ketchup. They make everything better!”
Crisscross
My mind spins ’round
Feet fly forward one, two, three
Five, six, seven, here comes eight
I’m flying, flipping, floating free
Do you feel that?
Can you hear that?
Two dozen hands
Two dozen feet
Two dozen shoulders, knees, eyebrows, and toes
Silently sh
outing what my heart has always known
At the rec room that week, it was business as usual—except that I could hardly focus on dance or poetry because people kept coming over to me and whispering, “I’ve been practicing.”
“That’s great,” Amelia said, after ballet rehearsal on Wednesday. “Sounds like we’ll have a big crowd tomorrow!”
I looked to make sure Mama wasn’t listening to our conversation. She wasn’t—her face was buried in a copy of a book she’d ordered online titled From Nothing to a Lot in No Time Flat: How to Hit Your Fund-Raising Goal in Less than a Week. The grown-ups had been cold calling and e-mailing community members explaining our situation and asking for donations, and we had made what felt like seventy trillion bracelets to sell around town, but we were still about twelve thousand dollars away from our Dream Together goal.
I had come downstairs on Thursday morning to find Mama snoring and drooling with her head down on the kitchen table. Daddy shushed me when I tried to ask if she was okay.
“Only seven hours’ sleep in the last three days,” he whispered. “Let her rest before she has to be at the church later.”
I poured my bowl of cereal as quietly as I could, wondering if we should just come clean about the park dance. What if Mama loved the idea and had even more thoughts about how to make it successful? Maybe the park dance could push us over our goal if we had some help.
But then Daddy reached over my shoulder to pour milk on my cereal, like he used to do when I was little. If we spilled the beans about the park dance, and Daddy and Mama thought it was a good idea, they would pour on their help and drown us kids out just like Daddy drowned my cereal. It hurt me to see Mama so tired and stressed, but getting back into Liberty was my bowl of cereal and I would prove to Mama and Daddy that I could pour my own milk.
Now we just had to pull off a rehearsal without the grown-ups finding out.
Gabriela (American Girl Page 8