by Charis Marsh
Julian laughed. “Little lump,” he said, looking down at his brother fondly. They walked into the hall.
“Juulliaan,” Cromwell Gilly said from down the hall. He had an uncharacteristically dreamy expression on his face.“My dear boy, how did you manage to escape the immovable Mr. Yu?” He was sitting on one of the costume trunks, with Anna and Alexandra’s older brothers. “We really must move these,” Cromwell giggled, looking up at them.
Justin just smiled at him. Taylor wrinkled her nose. “I think I’m high just smelling the air around them! Poor River.”
“Don’t worry,” Julian said, chuckling as he looked down at River. “He’s used to it.”
They walked through the theatre doors and spotted their parents, standing at opposite ends of the cluster of people. “Well … bye,” Julian said awkwardly.
“Bye,” said Taylor brightly. She gave him a big hug. “Have a good Christmas break.” She stood on her demi-pointe and kissed River on the cheek. “Bye, Viver,” she said softly, and then ran to join her parents.
Take a sneak peek at the next Ballet school confidential book, You’re So Sweet
Julian Reese
does NOT have Bieber hair. And is going back to Van today — hopefully.
“Will?”
Will didn’t look up. His headphones were plugged into his laptop, and he was bopping in time to the music as he worked on his blog. It was a marvellous work concerning the philosophy of the world, as translated by William O. Reese. Julian sighed and waved his hand in front of his father’s face.
“What?” Will turned to Julian.
“You said you would drive me to the ferry, remember?”
“Yes, but— Hey, dude, do you think you could ask Daisy if she’d take you? It’s just … I’m really in the zone here.”
“Daisy’s working at the farmer’s market,” Julian explained. “It’s Sunday, remember?”
“Oh, yeah …”
River came in and wrapped his arms around Julian’s legs. “Are you leaving, Jules?”
“Yeah.” Julian looked down at his little brother. “I have to go back to dance, remember?”
“Why can’t you dance here?”
“Because I can’t, little guy. Now shush for a sec, all right? Will, I really need to go now. Like, now.”
“Oh. Okay, let’s go, you guys tell me when you’re ready, and we’ll go, okay?”
“We’re ready,” Julian assured him.
River stuck out his foot. “My shoes are already on, even.”
Making his way onto the ferry bound for Vancouver, Julian was still running things he wished he could say to his dad through his mind. He hurried through the ferry lounges, trying to find a seat.
And of course the ferry is completely packed. Great … Julian headed for a relatively clear place on the ferry floor and sat down. His iPod wasn’t loud enough to drown out the noises of the cranky passengers around him. Will’s probably still furious with me for losing his blog post when I unplugged the computer. Julian flipped restlessly through the songs on his iPod. A year ago he wouldn’t have minded his dad’s carefree attitude towards time, River, or himself, but a year was a long time. His phone vibrated with a text from Taylor.
“Hey, u catch the 5?”
“No Im on the 7”
“K. See u at 830ish”
That was another problem — Taylor. He was grateful that she was going to pick him up and everything, but ... Maybe I’m just being a jerk. So what if Taylor is annoying? At least she tries to be a good friend. That was the problem with Taylor really: she tried too hard. Julian swung himself up from the ferry floor. The line up for the cafeteria was disgustingly long, but he was starving.
Fries in hand, he wandered up to the top deck, thinking. He was sure that Will had been better when he was young, but the way Will was with River ... well, carefree wasn’t the right word. Lazy? Maybe it’s because River looks more like Daisy than Will. And it was not like Daisy was any sort of mom at all, the only thing Julian had seen her do for River all Christmas break was when they’d gone to her parents’ house for Christmas dinner and she’d taken all the turkey off his plate. Julian shook his head, remembering. It’s all right to raise the kid vegan, but most of the time Daisy forgets to feed him, period. Julian scowled out at the ocean, watching as the rain beat down on the black waves and ferry deck. It was already dark, and the weather seemed to be getting worse. Freezing, he went back inside and sat down on the floor again, the rain from his coat dripping on the ferry carpet.
Finally the ferry arrived at Horseshoe Bay. Julian half ran down the walkway, weaving expertly through the tired passengers. Hurriedly scooping his suitcase from the luggage carousel, he went outside, anxiously scanning the crowd for Taylor and Charlize.
“Jules, Jules, over here!” Taylor called, waving excitedly.
Relieved, Julian half-ran, half-walked over, breaking into a grin. “Hey Taylor!”
“I missed you! I’m so, so excited for classes again, aren’t you? Did you have fun with your family? How is River? They must’ve missed you, hey? Mom is, like, so stupid, she forgot how to get to Horseshoe Bay, and so we were, like, almost late, and then you would’ve been waiting in the dark here for us. It’s so friggin’ freezing out. Mom, could you please, like, turn on the heat? We’re completely freezing?”
Julian got into the car, sinking into the seat. “Hey, Allison,” he said smiling at Taylor’s little sister. Allison grinned at him, not bothering to unplug her earbuds.
“So Julian, Taylor said that you two were thinking of doing a pas together?” Charlize said as she made her way up the curving road onto the highway into Vancouver.
“Oh, yeah.”
“I was thinking, we should probably do two,” Taylor said. “That way we could do a contemporary pas and a classical.”
“Uh, that sounds good,” Julian agreed, but he was slightly unsure. “The only thing is, do these pas de duexs, do we have to pay for them?”
“Well, there’s an entry fee … but, we can see how it goes. We can like, talk about it later, right? But it would be fun, right?”
“Yeah.”
Taylor chattered aimlessly the rest of the way into Vancouver, and Julian smiled and nodded where necessary until they finally dropped him off at Mr. Yu’s house.
Look for Book Two of the
Ballet School Confidential
series at your favourite bookseller in 2012.
Copyright © Charis Marsh, 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
Editor: Nicole Chaplin
Design: Jennifer Scott
Epub: Carmen Giraudy
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Marsh, Charis
Love you, hate you [electronic resource] / by Charis Marsh.
Type of computer file: Electronic document issued in EPUB format.
Also issued in print format.
ISBN 978-1-55488-962-4
I. Title.
PS8626.A7665L69 2011b jC813'.6 C2011-901859-4
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and Livres Canada Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
www.dundurn.com
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Charis Marsh, Love You, Hate You