Bust a Move (13 page)

“Don't even say that!” M.J. begged. “You'll curse us. Even my lucky competition socks won't save us. There's no way we can win the world without Emerson or Devane or ill papi.”

Sophie wondered if she should break out those moves she'd done for Sammi and her parents when they'd gotten home from the competition. The moves were actually from the first routine the group did at the competition, but Sophie did them as different people. Like Napoleon Dynamite and Batman. It had the family ROFL. Even though her parents didn't always completely get what Sophie was doing.

“If ill papi was going to come to class, wouldn't he be here?” Rachel asked. “Do you think he decided to quit the group without telling anyone?”

Same thing Sophie was thinking. She was also wondering how much the strangeness with J-Bang had to do with ill papi's disappearing act. He had started acting weird around the time Gina announced that J-Bang was judging the regionals.

Sophie decided not to attempt her Napoleon and Batman as b-boys routine. How could she be the Sophie who made people laugh when she didn't feel anything like laughing herself?

It wasn't as if a little of her silliness was going to make the crew forget that they might be going all the way to Los Angeles just to lose big.

Sammi and Ky raced into the room. Now everyone was there, waiting for Gina to come in. Everyone except ill papi.

“No ill papi?” Ky asked.

Gina came in before anyone could answer. “It looks like from your faces that you've already heard the news about Emerson,” Gina commented.

“Wait. We haven't.” Sammi shot a concerned look at Sophie.

“I'm afraid Emerson has decided to resign from the group for personal reasons,” Gina said. “I know we'll all miss her.”

“What happened?” Sammi mouthed to Sophie.

“Her parents found out,” Sophie mouthed back. And Sammi made an “ouch” face. Right then, it felt really good to have Sammi in the class with her. Sammi knew the whole Emerson story. And she knew what good friends Sophie and Em were. The thing with sisters was, you didn't have to explain that much to them. They were pretty much always up to speed.

“Gina, what are we going to do?” M.J. asked. “How are we supposed to make it to the world championship when we have two of the best dancers out?” He jerked his chin toward Devane.

“Well, I have an announcement to make about one of the empty spots,” Gina said. Sophie noticed Devane's body stiffen. “I'm very happy to tell you that Maddy and I have decided to make Sammi Qian a member of the Performance Group. Congratulations, Sammi!”

Sammi's mouth dropped open. She started toward Sophie—but Ky grabbed her in a hug before Sammi reached her sister.

And Sophie was pretty relieved. She wasn't sure if she could give Sammi a convincing hug at that particular moment. It had been nice having her sister in the class for about a second. But that second was over. Because now that Sammi was a member of the Performance Group, Sophie's thing, the one thing she had of her own, was gone. The next time the crew performed, her parents would be giving it up for her
and
Sammi. If they made it to the championship, all the relatives would be notified about the triumph of her
and
Sammi.

Sophie forced herself to applaud—long and loud. Longer and louder than anyone. She wasn't going to let anyone know that her world had just gotten crunched, crunched under her own sister's foot.

And Sammi would still have the cheerleading, and the choir, and the debate team, and the A's in everything, and the
and
, and
and
, and
and
.

“All right. We have a lot of work to do to get ready for nationals,” Gina called out. “You know all the crews who are going to L.A. are practicing right now.” She started toward the sound system.

“Gina, can I ask one thing before we start?” Fridge called out.

“If it's an important one thing.” Gina turned to face him.

“Where's ill papi?” Fridge said. “Because if he's decided not to be in the group anymore, what's the point? We can't win without him. Not with Emerson out and you keeping Devane benched.”

Gina frowned. “Well, I like to think of us as a group that's larger than the sum of its parts, so let's not concern ourselves with whether or not we can win. But in terms of ill papi, I've been a little concerned about him myself,” she admitted. “I've left several messages on his machine asking him to give me a call. But he hasn't. I was hoping he'd be here today.”

All right. Enough,
Sophie thought.
Someone needs to find out what's going on with ill papi. And clearly that someone is going to have to be me.

 

 

 

Emerson came through the front door and walked directly to the stairs and up to her room. She did not turn on the CD player. She did not turn on the TV. She did not log on to the Internet. She did not pick up the phone. She did not pass Go. She did not collect two hundred dollars.

She sat down at her desk, opened her backpack, and pulled out the first book her fingers touched. French. Of course. It was that kind of day.

No, it was that kind of life.

Why not get her French done? Then she could treat herself with history or English. Something to look forward to. Who said you couldn't have fun when you were grounded? “Woo-hoo!” Emerson whispered.

“What was that?” her mother asked. She'd come into the room without knocking. Usually Emerson would politely remind her that knocking was preferred. But Emerson wasn't allowed to have preferences right now.

“I didn't say anything,” Emerson answered.

Her mother raised an I-beg-to-differ eyebrow. Emerson ignored her. She got busy choosing a pen from her top desk drawer.

“I just got off the phone with Rosemary.”

Emerson took a notebook out of her backpack and opened it. She didn't want to hear about Rosemary. She didn't want to hear about ballet. If she couldn't do hip-hop, she didn't want to dance at all. She flipped her French book open to the assigned section.

“Please look at me when I'm talking to you,” her mom said. “I think you'll be happy about what Rosemary had to say.”

Emerson turned in her chair until she was facing her mother. She struggled to get a pleasant expression on her face. When she looked at her mom—or her dad—she was afraid she would just start screaming like an insane person and never be able to stop. She'd felt that way for the last three days—ever since she'd had to tell Gina and Maddy she was quitting the performance group.

“Rosemary thinks you're so talented. And you know your dad and I think so, too, honey. What's happened hasn't changed that at all.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Emerson murmured, because her mother clearly wanted some kind of response.

“Now, Rosemary is concerned about the amount of class time you missed over the summer. She's also worried—and so am I—that doing so much of the hip-hop dancing might have had a negative effect on you technique,” Emerson's mother went on. “But she's willing to give you a shot in your old class, with your regular group. You won't have to take a step back at all—if you can show her you're up to the work. And I know you can.”

This was the part Emerson was supposed to be happy about. It hadn't been certain whether or not Emerson would be able to rejoin her old class. She didn't care at all. Right now, going back into ballet felt like getting locked into a cage. Who cared if it was this cage over here or that cage over there?

“That's great, Mom,” Emerson said. She wasn't even going to try to tell her mother how she felt about ballet. It would be as pointless as trying to tell her mother how she felt about hip-hop.

Her mother smiled. “I knew you'd be happy. I bet you've missed your ballet friends.” She started for the door, then turned back. “Oh, and Rosemary is sure that you'll still get some kind of part in the
Nutcracker
when the company comes to town and holds its auditions.”

Emerson just nodded. She could feel the screams she'd been holding down clawing up her body, from her stomach up to her throat. If she opened her mouth right now, they might come roaring out.

“I'll let you study.” Her mom left, closing the door quietly behind her.

Emerson stared down at her open book. She couldn't study. She could hardly see the words in front of her. Those screams were still trying to fight their way out of her. She lurched to her feet. She needed to move. Had to.

She launched into her solo. The one that combined ballet and hip-hop. She turned in a pirouette, freeze-framing the motion into tiny individual segments. It helped. But it wasn't enough.

Emerson let go of the choreography, doing the pirouette krump style, the way Devane had brought it when she'd crashed into Emerson's solo. Emerson's body shivered as if an earthquake was running through it. The individual segments of the move ran together as her body shook and spasmed.

Her bedroom door swung open—clearly she wasn't ever going to get knocking again—and Emerson struggled to shut her body down and smooth the krumping out into a vanilla pirouette.

“I forgot I wanted to take your tutu, the one for the recital you didn't go to, to the Roundabout. I'm donating it to their costume shop.” Her mother shot Emerson a sharp look as she headed toward the closet. “That pirouette looked very wobbly. It's amazing what a few weeks without practice can do.” Her mother walked back out of the room with the tulle of the lavender tutu draped over her arm.

Emerson waited until she heard her mother's footfalls on the floor. Then she threw herself back into her dance, picking up exactly where she had left off, shaking and twitching, letting go of everything.

Her body controlled her until Emerson was exhausted. Then she sank back onto the chair, muscles limp. All the anger—those clawing screams—drained out of her. She remembered what Devane had said. That if Devane had no legs, she'd still bring it.

Emerson realized she was more like Devane than she thought.

“Three-year plan to world dom-in-ay-shun!” Tamal called out, like the announcer at a prizefight. “Shun, shun, shun,” he added, cupping his hands around his mouth to make the echoing sound.

Why do I tell him anything?
Devane asked herself.

She was staring up at her calendar. Again. There had to be a way to keep herself on track, even without getting off probation before the world championship. Hip Hop Kidz wasn't the only way to get to be a superstar.

Not that she was planning to stop trying to get off probation. But now she wasn't as sure she could just—snap!—make it happen. She needed a backup plan.

She could . . . she could enter the school talent show. Because who knew who would be in the audience?

Who knew?

Devane knew. Parents. Teachers. Other kids. None with any kind of connection to anybody who knew anybody who worked on music videos or movies or even on late-night infomercials for miracle acne cream.

“You know what you should do?” Tamal asked. He went right on as if she'd said, “No, Tamal, tell me what I should do.” “You should team up with Godzilla. If you want world dom-in-ay-shun. Shun, shun, shun.”

“How many snickerdoodles did you eat?” Devane asked. Because her little brother was riding one massive sugar rush.

“I don't know. How many were left?”

Devane rolled her eyes. “About fifteen more than Mama allows you to eat in a day.”

What else? She could put on her littlest skirt and her sassiest attitude and try to meet some of the Miami producers as they came out of restaurants or maybe their offices.

Except if her mother found out—and her mother would find out—Devane would be allowed out of the house for school and school only for the rest of her life.

“Give me that cookie you have, and I'll tell you a great idea,” Tamal offered.

“What? That I hire King Kong to help me take over the world? I don't think so,” Devane answered.

Tamal was very quiet. So quiet, Devane was sure she'd guessed his great idea. She kept looking at the calendar. She felt like ripping it off the wall and tearing it into confetti. Then she wouldn't have to try to come up with a new plan to fill in all those squares. But that would be giving up. And giving up was so not Devane.