Dance-off! (6 page)

But what we saw gave us ideas of our own, too, and we ended up with loads of fab moves. There was the bum wiggle, for instance, and the shoulder pop, the kick-and-turn, and the ‘cross your heart’, named by Frankie (which involved sticking your hands out in front of you – right, left – and then crossing them – right, left – on your chest).

“We are
so
cool!” giggled Frankie, as she and Fliss did a sequence of moves in unison.

‘Cool’ might have been the right word to describe the other four but, to be honest, ‘hot and flustered’ was how i felt. I found it so confusing. Sometimes you had to concentrate really hard on moving only one part of your body at a time – your arms, then your shoulders, then your feet – and sometimes you had to move everything at once. I often felt like I had four hands and three feet, at
least
!

“I reckon we should do the choruses all together,” said Frankie, “and then, in the verses,
one of us comes to the front each time, and does our own thing.”

“What kind of ‘own thing’?” I asked. Even the idea of standing at the front on my own made my stomach lurch like a rollercoaster ride. I may have played Cinderella in our school panto once, but I still got major stage fright.

“I’ll help you, Rosie,” said Fliss, who must’ve noticed how worried I was. “Look – why don’t you go: step, kick, shoulder, shoulder, head roll, turn around?” she suggested, doing the moves as she spoke.

“Errrr…” I said uncertainly. “What was that again?”

“OK.” Fliss gave a little sigh. “Much slower this time…”

“Nooooo! Shoulder, shoulder,
then
head roll!”

When I’d got it wrong for the seventy-ninth time, I was so frustrated I felt like bursting into tears.

“You have to do it with attack, Rosie!” said Fliss.

“What d’you mean?” I said. To tell you the truth, I was a bit annoyed. It was all right for Fliss – she been going to dancing lessons since she was tiny, so she was used to this sort of thing. I felt like I was making a right idiot of myself.

“Your hands look like wet lettuces! And you’re turning too slowly, like some old biddy!” She demonstrated a shuffling, wobbly turn, and it made the others fall about laughing.

That was it. I felt this sudden tight anger in my stomach, and my eyes went swimmy with hot tears. “Well, maybe you should all do it without me, then!” I blurted out, and marched out of the room.

There’s a problem having a strop in someone else’s house: you don’t know where to go. I didn’t dare try upstairs in case I bumped into Tom or Stuart, but when you’ve marched out of a room, you’ve got to march
to
somewhere, or you’re going to look a real berk. So I stomped through the kitchen (which was empty, thank goodness), and straight out of the back door.

Bad move. I’d forgotten how cold it would be in the garden. Luckily Lyndz came looking for me straight away.

“Are you OK?” she said softly, hooking her arm through mine. “Fliss didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I know.” I managed to smile, though my tummy still felt knotty. “I’m fine. I just got a bit frustrated, that’s all.”

When I got back into the sitting room, Fliss gave my hand a friendly squeeze, and said, “Brilliant! You’ve got it!” when I went through the steps again. Soon I was feeling much better.

“That’s one majorly cool routine we’ve got there,” said Kenny, when we’d run the whole thing from start to finish, including all the new solos.

“We are ace, we are cool, we so completely rule!” chanted Frankie, who’d flopped next to Lyndz on the sofa.

We
were
cool – but boy, did I have a lot of practising to do at home! Luckily, my bedroom’s quite big, so I could go through my moves without Tiff watching and laughing at me. That would’ve really done for my confidence.

On Sunday I practised all morning. I was really keen not to let the others down.

“Rosieeeeeeeee!”

I was vaguely aware that Tiff was yelling up the stairs, but I was determined to get to the end of the chorus section if it killed me.

Just as I made it to the end (with, for the first time, no mistakes!!!), my bedroom door was flung open. Tiff’s face appeared, looking annoyed. “Hey, deafo, didn’t you hear? It’s the phone for you.”

I bounded down the stairs and picked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Rosie! Thank goodness you’re there,” said Fliss in a weird breathless voice. “There’s been a disaster.”

“What? What?” I said. I had sudden vague imaginings of someone being hurt – maybe Lyndz had gone riding…“What’s happened?” I almost yelled, clutching the phone so hard my knuckles went white.

“They’ve changed the flights for our skiing holiday,” said Fliss, in a voice of doom, like she
was announcing the end of the world.

I had to turn my yelp of laughter into a cough. “Oh, um, dear,” I said. “Is it a problem?”

“That’s only the biggest understatement of the year!” wailed Fliss. “We’re going to have to fly out on the last day of term. I won’t be able to go to the party. We’ll all have to pull out of the competition. Sleepoverbabes is officially cancelled!”

Friends are tricky, sometimes. I always think it’s odd how someone you really, really like can make you so cross that for a moment you even feel you hate them. Or, sometimes, a friend thinks something you just don’t agree with – but even though you know they’re being silly, you can kind of see how they feel at the same time. Do you know what I mean?

That was what it was like at school the next week with Fliss. She was really upset that the rest of us were going ahead with the competition without her.

“What do you expect us to do?” said Kenny. “All go into mourning cos you’re off on some swanky holiday?”

“Yes,” said Fliss stubbornly. “I didn’t
ask
to go.”

“We’d much rather you were there,” said Lyndz soothingly. “Of course we would. It won’t be the same without you.”

“I can’t believe you’re just going to carry on, like you don’t care!” Fliss’s eyes filled with tears.

“Oh, get over it,” said Kenny bluntly. I could see she’d lost all patience with Fliss.

We were in an Art lesson, working on our decorations for the school hall. Of course, since the decorations were for the party, that was what was on everyone’s mind. I could see that for Fliss, it kind of rubbed salt in the wound, as my mum would say. But at the same time I agreed with Kenny. Why did Fliss expect us to bin all our hard work and miss out on the fun of the dance competition just because she was off having an ace time skiing and staying in a posh hotel?

Still, I was trying to keep out of the argument. I
reckoned I’d caused enough trouble, throwing that strop at Lyndz’s house. I kept my head down and concentrated on my paper lantern. I was painting it red, with yellow blobs round the edges. In the middle of the yellow blobs I was going to stick scrunched up cellophane sweet wrappers, to look like jewels. It was going to be cool.

“Mum said I could have an extra-special sleepover, to make up for missing the party,” said Fliss. “But I’m not sure I want to invite any of you to it, any more.”

“Fine,” muttered Kenny. “Won’t be much of a sleepover on your own.”

But a minute later Lyndz said gently, “A sleepover would be so great, Fliss. What kind were you planning? Was it going to have a theme?”

Fliss nodded, smiling despite herself. “Mum came up with it.”

“What is it?” I asked.

Now Fliss looked positively excited. “Grease,” she said.

“Grease?” said Kenny. “What d’you mean?
Engine oil? Chip fat? What’re you talking about?”

“Not grease,” said Fliss. “
Grease
. You know, that film with John Travolta.”

“Never heard of it,” said Kenny.

“It
is
quite old,” said Frankie. “But it’s cool. Me and Mum got it out from Blockbusters once.”

“It’s set in this American high school in the Fifties,” explained Fliss.

“Prehis
to
ric,” said Kenny.

Fliss took no notice. I could see she was really into the idea. “There are these different gangs,” she said. “The girls are called the Pink Ladies and they have pink jackets with writing on the back, and they are
so
cool—”

“And the songs are good, too,” put in Frankie, dabbling her paintbrush in the water jar.

“Anyhow, my mum said we can have all-American food, like popcorn and hot dogs and milkshakes and stuff,” said Fliss.

“Yummy!” said Lyndz.

“That’s more like it!” Kenny said, looking brighter.

“And we all have to dress up,” Fliss added.

“Well, I’m gonna need some help,” said Kenny. “Since I still don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

“It’s like the original
High School Musical
,” said Frankie, in a sing-song voice you’d use to a baby. “Why don’t you google it?”

Kenny growled and, picking up her paintbrush, flicked a fine spray of red paint into Frankie’s hair. Frankie squealed; giggling, she did it back, with blue.

But it wasn’t their lucky day.

“Francesca and Laura!” thundered Mrs Weaver’s voice. “Outside the door! Now!”

“Just when the fun was starting,” muttered Kenny with a shrug as she walked past.

The next Saturday Mum helped me pick out my clothes for Fliss’s sleepover. We chose some light blue leggings, a denim mini that she’d bought me last summer, a long-sleeved T-shirt with a scoop neck, and my flat black pumps. Mum did my hair in a ponytail, and tidied the wisps with a couple of sparkly clips that Tiffany had lent me.

“Lose them and you’re in big trouble,” Tiff had said. Sisters – charming, huh?

Now Mum turned me round. “As a finishing touch,” she said, “you should have a neck scarf!” She produced a little silk scarf that Gran had given her once, but that she’d never worn.

“Mu-
um
!” I complained. “It’ll look naff!”

“No, it won’t,” said Mum firmly, fixing it round my neck with the knot at the side. She pulled me over to the mirror. “Look – that’s proper Fifties style, that is.”

And I had to admit that it did look quite cool.

Down in the sitting room I did a twirl for Adam, who gave me a big approving grin. Then Mum took me in the car round to Fliss’s.

When Mrs Sidebotham answered the door I could hardly believe my eyes. She had dressed up too! She was wearing a bright yellow, really full skirt, with loads of petticoats underneath, topped with a wide shiny black belt, which she’d nipped in really tightly to make her waist look dead small. Her clingy top was yellow, to match the skirt, and she had her hair in a ponytail like mine. But it was her feet that
surprised me the most. Have you ever seen a mum in frilly ankle socks? Well, that’s just what Mrs Sidebotham had on, plus a pair of white pumps that were so clean they looked like she’d gone over them with toothpaste.

“You look great, Mrs Sidebotham!” I said as I took off my coat.

“That’s very sweet of you, Rosie,” replied Fliss’s mum, patting her hair. As I bent down to take off my shoes (it’s one of the rules of Fliss’s house: no shoes indoors) she added, “As a special concession you can keep your shoes on today. I realise that they’re part of your costume.”

In the sitting room I discovered Fliss, looking like an exact replica of her mum, except that her top and skirt were pink. Kenny was there too, in a Leicester City shirt (surprise, surprise), and jeans.