Authors: Sheryl Berk
Showtime!
To my beautiful ballerina, Carrie.
Oh my gooshness . . .
I love you to the moon and the stars!
Chapter 2: Practice Makes Perfect
Chapter 9: And the Winner Is . . .
Chapter 15: A Little Bit of Luck
Step to It
Scarlett Borden wrapped her waist-long wavy red hair into a tight ballerina bun and secured it into place with about a dozen hairpins. She checked every angle of her hair in the dressing-room mirror and tucked a stubborn curly strand behind her ear, hoping it would stay there. That loose curl was all Miss Toni would need to see and she'd go ballistic (“Sloppy hair equals sloppy feet!”). With only three days left to the City Lights dance competition in New York City, her dance coach's nerves were on edge. Something as minor as a stray curl could easily set her off.
“Look out, there's a storm brewing,” Scarlett's best friendâand Dance Divas teammateâRochelle Hayes said, swinging her dance bag off her shoulder and tossing it on a bench. She'd just come from her solo rehearsal and was dripping in sweat, or as Miss Toni preferred to call it, “glowing.”
“What happened
now
, Rock?” Scarlett asked. “Please don't tell me you forgot your
pointe
shoes again?”
“I told Toni, I do much better barefoot!” she protested, demonstrating a graceful
grand jeté
. “She freaked the minute I walked in the door barefoot.”
Scarlett sighed. “Of course she freaked! She gave you three warnings.”
“
Pointe
shoes hurt!” Rochelle groaned, rubbing her toes. “And I showed her I could do it. She threw the sheet music on the floor!”
Scarlett knew her friend was playing with fire. The last time any student had disagreed with Miss Toniâmuch less refused to wear her costume choice (even the giant pineapple hat for the
hula number)âshe not only got cut from the group number but was also asked to leave the studio . . . forever. There were tons of dance studios in New Jersey, but few that had Dance Divas' reputation.
“Rock, you're my rock,” Scarlett said, and put her arm around her friend. “I need you on this team.” How many times had her BFF come to her rescue when she was feeling frustrated or freaked out over a dance routine?
“You're always there for me,” Scarlett insisted. “What about the time the giant spinning teacup in our âTea for Two' duet got stuck? You totally saved the day!”
“I pushed it,” Rochelle said, then shrugged. “It was nothing.”
“It was
something
, which is why I am repaying the favor. I am not letting you get kicked off this team!”
She dug Rochelle's
pointe
shoes out of her bag and handed them to her. They looked brand new, probably because Rochelle had refused to break
them in. “Please, I'm begging you, just put on the toe shoes for group rehearsal.”
“Fine!” Rochelle replied. “But for you, not for Toni. My mom says she's crazy.”
Scarlett nodded. Yup, there was no doubt that Antoinette “Toni” Moore was nuts. All the students at Dance Divas Studio in Scotch Plains, New Jersey, knew it. But they also knew that she won national championships. She got kids into music videos, and four of her older students had landed jobs on Broadway in just the past year alone. If you wanted to be a professional dancer one day, this was the only studio in the tristate area worth going to.
Plenty of Scarlett's classmates at Whitley Middle School commuted an hour into New York City to study with preprofessional ballet troupes and wondered why Scarlett refused to leave Dance Divas. Maybe it was because Miss Toni saw something more in her than just a ballerina on a
barre
. She pulled emotions out of her that Scarlett didn't even know she had. When Scarlett
performed one of the lyrical or contemporary numbers Toni choreographed for her, she felt like she was flying across the stage and exploding like Fourth of July fireworks with every leap and acrobatic flip.
“Dance is making magic every time you step on that stage,” Toni told her. And Scarlett believed it. None of the other ballet classes she'd taken since she was two had ever done this for her. Even though Toni drove her crazy, they had a connection; they understood each other.
But some girls on her dance team accused her of being Miss Toni's pet, especially Liberty Montgomery, the new girl who had joined the team in September. She could dance anything Toni threw at her: modern, lyrical, tap, Irish step. Liberty was a one-girl dance recital.
“You sickled your foot!” Liberty protested the last time they had been assigned to a trio together. She demonstrated how Scarlett accidentally rolled her ankle inward. “And you're a beat behind me and Rochelle. You're a disaster.”
Liberty was in fact even harder to please than Miss Toni.
“It's not just you; it could be any of us,” Rochelle assured her. “That girl just hates to have anyone stand in the way of her spotlight.”
Rochelle had her own issues with Liberty, which started the first day she arrived at the studio.
“You do hip-hop, right?” she asked Rochelle.
Rochelle nodded. “Yeah, I've taken hip-hop for a long time.”
“My mom says hip-hop is like the diet soda of dance. It's not the real thing.” Liberty smirked. “And my mother is a big Hollywood choreographer, so she would know. A few pops and locks do not a dancer make.”
Rochelle fumed. “I do a lot more than just pop and lock!” She demonstrated a smooth jazz-funk move across the floor.
“What do you call that?” Liberty asked.
“It's krumping, and a little freestyle,” Rochelle explained.
“It's ridiculous,” Liberty said. “It requires absolutely no technique or talent whatsoever.”
“Then you do it!” Rochelle shot back.
“And make you look worse than you already do?” Liberty grinned. “My mom always tells me to be kind to people who are less fortunate.”
Scarlett had to admit that despite Liberty's attitude problem, her mom did have a pretty impressive résumé.
“She choreographed Adele's last video,” Scarlett pointed out.
“Says who?” Rochelle asked.
“Well, Liberty told meâ”
“Scarlett, she lies. A lot.”
Bria Chang, their other teammate, strolled into the dressing room, her
pointe
shoes hanging from ribbons around her neck. Her head was buried in a pre-algebra textbook.
“Bria, you think Liberty is a big show-off, don't you?” Rochelle asked.
“Did I miss something? I always miss something!” Bria sighed. “I've got this test in math tomorrow, and I am seriously gonna fail it.”
“We were just talking about Liberty's mom
and how she's a big Hollywood choreographer,” Scarlett explained.
“Supposedly . . . ,” Rochelle chimed in. “I don't believe anything that comes out of Liberty's mouth.”
“Well, there's one way to find out for sure,” Bria said, opening her laptop and searching “Jane Montgomery” on it.
“Sorry, Rock . . .” Bria showed her the Wikipedia page. “It says she did Adele's video, a couple for Katy Perryâ”
“Okay, so she's not lying . . . this time. That doesn't make Liberty the world's greatest dancer, does it?” Rochelle asked.
Scarlett suspected that having a famous choreographer for a mother was part of the problem. Mrs. Montgomery was often at the studio, peeking through the windows and watching Liberty rehearse. Afterward, she'd pull her aside and whisper in her ear. Whatever she said, it must not have been good, because one time, Liberty ran past her into the bathroom, sobbing.
“I think Liberty's mom puts a lot of pressure on her,” Scarlett told her teammates.
“Well, my mom puts a lot of pressure on me!” Bria piped up. “She said if I fail this math test Friday, I'm grounded for life!”
Bria was always struggling with one subject or another. On more than one occasion, her parents had threatened to pull the plug on her competing with Dance Divas.
“How did you do on the Spanish quiz yesterday?” Scarlett asked. “¿
Muy bueno?
”
“I don't even know what you just said, so how do you think I did?” Bria moaned, scooping her long glossy black hair into a ponytail. “If I don't get at least a B on this math test, that's itâno City Lights this weekend. And my mom means it!”
“Do NOT let Toni hear you say that,” Rochelle said, then shivered. “She will freak if you drop out last minute.”
“I know. And with all these rehearsals, I have no time to study! What am I going to do?” Bria looked desperate.
Just then, Scarlett noticed the clock on the dressing-room wall.
“OMG, it's four thirty-three!” she screamed, grabbing Rochelle and Bria by the hand and pulling them with her. “We're late for rehearsal by three minutes. She's going to have our heads!”
Practice Makes Perfect
Scarlett, Rochelle, and Bria bounded into studio 2 just as Toni was taking her place in the front of the room. Liberty, of course, was already at the
barre
, warming up. The girl was a human pretzel; she could bend and twist in every direction! Her shiny blond hair was pulled back in a braid.
Ugh,
Scarlett thought, tucking a stray strand behind her ear again,
I wish I had straight silky hair like that!
She also noticed Liberty's custom dance outfit: a hot-pink cropped mesh top and matching shorts with the word “STAR” bedazzled on the butt. Scarlett looked down at her black leotard
and pink leg warmers and wrapped her arms over her chest. She felt positively plain and boring standing next to Liberty.
