Showtime! (7 page)

Over the next few days, the Divas spent hours in the studio, learning the intricate choreography Miss Toni had created to crush their competition. She rolled in a TV on a table with a DVD player.

“Cool! Are we gonna watch a movie?” Gracie chirped.

“Is there popcorn?” Liberty asked.

Miss Toni clapped her hands. “Enough,” she said. “This isn't movie night. We're going to study the competition. I want to show you why City Feet won last week—and why they're going to continue to win unless we do something about it.”

She hit Play, and last week's dance routine popped onto the screen. “See how perfectly in sync they all are?” Toni pointed to the screen. “Phoebe has flawless technique—look at that intensity and confidence.”

“I have intensity and confidence,” Liberty piped up.

“You can say that again,” Rochelle muttered.

“But you don't have that natural turnout,” Toni pointed out. “Or that effortless
grand jeté
.”

Scarlett had to admit: they were pretty amazing. Next to City Feet, Dance Divas looked like a big hot mess.

“Mandy is a powerhouse,” Miss Toni continued. “She's young, but she goes for it, a hundred and ten percent.” She looked over at Rochelle. “I don't see that from all of you.”

After an hour of analyzing City Feet's performance, Miss Toni was pretty fired up.

“Everyone, on your feet!” she said.

Rochelle groaned. “It's going to be a long night. I can feel it.”

They ran their routine over and over, trying to get the moves smooth and in sync. But that wasn't all. Thanks to the DVD, Miss Toni now wanted to see “projection.”

“How do I project being a candy bar?” Rochelle complained.

“That should be easy for you . . . You're nuts!” Liberty smirked. “Get it? A candy bar with nuts?”

“Then clearly you should be a sour candy,” Rochelle tossed back. “That's not a stretch.”

“Guys, cool it. Miss Toni . . . ,” Scarlett whispered.

But Miss Toni was way too busy picking apart the team's technique to pay attention to any squabbles between the girls. “I want to see razor-sharp kicks—no bent knees!” she screamed over the music. “Push! Push! Push!”

The number, “Sweet Revenge,” was an acro dance filled with tricks and splits, set to a rapid-tempo disco tune. In the center of the stage would be Gracie, catapulting herself into a succession of flips. “Let me see that cartwheel,” Miss Toni instructed her. “Now back handspring!”

“I can do a lot of them!” Gracie obliged, cartwheeling across the entire studio floor.

“Not bad, not bad,” her coach replied. “But, Gracie, you have to control your energy and your movements. You have to focus them so they're precise and contained. Got it?”

Scarlett chuckled. If Toni thought she could control Gracie's energy, good luck! Her mom always said that trying to make Gracie sit still was like trying to hold a wet bar of soap in your hands. It always slipped out from between your fingers.

“Do you think we'll win this weekend?” Gracie asked Scarlett.

Honestly, Scarlett didn't know. City Feet was a force to be reckoned with, and she wasn't quite sure the Divas were ready to take them on again.

“We'll try our hardest,” she told Gracie. She was relieved that Gracie was acting like a team player who wanted to help Dance Divas—not just skip off and play with her Barbies.

“Good.” Gracie smiled. “ 'Cause I really want to win a big trophy. Or a crown. A crown would be so cool! I'd wear it all the time!”

Okay, maybe Gracie had some ulterior motives. But Scarlett suspected Miss Toni did as well. She knew that this weekend's competition wasn't just about beating City Feet. It was about beating Justine.

Beating City Feet wasn't the only thing the Divas had to worry about. Miss Toni instructed each of them to decorate a costume with real candy: Kisses, gummy bears, licorice, anything that could be stitched or hot-glued on to give their outfits “sweet appeal.”

Gracie was excited. She loved a craft project. “Yum!” she said, pouring bags of treats on the floor of their living room. Her mom had found Halloween candy on sale at the supermarket. “What about gummy worms? Or these?” She held up a black licorice spider.

“
Ew
, no way!” Scarlett said, picking through mounds of gummy eyeballs and candy corn. “Miss Toni said bright and pretty. Gummy brains are not bright and pretty.”

“But they taste good,” Gracie said, popping a few in her mouth.

“Honey, don't eat all the embellishments,” her mother said, and sighed. “I'm going to need a lot to cover these leotards. And you'll give yourself a bellyache.”

It took several hours of trial and error to figure out how to get the candies to stick. Scarlett's mom decided a hot-glue gun was the answer.

“It stays on, but it also melts the candy.” Scarlett sighed. “These jelly beans are jelly goo!”

“Maybe Toni won't notice,” her mom said hopefully.

“Miss Toni notices everything,” Gracie said, popping a handful of Swedish fish in her mouth. “Do we have any more of these?”

Scarlett agreed. It was hard to pull one over on their dance coach. But desperate times called
for desperate measures. They had only two days before the competition, and they had to make something sweet and suitable to wear onstage.

At the studio the next afternoon, Miss Toni asked all the girls to line up in the back of the room. “I want each of you to walk, one by one, modeling your candy couture.”

“I feel like I'm on
Project Runway
,” Bria said. “This is really nerve-racking!”

Gracie rubbed her stomach. “My tummy still hurts from yesterday,” she said with a moan.

“No one told you to eat a pound of gummy brains,” Scarlett scolded her.

Liberty rolled her eyes. “I seriously do not want to know what that means.”

“Bria, you're first!” Toni called.

“Work it!” Rochelle said, giving her teammate a push. Bria tried her best to stroll across the floor with confidence. But she felt pretty ridiculous in her yellow leotard covered in Sour Patch Kids.

“It's bright,” Miss Toni said, motioning for her to turn around. “But what happened here? Where
are the candies?” She pointed to an empty patch on Bria's shoulder.

Bria looked embarrassed. “I ate them while I was studying in the dressing room. Sorry. Tests make me stressed!”

Rochelle was up next. She strutted like a supermodel, swinging her hips and arms as she modeled her brown velvet unitard covered in mini chocolate bars.

“What's that?” Toni pointed to a strange muddy trail along the studio floor.

“I think I'm melting,” Rochelle replied. “I guess when you're as hot as I am, the chocolate gets mushy?” Miss Toni did not look at all amused.

Scarlett raised her hand. “Um, I have a similar problem,” she began. “When these Sugar Daddy candies melt, it's like Super Glue! I think my ballet shoe is stuck to the floor!”

“Anyone have strawberries?” Liberty joked. “I love fondue!”

“That's enough!” Toni barked. Things were not going as she had planned. “What is that on
your
costume?” she asked Liberty. Her pink leotard looked like it had been sprinkled with fairy dust.

“It's Pucker Powder—check it out!” She spun gracefully in a
pirouette.

“Achoo!”
Gracie suddenly sneezed. “The powder tickles my nose!”

Miss Toni sunk down on her stool and shook her head. “This is a disaster!”

“A fashion disaster—the worst kind,” Liberty said.

“I'm afraid she's gonna go ballistic and eat us!” Rochelle added.

Gracie looked terrified. “Like the witch in ‘Hansel and Gretel'? What should we do, Scoot?”

Scarlett stood perfectly still, waiting for Miss Toni's verdict on the candy costume catastrophe. “Don't ask me. I couldn't run if I wanted to.” She tried to pull her ballet shoe up off the floor, but it had a sticky glob of caramel attached to it.

“I want everyone to start over from scratch,” Toni finally announced. “No candy that melts, drips—”

“Or makes me sneeze!” Gracie piped up.

“Precisely,” Toni replied. “I know we have very little time, but I want every outfit to be clean, bright, beautiful, and dance ready.” She turned to Bria. “And no snacking on your costume till
after
the competition. Clear?”

Bria nodded and remained silent. She had a Sour Patch Kid in her mouth.

Once the girls had changed and cleaned up, Miss Toni pulled the giant wooden chocolate bar out of the closet again.

“I was wondering what happened to that thing,” Liberty said.

“Ladies, I have come up with a finale for our dance that is going to make the judges' mouths water.” Toni dragged the prop into the middle of the room.

“I want the four of you to lift this candy bar high in the air, as high as you can. And Gracie, I want you to do a backbend on top.”

Gracie crinkled her nose. “On top of there? In the air?”

Scarlett raised her hand. “Miss Toni, Gracie is a little scared of heights.”

“Am not!” Gracie insisted.

“Gracie, remember the Ferris wheel at the state fair last summer? Remember how you screamed, ‘Get me down from here'?” (Scarlett kindly left out the part where Gracie threw up.)

Gracie's cheeks flushed. Scarlett didn't want to embarrass her, but she knew there was no way her little sis could do this stunt.

“I can do it! Let me try!” Gracie pushed past Scarlett and climbed onto the chocolate bar.

“Arch your back, keep your hands and feet planted firmly,” Toni instructed her. “Do not wobble or you will fall. Clear?”

Gracie gulped. “Yeah.”

“Liberty and Bria, you are in the front; Rochelle and Scarlett in the back. When I say ‘lift,' lift.”

Gracie stood tall with her arms above her head as the girls heaved the chocolate bar high in the air above their heads.

“I'm a little dizzy,” Gracie whispered to Scarlett. “It's so high!”

“Close your eyes!” Scarlett told her. “Don't think about it. Just imagine the cool Dance Diva jacket you get to wear on Saturday.”

“I do?” Gracie asked. “My own?”

“Yup,” Rochelle chimed in. “All blinged out and beautiful!” She winked at Scarlett.

Gracie lifted her arms over her head, pushed her hips forward, then reached for the ground, keeping her arms by her ears, just as Miss Toni had shown her.

“Perfect backbend!” Miss Toni applauded. “Do it like that on Saturday, and we're going to be the team to beat.”

That's what I'm afraid of
, Scarlett thought. Being beaten again by City Feet would be beyond humiliating. It could even mean the end of the Dance Divas' competition season.