Take Two! (4 page)

I didn’t have a clue what that was, and I didn’t want to know.

“So what’s it gonna be,” I asked, “truth or dare?”

“Dare.” He studied the expression on my face while he untwisted his bassoon case strap. “No, truth! No, wait – scratch that.
Okay, dare.”

“Excellent choice.”
Saves me having to trick him into it
. “Let’s see. Dare-dare-dare-dare…” I paused as if I were browsing a menu of dares in my head. “Okay, I dare you, Wallace
P. Dorkin, to take a tap class with me at Miss Pritchard’s Academy of Dance.”

“Not a chance! Never gonna happen. Besides, you’re supposed to give me a dare I could do right now, like swallow a bug or
something.”

“It
is
right now.” I glanced at my watch. “In ten minutes. And you don’t even need tap shoes – just hard-soled shoes, like the ones
you’re wearing. I called and asked.”

“I’m meeting up with some band-camp friends.”

Band-camp friends. Those words were like three poison darts to the chest.

“I told you,” he said, retucking the rumpled mess he called a shirt, “as soon as I can snag a semidecent French horn player
I’m forming a woodwind quintet. I still don’t get why Mozart and Bach and those guys stuck a brass instrument in
with a bunch of woodwinds when they wrote their chamber music, but…”

I didn’t understand half the words spilling out of Wally’s mouth. While he was blabbering away I did a double take. Some guy
kept running up and down the steps of the library across the street.

“Hey, Wal, check out that nut job,” I said snickering. “He doesn’t know whether he’s coming or going.”

“That’s no nut job.” Wally was craning his neck to see past a Lotustown bus. “That’s that eighth-grader, Zack Kincaid, captain
of the Fireballs. The hulky guy standing there with the stopwatch is his father – supposed to be a real jerk.”

“What do you think they’re doing?”

“Training. His dad wants Zack to get athletic scholarships, so he’s always cracking the whip.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“How do you
not
know that?”

We hopped onto our bikes and began pedaling down Main Street in silence. Well, except for Mr. Kincaid’s distant “Hustle! Hustle!”
and the Walrus groaning about his burning carbuncle.

“There’s another beginning tap class on Wednesday night,” I said, back to the subject at hand. “How about that one? I’ll treat
you to a swirl cone after. Large.”

“No can do, my friend.”

“C’mon, man! What if I’m, like, the only boy there?”

“So? Don’t go – no one’s twisting your arm.” Wally sounded annoyed and I could feel the fight in me petering out. “Ask Pepper
to go with you.”

“Pepper’s not a boy.”

“Half the people in Buttermilk Falls think she is.”

“Nice talk,” I said, shaking my head.

“Don’t tell her I said that.”

I decided to drop the subject of the tap class completely. Didn’t want to spark one of our epic grudgefests. They can get
ugly.

“Well, wish me luck, Wal,” I said, jumping the curb in front of the dance studio. “Call me later, okay?”

“You call
me
.”

“No,
you
call me!”

Miss Pritchard’s Academy of Dance was up a steep, narrow stairway. I cashed in my coupon with a lady at the front desk who
directed me through a hallway of noisy little girls to the boys’ changing room. No big surprise that it was dark and deserted.
I was nervously changing into Dad’s tap shoes, which were prestuffed with socks for a better fit, when I heard “Class is starting!
Let’s go, girls! And
boy
.”

Thanks for that
.

Two seconds later, I was standing in a mirror-covered room, white-knuckling a long, wooden bar alongside the wall.
Looking down the lineup of little bunned heads on either side of me, I was tempted to make a run for it. But on the bright
side I did feel extremely tall.

“Well, look who showed!” Darlene Deluca said, sneaking up on me. “You’ve got guts – I’ll give you that much. But you always
did like standing out in a crowd.”

“Oh, hi, Darlene.” Did I mention she was the bossiest girl at Buttermilk Falls Elementary? Possibly the entire Midwest? “I
didn’t think you’d be in the beginners class.”

“As if!” she exclaimed, and bent over to buckle her tap shoes – without even bending her knees. “How pathetic would that be
after studying for three and a half years? I’m the TA, as in teacher’s assistant. I get paid for it too, as in money.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, as in who cares?

“I’m only covering the tap classes so far, but –?” Darlene got a load of my tap shoes and fell into a sudden fit of laughter.
“Omigod, where’d you find those things? They’re gigantic! Do they explode?”

The giggles that were spreading across the room from girl to girl came to an abrupt stop when the woman from the front desk
floated into the room wearing all black. Probably Miss Pritchard. She was short and spunky – the type of adult you’d swear
was a teenager if her face were covered in zits instead of wrinkles.

“Okay class, we’re going to begin with our usual warm-up,” she announced, as Darlene flew to her side. “And for the new boy,
just follow along as best you can. You’ll catch on.”

Famous last words
.

“Darlene, whenever you’re ready.”

Darlene grabbed a small drum off the piano and started beating it with a steady
boom-boom-boom
, like a human metronome. Miss Pritchard matched the beat, chanting, “Flap-heel, flap-heel, flap-flap, shuffle-ball-change…”
Everybody knew
exactly
what they were doing, but I didn’t know a flap from a flapjack.

“I thought this was supposed to be beginning,” I moaned to the girl in front of me.

“Beginning level three.”

“Heads up!” Miss Pritchard barked. “You, the new boy – head up! Loose knees, everyone – stay in
demi plié
. Good. Shoulders back. Keep a slight
relevé
.”

“Why is she speaking in foreign tongues?” I whispered to the same nibblet of a girl. She was wearing head-to-toe pink, and
her tights were anything but tight.

“It’s French.
Relevé
means –”

“No talking!” Miss Pritchard yelled. The little pink girl bit her lip.

Except for the language barrier, I made it through all the warm-ups thinking
so-far-so-good
thoughts. Then we started doing turns across the floor. In my opinion, they were way
too tough for beginning level three – or four or five! During our second go-round, I was whirling out of control like a spastic
top, thinking up possible excuses for a quick exit. Sprained ankle? Important phone call? Jock itch?

“The new boy!” Miss Pritchard called out. I came to a standstill, causing a tapping train wreck. “You’re going to get dizzy
if you don’t spot.”

Too late
. My head was still spinning even though my body had stopped.

“Pick a spot on that far wall,” Miss Pritchard instructed, “and every time you whip your head around, your eyes return to
that very same spot. Darlene, please demonstrate.”

Darlene stuck her nose in the air and spun across the floor like a ballerina on fast-forward. I did my best to copy her, but
ended up in a heap on the floor. The bun brigade got a big kick out of that.

“Well, no wonder you’re tripping all over yourself,” Miss Pritchard said as I scrambled to my feet. “I’m surprised you can
even
walk
in those shoes, let alone dance! I’ll tell you what. Go dig through that green canvas bag under the window and find yourself
a pair of tap shoes that fit.”

There was only one boys’ pair at the bottom of the bag, and they were missing a heel tap, but anything would’ve been an improvement.
So I quickly changed into them and set Dad’s tap shoes on the windowsill before rejoining the line of twirling tots. Then
I tried – boy, how I tried – with every
fiber of my being, to “spot” the lousy clock on the wall. But with each turn it got fuzzier and I got dizzier, while the meatballs
in my stomach were being whipped into a frothy frappe.
Gawd, I really stink at this and I can’t even blame Dad’s clown shoes anymore!
I kept tapping… turning… with my insides thrashing… churning – until I yelled, “Clear the way!” and spun myself right out
the door.

I staggered down the hall, ricocheting off the walls and aiming for the boys’ changing room.
I don’t remember if there was a sink in there. Or even a toilet!
Plunging into the dark room, I desperately felt around the doorjamb searching for the light switch. A wave of nausea was
boiling up inside me like molten lava. And just as I switched on the light, my volcano erupted and liquid meatballs came spewing
out my mouth.

“Blaaargh!
”

“Hey!” someone screeched, and I felt a powerful shove.

I went flying across the room and slammed my knees into the long bench, not knowing what had hit me. A second eruption was
on its way – but the stinging pain from my broken kneecaps and dislocated shoulder must’ve stopped it from coming. Collapsing
onto the bench, I turned to see a hysterical guy jumping around in front of me with road pizza all over his sneakers.

“Jeez! Idiot! Freakin’ idiot!”

“Sorry!” I said, wiping my sour mouth. “Gawd! I didn’t know anyone was even in here!”

I limped over to the sink – it turns out there
was
a sink – grabbed a bunch of paper towels and hobbled back to clean up the mess on the floor.

“Don’t come near me, wuss!” the kid growled all bug-eyed. “Just back away. Far away.”

“Okay, okay!”

I dropped the towels into the puddle and gave him room. While I was frantically changing back into my street shoes, the kid
kept pacing back and forth, trying to shake the stuff off his feet. He looked familiar. Tall and gangly; buzz cut; skin so
white you could see through it. I was pretty sure it was that Zack guy who we just saw racing up and down the library steps.
What were the odds? And why was he hiding out in the dark dressing room of Miss Pritchard’s Academy of Dance? Must’ve been
picking up his little sister from class or something.

“Again, I’m really,
really
sorry.”

He let out a cry of anguish and punched a locker before escaping into the hall. I quickly shoved my stuff into my backpack
and rushed out after him, bumping right into Miss Pritchard. “Ooh, sorry!”

“What’s going on?”

“Accident,” I said, hustling past her. “Should I – do you want me to –?”

She palmed her forehead when the smell hit her and I think she started cursing in French. “Darlene!” she bellowed.
“Protein spill in the boys’ dressing room. Bring the mop quick!”

“Oh, great!” I heard Darlene yell from the classroom as I was hightailing it toward the exit. “Boys wreck everything!”

Halfway down the steps I realized that Dad’s tap shoes were still sitting on the windowsill. Halfway up, I decided they’d
just have to stay there because I was never going back.

Before the weekend had run out, I’d come to the conclusion that becoming a
double
threat rather than a triple threat wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. I mean it was painfully obvious that I wasn’t
exactly blessed with the gift of dance. Just ask Zack Kincaid’s shoes.

On my way out of school on Monday, right after the final bell, Miss Van Rye stopped me and asked if I’d give her a hand. I
turned and applauded. Not something you can pull with every teacher, but she ate it up. She cackled and did a sort of grand
diva curtsy, then told me to follow her. Even though she’d been a kindergarten teacher most of her life, telltale signs of
her brief stint as a young actress in New York always bled through.

“Where’re we going?”

“The storage room. To see if any scenery from
The Castle of the Crooked Crowns
is salvageable.”

“I’m surprised they even kept it,” I said, practically skipping down the corridor. She was an extremely fast walker for a
teacher of such epic proportions. “Isn’t it in pretty bad shape?”

“One can only hope.”

“Huh?”

“If anyone asks, I never said that. See, the high school doesn’t have much at all to work with scenery-wise. So if ours is
in ruins, it looks like we’ll be –” She stopped short and grabbed both my hands. Her eyeballs were dancing. “We’ll be renting
professional sets for the show! Isn’t that thrilling?”

“Omigod, that’s fantastic!” And we were off again – her brightly-colored caftan billowing in the breeze.

“The Arts Committee did the math and realized it wouldn’t cost much more than if we had to build it ourselves from scratch.
And Lord only knows what it’d turn out like. Anyway, don’t get too excited just yet. It all hinges on what we find in storage.”

The thought of performing in a musical with professional sets had me so pumped up, I paid little attention to the shouts and
whistle blasts echoing through the corridor.

“So have you guys decided what show we’re gonna do?” I figured I’d take advantage of our face time and squeeze all the info
out of her I could get.

“We have indeed. But I’m not supposed to spill the beans
just yet. The sign-up sheet will be posted tomorrow and you’ll know then.”

All I ask is that Darlene was wrong, and it doesn’t end up being some heavy tap show like
Forty-Second Street.
And of course there has to be a juicy part in it for me!

We hustled down the hall and the sound of squeaky sneakers on highly polished floors was getting louder and louder. After
three o’clock that could only mean one thing: the basketball team was rehearsing – practicing, I mean, and the gymnasium doors
were left open. Miss Van Rye led me through them, straight into enemy territory.
Why?

“Yoo-hoo, Lou?” Miss Van Rye called out, waving to the coach. “I’m so sorry to interrupt, but may I borrow your keys to the
storage unit?”

Oh, that’s right – after our show had closed, we’d broken down the set and stored it inside the gym behind the green, padlocked
door. Phys ed classes were bad enough; I always steered clear of that place unless absolutely necessary.