The Hop (12 page)

“THIS WILL TOP THE LOOK OFF PERFECTLY,” the costume lady said. She bent down and cinched a wide turquoise belt around Taylor's waist. She turned Taylor's shoulders so she was looking in the three-way mirror of the dressing room. “Waddaya think?”

Taylor tried not to roll her eyes. Great bunches of puffy pettycoat ruffles made her skirt flare out. The ruffled white top made her shoulders look bigger. And the belt made her waist look pinched in.

Taylor felt like she was turning into something else. An hourglass, maybe.

Why couldn't she just dance in her shorts and T-shirt? But her mom and dad were standing in the doorway, smiling at her in the mirror, so she guessed she could live with the look.

Actually, whatever was fastest she could live with. The little toad had gotten out of his box in the night
again,
and she had woken up to find him on her pillow
again,
tangled in her hair.

He'd dug a hole in one corner of his box. She'd put him back she didn't know how many times. If he escaped again, he might get stepped on or squashed by a housekeeping cart.

Plus, she'd dreamed rock and roll all night long and felt crabby and tired this morning as she stood waiting while her parents paid for the Peggy Sue costume.

“So did you practice last night?” Number 11 had on black trousers, white socks, and a pink shirt. Taylor wouldn't be the only one who looked silly.

“I practiced every single dance we've learned this week,” she said.

“Well, let's try to win. You'll get the crown, and I'll get a fifty-dollar gift certificate.”

Taylor would love to claim the sparkly crown, even if it probably wasn't real diamonds. But she didn't think she could dance that well.

“Maybe you should ask for a different partner,” she said. “It won't hurt my feelings.”

“Nah,” he said. “They don't let kids switch. Whoever signs up on the same line as you, you're stuck with.”

“Hey, Peggy Sue.” Diana rushed out of a dressing room wearing a poodle skirt.

It was hard for Taylor to remember that everybody thought her name really was Peggy Sue.

Diana twirled around, making her skirt flare out. “Isn't it over the moon? I can hardly wait.” She touched her tiara. “Though it is going to be hard to give up this pretty thing.”

“So what did you do during your year-long reign as Queen of the Hop?” Number 11 asked. “Work for world peace? Save the whales? Go on the
Today
show?”

Diana stuck her tongue out at him and told Taylor, “He's just jealous because he and his partner came in second last year.” She turned back to Number 11. “And if you must know, when I got home I was on TV! And this lady interviewed me for a feature story in a local magazine. I wore my crown and sash and got to talk about all sorts of things.”

“You were on
television
?” Taylor gasped.

“Yep. I was the ‘Good News' segment one week. Ten whole minutes—except there was a cat food commercial in the middle.”

Ten minutes! Taylor had worked really hard for a ten-second sound bite to save the pond. And hadn't got it.

If she won the crown, she'd probably get all kinds of interviews. And when they asked her what she wanted to accomplish during her reign, she could tell everybody about the pond. If it was still there.

She spun to Number 11. “I think we should go for it,” she said. “Really try our best. We could practice together after lunch. Maybe you could help us if you wanted to,” she told Diana. “Me especially.”

But she had to go check on the toad first.

As she and her parents passed through the atrium, carrying Taylor's petticoats, the long banners with the toad logo fluttered gently. New posters of endangered species stood along one wall. A snout-nosed piggy-looking creature, with hair like dandelion fluff, seemed to glare at her.
CHACOAN PECCARY
, the label said. There was a beetle, a gecko, a soft-looking bird with a funny beak, and lots of other creatures.

Taylor would have liked to stop and look, but she didn't have time. She tugged on her dad's hand. How could grown-ups be so slow? “Hurry,” Taylor said. “I need to see how the toad is doing.”

Inside the suite, the housekeeper had tidied up, washed the cups in the little kitchenette, and made Taylor's bed.

Taylor opened her closet. It was empty.

The little cardboard house with water and bugs and everything, was gone. There was just a clean spot on the floor, with Taylor's T-shirt beside it.

Trembling, Taylor searched the whole suite, but her toad was gone too, of course.

It was her fault.

She shouldn't have spent so much time yakking with Diana and Number 11. She shouldn't have let her parents dawdle in the lobby.

“He's gone for good this time, isn't he?” Taylor asked, her voice cracking.

She saw the truth in the glance her parents exchanged as her dad reached out to hug her.

“Try not to feel bad, honey. You did everything you could,” her mother said.

THAT MORNING, AS USUAL, the girl had carried Tad to his nest as the sun came up. Her hands had smelled like the garden, and they were so soft. They had carried him just right, too. They hadn't squeezed, yet he knew she wouldn't drop him.

“Take me to the queen!” he cried as he always did, looking into her eyes. “Before it's too late!”

But she'd settled him gently back in the nest he'd escaped from the night before. Then she shook out some crickets, filled his pond, and put his nest in darkness. Like she always did.

Tad began struggling to get out once again.

He had just gotten one digger through the nest when something roared, coming closer, going away, coming closer again. Then suddenly Tad was washed with sunlight.

Was the beast going to eat him?

It just sniffed him mightily and backed up. But a big human was staring down at Tad. She shot out something in human talk, shook her head, and raised her big ugly foot over him.

* * *

When he came to, he was in darkness, and one of his diggers throbbed with pain. Tad felt part of his nest crumpled around him, and he was being dragged along inside what seemed to be a giant sack. Some things rattled and other things crunched together, and sticky stuff dripped on his head.

He heard a
ding!
and then he was dragged a little farther. A strange feeling made his warts prickle. He was falling, even though he was sitting still. He couldn't see it, but he could feel it. Falling and falling. He had to get out!

Light came through a tiny hole in the soft, stretchy skin of the giant sack. He ripped at the hole with his good digger. When he had an opening big enough to scramble through, he tumbled out. He landed beside a human foot, the same foot that had stomped him. He was in a room that was going down, down, down until, suddenly, it stopped with a sickening bounce, and he almost lost his stale-cricket breakfast.

Ding!
In front of him, two walls slid apart, and the angry human disappeared through the opening, dragging the smelly, nasty sack that still had his nest in it. And then the walls slid back together, and the room moved downward again.

Alone, he tested his bent digger, discovering he could still hop—but barely. The room stopped with another
ding!
and the walls slid apart again, and this time he heard the special music. His music. Ignoring the pain, he lurched forward.

Wham! Bam! Thud!
He scrambled to get out of the way, but feet were everywhere. Great thunders of feet. High, fast, hard feet with sharp edges. One came down on his sore digger, making stars spark around him. Another kicked him. He flew through the air, landed with a
whump!
, and slid under something.

There were no more feet in that shadowy place, but he hurt so much he knew his time of passing into the Great Cycle had surely come. Sadness covered him like the darkest night. He had failed.

CAMERAS FLASHED AND FOLLOWED THE DANCERS. Taylor hung on to the waist of the boy in front of her. She hopped forward, backward, and then forward again. Even the little kids could do the bunny hop, so it was the opening dance, not competitive.

Diana sat in the front row wearing the crown and sash. When the time came, she would crown the winner.

After lunch, she'd given Taylor a bunch of tips. Listen to the music. Smile. Don't think about a single other thing. Smile. Follow your partner, but do your own stuff too. And above all
smile
.

Taylor glanced over at Diana and tried to keep a smile on her face, though she didn't really feel like smiling. She kept thinking about the poor toad.

Ryan and the Rompers were playing for the Queen of the Hop competition. It was kind of embarrassing having her dad up in front of everybody like that, drumming the steady beat. He caught her eye and winked.

It was
really
embarrassing when her mother stepped up to the old-fashioned microphone and started to sing.
But it was kind of cool too. Her mom stepped back from the microphone and gave Taylor a little wave. Taylor took her hand off the damp waist of her partner and waved back.

Her parents had stuck to her like rubber cement ever since she'd lost it over her missing toad. They'd asked housekeeping if they'd found a box in Taylor's closet, and housekeeping said they never removed boxes from guests' rooms. But Taylor was pretty sure he'd ended up in the trash compactor. She was glad she'd tried to save him. Really glad. He'd been the best toad in the world.

The bunny hop ended, and the dancers got a short break before the competition. Taylor ran backstage for some water. Hopping around in three layers of petticoats had made her really sweaty.

They'd set up a table with pitchers of water and plates of cookies. She was gulping water when somebody cried, “Watch it!” There was a bump, a sloshing sound, then a racket as one of the plastic pitchers bounced on the floor.

Kids leaped back. The white tablecloth turned dark, as water soaked through it and dripped off. The puddle spread under the table.

It was briefly very quiet as everybody put on an
I
didn't do it!
look, and backed away. Taylor could hear the emcee out front explaining to the audience how the elimination would work.

Then backstage, the racket started up again. Number 11 handed Taylor a sign, which she hung around her neck.

“We gonna shake it?” he asked, doing a wiggly thing that made Taylor laugh.

Taylor crammed a cookie in her mouth and nodded. “Shake it,” she mumbled around the crumbs.

They didn't know what songs the band would play. That was the whole point. They had to show that they could dance to any of the songs. To improvise, just like they were at a real
hop
in the 1950s, which her grandmother had explained was a dance event back in the day when kids had to take off their shoes to dance on the gym floor. That's why they'd been called
sock hops.

Taylor would be glad to take off her shoes. They were already pinching. And she was relieved that the first song, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” was slow and smooth, because water was still sloshing around in her stomach.

Tad was in a little puddle of water.

Water.

He sat in the water, waiting a long time, until it finally began to fluff him up. The shadowy form of the Great Cycle rolled away, and Tad heard the music. A roach carrying a cookie crumb strolled past and—
zot!
—was inside Tad in the blink of an eye.

After a while, Tad tried to hop. He hurt all over, especially one of his diggers. But he could move.

Taylor caught her dad's eye as Number 11 twirled her around. Her skirt spun like a Frisbee, and she was flying. Number 11 pulled her back and they touched palms, pushing away from each other. She smiled.

The band was on the second song, and the judges were starting to make their way through the couples to
cut in
as they called it, though it really meant,
Sit down, you're finished.

Taylor knew that could happen to her and Number 11 any second. But she kept her mind on the music. Nothing else.

By the time the band started the fifth song, there were only seven couples left. The dancers had done the shag and the stroll and the Watusi. She had a hard time holding on to Number 11's hands because they were so sweaty. But she felt
good.

When it got down to three couples, Taylor was totally into the music. But then her feet slid out from under her and she was on her butt.

She stared at Number 11's knees.

The drums missed a beat, and she felt a million eyes on her.

Number 11 swung his leg over her head, grabbed her hand, and spun her around on the floor. She jumped up, and Number 11 made a little bow like they'd been practicing that special move all week.

Taylor bowed too. But mainly she smiled.

The audience clapped and her dad drummed louder.

Still. Taylor was sure the judges knew she'd fallen.

Finally, only two couples were left on the floor. This was it. Number 11 squeezed her hand.

“Fifty dollars,” he whispered.

“The crown,” she whispered back.

It would be fine to be interviewed on TV and in the newspaper and be able to talk about the pond—if it was still there when she got home. But whatever happened, she was having fun. She wiped the sweat off her face and wiped her hands on her blouse.

The last song, as everybody knew, would be “Queen of the Hop.”

“Smile,” she whispered to Number 11.

As her mother's voice trailed off into softness for the last words of the song, one of the judges said something to Diana.

The audience applauded as the two couples joined hands and bowed. A trickle of sweat shot down the side of Taylor's cheek as she bent forward. It stopped at the corner of her mouth, and she licked it away.

The room went silent. Taylor's heart was practically flinging her into the air. Diana stood up. She looked at both couples as she came onto the stage. She removed the crown from her head and placed it on Taylor's. The audience went crazy clapping as one of the judges draped the sash over Taylor's shoulder.

The crown felt wobbly on her head. She held it with one hand and told the other girl how well she'd danced, and better luck next year. Then she kissed Number 11 on the cheek and waved at everybody.

All the dancers came back for one last song. The band broke into “Peggy Sue.” She felt so happy that Peggy Sue was sort of her name that tears came to her eyes.

Tad tried to understand what he was seeing. There was
his
girl—the one he liked more than night-smacky-goo—wearing the special shapes that marked her as the queen.

“Oh, kiss me, moonbeams!” he cried, finally believing his eyes. “Moondoggies!”

He forgot he hurt. He forgot everything except what he was going to do next. He was going to kiss the Queen of the Hop. He wiggled and bounced, shaking his belly. He even did a flip.

Taylor was desperate for a drink. But what was that on the floor, right at the edge of the stage?

It was her toad! He hadn't been squashed in the trash compactor!

Taylor dropped Number 11's hand and ran to save the little guy before kids stampeded backstage.

“I'm so glad to see you, toad!” She scooped him up and ran behind the curtain. Where could she put him that would be safe for a few minutes? “I am so
very
glad to see you,” she whispered, holding him close to her face.

His eyes glistened. He looked tired but proud. “Oh, you are
soooo
cute!” And she gave him a great big kiss.

Taylor's last thought before something exploded and she crumpled to the floor was,
Did I actually
smooch a toad that had been hopping around on the floor???
And then darkness closed in around her.