Breaking Big

BREAKING
BIG
Penny Draper

O
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Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Acknowledgments

One

“Hurry up, enough already!”

I add the final touches. All the pointe shoes are braided together and hanging from the ceiling, loose leotards and leggings are stuffed into the Lost and Found, and Sybille and Johanna’s lockers are stacked. I set Jeremy’s rat cage on a bench and put all the hairbrushes inside it—along with Ratinski the rat. He’s sure going to have fun for the next hour or so! Then a quick swipe of Vaseline on the combination locks. There’s no time to do anything else. I check to make sure the door is locked from the inside, then climb out the window onto Cam’s shoulders. He’s laughing so hard I think he’s going to drop me.

“What took you so long?” croaks Jeremy in a whisper as I drop down to the ground and we
hoof it away from the girls’ locker room. “I was sure we were going to get caught!”

“I am an
artiste
,” I reply loftily, waggling my fingers. “Best prankster this side of the Rockies.”

“The girls are going to go ballistic,” laughs Cam. “I can’t wait to see Miss High-and-Mighty’s face!”

“Ah, yes, the lovely Odette, late for class.” I pretend to swoon. “The whole world may come to an end!”

Jeremy checks the time. “We need to get to class.”

“Yeah, we better be warming up when Mr. Colson arrives, so he won’t suspect anything,” I agree.

“Oh, come on, Rob, get real,” Cam punches me in the arm. “Of course he’ll suspect you!”

As we walk over to the rehearsal studio, I think about that. Yeah, it’s probably true. I do have a rep for this sort of thing. But honestly, the dancers at this school are so intense. I mean, ballet is great and all, but can’t everybody loosen up? I’ve been at the Premier Dance School for three years now, and some of these elite dancers can be real stiffs. Yeah, yeah, I know, ballet is all
proper and solemn, and there are a lot of rules, but do you have to follow them
all
the time? I see absolutely no reason why dancers can’t crack a smile from time to time, so I’ve decided to make it my mission.

It’s 9:46
AM
. We’re first in the studio, as planned. We’re well into our warm-up when Mr. Colson arrives and looks around.

“Where are the ladies?” he asks.

We shrug our shoulders and keep warming up. Ten o’clock comes and goes, but no girls. Mr. Colson’s getting antsy. At exactly 10:22 the girls come roaring into class, shoe ribbons trailing, hair in loose ponytails instead of tight buns, warm-ups thrown over shoulders. Perfect! Even the marvelous Odette has a loose bobby pin.

Charis is hopping on one foot as she tries to put on a shoe. “Sorry, Mr. Colson. We couldn’t get into our dressing room—the door was locked!”

All eyes in the room turn to me. “What?” I ask innocently. Cam and Jeremy are doing face contortions, they’re trying so hard not to laugh. We’ll need to work on that. I used to practice innocent looks in the mirror. I can coach them.

“Steady on, ladies,” says Mr. Colson. “Take a minute, catch your breath, and pull yourselves together. And get that hair fixed! If Miss Amelia comes in and sees all that hair flying about, there will be consequences!” Then he turns to the rest of us.

“Men, the ladies will need some time to warm up, which is an opportunity for you. I know we don’t usually begin with the double tour en l’air, but let’s not waste the chance.” I get the evil eye. “Robin. Perhaps you could start.”

Shoot. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I hate the double tour. Every male ballet dancer has to be able to do one. It’s the grand finale, the showy finish, the most important move of the whole dance for a guy. And I can’t do it. I mean, I can do everything else. Of all the guys in the pre-professional program, I’m one of the best. And that’s not bragging—it’s fact. But I can’t do a double tour.

Odette is smirking as I take my place in the middle of the room. I ignore her.
I am a rocket. I can fly.

And I try to believe it as I go through the move in my head: feet in fifth position, plié, then fly straight up, rotating as I go. Twice. I take a
deep breath and start the prep. Angling my right foot ninety degrees and my left ninety degrees in the opposite direction, I push my feet together, left heel touching right toe, right toe touching left heel. I bend my knees, energy shoots from my toes upward, and I’m flying, I’m turning…

“Robin, I’ve told you again and again. Keep your hips level! If your weight isn’t the same on both feet, you’ll shoot sideways, not straight up.” Mr. Colson sighs. “You can’t fit the turns in if you’re sideways. Again.”

And again, and again.
Okay, I get that I’m being punished. But enough already!

“Robin, that’s enough for today—you’re going to hurt yourself.”
Finally
. The girls are ready, and we all go to the barre. My thighs are on fire for the rest of the class. Maybe I should have listened to my dad and become a soccer player. It would have been easier than ballet school.

“All right, everyone, remember that class is canceled this afternoon. The company is back from their tour, and they’ll need the large studio to prepare for tonight’s fundraiser. Dinner will be served early, and you are all to meet in the lobby by six o’clock to hand out donor forms and
meet with patrons. Dress presentably. Thank you very much.”

Jeremy bumps me on the way out of class. “Ya gotta breathe when you jump, man! You look like a blocked pipe ready to blow!”

I shove him back. “Hmm. Could be messy.”

Cam catches up. “Yeah, I always knew you were full of it!”

Jeremy busts up laughing.

I lunge at Cam, who fakes a double tour to get out of the way. Then Charis gives me a shoulder punch while I’m off-balance.

“Hey!” I shout.

“Serves you right!” she says. “That stupid rat destroyed my hairbrush!”

“As if a brush could help that rat’s nest you call hair,” Odette sneers as she rolls her eyes and pushes out the door. We all ignore her.

“Come on, it was just a joke,” I say.

“A joke? Do you see me laughing?” says Mavis. “I got Vaseline all over my leotard. It’ll never come out!”

“Okay, I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry!”

Charis glares at me, but then—wait for it—yeah, I get a bit of a smile. I can always count on Charis.

“You make me crazy, Robin Goodman,” she says, grinning at me. “You know I hate you?”

“Nah, you love me. You all love me.”

Mavis gives me another punch for that, but she’s smiling too. Mission accomplished. Except, of course, for odious Odette, but she’s beyond hope.

“Hey, look!” interrupts Jeremy. “There they are.”

We stop horsing around. All of us, even Odette, watch a bunch of the company dancers take over the studio. They’ve been on tour for a month, and it’s like all the energy goes out of this place when they’re away. This is what we’re here for, after all. To learn to be like them. To study and practice and totally wreck our bodies, all for the chance to take our place onstage and dance. As we watch, I’m looking for Noah Grayson. He’s a principal. In a dance company, that’s what the stars are called, the ones who get all the lead roles. Noah’s the most amazing athlete I’ve ever seen, even if at thirty-five he’s kind of old. But he isn’t there.

“There’s Rick Mathews!” Sybille sighs dreamily. She leans closer to the studio window to get a better look. “Don’t you think he’s amazing?”

Cam snorts.

“Sybille, I thought you were in love with Daniel,” Johanna says, pointing to a company dancer warming up in torn green sweats. “Or was that last week?”

“Dreamboat? Isn’t that what you called him?” Charis asks sweetly.

Cam, Jeremy and I are all laughing now.

“Eww. Of course not,” replies Sybille. “Didn’t you hear how he messed up on the tour? How could anybody fall for a guy who misses his entrance cue?”

Unbelievable. It’s true that ballet dancers live in kind of a weird world, but only we can be so socially backward as to fall out of infatuation because of a missed cue.

“When I get into the company, I’m counting on girls loving me for my body, not my entrance cues,” I state firmly.

Sybille turns away from the window and gives my body a long, slow look. “Good luck with that,” she says. Charis bursts out laughing.

Very funny
.

“As if Rick Mathews would ever look at you, Sybille,” says Odette nastily. “You still don’t get that students are invisible to the company?”

“I can dream, can’t I?”

“Leave her alone, Odette,” Charis says.

Odette shrugs her shoulders. “I’m only trying to be realistic.”

“No, you’re a downer, that’s what you are,” Sybille says.

“Don’t pay any attention to her,” says Charis, matching Odette glare for glare. “I never do.”

Two

We watch the rehearsal for a while, until Jeremy says, “Let’s get out of here. We’ve got an afternoon off. What do you want to do?”

Cam’s eyes light up. “Let’s go skateboarding!”

We knock fists. He’s unbelievable on a skateboard. Half my size, Cam is kind of like a rubber ball, flexible and fast. He’s only marking time here at the ballet school. What he really wants is to be an aerial-silk performer in the circus, and dance is kind of like cross-training for him. Jeremy’s different. He comes from a ballet family. Everybody in his family dances, so it’s like his birthright or something.

Me? I don’t have to dance, I just want to. It was a tough sell in my family at first, considering
I have two older brothers who are heavy into sports. But Mom’s the law in our house, and she was on my side right from the day I announced I wanted to dance. It’s all her fault anyway, since she was the one who dragged us boys to see
The Nutcracker
one Christmas. She thought we needed to get cultured. After that, my brothers teased me about being a girl, but it didn’t last long. Turns out that even though I’m the youngest
and
a “sissy dancer,” I’m the strongest. Now that I can take either one of them, nobody’s laughing. Dancing makes me feel strong. Not Incredible Hulk strong, like my football-star brothers. More like Superman strong, as if I could leap off tall buildings. What could be cooler? And anyway, I’m good at it. Even my brothers get that.