Bring It On (13 page)

“Sammi, are you ever going to shut off your alarm clock?” Sophie yelled from the next room.

EEEE! EEEE! EEEE! EEEE!

Sammi sat up and slapped her alarm clock. It tumbled to the floor and went silent.
What a horrible dream,
she thought.
What a monster of a horrible dream.
Her encounter with ill papi a couple of days ago before class hadn't been great. But at least it hadn't been anywhere near that bad.

She rolled out of bed and hurried into the living room. It was Saturday, but she definitely didn't want to go back to sleep. She didn't want to risk falling into that dream again. “Thanks for waking me up,” she told Sophie. Her sister was practicing the combo Gina had showed them right at the end of class. “You pulled me out of this gruesome dream.”

Sophie didn't ask for details. And Sophie loved to hear about dreams, anybody's dreams.

“I can't believe you're up before me,” Sammi commented. “You're the original bed slug.”

“I wanted to get this down.” Sophie turned the music up a little and got back to working the moves.

Sammi studied her sister. She didn't looked flushed or pale or anything. But there was something off about her.

“I could use some practice, too.” Sammi got in sync with Sophie. For about three seconds. Then Sophie stopped.

“I'm gonna hit the shower. If you go first, you'll use all the hot water.” She snapped off the music—even though Sammi was still dancing—and started out of the room. “Don't eat all the Froot Loops,” she called back.

Even though Sophie knew Sammi hated that cereal.

What is with her?
Sophie thought.
It's like she's mad at me. But I haven't done anything.

Emerson moved front and center for her solo. She checked the classroom mirror to make sure she was in position, then launched into her pirouette. Her body went through the locking she'd rehearsed so many times. But Emerson felt . . . nothing.

She definitely wasn't the full-out Emerson today. She was going-through-the-motions Emerson. She'd been that way all class. Gina had called her on it a few times, and Emerson had tried to force herself out of the dull grayness that seemed to be surrounding her, pushing her down. But she couldn't.

Doing these same moves at the Gulliver Academy show had been exhilarating. It was as if the air had had double the amount of oxygen. Or as if gravity didn't have its usual pull. There was this energy zapping back and forth between her and the audience. And between her and Devane.

Distracted by the thought, Emerson came out of the pirouette a beat early. “Concentrate!” Gina called out.

Emerson tried. But there was energy zapping around today, too. Bad energy. Lightning bolts that stung every time Becca or M.J. or Max or Fridge looked her way. This was the second class without Devane. How many classes would be like this?

She moved into the steps of the finale, then the number was finally done. And so was class. All Emerson wanted to do was get home. It used to be that all she wanted to do was get
here
.

“You definitely look like you could use pizza,” Sophie said as they headed toward the locker room. “Let's change quick and get over there.”

“Over where?” Emerson asked.

“No one told . . .” Sophie let her words trail off. “Unbelievable.”

“What?” Emerson demanded.

“I was probably supposed to tell you,” Sophie said. “We're going to meet up at that pizza place on the corner.”

“We? Who's we?” Emerson asked, already knowing the answer but hoping she was wrong.

“The group. Sorry. I don't know where my brain is.” Sophie whacked herself on the forehead. “I was supposed to ask you, I'm sure.”

Emerson stopped walking, forcing Sophie to stop, too. “You weren't supposed to ask me.”

“Well, Max was actually organizing it. But she probably thought because we were friends that I—”

“Give it up,” Emerson said. “We both know it's not true. But thanks for trying.”

Sophie linked her arm through Emerson's. “You're going,” she said.

“There is absolutely no way,” Emerson answered. Even thinking about it made her feel hot and itchy with humiliation. She wasn't showing up where no one wanted her.

“You can't let them bully you out of the group,” Sophie insisted.

“I won't. This isn't the group. It's pizza,” Emerson told her. “I'll be here for the next class. And the next one. And the next one.”

Sammi took a careful bite of veggie pizza—she didn't want that thing to happen where a string of cheese connects the slice to the mouth—and studied ill papi. He was chatting away to Rachel about some alternative band that Sammi had never heard of.

Maybe when she went home, she should go online and research the band and—no. She'd just end up with a repeat of that
Aqua Teen
sticker fiasco. She needed something else. Something different. Something bold.

And until she came up with whatever it was, she needed to just act like a normal human being. She tried to focus all her attention on the conversation going on around the table. “. . . the competitions,” M.J. was in the middle of saying. “Last year we had some fierce ones. I was thinking there were ones we lost that we might be able to win with Devane in the group.”

Her eyes drifted over to ill papi.
What is my problem?
she thought. It's not like she hadn't been around cute guys before. They'd never turned her inside out like this.

And some of those cute guys . . . they had liked Sammi. A lot.

“But there are lots of great dancers in the group,” Sammi said, mostly to get her brain off ill papi for one single minute. “I mean, you're amazing, M.J. Don't you think the Hip Hop Kidz group can take down those other crews even without Devane?”

“A couple of solos from the right dancers make a massive difference,” Becca said. “You saw Devane at the show. She lit up the audience. I even saw a couple of people asking her for her autograph afterward.”

“We need Devane,” M.J. stated firmly. “And even if we didn't, what went down with her wasn't right.”

“Are we here to have pizza? Or are we here to talk about Devane?” Chloe complained.

“What do you have against her?” Max snapped.

“Nothing. But we have other things to talk about. Like Disney World. We should come up with a plan,” Chloe answered. “Which rides to hit, in what order and all that. It's a big place, and there are long lines for a lot of stuff.”

“Space Mountain,” ill papi said.

Great,
Sammi thought.
He likes roller coasters. And they make me want to heave.

“No.” Ky shook his head. “That one with the water. What's it called? It's the—”

“We're not done talking about Devane,” Fridge interrupted. “We haven't decided what to do.”

“We can't do anything. Get real,” Chloe said. “Devane quit. End of story.”

“But she might want to come back if a certain person wasn't in the group anymore,” M.J. said.

“A person named Emerson,” Max agreed.

Sammi sat up a little straighter. They were talking about the girl who was, like, her sister's best friend in the group. Sometimes Sammi felt like Sophie liked Emerson more than she did her own sister! Sophie hadn't come to the pizza place because no one had asked Emerson.

“Right. Let's bump her off,” Ky joked, rolling his eyes.

“All we have to do is keep on with what we're doing,” Fridge said. “She's not going to keep showing up if she knows no one wants her around.”

You haven't done anything wrong,
Emerson told herself as she hesitated in front of the rehearsal room.
Just get in there.

She couldn't believe it was already time for class again. It felt like it had only been a day since the last nightmare, not a week. And Sophie had given her the heads-up that M.J. and company were going to keep on freezing her out.

Let them,
she thought. She'd already lied to her parents to be here. She wasn't going to let a few kids force her to leave. She sucked in a deep breath. If only her plan had worked out. She'd wanted to get settled in the classroom before anyone else got there. Somehow she'd felt like that would give her an advantage. But through the window, she could see that Max, M.J., and Fridge were already inside.

Emerson forced herself to open the door. She could feel the stares, like those laser beams they used for surgery. If eye-shaped holes had appeared in her skin, she wouldn't have been surprised.

“Hi,” she said from the doorway. She wasn't going to slink in there like a criminal. No one answered. But just speaking had made her feel slightly better. After all, you should never enter a room without acknowledging the others present. Her mother had taught her that.

Emerson strolled over to her usual spot and began doing some stretches. Her muscles were tight with tension. Her lungs felt a third of their normal size. She couldn't get in a deep breath. This was making her crazy.

“It's not my fault!” Emerson burst out suddenly, her voice echoing in the mostly empty room. “I know you think it is. But all I did was tell Devane off for busting in on my solo. That's it. I didn't know Maddy and Gina were listening. I wanted Devane to hear me. I didn't care who else did. Because that's how mad I was.”

Sophie and Chloe slammed through the door. “Hey,” Sophie said, breathless. “We heard there was a party goin' on. My invite must have gotten lost in the mail.”

You deserve so much more than a thank-you note
,
Sophie,
Emerson thought.
Even a thank-you note with a home spa gift basket like the ones Mom always sends to the women on her committees wouldn't do it.

“Your friend got Devane kicked from the group,” M.J. told Sophie. “Are you okay with that?”

“Devane quit.” Sophie said each word slowly and carefully, like she was talking to a preschool kid.

“Only because she got slapped with probation—after Emerson threw a hissy,” Max said.

Chloe rolled her eyes. “You all know Gina. How can you be surprised she wanted Devane on probation after what she did? She dragged you out in the hall and lectured you for five minutes for drinking 7-Up in class, remember, Fridge? She wants every rule followed.”

Fridge nodded. “She said if I wasn't willing to follow all the Hip Hop Kidz rules, I shouldn't be there. Said if she saw me doing it again, I'd have to go home.”

Muscles in Emerson's back and shoulders began to relax a little.

“Devane said—” M.J. began.