Dance Academy Anywhere but Here (6 page)

It’s the end of semester. Apart from summer’s stinking heat and Sean’s sweat dripping all over the studio floor that means one thing – auditions for the Academy’s production of
The Nutcracker.

I hate
The Nutcracker
with a passion that few people in the world can match. It’s impossible to hide such hatred. Sammy grills me about it.

‘It just reminds me of stolen Christmases,’ I explain. ‘Natasha dancing, Dad directing. Ethan and I stuck in a hotel.’ I groan. ‘I am so sick of complaining about my parents.’

‘Have you ever thought about really telling them where you’re at?’ Sammy asks me.

Great advice, just one problem.

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Where am I exactly?’

This year the school’s production is being graced with the talents of Australia’s finest ballet director, one Sebastian Karamokov, otherwise known as Dad. As he sweeps into the Academy, Ethan and I learn it’s not simply the irresistible lure of directing teenagers in the world’s cheesiest ballet that’s brought him back.

‘There are some serious family discussions to be had,’ Dad says.

I get my ‘discussion’ the next day at the café. He’s already ‘sorted out’ Ethan and recruited him as his assistant director for the ballet. Now it’s my turn.

‘So
Nutcracker,’
he starts. ‘You ready to fight the mice?’

I know where this is going. ‘Dad. Do you have to?’

‘I’ll never forget it. Your mother was playing Clara. It was the battle scene. You were …’

‘… three and I ran onstage to save her from the giant rodents.’ I’ve heard the story a million times before.

‘You stopped the whole performance. Stole the show. And I knew, right then, that you were born to be onstage, too.’ He smiles as we get up from our table at the café and he leads me towards the
Academy. ‘That’s why I’m not worried about you. I get it – you’ve felt the need to push the boundaries this year. I know that next year you’ll be ready to work.’

Will I? He really doesn’t get it.

‘I’ve “pushed the boundaries” because I’ve been unhappy here,’ I tell him, but he doesn’t take me seriously.

‘Then why haven’t you left?’ he asks in that direct Russian way.

‘Last time I checked, I didn’t have a choice.’

‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Ever since you were three you’ve done exactly what you’ve wanted.’

I don’t get a chance to speak before he continues. He spends half my life overseas and still thinks he knows me so completely.

‘Sweetheart, I understand you want to rebel against your parents but you belong here. And you really need to start accepting it.’

He’s not interested in a response. I get a kiss on the forehead and he strides off into the Academy, ticking me off his mental to-do list.

I’m left outside. What he doesn’t understand is that I didn’t run onstage when I was three to steal the limelight, I ran on out of fear of losing my mother.

Perhaps I’m not afraid any more.

When it’s my turn to audition, Dad’s sitting there on the panel with Miss Raine and Ethan. On the desk in front of them is the toy soldier that I’m supposed to dance with. I hate that toy soldier more than anything else in
The Nutcracker.
It’s spent more Christmases with my mother than I have. Ethan hands it to me. It feels cold in my hands, even though every other ballerina in the Academy has danced her heart out with it.

I take up my position for the start. Ethan presses the CD player and the music starts. I know the music so well. I know the steps perfectly but I don’t move.

‘Are you okay?’ Dad asks.

My heart’s pounding. I’m more nervous than I’ve ever been in any audition.

‘Yeah. I think I am,’ I answer.

Dad’s stunned as I walk up and put the toy soldier back on the table in front of him.

‘Thanks everyone. Dad.’ I curtsey to the panel and walk out. No one at the Academy ever walks out of an audition.

Outside the room I stop for a moment and breathe deeply and slowly. I’ve done it. I’ve jumped off the cliff.

Where do I want to be? I don’t know but I know it’s anywhere but here.

My immediate destination is the costume room. I’m assigned costume duty for the production, which means Miss Raine is attempting to drown me in a sea of tulle. I’m thinking for the next production I might try set design, but then Miss Raine hits me with a dose of cold reality.

‘Productions are for students of the Academy. I doubt you’ll be here for the next one,’ she says and leaves me to my sequins.

Later, when I’ve been stuck in the costume room for hours with nothing but sweaty tutus for company, my phone rings. I don’t care who it is, I answer without looking and shout for help.

‘Save me! I’m drowning in a sea of tulle.’

‘Hey gorgeous. What’s the weather like down there?’ It’s Myles. Last time I heard from him he was heading off to London on tour. I can’t help smiling at the sound of his voice.

‘Sunnier than London I guess. But I don’t know, I’m trapped in a room with no windows.’

‘You think you could go outside and check for me?’ he asks.

‘Sure. If you want to waste an international call talking about the weather.’

It seems like a weird request but I head for the door. As I open it, he’s standing there.

‘I’ve gotta go,’ I say into the phone. ‘Someone at the door.’

‘Should I be jealous?’ he grins.

‘I don’t know, he’s pretty hot.’

I throw my arms around him, drag him into the costume room and suddenly I’m pleased that nobody ever comes down here. We’ve got some big-time catching up to do.

After a while we need to come up for air so we go for a walk along the harbour. I finally pluck up the courage to tell him I walked out of my audition and I might get kicked out of the Academy. He’s brilliant – no wise words, no shock, just a gorgeous warm hug and a fortune cookie to help decide my future. I’ve never been a girl for fairy tales, but Myles is doing a really good interpretation of my kind of knight in shining armour: a really hot guy and great kisser that I can actually talk to. All I need now is to be carried off.

We sit down to open our cookies.

I read mine out. ‘The path to happiness begins with a dream.’

‘That’s my problem. I don’t remember my dreams,’ he jokes – sort of.

‘I do. Fly to Darwin, hire a Kombi. Drive …’

‘You’re sixteen,’ Myles interrupts. ‘You don’t drive.’

‘It’s a dream. Go with it … Drive around Australia. Stop at every beach, camp out at every music festival.’

His smile is so intense I need a diversion before I melt completely.

‘What does yours say?’ I ask.

He opens his cookie. ‘What’s the difference between Myles Kelly and bubblegum?’ he says. ‘One’s artificially flavoured, disposable pop and the other one’s bubblegum.’

He throws his fortune away before I can read what it really says.

‘Whoa Tiger, cynicism alert,’ I say. Obviously I’m not the only person that feels trapped in the wrong place. No wonder he seems to get me.

‘Everyone I respect thinks I’m just a puppet, yet another manufactured pop star. And they’re right.’

‘So cut the strings. Write a song that’s for you,’ I tell him. It’s way easier telling other people what to do with their lives than working out what to do with my own.

A couple of days later Myles and I are together again, outside the Opera House. He hands me an envelope. It’s a plane ticket to Darwin.

‘A van, a map. No return date,’ he says. ‘You’re right. I need to write some songs I can be proud of. I just have to work out what I want to say.’

‘Yeah but you totally stole my dream.’

‘I’m kinda hoping to share it.’ He grins. ‘That’s your ticket. Come with me.’

I’m stunned. ‘I can’t!’

‘Why not? Just think about it … But you have to ask your folks, I don’t want Natasha hunting me down.’

Last time he asked me to go away with him, it was to do his thing. Now he’s wanting to do
my
thing. Share
my
dream.

‘Road trip. Every beach?’ I check.

‘Every music festival. Just you and me.’

I can’t think of a single reason not to go. This is what I can run away to.

Once I can see my escape, all I want to do is get away from here as fast as possible. Just me, Myles, the Kombi, beaches and every music festival we can find. It’s not a life choice, it’s a summer choice, but it can’t come soon enough. My only problem is working out how to tell everyone here.

Before she’s about to go onstage for the dress rehearsal of
The Nutcracker,
I feel like Tara’s onto me.

‘So do you and Myles have exciting plans for the holidays?’ she asks.

‘Why are we talking about this now?’ I reply a bit too quickly.

‘I’m trying to distract myself.’

It’s the night before the performance. The performance I’m going to miss because Myles and I will be on the plane to Darwin. I know it’s wrong but if I have to spend one moment longer at the Academy I think I’ll go mad.

Besides I know I’m only bringing forward what’s going to happen anyway. I’ve received a ‘private and confidential’ letter from the Academy which I haven’t dared open. I know what it’s going to say.

I’m with Christian in my room at the boarding house so I pull out the Christmas presents I’ve got for everyone.

‘It’d be ace if you could play Santa for me at a good moment.’

‘Why? You planning on not being around?’ he asks.

‘No actually,’ I fess up. ‘Myles and I are flying to Darwin. We’re doing a road trip around the country.’ It’s a relief to finally tell someone about it. ‘It’s not for the public record yet,’ I add. ‘I’m calling Ethan from the airport. He’ll let everyone know that I’m …’

‘… running away?’

‘Going away.’

Christian doesn’t look happy.

‘Disapproval. You were the one person I thought would understand.’

He doesn’t.

‘There’s a present in there for you,’ I say but I’m still not feeling the love from him for my plans.

The next day I pack and clear my room while no one’s around. The plan is I’ll go to the Opera House with everyone for the performance but once it starts, I leave, jump in a cab with Myles, drive to the boarding house to collect my suitcase and then we head for the airport.

It all goes perfectly until Christian catches me before the start of the show.

‘You’re seriously leaving now?’ he asks.

I keep walking. I really don’t want anyone to change my mind.

‘Wait, Kat,’ he chases after me. ‘Come on, I’ve finally worked out what you and I have in common.’

I stop.

‘These people are it for us. They’re our family. So quit dancing, blow off your parents, but at least say goodbye.’

‘They’d try to stop me,’ I say. My phone rings. Myles is outside in the cab. I have to go.

At the boarding house, my room seems even emptier than when I left earlier today. The walls are bare, the bed’s stripped and my suitcase is waiting. The
‘private and confidential’ letter is still there too, waiting for me to open it.

Myles and I are in the cab, driving under the Harbour Bridge when my phone rings. It’s Christian. He’s in Tara’s changing room at interval. I can hear her sobbing. The dress she chose for Act Two is missing. It is this old dress that even my mother wore as Clara. Miss Raine told us that it came from the Russian ballet in the 1930s and has never had to have so much as a thread replaced. Tara’s totally convinced that she can’t get through the second act without it.

‘I’ll make a fool of myself,’ she sobs.

I suddenly realise she needs me, like all the times I needed her.

‘Okay. For one, you’re an expert at making a fool of yourself. No one does it better. And two …’

‘Where are you?’ She can’t understand why I’m not there for her.

My family needs me. The family I love needs me.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say. ‘What does is that you stop making excuses. I get that you’re scared, but you need to suck it up and do what it is you’ve been working for this whole year.’

When I hang up Myles takes my hand. ‘Listen. I don’t care if we miss this plane, we miss the next
one, or if we don’t go at all. What I care about is you.’

I realise how silly I’ve been. I’ve been so obsessed with getting away from the buildings that are the Academy that I’ve forgotten the people that make it, too. I don’t need to run away from my friends. If this road trip is what I want and what I need then they’ll let me go, but they need to say goodbye to me. And I need to say goodbye to them.

I need to see Tara dance and she has to see me there watching her.

‘Driver, take us back to the Opera House,’ Myles says without me even having to ask.

As we run up the steps, I stop for a second. This is my life-altering moment. I pull out the letter and hand it to Myles. The news will be easier coming from him.

He opens it and reads silently. ‘You didn’t get into Second Year,’ he says gently.

‘Okay,’ I say quickly. It’s out. It’s fact. Even if I wanted to be at the Academy next year, they don’t want me. Suddenly I’m scared. My life revolved around ballet. The Academy is where I was always ‘meant’ to be. Who am I without it? I don’t know.

Myles takes my hand and we climb the rest of the steps.

We make it in time to see Tara onstage. She’s amazing in a way that I never could be. It’s where she belongs and right now, just for this moment, for the first time ever, there’s no place I’d rather be than in the wings watching
The Nutcracker.
I can’t hate a ballet that makes my awesome friend shine so brilliantly. For the first time it’s not stealing from me. As Tara catches my eye I know it’s giving me something fantastic.

I still don’t know where I really want to be when the curtain comes down, but I do know this. With my real family supporting me, Myles beside me and a summer full of beaches and festivals ahead, I’m going to have a mind-blowing time finding out.