My Seventh-Grade Life in Tights (23 page)

Sarah drew in a long breath. There was still fear hiding in her eyes, but not as much. “Okay.” She glanced over my shoulder at Kassie, Carson, and Austin. “Thank you.”

Kassie dug something out of her pocket and tossed it to Sarah. A Dizzee Freekz pin. “For good luck,” Kassie said.

Sarah stared down at it. She shot Kassie a quick
thank you
smile and turned toward the hallway.

“Hey, before you go,” I said, putting myself in between her and my friends. “Can you do one thing for me? It’s gonna sound weird, but can you look at Austin and tell him hi?”

A flash of confusion flooded into her eyes. But then it disappeared like she realized why I’d asked her. Sarah stepped around me and said, “Hi, Austin.” She even added in a little finger-wiggle wave.

Austin stood there, slack-jawed and eyes bulging, as Sarah walked off.

He’d finally got his
hi
from her.

A volunteer poked his head through the doors. “You Dillon Parker?” he asked, looking at the 019 on my shirt.

Applause rang through the theater. Kenton must’ve finished.

Everyone’s head swung toward me. I looked at the volunteer. “Sorry. Dillon’s gone.” I tore off my sticker. “I’m the Kung Fu Kid.”

Carson exploded into a clapping fit, nearly making me jump out of my own shoes.

The guy at the door rolled his eyes. “Well, when Dillon comes back, can you tell him he needs to get to the wings in the next thirty seconds?”

The judge in the auditorium called my name. “Last chance,” Kassie said.

“I’m not a solo kind of guy. I belong with you all. With my crew. If you’ll take me back.”

Kassie’s cheeks went a little red. She pushed the stray curl behind her ear. I missed seeing her do that. “Us freaks have to stick together, don’t we?”

“Welcome back, dude,” Austin said. “And no hard feelings for turning into a butt.”

A loud sigh popped out of the volunteer. “Okay, so—”

“Oh my gosh, get a clue and stop ruining our moment,” Carson said.

The volunteer mumbled something into his headset and went back inside.

“So did, um, Patrick come with you guys?” I asked.

All three of them erupted into a loud groan.

“Bro,” Carson said in a goofy voice. “How about you jump this way, bro.
Bro, bro, bro
—I’m so glad we got rid of him.”

Austin dragged his hand down his face. “Can you believe he rewrote my zombie script? Said it wasn’t the direction he wanted to see it go in.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t really working out with Patrick,” Kassie added.

“So what now?” Austin asked. “Want to check out some of the routines?”

“What? No, we can still make it—we preregistered.”

“No! Dillon, I can’t,” Kassie said.

I put my hands on her shoulders. “Yes, you can. And you won’t have to do it alone. You’ll be with us.” I wanted to say more. Something inspirational like all the coaches in the movies say to their football players. But my brain was stuck on staring at her eyes.

She must’ve known what I was going for, though, because she said, “We’re not ready, though. We didn’t bring our clothes.”

“We’ll dance in what we’re wearing. But not you, Carson. You don’t wanna dance in skinny jeans, trust me.” I grabbed the waistband of my sweats and yanked them down to my shoes. I stood back up, smiling.

“Whoa,” Kassie said, pinching the fabric on my leg. “These are real.”

“My football pants are still in my bag. I can wear those. Carson can wear these.”

“Ew, no,” Carson said, scrunching his face up in disgust. “All your butt sweat—”

“I just put them on like twenty minutes ago. My butt doesn’t sweat that much.”

Carson shrugged, still looking a little grossed out. He unbuttoned his shirt, exposing the rainbow-glittered work of art his mom had made.

“I might have another T-shirt in my bag, too.” My phone buzzed inside my duffel bag. I checked the message. It was Mom asking if something was wrong and why I didn’t dance. I sent her a quick reply to let her know there was a change in the lineup.

Carson scrunched his mouth up like he was thinking about it. “You know, this is probably the ugliest shirt I’ve ever seen. The only reason I wore it was so my parents would quit bugging me to. Plus I knew nobody would see it.”

He pulled the bottom of his shirt out, looking at the words.

“My mom and dad are completely insane. But I guess I like them like that. The shirt stays. Now hand over your butt-sweaty tights before I change my mind.”

“So you’re actually doing this?” Austin asked.

“
We’re
doing this,” I said. “Including our director. Especially since he’s got a music video to finish.”

A smile stretched across Austin’s face. He clapped his hands together like I’d just handed him a brand-new camera signed by Steven Spielberg. “That’s what I’m talking about!”

We all looked at Kassie. She tugged at the string hanging from her hood. Our routine’s fate was dancing on a paper-thin layer of ice. With one word, she could send it crashing through, sinking.

But then she smiled.

And the entire hallway lit up.

“All right. Let’s do it,” she said. “I’ll pull the song up on the way.”

I took off with everyone following behind me. As soon as I rounded the corner where the registration tables were, I found the
A–D
table and yelled out, “We’re here! Dizzee Freekz with a
Z
!”

We ran up to it, panting. The girl behind the table smiled and flipped through the plastic tub holding the last few folders. “Cutting it a little close, aren’t you?”

“We still have time, don’t we?”

“Just barely.” She picked up a folder and handed it to me. “That’s a cute name. Dizzee Freekz.”

“Thanks,” I said, trying not to sound offended. We weren’t cute. We were fierce.

“Dressing rooms are down the hall. Make sure you wear your numbers at all times.”

“Okay, cool.” I opened the folder. Number 083.

“We already have your music?”

Kassie handed her phone over to the girl. “Can we use this? It’s the only thing that has our music. All you have to do is hit play.”

The girl took the phone just as DeMarcus came jogging around the corner from the holding room.

Carson’s hands shot to his hair, pushing back his bangs. If he turned any redder, someone would’ve mistaken him for a gigantic cherry Pixie Stick.

“Hey, guys. Sarah told me to bring you these.” He held out a handful of safety pins. “She said the numbers stick on, but they peel off super easy.”

“Aww!” Carson said, taking a couple.

“So, you guys are really competing?” DeMarcus asked.

We all glanced at each other, smiling. Darn right we were competing.

The Dizzee Freekz were back.

T
he solo routines flew by.

Number 023 was the first duet. It was a tap routine. I’d seen better, but not from a pair of elementary-age boys. Each dance seemed to put the one before it to shame.

A guy in a volunteer shirt pointed at Austin and DeMarcus. “You two need a number.”

“We’re not dancers,” Austin replied. “We’re, uh, managers. I’m the lead manager. He’s, like, my assistant.”

Apparently the guy didn’t care, because he just shrugged and jotted something down on his clipboard. DeMarcus held out his fist. Austin hesitated for a second, then bumped his against it.

“We’re gonna have to be amazing,” I said.

“Then we will be,” Kassie said.

“I know, it’s just—we need something to give us that edge. Something like—”

Behind me, Carson gasped. When we spun around, he smiled, his face turning a pale pink. “Sorry,” he said, grabbing his jeans out of my duffel bag. “I know what we could do. I found this a while ago when we were still looking. It’s the lift.”

He pulled out his phone and held it out like it was made of paper-thin glass. We gathered around as he pulled up a video and hit play. I didn’t know who the dancers were. Probably pros. Toes, back, neck, lines—all perfect. But the part that caught everyone’s attention was when the guy turned his back to the girl. She ran up to him—I’m talking about a full-on sprint—and jumped. As soon as her feet left the ground, he spun around and caught her in this sort of hug-type catch.

We all mumbled “Whoa” at the same time. It was that good.

“It’s the one,” Carson said, pausing the video. “It has to be, guys.”

“Yeah, but…” I said, my face feeling a little hotter than normal as I thought about Kassie jumping into my arms like that. “It’s not really a lift, is it?”

“It’s better than a lift. And I bet you no other crew will have something like this.”

Austin scrolled back the video and hit play again. “I don’t know, man. This is a serious move.”

“Exactly. It’s gorgeous.”

“Austin’s right. I don’t know if I can catch her like that.”

“I’ve seen you at practice, man,” DeMarcus said, slapping me on the shoulder. “If you can catch a ball I throw, you can catch anything.”

Kassie and I looked at each other—me feeling like my face was about to catch fire and her chewing her lip.

“Yeah, but—”

“I trust you,” Kassie said. “We should go for it.” She took a tiny step toward me. I stared into her hazel eyes and forgot about everything else. There was just the dance. There was just us.

She trusted me.

I drew in a long breath. “I’m in.”

Carson stuffed his phone back into the duffel bag. “This is going to be so cool!”

After the duets were finished, the group numbers were up. 057—a group ballet performance with music that nearly sang me to sleep. 061—a killer contemporary with a funky alien theme. And 080—a Broadway routine with cowboys and cowgirls dancing around a poker table. Seeing it made me think of Avery.

Then, before I knew it, we were being herded toward the curtain by the backstage guy.

It was the coldest spot on earth. The icy glares that were being thrown around near the curtains had turned the place into a freezer.

Two more routines to go. Besides the one time Carson adjusted his tights, grumbling something about “butt sweat,” no one said anything. We just stood in the wing, looking out onto the stage.

I went to my tiptoes, freezing when I spotted our next competitors—Sarah and her Barbies.

They were sitting onstage, each girl bent over one leg stretched out in front of her. As the music started, they floated up to a standing position, windmilling their arms over their heads and into a backbend that made it look like they were about to snap in half.

Sarah was the first one to come out of it. She straightened into a move I remember her making me do over and over—a retiré—and broke into a series of spins. Her team followed. At first. But then Sarah leaped into the air and the Barbies stumbled back like they were scared of her.

For the next minute and a half, it was all Sarah.

Moving. Reaching. Turning. Her Barbies were doing everything possible to keep up. Probably. I didn’t know because I couldn’t stop watching Sarah.

She was finally letting herself just dance.

Kassie looked over her shoulder. There was no anger on her face. No jealousy in her eyes. “She’s really doing it,” she whispered.

Sarah was putting it all out there, outdancing her teammates as she poured her heart out on the stage. The music rolled its way toward the end, fading with the last note as Sarah came to a rest in front of the other two.

We all clapped. Carson was applauding harder than all of us. I turned toward Austin. He mouthed
Wow,
and beside him, DeMarcus gave me a wide-eyed nod.

The crowd finally died down and Sarah and her crew exited right toward us. The Barbies pranced by first, looking past us like we weren’t even there. But Sarah smiled, turning her head so we could see her hair. Right at the top of her blond ponytail was our pin.

As soon as they cleared the side curtain, Sarah’s friends spun around, clawing their way toward Sarah, asking her things like “What were you doing out there?” “Why’d you mess everything up?” “What’s wrong with you?”

Sarah’s response?

She just smiled and let them hiss. After a few seconds, a volunteer came over and hushed them quiet.