Free Juba! by Walter Dean Myers

dance,” I said.
    â€œYes, you did, Juba.” Margaret leaned her face toward me. “You were spitting some of the words and swallowing some of them, but you got your teeth together enough to say that they didn’t have to be that good, didn’t you?”
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    â€œSo go get yourself some bums off the streets and see what they can do for you!”
    â€œMiss Moran, can you help me?” I thought of Stubby trying to sell fish. “If I can get a show together for Pete Williams, it will mean a lot to me. At the auditions they wouldn’t let me dance. The man who owned the theater was asking me to ‘coon it up’! Do you know what that means?”
    â€œBecause you’re wearing a scarf doesn’t mean you’re the only one in the village with a neck, Juba,” Margaret said. “It means they wanted you to forget about your dancing and be something that amused them—the same way you want the young white people to forget about their dancing and be something that amuses you. Jack Bishop told me what happened at the auditions. He felt really bad for you, and whenhe told me, I felt really bad for you. But now I see that nobody has to feel anything for you, because you have it all covered by yourself.”
    â€œI didn’t think of it that way,” I said.
    â€œYou always think with yourself in the middle of your mind and everybody else floating around on the edges.”
    â€œSo there’s nothing you can do for me?” My voice seemed small.
    â€œIf you’re ready to get down off your throne, Mr. Juba Almighty, I might lend you a hand,” Margaret said.
    I had to sit for another ten minutes while Margaret reminded me how stupid I was for thinking she was going to betray the Irish race and then described my dancing as something that wasn’t much more than clog dancing in the first place, and said I had stolen everything I knew from the street corners and festivals around Five Points.
    â€œOkay, Margaret, I see where you are right about me not thinking about the white dancers in the same way that John Diamond and Mr. Reeves hadn’t thought about the black dancers at the auditions,” I said. “I was just so upset about what happened that I was hoping to make up for everything, to make it all right, by turning out a spectacular show.
    â€œYou’re right that I have learned a lot from clog dancing, and that I’ve borrowed some of the steps and some of the moves. But where you’re wrong is important, too. I bring alot of rhythms to the dancing, and a lot of moves that make my dancing special. I’m dancing from my heart and using everything I know, and some of it I don’t even know where it comes from. But I can tell you this. Whenever I see a person move, my eyes kind of record it, and I can feel that movement in my muscles, and in my legs, and in my arms. When I see somebody running, it’s almost like me running.
    â€œSometimes I watch the little girls jumping rope on Avenue A, across from the school, and if I watch them long enough, I get tired because my body is moving right along with theirs. At the auditions, I saw the white dancers and I watched them and I liked what I saw. I wanted to get out there and take what they were doing and build on it. They were dancing so well that people were watching their feet, the way you say old Irish people always do, but I wanted to dance so good that people would want to see if my feet were still touching the floor. I’m not just trying to make money, or even to entertain people. I love what I do, and I want to do it because I love it. And sometimes all that loving of dancing I have just gets in the way of my thinking straight. I’m always ready to learn something new about dancing, Margaret. Jack Bishop is teaching me a lot about being a good person, and I love to hear Stubby talking about cooking. I’m glad you got my head straight about