Free Dancergirl by Carol M. Tanzman Page A

animals, a ratty old rabbit, and bends its sole surviving ear. “I never started.”
    “Your dad! What is with him? He forces you to go to a new school and then won’t let you do the internship!”
    Jacy tosses the rabbit back onto the pile. “You know the drill. Eleventh grade counts so much, yada, yada, yada.”
    “Extracurriculars count, too—”
    “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about anything serious. Let’s eat crabs, fight over the remote and pretend things are exactly the way they used to be. Before this f’ed-up year ever started.”
    I grab the Batman action figure. With my best Caped Crusader voice I say, “Don’t be sad, Jacy!”
    He doesn’t even crack a smile, so I toss him the rabbit. “Show me your stuff, One-Ear.”
    Jacy raises an eyebrow. “How come I have to be the rabbit? I am so clearly the superhero.”
    “No way! I’m Batman’s Queen!”
    On the word queen I move the action figure’s plastic leg and kick the rabbit in the head.
    Jacy extends the rabbit’s paws. “ZZZZZZAP. You are so lasered!”
    The battle is on. By the time Mom calls, “Dinner!” Jacy and I are laughing our heads off. Neither of us notices that poor rabbit’s remaining ear hangs by a thread.

19
chapter nineteen
    After Jacy leaves, I check my bulletin board. I’m looking for a picture Sonya took of him and me at Coney Island last year, but what catches my attention is the calendar. A month ago, I scrawled Baltimore across the entire weekend, then wrote ***AUDITIONS*** in the Monday box.
    First week of November. Time for all good dancers to start working on their holiday shows. All across the country, prancing girls dream of Sugarplum Fairies. Moving Arts, however, does its winter performance differently. Instead of one big extravaganza, each teacher choreographs a piece. Quentin centers his showstopping pas de deux in the middle of a group dance. Lynette always rents Trinity’s auditorium. This year, though, she’s even more freaked about it. Like at all dance studios, the winter show is a big money-raiser.
    “We need to fill every seat,” Lynette tells me. “All three performances.”
    She’s so desperate that not only does she raise ticket prices, she offers a set of free lessons for the student who sells themost. Her daily panic makes me knock off “dance school owner” as a career choice.
    Audition Monday begins badly. The alarm doesn’t go off and I wake up forty-five minutes late. Pissed, I check the clock. It’s set to 7:00 p.m., not a.m. How did I manage to do that?
    With only fifteen minutes to get ready, I streak into the shower, throw on a tee, blue cardigan, black miniskirt and leggings. Pack my dance bag and hurry downstairs. Yikes. The instant I open the lobby door, a cold front hits me. I’m not dressed right but there’s no time to change. I skedaddle down the street, dodging the torn newspapers and random bits of garbage the wind whips anxiously about.
    At school, I can’t think about anything except auditions. It’s nerve-wracking to learn a combination in five minutes and try to blow away the choreographer with your brilliance—while everyone else attempts to do the very same thing.
    The drama is always high. One person ends up in tears, someone else is guaranteed to storm out and most go home hating themselves, vowing never to dance again. At least until the next day.
    During English, I come up with a plan to give myself the best shot at the duet. Directly after school, I volunteer at the reception desk so Lynette can get things ready for auditions. They’re scheduled for 7:30—more than an hour after the last class ends. She has to pick up her daughter from day care by six-thirty, so she usually closes for the hour.
    “I don’t mind staying,” I tell her. “Doesn’t make sense for me to go home and then turn around and come right back. Plus, you won’t have to rush.”
    She agrees. After she leaves, I print out a sign that says