Free I Forgot to Tell You by Charis Marsh Page A

putting his finger to his lips. “Don’t tell.” He looked around the lobby at all the other dancers scattered around out of earshot, and then back at Taylor. He nodded meaningfully.
    â€œYes.”
    Mr. Demidovski got up with a fair bit of effort and walked slowly down the hall, back to the office. Taylor went to class, her brain buzzing with what he had said.
    Taylor ran all the way from the bus stop up to her house, and straight to her room. She opened up her laptop and carried it to her bed, going onto YouTube and searching “Swanhilda variation . ” Charlize came up to her room, confused. “Are you all right, Taylor? What happened?”
    â€œI’m good,” Taylor said impatiently.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” Charlize asked, folding her arms.
    â€œWatching Natalia Osipova do the Coppelia Act 1 variation,” Taylor answered. “Okay?”
    â€œWhy was that so urgent that you couldn’t be bothered taking off your shoes?”
    Taylor looked away from her screen and down at her feet. Uh oh. “Um — today Mr. Demidovski said something very weird and strange, but maybe good?” Taylor muted the volume on the video.
    â€œWhat did he say?”
    â€œHe said that he wanted me to learn Swanhilda.” Taylor looked up at her mother, hoping that she would be able to illuminate Mr. Demidovski’s vague statement.
    She was out of luck. Charlize frowned and shook her head, just as confused. “What is that supposed to mean? Learn Swanhilda for what? For competition? Does he actually want you to rehearse it for Coppelia this year? What else did he say?”
    Taylor shrugged. “That was it. I don’t know what he meant. Oh, and then he told me not to tell anyone.”
    Charlize blinked. “That’s not strange at all. What are you doing then?”
    â€œI’m just going to try and learn all the Swanhilda variations tonight. I basically know them, but I want to actually know them.”
    Charlize shook her head. “Okay. That seems like a good idea. I don’t know what else you could be doing. Dinner in an hour. And could you please get started on your online school work? I know Mr. Briggs told you to take a break from school, but that doesn’t mean that you should be doing nothing. If you don’t use your brain, it doesn’t get developed, and you never get any smarter.”
    â€œOkay, okay,” Taylor said, not listening. She kept her finger hovering over the mute button until Charlize had finished talking, and then started the video again from the beginning. Natalia was so great. Okay, time to learn this . She started going through it, stopping the video every few seconds to make sure she was doing it right. She hoped this was the right version; she thought it was, but she couldn’t remember exactly which version Grace and Alexandra had been rehearsing.
    Alison came in and sat in the bed. “What are you learning?”
    â€œSwanhilda. Go away.”
    â€œIs that the one with the doll that the boy falls in love with and then they’re all mean to the old man who makes the doll?”
    â€œYes.”
    Alison watched Taylor mark the steps in the small clear space in her room for a bit, keeping very quiet. “Taylor, you’re pretty.”
    â€œThanks.” Taylor sighed. It was always a bit hard to learn things from YouTube, because it was like learning from a mirror image, so she had to keep going back to make sure she was going in the right direction.
    â€œI wish I was as pretty as you.”
    Taylor stopped, shocked. “What?”
    Alison shrugged, looking sad. “You look like Mom, and I look like Dad. I wish I looked like Mom instead.”
    Taylor jumped on the bed beside her sister, nearly knocking her laptop to the ground, and wrapped her arms around her. “Alison, I think you’re pretty.”
    â€œAll my friends say that you’re prettier than me, and then they ask