Free Various Positions by Martha Schabas Page B

dancer is never hurt or embarrassed.” He paused. “I want you to think about that.”
    We whispered about this as soon as we’d left the studio. Veronica said the girls in grade eleven had told her that Roderick hated wimps.
    “Last year, a girl started crying in pointe class and she was expelled a few days later.”
    “That’s terrible,” Sixty said.
    “Sounds like bullshit,” said Molly.
    Veronica shook her head solemnly. “I’m sure there were other reasons. But the crying was the last straw.”
    We moved as a group into the lobby, where the air felt cool after the studio’s humidity. I had never cried in Mrs. Kafarova’s class but the idea of expulsion freaked me out. I couldn’t fathom the sadness of it, being forced to leave the academy after working for so long to get in. I followed Sixty toward the bulletin board to check the master schedule for any changes. Veronica stood in front of us and she pointed to something tacked onto the cork. It was an envelope with Molly’s name on it. People started whispering. Molly weaved her way to the board, reached up, and took it down. She ripped it open and took out the letter, read it with a look of stern composure.
    “My consultation,” she said, folding the paper back along its seam.
    The meeting was scheduled for the second half of lunch. The girls made sympathetic sounds that I knew were mixed with envy. Molly assured everyone that she didn’t mind being first, and Veronica wrapped an arm over her shoulder, ushered her through the crowd.
    *   *   *
    The cafeteria was a small room on the other side of the basement. The walls were a pale blue, the color of newborn boy stuff. It emphasized the air’s dampness; dips on the surface looked wet to the touch. There were only four round tables, room for seven or eight at each, which meant there were two separate lunch periods and we overlapped with a different grade each day. Today we ate with the grade-twelve class. They were already there when we walked in, seven of them ringed loosely around the table beneath the only window.
    “There used to be fourteen,” Veronica said as we unstuck orange trays from a plastic tower, rolled them onto the metal tracks.
    “What happened?” I asked.
    Veronica reached into the refrigerated compartment for a carton of apple juice, placed it on her tray. “If you piss Roderick off, it’s pretty much curtains.”
    I accepted a plate of spaghetti and followed Veronica and Sixty to the nearest table, inhaled a spicy steam of tomato and starch. I looked at the grade-twelve class as I walked. There were three boys and four girls. They were hardly talking to one another, and I wondered if that was normal. Two of the girls had finished eating and didn’t seem to be doing much. One seesawed her fork, pressing down on the end where it overhung her plate, let the tines crash into the ceramic. The other had her head in her hand, was staring out the window.
    Sixty sat next to Veronica and I sat next to Sixty. Chantal, Anushka, and Sonya came over to our table and sat down too. Chantal sat right across from me, her tray stacked with spaghetti and all the extras: fruit, yogurt, a granola bar, and salad. She wore a different pair of bad shorts, plaid and cotton, something a kid would have worn. Her T-shirt was baggy again too, and I looked at the soft arms that extended from the sleeves, not quite fat but chubby and formless. I knew I wouldn’t like them if they were mine. Strangely, her face was full of shape. Her lips formed a perfect rosebud, dipping to make the cleft of a heart, and her nostrils were wide and shadowed, as big as kidney beans. It wasn’t unattractive. The largeness of her features pulled you in.
    I heard a giggle and turned toward it. Veronica had her wrist pressed into her mouth, pretending to choke her laughter. She pointed at Chantal’s plate.
    “Do you always eat like that?”
    “Like what?” asked Chantal.
    “There’s enough on your plate for all of