Free And All That Jazz by Samantha-Ellen Bound Page A

Two
    Did I tell you? I’m not so good with auditions. I usually try so hard that I end up trying too much, and that’s when I lose what Miss Caroline says is my ‘natural rhythm’. Mum’s description of me trying too hard is a ‘crazy possessed robot with a bright red face’. I prefer Miss Caroline’s spin on it.
    I really, really, really wanted to get into this competition. I needed to. One, becausepeople – sometimes important people such as talent scouts – see you at competitions. And two, because if I can’t get into one lousy performance troupe in my own dance school, how am I supposed to get into a famous pop star’s video clip?
    We don’t enter competitions very often. And with no eisteddfods or dance festivals coming up on the calendar, if I didn’t get into the competition troupe now, I’d be waiting ages to try out for the next one. And, there were almost twenty dancers in our jazz class. Miss Caroline wouldn’t even be choosing half.
    We all lined up in the studio. My best friend, Paige, was next to me. I felt her looking my way and I knew she wanted to say something, but I was so focused on doing a good job I could barely look at her. She caught my eye in the end, though. Paige always does. It’s her best trick.
    â€˜I’m so nervous!’ I whispered.
    Paige, whose hair was in a bun so tight it pulled up her eyebrows, smiled at me. Then she gave my foot a squeeze, seeing as it was probably too hard to hug me while she was in the middle of doing the splits.
    â€˜Don’t worry about it, Ellie,’ she said. ‘Just dance like you always do, you’ll be great.’
    I couldn’t help but notice she could do a perfect split, while I was still a centimetre off the ground. Ugh. Paige is so perfect sometimes, with her white-blonde curls and big blue eyes. She’s the same height as me but so skinny that her nickname when we were little was Twiggy. It’s lucky she’s my best friend, or I might hate her.
    I looked at her split and started to panic but then I realised how silly I was being, and how hard Paige had worked to get the perfect split.‘Focus, Eleanor,’ I said to myself. ‘You’re the best dancer in this class.’
    It wasn’t quite true. Remember Jasmine, with the big white smile? Well, she’s almost as good as me. She might even be better, but only in some areas. Jasmine’s always the star in contemporary and classical routines – her flexibility is out of this world. But any style that’s upbeat, like jazz or hip hop, those moves belong to me. Jasmine wouldn’t be caught dead doing hip hop. She says it’s lame. I think it’s just because she can’t do it that well.
    â€˜Good luck, Ellie,’ Jasmine said to me now, with her huge, fake, too-white smile.
    I stood behind her and made a face at her baby-blue leotard. Ugh, pastels. Bright colours are so much cooler. I’m always embellishing my dance clothes. Back when I had plain black jazz boots, I putpink and silver sparkly laces in them and stuck rhinestones on the top. You have to stand out, even in class. No one wants to look at the same old boring pastels.
    Miss Caroline began teaching us the dance. We had to learn it that lesson and perform it for her, so she could pick who was in the dance troupe for Jazz Groove. It was hard, too – she made us do fouettes and axle jumps, and every fourth step seemed like it was a high kick or an attitude.
    I was concentrating pretty hard, and I was doing well until I noticed two things that took the pointe right out of my feet.
    One was that Jasmine was totally showing off, and Miss Caroline kept beaming at her and saying things like, ‘That’s it, Jasmine! Perfect!’
    The second was that the new girl, Ashley, was really good. She didn’t have the bestflexibility or technique, but she had great rhythm and style. It was hard to take your eyes