Dance Academy Anywhere but Here (5 page)

Not forgetting that birthday party in a hurry. The police end up being called and there’s a fight. It seems like at least fifty per cent of the jelly shots didn’t make it into anyone’s mouths and are staining Natasha’s pure wool Persian rugs. Bad news travels fast. She hears about ‘the night to forget’ even in Estonia and attempts some strict parental authority over the phone.

Everyone gets detention from Mr Kennedy and I’m put on probation. It’s supposed to be an extra punishment for the person who organised the party, but the threat of being kicked out of the Academy doesn’t exactly fill me with dread. The place is getting less fun by the second.

Every time I walk through the doors into class, feeling the ache in my muscles from the day before
that still hasn’t gone, wondering if I can possibly drag myself through another moment of
barre
work, I ask myself why am I punishing my body like this? I’m torturing my body and for what? I really don’t know what I’m doing here. Surely anything would be better than this.

Tara and I are
so
not speaking. She’s even pretending to be angry with me. As if I’ve done anything wrong – other than kiss someone that I thought was interested in me. I think she blames me for the copies of the photo of her and Christian that keep appearing everywhere. Like I actually want to be reminded of that humiliation.

In class, Patrick, our teacher, announces we are going to suffer an additional and cruel punishment. We’re going to connect with nature in the bush and workshop variations of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Sean, my
pas de deux
partner, gets excited. He’s got it into his head that we should have an offstage romance and thinks we could share a tent.

‘You can’t deny there’s something between us,’ he says.

‘Something other than your sleaze and my casual loathing?’ I ask.

‘Kat, you’re sad. And I know I can make you happy.’

The thought sends a shiver down my spine.

‘I’m going to prove it to you,’ he continues with a smarmy smile. ‘The wheels are already in motion.’

Before we depart civilisation and hot showers, Patrick uses his class to talk us through the parts we’ll be playing in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
It seems like everyone is in love with someone who loves someone else.

‘Kat – you’re dancing Hermia. Feisty, funny and betrothed to Sean,’ he announces.

Yuck!

Patrick continues. ‘Except he’s in love with your best friend, Helena, danced by Tara. She’s in love with Christian and he feels the same way about her.’

‘Delightful!’ I say out loud and then whisper, ‘Someone cue the vomit.’

‘The point you have to remember,’ says Patrick, ‘is that while most of the ballet is about mixed signals and misunderstandings, in the end true love wins out.’

Yeah right!

When we arrive in the designated middle of nowhere location for the camp we have to choose tent partners. Before Sean can pick up my bag, Patrick saves me from tent partner hell and declares the boys and girls will have separate camps. I grab Petra for a tent mate. We need a third so I recruit Abigail. Anyone is better than Tara. Anyone.

As we’re sitting round the campfire on our first evening, I’m upholding the time-honoured tradition of persuading an overseas visitor about the existence of drop bears. Petra just about believes me when we’re interrupted by Sean. He’s bad enough but then Tara comes storming up to me.

‘You have to stop,’ she demands.

‘Excuse me. Sean and I were having a conversation.’

‘I get that we’ll never be friends again but you can’t keep attacking me with this,’ she says, and shoves a copy of the picture of her kissing Christian into my hands.

‘Like I could be bothered. In my mind you don’t even exist,’ I tell her. ‘And it’s so predictable that you think the world revolves around you.’

‘It’s hard not to when you’re waging a personal vendetta against me!’ she practically screams.

I don’t know who’s posting the pictures around, but I wish she wouldn’t blame me for it.

In the morning we start our outdoor nature-embracing workshop. Tara and I are wearing flower wreaths on our heads and wispy nymph costumes. Sean and Christian are ‘fighting’.

‘Boys remember, you’re both in love with Tara,’ Patrick tells them. ‘She’s the one you’re fighting over.’

I roll my eyes. Do I have to spend my entire life watching boys fight over Tara?

Then Patrick sends me ‘onstage’ to stop the fight. I drag Tara away from the boys and our characters are supposed to be having our own fight in the background.

‘I don’t get it,’ Tara says under her breath. ‘I hurt Ethan, not you.’

‘That’s only part of it,’ I reply.

‘Then what’s the rest of it? Is it Christian? Do you …’

‘No. You’re welcome to each other.’

Patrick calls Tara and me back to centre stage and asks for ‘some energy’. We’ve got plenty of that.

‘You have everything. And you rub it in my face,’ I jab at her while Sean and Christian hold us apart.

‘Good, Kat,’ says Patrick as the boys put us down.

‘I’m so over that self-righteous attitude,’ says Tara.

‘I am not self-righteous,’ I hiss.

‘Your problems aren’t real. They just happen in your head.’

How dare she say that! I shove her and she falls down. Tara grabs my ankle and pulls me down to the ground. The fight is on.

I can hear Patrick telling us to stay with the choreography, but we’re beyond character now. This is real. We fight on the ground – pushing, shoving, pulling hair. To be honest I’ve no idea how to fight and I don’t think Tara does either. In the blur of screams, hands and hair we roll ourselves into a puddle and coat ourselves in mud.

The music stops and Patrick charges over, ‘Enough. Stand up. Katrina, you are on probation and skating on very thin ice. And Tara, we gave you a scholarship for a reason. This is no way to repay us.’ He sends us to the showers to get washed and asks Petra to supervise.

The showers are primitive – two bags of water above our heads with tubes leading out and a canvas sheet forming a wall that only comes to shoulder height. We’re basically standing next to each other, so can easily continue the argument from the mud bath we just took.

‘You forgot my birthday,’ I remind Tara as I try to rinse gum leaves from my hair.

‘You left me stranded at the gig so you could go off with Lucas,’ she says, scrubbing mud off her shoulder.

‘He was my boyfriend,’ I say. ‘All you did was judge him.’

‘And how did that boyfriend work out for you, Kat?’

‘I can’t believe you’re bringing that up now! Bottom line is that I needed you and you weren’t there.’

‘Actually,’ Petra interrupts us, ‘the bottom line is that I’m sick of both of you. We all are.’

We’ve been so busy arguing that we’ve barely even noticed that she’s there with all our clothes in her arms.

‘So I’m taking these hostage,’ she says and walks off, stranding us naked in the showers.

Tara and I stand there, mouths open.

‘Now look what you’ve done!’ I say.

‘What I’ve done!’ Tara gasps and then asks, ‘What are we supposed to do now?’

‘I don’t know about you, but I’m wrapping this canvas sheet around me and hunting down some clothes,’ I say.

‘And leave me totally exposed. That’s low even for you,’ Tara complains.

‘Fine, we’ll share,’ I growl as I start dismantling the shower walls. She doesn’t move. ‘You could at least help me undo the ties!’ I tell her and she finally starts making an effort. We undo the knots and wrap the canvas wall around ourselves and try walking back to the tents.

‘Ow, you’re stepping on my foot!’ Tara complains.

‘I need more room,’ I say and pull the canvas towards me.

‘There isn’t more room,’ Tara growls and pulls it back towards her. That sends us off balance and we start to wobble.

‘Core muscles!’ we both shout. It’s the catchphrase Miss Raine uses whenever someone wobbles in her class.

We steady ourselves and manage to inch over to the nearest tents. Unfortunately we’ve shuffled to the
boys’ camp. At this point I don’t care. All we need is some clothes. I lead us, hopping, to the nearest tent. The flaps are open to air it out. It needs airing – one sniff of a T-shirt thrown on the ground and I can tell it’s Sean’s tent.

That T-shirt is too filthy to contemplate putting on, even in our desperate state, so I take a deep breath and venture into the murky depths of his backpack to look for something that might pass as a non-toxic garment. The first thing I come across isn’t clothes, it’s dozens of copies of the Tara and Christian picture.

I show Tara. ‘Told you it wasn’t me.’

‘But why?’ she asks.

I realise this was what Sean meant about ‘making me happy’. The boy is seriously warped.

‘It would seem Sean has a rather large crush on me.’

‘Like a proper one?’ says Tara in shock. ‘Do you think he’s fantasising about you? Cause a Sean fantasy could mean …’

‘I know. Anything, right.’

We pause, realising we’ve stopped arguing and slipped into friend mode without even realising it. I have so missed this.

Once we’ve wiggled ourselves into what are the closest things that Sean has to clean clothes, Tara starts talking. ‘Kat … When wasn’t I there?’

It takes me a moment to respond, but eventually I do. ‘I know you don’t think my problems are real but they’re mine. And I guess, I’ve been pretty unhappy lately. Like about what I’m doing at the Academy and …’

‘You should’ve told me,’ she says.

‘I think I wanted you to ask. It kind of feels like you put everything ahead of me. Ballet, guys, which is cool for you because you don’t need me. But the thing is … ‘ I can’t believe I’m about to say this. I’m supposed to be the strong one. The water-off-a-duck’s-back girl, but when the truth hits you, it hits you. ‘… I need you.’

Tears well up in my eyes and I realise just how lost I’ve been feeling. I really don’t know what I’m doing with my life. I’ve been so angry with Tara, feeling left out while she’s been focusing so hard on dancing, but it’s more than that. I’m jealous. Jealous that she knows what she wants, that she’s pushing herself through the physical torture of ballet because it’s what she wants more than anything. I’m putting myself through the bunions and blisters and aches and exhaustion, but for what?

I stare out at the empty bush with tears rolling down my face, and this time I can’t blame alcohol, just the complete mess that is my life. I’m terrified that I’m going to lose it completely and that I won’t be able to ever stop crying. I can’t expect a complete answer to my problems to drop down from the trees but right now I’d settle for anything that can help me hold it together – a canvas sheet to stretch over the mess of me.

‘So how did Natasha take your party?’ Tara asks.

I laugh and almost cry even more out of gratitude. If there’s one thing that’s going to help me hold it together it’s talking about how much I’ve annoyed my mother.

I giggle. ‘She went ballistic.’

‘Tell me what happened,’ Tara says, settling down for a long session. ‘From the beginning.’

It’s so good to be back in tune with Tara. I didn’t realise how much hard work hating her was. Loving her is so much easier. And now we’re going to need each other even more. Petra’s been offered a place in the Berlin Ballet Company. We’re probably going to lose her to Germanic bunheads or ‘Berlin Ballet Bots’ as Petra calls them.

She tells us about it as we’re walking through the Academy. She’s also been offered a place at the Academy so has to decide between the two. As we pass the dance studio I look in the window. Miss Raine’s in there auditioning young girls for the junior summer program. In the line-up of mini Abigail clones all in matching pink tutus, one girl stands out. It’s Scout, the girl from the community centre, dressed in a swimming costume and board shorts. She really
was serious about wanting to be a dancer. I wave to her but she just turns away. I don’t blame her.

We wait until the end of the audition. When the girls have finished, Miss Raine reads out the numbers of the girls who are getting a call back. Scout’s number doesn’t get called and she looks heartbroken. She must have tried so hard.

I have to speak to Miss Raine about Scout and chase after her when she leaves the studio. ‘Scout’s a natural,’ I tell her.

‘Scout?’ Miss Raine asks. They’re all just numbers to her.

‘Fourteen.’

Miss Raine checks her list. ‘Right. She’s flexible but there are physical limitations.’

‘She just hasn’t been properly trained.’

Miss Raine gives me one of her looks. ‘She also has a very bad attitude. That is something that can’t be fixed, as we both know.’

Ouch.

I have to do something about this. I may not be sure about wanting to be at the Academy, but the look on Scout’s face told me she really wants it.

The next day I head down to the community centre to see if I can find Scout. Sure enough she’s
there practising the sequence of steps Miss Raine made them do in the audition. There’s no mirror and with no
barre
she’s using the side of a foosball table. That’s determination.

‘I could never get my leg that high at your age,’ I say.

She stops for a moment and then continues, trying to ignore me.

‘Look, Scout. I know I really screwed up with those tickets and I’m sorry.’

‘It happens,’ she says without stopping.

‘You were as good as the girls that got a call back,’ I tell her.

‘Then why didn’t I get one?’

‘Well … you aren’t a prissy little Betty Bunhead stapled into her ballet shoes.’

‘I know I had the wrong clothes.’

‘You had a personality, that’s why,’ I say and finally get a bit of a smile from her.

‘I knew I wouldn’t get in,’ she says, turning around and trying another
grand battement.
‘I just wanted to see what it looked like inside.’

She stands still, holding onto the side of the foosball table with both hands. I can tell she’s really upset about not getting in.

‘
Grand battements
have to look like you’re not even aware your leg’s up near your ear. And quiet, no banging down,’ I tell her.

Scout shrugs her shoulders as if there’s no point any more.

‘You know what would really help?’ I say. ‘Practising in front of a mirror. In a proper studio.’

‘What’s the point?’

‘What if I got you another audition?’

Scout looks at me and I know exactly what she’s thinking.

‘I won’t flake out on you again,’ I promise. ‘Come back to the Academy with me.’

The studio’s empty so we go in to practise in front of the mirror.

‘See the line your foot is making,’ I say. ‘Watch in the mirror.’

She scowls at me. ‘I am!’

My heart jumps, I’m having a nanosecond of sympathy for Miss Raine and all the scowls she’s had from me. Scary. Suddenly Scout’s face lights up but it’s not for me. Christian has just walked in.

‘Have you come to help?’ I ask him.

He pulls me away from Scout and asks what I’m doing.

‘She’s good,’ I say. ‘She deserves a second chance.’

‘And you’re the feral godmother who’s gonna give it to her?’

‘What’s your problem?’ I ask.

Christian’s angry. ‘I’ve been the project, okay. I know what it’s like for people to come in and “help”. But what happens to that kid when you get bored?’

He looks at me as if he knows exactly how I let down Scout and the other kids before. Then just as I’m thinking that we shouldn’t be building her hopes up, Scout thanks Christian for the soft ballet shoes she’s wearing. Turns out he found an old pair for her to use in her audition.

‘You were saying?’ I ask.

We both decide to coach Scout through her
grand battements
and help her get the positions right. It’s hard work but she’s determined, flexible and a fast learner. She’s impressive. All we have to do now is get her into the call backs for the junior summer program.

First off I realise she needs to look the part. I doubt anyone ever got into the summer program wearing a swimming costume. The call backs are the next day. In the morning I get Scout to come to
my room at the boarding house so I can kit her out properly. As I open up my old trunk I’m confronted with my life in dance. All my old outfits, souvenirs, brief moments of glory have been packed in here. It’s a long time since I looked at them. As I’m rifling through old tutus and leotards Scout pulls out a picture of my mother posing in her
Swan Lake
costume.

‘She is like the most beautiful mum I ever saw,’ Scout says.

‘Natasha is a self-obsessed diva who has only ever loved her career.’

Scout nods. ‘I get a card from my mum sometimes. Even money, if it’s my birthday.’

I stop what I’m doing and look at her. You don’t have to be rich to have absent parents.

‘So, who do you live with?’ I ask.

‘My sister. My half-sister actually.’

‘I always wanted a sister.’

Next Scout finds a photo of me aged about seven in a concert. There’s a whole row of identikit ballerinas. They’re all so similar it takes me a moment to work out which one is me.

‘What a bunhead!’ Scout says. She’s on a roll exploring all the things in my trunk. She slips on an old tiara, takes up a regal pose and puts on a
hilarious posh accent. ‘You can shove that
pirouette
right up your bum, Miss Raine.’

I crack up laughing. She’s so feisty she makes me look restrained. Impressive.

Finally I find the right leotard for her. She tries it on and it fits perfectly, but there’s just one thing that needs doing if she’s to completely look the part – the sacred bun.

When I’ve finished putting her hair up, Scout stands in front of the mirror in first position. It creeps me out – she looks just like all the other girls in her first audition. It’s like my feisty little Scout has vanished. I try to release her hair.

‘What are you doing?’ she says angrily and moves away.

‘You saw that picture of me. They just squash you down until everything you loved about dancing is gone.’

The last thing I want to do to Scout is give her my life. I suddenly regret the makeover. She might not have looked ‘the part’ in her swimming costume and board shorts but she was all character.

‘I’m not you, okay!’ she says. Nothing and no one is going to touch her bun today. She’s fierce enough to stand up to anyone. She’s a character, whatever she’s dressed like. We head over to the
Academy to join Christian and Operation Scout is go for launch.

Petra and Tara are helping Miss Raine at the call backs. Petra is in the corridor stamping the forms and handing out the numbers to all the hopeful baby bunheads. Tara is in the studio with Miss Raine. When Tara gives me the signal I push Scout into the line of girls waiting to enter the studio for their audition. Petra hands her a number and stamps her form.

Through the window, Christian and I watch our protégé.

‘We make a good team,’ I say without thinking and suddenly realise he might take it the wrong way. We’ve never really spoken about our ‘incident’ at the world’s worst sixteenth birthday party.

‘Not that kind of team,’ I add. ‘My party, the … mistake, obviously.’

‘Not that it was bad.’

‘No, not at all.’

‘But not …’ Christian says.

‘Totally,’ I agree. Phew. Now that’s sorted we can get back to watching Scout.

lShe does almost too well, attracting attention from the eagle eyes of Miss Raine. She stops the music to ask Scout, ‘And you are?’

‘Number fifteen,’ Scout answers.

Miss Raine looks through her paperwork and doesn’t see Scout’s name. Then she recognises our ugly duckling.

‘This is most unusual … Scout? You’re not on my call-back list.’ She gives Scout’s new bunhead appearance an X-ray examination. ‘Quite a transformation, I must say.’

For a second I see Scout slump, worried she’s going to be thrown out again. I catch her eye and hold my head up to remind her to hold her posture. As usual Miss Raine doesn’t miss a trick and looks over at me at the window.

‘Are you going to kick me out?’ Scout asks.

Miss Raine looks at her and then back at me.

‘Well, perhaps there was an administrative error. Now you’re here, you might as well stay,’ she says.

Loving the new human version of Miss Raine.

At least in the junior program, Scout will get the chance to find out if dance is really for her. All I wanted was for her to have her chance.

We share a pizza with Scout after the call back, giving her plenty of advice about the pain involved. She thinks she’s up for it.

‘We’ll all be around,’ Tara says. ‘Me and Kat and Petra. We’ll help.’

‘No, not me,’ says Petra. She’s decided to spend the summer with her family in Germany before she joins the Company in Berlin.

It’s sad. I was looking forward to spending the summer showing Petra what real teenage girls do when they’re not punishing their feet in
pointe
shoes.

We’ll miss her, and she’ll miss us, but she knows it’s what she really wants.

And what do I want? I still don’t know, but I can’t help thinking more and more that it’s not this. I want to run as far away from ballet as I can, but it’s hard to start running when you don’t know where you’re running to.