Please, Please, Please (8 page)

When I got to school this morning, I didn’t sit on the wall. I passed Morgan and walked straight to Ms. Cress’s classroom, but I didn’t go in right away. I looked at the board through the glass panel next to the door. Mine was the last name left on the board, the only one who hadn’t brought in her permission slip for apple picking. On top of everything else, it was my fault Ms. Cress would lose the cookie.
Cornelia Jane Hurley
, right up there on the board for the whole world to see. I hate my name so much.

I managed to get through the day without crying, without talking, without being a show-off or acting special in any way—until eighth period.

The gym was all set up for gymnastics. Rings hung down from the ceiling and so did three ropes. Red and blue mats were pushed together in the corner near the fire exit. A balance beam slanted away from the bleachers where we sat, waiting to be divided into teams by Mr. Brock, the gym teacher, who is supposedly going out with Ms. Cress. It’s the scandal.

I was a Two, Zoe was a Three. Morgan takes chorus instead of band, so she has gym opposite days of us. I was relieved to be away from her. Zoe had eaten lunch with me and said it was no big deal, as long as I told Tommy forget it, it’s history. I kept apologizing. She said don’t worry, but it’s hard to tell if she means it.

I wandered over to the beam with the other Twos. If you annoy Mr. Brock, you go down for push-ups until he blows his whistle. If you do push-ups you develop big biceps. Swans have long, skinny, graceful arms. I always keep my mouth shut and my head down in gym, then race out afterward to my mother’s waiting car. The best part about being in gym class is everybody wears a white T-shirt and blue shorts, including me. I blend in.

Tommy was a Two, too. We stood next to each other, waiting our turn, staring at our sneakers as the first Two crossed the beam. “Hi,” Tommy whispered.

“Hi,” I whispered back. I pressed the tops of my toes against the floor to stretch my arch and tried to think of something witty to say. I’m so bad at that. So we just stood there, me thinking,
My boyfriend! Say something!
And him thinking . . . I have no idea what.

I said, “Oh,” about to tell him I couldn’t sit with him on the apple-picking trip, when Mr. Brock said, “Tommy? If you’re done flirting, cross the beam.”

Tommy mounted the beam exactly the way Mr. Brock taught us last week, held his hands out and wobbled as he stood up, but then walked quickly across.

“Stop,” barked Mr. Brock.

Tommy stopped, tottered, and fell off down to the mat. I gasped.

“Get up,” Mr. Brock said.

Tommy stood up. He was blushing, and his skinny, tan legs were shaking. He didn’t look back at the rest of us Twos as he placed his hands on the beam and hoisted himself up again.

“I want to see some grace, this time,” Mr. Brock demanded.

Tommy walked slower this time to the end of the beam and jumped off. Roxanne clapped for him, then immediately got down into push-up position.

“Give me fifty,” said Mr. Brock.

Tommy walked over, stood next to me again, and asked, “Are you gonna say the pledge?”

I realized my hand was over my heart, like Mom when she’s nervous. I dropped my hand and looked down at Roxanne. She was blowing a kiss at Mr. Brock’s back, from down on the mat. Roxanne doesn’t care what anybody thinks. She drops her books constantly and holds her belly when she laughs and chews with her mouth open. I think she’s probably smarter than Ken Carpenter or Olivia, but she’s too busy getting in trouble to copy over her work, the way teachers like, so she doesn’t get the same kind of credit as they do. I like her, though, even though probably she thinks I’m boring.

I smiled at her.

“Twinkle Toes,” Mr. Brock said to me. I looked at my sneakers. It’s hard to imagine that Ms. Cress is really going out with him. She’s so cool and he’s so mean. He’s cute, I guess, in a broad-shouldered, scrubbed way—that must be what Ms. Cress likes.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“Since we have a real ballerina here,” Mr. Brock said, “let’s all watch how she does the balance beam.” He blew his whistle. Roxanne stopped pretending to do push-ups. Mr. Brock blew his whistle again. “Everyone, gather ’round.” He crossed his arms across his muscular chest. I looked at the big clock up high on the wall—only eight minutes until the bell and I could change out of this stupid white T-shirt and crappy blue shorts and run out to the circle where Mom is probably already waiting to drive me to dance, since I haven’t managed to quit. Eight minutes. Seven. I wished for Mr. Brock to forget about me and choose somebody else.

“Up you go,” he said to me. He really meant it. I bent my feet against the floor and watched them, one after the other, forming graceful capital C’s. My feet are getting stronger, I told myself—I can bring the sole of my sneaker along with the arch of my foot, which I never used to be able to manage. Too bad Tommy wouldn’t know how cool that is.

Kids jumped off the rings and slid down the ropes. “We’re all waiting,” Mr. Brock told me. Seven minutes until the bell. Everybody in the middle school who takes band is in this gym class, and they were all crunching together on the yellow mats beside the beam.

“Please,” I whispered to Mr. Brock. “I’m sorry.” If my mother knew I was about to climb up on the beam, she’d have an absolute fit. You could do a lot worse than just twist an ankle, falling from up there.

“I want you people to see how the balance beam is done,” announced Mr. Brock. “CJ?”

“I don’t, I d-d-d . . .”

“I don’t, I don’t, I don’t,” he said back.

I placed my hands on the beam like Tommy had and got myself up to a standing position. My feet were beside Mr. Brock’s whistle. He has a bald spot at the top of his blond head I’d never seen before. It made him seem less tough and gorgeous, more like my dad.
Imagine he’s Dad
, I told myself.
Just do whatever he says and it’ll be over, you won’t have to talk
.

“Do some ballerina tricks or something,” he suggested, crossing his arms.

I felt myself wobbling. “I don’t, we, there’s no b-b-b-balance beam . . .” I stuttered.
Don’t fall
, I warned myself.

“I don’t, I don’t, I don’t,” he said.

I gripped myself tighter, in a hug.
Whatever you do, don’t fall
.

“We’ll all just stand here and wait,” Mr. Brock told me. “I got no place to go until seven o’clock tonight.”

Hate.

Kids below me shuffled their feet and sighed. I couldn’t budge. The bell rang, and a few kids started breaking for the gym door, but Mr. Brock barked, “Not until I say dismissed.”

Everybody looked back up at me.

“Come on, ballerina.”

I was breathing through my mouth, looking up at the ceiling, praying not to cry.

“An arabesque,” I heard Zoe yell.

I couldn’t risk falling off to turn and ask if she’d lost her mind, helping the gym teacher humiliate me, when she’s supposed to be my best friend.
Forget it
, I thought,
I’m taking off this ring
. Morgan would never have yelled an arabesque. Probably Zoe was getting back at me about Lou.

“Yeah,” said Mr. Brock. “An arabesque!”

It’ll end
, I told myself.
Do it and be done
, I told myself.
You have no choice
, I told myself.

My arms ungripped my T-shirt and dropped to my sides, then lifted softly to
port de bras
. My body tilted slightly forward, adjusting the balance, and I relaxed into dance class mode.
Square the chest, and leg up, higher, higher, and, stay. Balance. Ahh. Toes, toes, toes—point hard, extend the line. Don’t move. Chin up, chin up, long neck. Breathe. Position, hold. No thoughts.

Then I crouched down and jumped off the beam. Mr. Brock yelled dismissed, but I was already pushing open the door to the girls’ locker room.

“What a jerk,” Zoe whispered, right behind me.

“Mmm-hmm.” I didn’t want to open my mouth and risk crying.

“Are you mad at me?” Zoe asked. “I just said that because, I tried to think how to get you down from there.”

I sniffed. She had a point.

“That was so unfair of him,” she whispered, “singling you out like that.”

In front of our gym lockers, I yanked off my T-shirt and shorts, not even caring if she or anybody saw my flat body. “I’m so sick of—”

“Of what?” Zoe asked.

“Do you think, seriously”—I looked in her eyes—“do I try to act special?”

Zoe shrugged. “You are special.”

“You sound like my mother.” I jumped to yank my jeans over both feet at once.

“Sorry,” Zoe said. She wiggled into her soccer shirt.

“Do I, though?” I whispered. “What Morgan said yesterday. Do I act all, better, separate from everybody?”

Zoe sat down. She didn’t answer or look up as she strapped her shin guards onto her legs and pulled her long soccer socks over them.

“I don’t want to be,” I said, pulling my book bag out of the gym locker. It got caught on the part of the locker that sticks out to catch the door. It frustrated me so much I just tugged and tugged until it tore free, making a little rip in the front of it. I slammed the bag down on the bench. “I just . . .” I was so angry—at Mom, at Mr. Brock, at Tommy—everybody who makes me feel like a stupid little jerk separate from the whole world. “That’s not what I want to be,” I said.

“What?” Zoe wiggled her foot into a cleat, then looked up.

“Separate.”

Mom, I’m sure, was craning her neck trying to hurry me up. I sat down on the bench. I unzipped my ripped bag and pulled out my blue folder. I opened the folder and pulled out the permission slip, then dug around in the bottom of my bag for a pen. I spread the permission slip carefully on the bench, read it over, and signed my mother’s name.

“I’m going apple picking,” I said.

“Are you sure?” Zoe asked. She tied her cleats in double bows while she looked over what I had done.

I smiled. “I have to do what’s right for me.”

“True,” said Zoe. “But what if you get caught? I mean, you’re, you’ll, you—”

“Breathe,” I told her. I felt so calm, it was weird.

She took a breath and asked, “What’s gonna happen?”

“It will all work out.”

“Are you sure?”

I nodded. “I have every confidence.”

eleven

I
handed my permission slip to
Ms. Cress in homeroom the next morning.

“Finally!” she said. “But Ms. Masters won the cookie.”

“Sorry.”

She shrugged. “Sometimes you win, usually you lose.”

“Oh,” I said. “And I was, is it, I mean, can I still get on the soccer team?”

“I thought ballet interfered.”

“No,” I said. “We just decided it was too much, ballet four times a week. It didn’t leave time for anything else.”

Ms. Cress nodded. “It did seem like a lot.”

“Mmm-hmm,” I said. “So I’ll just, take ballet Fridays, because we don’t have soccer Fridays, right?”

“Right,” she said.

I smiled, surprised by how calm I felt. I’d had this weird, foggy, relaxed feeling from the moment I forged my mother’s signature on my permission slip. All through dance class yesterday I felt it, and ironically I danced better than ever—even Fiona complimented me. At dinner, Paul told us about giving his oral report on the four senses—he totally forgot the sense of taste. He was really funny; we all laughed until our eyes were watering. Daddy came in to give me a special kiss later when I was in bed and told me he was glad I was feeling back to normal. He hadn’t kissed me in a while.

“Great!” Ms. Cress said, going to her desk. “So you can start Tuesday.”

I nodded. “Yeah. After the trip.”

“I saved number five, just in case,” she said.

“Really?”

“Well, not too many of the girls would fit into such a small shirt, anyway,” she admitted.

“My lucky number,” I said. “It’s all working out.”

“Where are those forms?” Ms. Cress asked herself, riffling through the mess on her desk. “I know they’re here somewhere. I’m happy you’ll play, CJ. We can always use a player who has your, your . . .” She was searching not just for the forms, I knew, but for an adjective to describe my lousy soccer abilities in a nice way. “Here. With your enthusiasm,” she finally said, holding a packet of forms in the air triumphantly.

“It’s OK,” I said. “I know I stink. I just, I like, I-I-I want to, like to be a part of the team.”

“Great attitude.” She laid the forms on my desk, placed her hand on my shoulder, and bent over to show me. “This one is the schedule, this yellow is the medical form, the pink is the parental release form—try to be quicker with that one?”

“Ha,” I sort of laughed.

“And this blue one, oh! That’s for ordering your soccer jacket. It’s optional, and it’s forty-nine dollars, so talk it over with your parents. ’K?”

“I’m sure they’ll say yes,” I told her. “They’re very supportive of-of-of soccer. Playing. And, jackets. They really want me to be on the team, so . . .”

Shut up
, I told myself.

“Good to have you on the team,” she said. “Come to the gym at lunch, if you want to pick up your team jersey.”

“I do,” I told her.

twelve

I
walked into the cafeteria,
straight over to the table where all my friends were sitting, and pulled my new soccer shirt out of my bag. Everybody’s eyes opened wide. I just smiled.

“But . . .” said Olivia.

“You . . .” said Morgan.

I climbed onto the bench and sat down across from Zoe, who kept blinking. I shrugged, opened my lunch bag, and looked in. “I just decided I’d rather be on the soccer team,” I said slowly, taking my time with the words I’d rehearsed in my head the whole way over from the gym.

“Rather than what?” Olivia asked.

“Rather than dance.”

“You’re quitting dance?”

“No need to alert the media,” I told her. That’s Tommy’s favorite expression. I saw Zoe smile a tiny bit, just the corners of her mouth. “Or your mother,” I added, realizing too late that Olivia would probably tell her mother as soon as she got home, and Aunt Betsy would call my mother, and I’d be caught.