He Who Dreams by Melanie Florence

Author:Melanie Florence
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781459811041
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 2016-11-30T16:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

I walked into the Native Cultural Center for my second Pow Wow class with my heart beating hard. I was hoping the whole “bust the new guy’s balls” routine had worn off by now, but I was bracing myself just in case.

“Hey,” I said to the guy nearest me when I walked in. I thought his name was Jasper. He nodded at me, and I felt myself relax a little. “Jasper, right?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He started stretching beside me. Not much of a conversationalist apparently. Then he looked over at me. “And you’re John?”

“Yes!” I smiled at him. Well, it was better than being taunted or ignored by all of them. “You’re really good. Have you been dancing long?” I asked.

“Since I was a kid,” he said.

“Jasper!” The guy who had insulted me the week before had just walked in. “Hanging with the white kid?”

“Nah. Just stretching, Matt,” Jasper said, getting up and walking over to the bully and his cohorts.

Great. There goes the one nice guy.

“Dude, I can’t believe you came back,” Matt the bully said. “What’s wrong? Didn’t get enough last time?” He turned to his friends. “Man, I hate when people think they can hijack our culture like this.” His buddies nodded in agreement. He turned to me. “Don’t you have some Caucasian thing you could be doing? Like golf or something?”

His friends laughed. Including Jasper, I couldn’t help but notice.

“Listen, I have just as much right to be here as you do,” I began, but before I could finish, Sam walked in and called everyone to the center of the room.

How did I keep missing my chance to set these guys straight?

The drum started and I followed the other guys around, tapping my feet and trying to dance with my whole body.

“Dude!” Jasper whispered beside me, peering around—probably to see if anyone else heard him. “Grand Entry isn’t about standing out.”

“So what’s it about?” I asked, but before he could answer, Sam had us form a circle where we’d keep tapping our feet lightly and each of us would get a chance to show off some fancy dance skills in the center.

I watched as Jasper danced into the middle of the circle. He was pretty awesome to watch. First he swayed his body as his feet kept up the steps we were all doing, a double tapping step around the circle. Suddenly he spun around in one direction, then switched the twirl the other way, arms outstretched and head bobbing to the drumbeats. His feet crossed over each other so quickly that I wondered how he managed not to trip over himself. I wanted to try that! He raised one knee high and spun around on one foot, then traded feet and spun the other way. The drumbeats stopped suddenly, and Jasper stopped with them, hands raised to the sky. The boys applauded as he left the circle.

“That was amazing,” I told him.

He grinned breathlessly at me. “Thanks.”

“Perfect, Jasper!” Sam called out. “Always remember that if you don’t stop exactly when the drum stops, you’d be disqualified in competition.

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