Katarina Ballerina by Tiler Peck & Kyle Harris

Author:Tiler Peck & Kyle Harris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin
Published: 2020-05-04T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

After the subway ride home with Sunny, Katarina walked the few blocks back to her apartment building, waved at the orange cat in the window across the street, and entered her building. As she climbed the third set of stairs up to her floor, she could hear her dad talking to someone on the other side of their door. The walls in their building were so thin that sometimes she could even hear Mr. Epstein next door, who got terrible hay fever in the summer, sneeze.

“I know,” her dad was saying. “I just need a small loan to tide me over. Money’s been really tight lately, and the bills are piling up.”

Katarina froze as she was lifting her key to the lock.

“Things haven’t been great at work,” he was saying. “My commissions are way down and… No, I can’t do that. Katarina loves those classes.”

Katarina felt like someone had punched her in the gut. She hadn’t realized her dad was struggling with money so much. And still he was paying for her ballet classes, even though she knew they must be expensive.

Katarina opened the door and stepped into the apartment.

“I’ve got to go,” her dad said into the phone, quickly hanging it up. “Hey, honey! How was ballet?”

“It was good,” she said. He was sitting at his computer, piles of papers around him. Bills, probably. He closed his laptop and quickly gathered the papers, shoving them into his briefcase.

He didn’t want her to know about their money troubles. Probably didn’t want her to feel guilty about the cost of her ballet classes.

She went up to him and gave him a huge hug.

“Hey,” he said, rubbing his hands across her back. “What’s this for?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Just for being the best dad in the world.”

“Superdad!” he said in his silly superhero voice.

That was it. No more goofing around in ballet class, not when her dad was sacrificing so much so that she could take them. She was going to make it worth his while by working hard and becoming the best ballet dancer she could possibly be.

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