Warm Up by Sara Leach

Author:Sara Leach
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 2014-01-31T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Miss Carina pointed to Chelsea and Melanie. “Switch places with Jasmine and Felicity.”

Jasmine tried not to meet Chelsea’s eyes as she passed her. Instead, she focused on feeling happy. She’d done it! She’d proven to Miss Carina that she did know how to dance. She was worthy of being on the team.

But now that she wasn’t so angry, would she be able to dance so well?

“Run that section again,” Miss Carina said.

Jasmine took a deep breath. She couldn’t blow this or she’d be sent to the back again. Think. What had she done? She’d been angry. She hadn’t thought so much about the moves.

So she had to feel angry again. Her eyes scanned the room. Chelsea and Darveet were whispering to each other and looking her way. Jasmine’s cheeks flushed. That wasn’t so hard. Now she had to hold on to the feeling.

The music started. Jasmine’s mind began to kick in. Jump. Point your toe more. She pushed the thoughts to the back of her mind and focused on how angry she was instead.

“Good,” Miss Carina said. “Let’s run it from the top.”

Doing the dance from the top proved to be harder than doing the part they’d just done. Jasmine didn’t need to be angry at the start; she needed to be happy. Finding something to be happy about right now was difficult.

When did she feel happy? She thought about the feeling she had every week at the start of warm-up, when they did their pliés and breathing. She imagined she was doing that exercise as she did the opening moves of the dance.

It worked. She felt light and happy, and she thought her body might look that way too. Dancing was more interesting this way.

“Nice, Jasmine,” Miss Carina said. “Melanie, you’re rushing.”

Jasmine faltered for a moment as she prepared for her chaînés. The look on Melanie’s face was evil. And it was all directed at Jasmine.

“Ignore Melanie,” Shira whispered after they’d run the number again. “She’s jealous.” Her friend gave her a squeeze on the arm. “You did it!”

Jasmine smiled and nodded. At least one other person in the room was happy for her.

“Let’s move on to the next section. We’re nearing the end of the dance,” Miss Carina said.

“It’s about time,” Shira muttered. “We only have a week left.”

“No kidding,” Jasmine said. “She’s leaving it so late.”

“I’d like to finish the ending today,” Miss Carina continued. “We have an extra two-hour practice on Saturday. We can clean it then, and that will leave us with two practices next week to polish it up.”

Jasmine had forgotten about the Saturday practice. She didn’t really want to spend her weekend in the stuffy dance studio, but it was better than feeling unprepared for the competition.

“The most serious part of our story comes when the traveler arrives at her destination only to find that she has no friends, and no one wants to approach her because she’s so angry.”

“This story’s quite the downer, isn’t it?” Shira said.

Miss Carina pursed her lips at Shira’s interruption.

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