Only in Spain by Nellie Bennett

Author:Nellie Bennett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2014-06-03T04:00:00+00:00

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“Everyone is beautiful at the ballet…” I hummed the song from A Chorus Line as I slipped into my ballet shoes. I was trying to keep my ánima up—my spirits. I was about to go into my first ever ballet class and the idea scared me to death.

Actually, it wasn’t quite my first class. I had taken ballet once before. I was six years old, and I remember my mother pulling me out of the car as I went limp in her arms, letting my feet drag across the pavement like a mini Gandhi in a pink tutu. Once we got inside I wailed and sobbed so hysterically that Mum was forced to give in and take me home.

Now, sixteen years later, I was going to give it another go. But this time there was no one to drive me home. Then again, I wasn’t wearing a pink tutu either—though I will confess that I was wearing leg warmers. How could you go to ballet class without leg warmers? Isn’t the whole point of doing ballet to have an excuse to do Flashdance fashion?

I loved the dance class look. I watched the girls who came into class in ripped T-shirts and sweaters and observed how they had transformed an oversize tee into a shrug, or woolly socks into ankle warmers, trying to memorize just where they had made their incisions so I could copy the look on some unsuspecting piece of clothing.

Today there were two other girls in the changing room getting into their ballet gear and they looked suspiciously like ballerinas. Especially the girl in the pointe shoes. Why do I have to do this? I considered walking out, but I thought of Marina and the way that she’d waggled her finger at me and told me that I had to work hard, harder than everyone else, if I wanted to dance professionally. I just had to bite the bullet and learn ballet.

The class started out innocently enough. The students, six girls and two boys, were lined up along the barre (which is for some reason spelled the French way, even though it is really just a bar), and the teacher told us to get into first position. I didn’t know what first position was, but I was able to copy the others. Basically, you stand with your feet pointed out like a duck and your arms lightly separated from your body. For second position you slide one foot to the side a little. Third and fourth are also variations on this pose, I discovered to my relief.

But then the teacher got serious and told us to do things that I knew were going to be painful, like putting one leg up on the barre. I think it was intended as a gentle stretch, but I could see stars in front of my eyes, like a Looney Tunes character that had been hit over the head with a mallet. Around me the other dancers were sliding into

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