The Dance

5 - "Bad Gymnastics"

Soon (but not soon enough) Peter gives me the unscuffed shoes. Since the bill is not on me, it feels a tad strange taking the shoes without an exchange on my part. I am about to walk out the door when the old coot calls out.

"Amara, do come back soon. I would enjoy talking to you some more. Bring Carnell with you!"

He smiles and waves as I exit and try my best not to look back and cringe. Like hell, I'd want to come back here!

I place the shoes carefully into my bag, and once I am on my bike once again, I do my best to avoid any potholes or sharp turns. If I see another stupid scuff when I get home, I'm just going to chuck these dumb fucking shoes at his face.

***
Soon, I am finally home! I park my bike in the garage, grab the stupid shoes, and book it in my room. Suddenly a little hellion blocks my path before I can even see the stairs.

"Amara! Just where have you been!? You were supposed to help me with my cartwheels!"

In front of me stood my younger sister, Fallon. The way she just spoke to me, it half-read as our mother screaming at me, and half-read as normal Fallon—annoying as crap. Last month Mom signed her up for gymnastics alongside me, thinking I could help her with backbends, handstands, and other simple tricks until her class got into bigger things like the bars and crap.

Sure, I could help her out, but one thing my mother does not understand is that I do not like my little sister. But sure, whatever, force me into this because I am "always in my room" and I "never do anything with my family".

Even though it is completely and utterly true.

"Fallon. No. Please, I don't want to help you with your gymnastics. Why can't Mom do it?"

Little Hellion shakes her head like she knows something I don't. She probably does; sneaky little-

"Mommy did it last week. That means you get to help me this week!"

I sigh. Of course, Mom did it last week. God, if only I wasn't stupid. I try to make a compromise with Fallon.

"Here, just give me five minutes, and we can go into the living and practice. Please?"

Fallon thinks it over for a second before finally agreeing, and unblocking my path, moving over to the living room.

"Hey, shouldn't you change into your uniform?"

The Little Hellion pivots and starts up the stairs before me to get to her room and change. I cannot help the smile on my face as I follow behind her and turn into my room.

I lightly drop the bag on my bed and sit on my knees as I open the bag like a gift and pull out the shoes. I take a good minute or two carefully inspecting every inch of the shoe before I am confident enough to say they are fully unscuffed. And thank the Lord, I don't want to see Creeper again in my life.

I decided to put the shoes back in the bag, and I will present them to Carnell tomorrow. The bag lasted me the ride from Niesta, so I'm going to put it on faith that it will not ruin the shoes somehow on the walk to school tomorrow.

"Amara!"

Damn it. She's done.

Fallon dragged me by the hand to the living room in her sparkling gymnastics outfit, and soon we were sitting opposite each other on the soft carpet of the living room.

"Okay, what are you learning this week?" I ask her.

She shakes her head, not saying anything for a second. "Stretching first."

God, this brat will not multitask for a second.

So we stretch and stretch our bodies until every joint inside my body has popped. And the experience is done in complete silence, which only adds to the awkwardness of the activity. Finally, we are done with stretching and Fallon can tell me what we are doing.

"Handstands!" She says matter-of-factly.

***

Let me tell you one thing: a fact. Fallon absolutely cannot do a handstand. We start with her trying to do one against the wall, and it takes a good ten minutes before Little Hellion can hold her body in a handstand for over five seconds. And of course, we have to celebrate that, so we take a fifteen-minute break for Fallon to show me a children's YouTube video about video game characters doing an obstacle course. I am bored almost immediately.

Thankfully Fallon seems to forget all about handstands after the video, and I can leave her to her devices and return to my room after taking my backpack from the front porch.

I sit at my desk for over an hour doing homework. Not too bad, just long problems that take too long for the supposed difficulty they are. I'm seen as one of the "smart girls", but I'm just not stupid—simple, right? At least the boys in my class can try their best to cheat off me, and I can get some sort of attention from them. But stupid boys' attention is worthless if not negative attention towards my reputation.

Maybe being smart was a curse.

A sigh escapes my lips. I turn back to my bag and pull out my phone and earbuds. Once I have music in my ears, I will be happy. And my theory was correct, seeing as by the second song came on I am at peace with everything in my life.

I look at the bag full of shoes and think to check out this guy. I'm no stalker in real life, but I do enjoy checking out if I can find people online. It normally takes me not too long, unless the person is completely weird, or Amish.

I search into Google "Ethan Carnell" and am given a bunch of sites supposedly with my guy somewhere inside their texts. I click on the first couple of ones and find out they are all about dancing competitions. In no time at all, I figure out Ethan Carnell is a senior like me, (no duh, probably did not have to fact-check that one) who dances for Du Pont. All the sites are for dancing competitions and they all seem to praise Ethan and his Dance teacher, Mrs. Chang. The sites tell me little Ethan is pretty much Chang's star dancer, and that he has won a myriad of competitions with the rest of the class for Du Pont.

I guess that gives him a reason to push some weird dancing shoes upon me... But it does not. Human rights? Slavery!? I'm pretty much an indentured servant right now.