Something New (Book 1 of the Reaching New Heights Series)

Chapter 7

"Lucy! Get ready to go!" I hear my mom yelling. Is it already dance class day? But I thought it was just yesterday that I had my first class! I can't go back so soon! I run downstairs and my mom's putting on her jacket saying, "Come on Luce. We're gonna go get you some dance shoes so that when you dance tomorrow you look like a proper irish dancer." Proper irish dancer. Ha!

When I get into the car, I climb into the very back row of seats and buckle my seatbelt. My mom comes into the car, starts the engine, and begins to drive before she sees where I'm sitting. "Lucy, why are you sitting all the way back there?"
I scowl. "Because I want to."
"Are you mad that I'm buying you dance shoes?" She asks.
"No I don't care about getting stupid dance shoes." Oh boy. Now she's gonna know that I don't like it and she's gonna be mad that I told her that I wanted to keep doing it. I brace myself for the yelling.

But there is none.

"Lucy! I thought you liked dancing!" She says. "At least you told me you did and you acted like you did!" That just makes me scowl harder.
"When we get home, how about you put on your new shoes and show me what you've learned so far! Maybe that'll help you like it more. Plus, Daddy might want to see you dance too." Mom says. Oh no! Now she's gonna make me practice for hours and hours when I'll really be wasting my time because I just want to quit. Why don't 7 year olds have more power over their parents?

After several more minutes, the car pulls into a parking lot of a store named the Irish Place. My mom climbs out of the car, but I stay in my seat. "Come on, Lucy. Stop being so stubborn." Mom says. Finally I unbuckle my seat belt and climb out. We walk into the small store, and I look around at everything in the store. There are these weird shoes, candies, clothes. Everything here apparently has something to do with Ireland. Except the owner at least. The owner walks over and I see that he's a heaver man with white hair. He comes over to us and says, "Hello, I'm Martin McDough and I'm the owner of the Irish Place. What are you looking for today?"
Mom shakes his hand and replies, "We're looking to buy her some irish dance shoes." Mom indicates towards me.
"Alrighty, follow me and I'll get you some nice ones." We follow him past rows and rows of racks of clothes and other "Irish" stuff before hitting a giant wall with dance shoes all over it.
"Now, as you're a beginner you're just gonna get soft shoes. But once you hit Advanced Beginner or Novice you can come back and get some hard shoes. Did your teacher explain the levels to ya?" Martin McDough asks and my mom shakes her head. "Right, so the level you're at is Beginner. After Beginner comes Advanced Beginner, then Novice, then Prizewinner, then Prelim, and the highest is Open. It doesn't matter about levels if you're not feising but if you are, then it definitely matters." He says. I try to take this all in, and then I realize that I'm the lowest level! I'm like a total failure! But then I remember that this is irish dance we're talking about and I don't care much about irish dance.
"What's feising?" My mom asks.
"Oh feises, or feisanna as some call it, are competitions. You compete against other girls and boys your age and your level. So if you're 6 you compete U6 in Beginner, 7 then you compete U7 in beginner, and so on." My mom nods and I try to think about competing. I would most definitely hate it because it would mean more dancing.

Martin makes me sit down and he puts a weirdly laced shoe on my foot. Then he begins tying it and it looks super duper complicated. "I would never be able to do this." I say. Mom and Martin laugh and Martin says, "Your teachers know and I'll teach your mom here how to do it before ya leave today, so you won't have to do it for awhile unless you want to, of course." Then he proceeds by telling mom how to lace it up, then he lets her lace up the other one, and when she's finally got it Martin tells me to stand up. "Do a couple steps now and see how they feel." I start doing hop 1,2,3's, and then I do part of the jig step I learned.
"They feel good." I say to Martin.
"Good! Then these are the ones!" He takes them off my feet, puts them back into their bag, and rings them up for my mom. Then my mom hands me the bag holding my very first pair of soft shoes and we leave the shop. Great. Now that I have the shoes, mom's gonna make me dance for awhile. Probably until they get small! I hate this. Yet for a moment in there, I felt like this is what I wanted to do. But I shrug off that feeling. 'This is NOT what you wanna do, Lucy. You wanna quit this stupid dancing stuff and prepare for the Travel Soccer season in a few weeks. You're just wasting your time dancing.' I think to myself.