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

Chapter 10

I look around Studio A, and see about 25 dancers lined up on the wall opposite from us. They all look tired and some are sweating and fanning themselves with their hands.

"This is our Prelim and Open Champ class!" Anne says and then she indicates to her class, "And this is our Beginner class!"
"Do you mind if we watch?" Razz asks.
"Of course not! The girls love having an audience to perform in front of!" Anne exclaims.
"Alright! Girls, why don't you line up in front of the room and take a seat? The girls in the Champ class will put on a small show for you!" Razz says clapping her hands together.
We all walk over to the front of the room and sit down. I don't know what to expect. I don't really care how these girls dance just as long as I'm missing dance class, I'm happy!
"Alright so this is Mandy, Laurel, and Katherine. They're in our U14 age group. Mandy and Laurel are in Open, and Katherine has 2 out of the 3 firsts that she needs in prelim to get into open. This is called a hornpipe." Anne starts the music, and the three girls stand there waiting to begin. This is a strange music, not the usual reel or jig but then again they're wearing different shoes. The shoes have, like, heels on the bottom and a block thing in the bottom of the front. The three girls point their feet and begin dancing. All of our jaws drop, well at least mine does. These girls are a-ma-zing! They can kick so high and they make so many fast sounds with their feet, each perfectly in time with the music. It's like they're making repeating the music with their feet! I didn't even know somebody could be this good, let alone three people! When they finish, we all clap and somebody a few people down from me says, "Wow."

Then Anne says, "This is Margaret, and she's in the U15 age group. She's in open, and this is a special dance she does. It's called her set piece, and every girl in open does a set piece at competitions by themselves. Margaret's set is called Planxty Davis, and she learned it today." Margaret steps out and waits for the music to begin. It takes forever for her to start, but finally she points her foot and begins dancing. It's amazing. Her sounds are all so clear and she's so loud. She even does some move where she stands on her tippy toes! It's so long and amazing I can't even believe how she learned it today and how she can remember it! It may just be even more amazing than the hornpipe! When Margaret finishes, she points her toe and bows to us and we all clap. I turn to Chloe and say, "She's amazing!" Chloe nods, and she looks like her mind has been blown. Olivia heard what I said because she says, "She got 8th at regionals last year, and she's going for top 5 this year!" I turn to her in disbelief. "How do you know that?'
"My sister, Sophie, is friends with her." Olivia says matter-of-factly.
"Is your sister in this class?" I ask. You'd think if her sister was in this class that she would tell me, but you never know. She might not wanna brag about her sister being amazing or something.
"Uh huh. She quit in May."
"What? How good was she?" I ask. She probably wasn't that good because if you're amazing you don't just quit.
"She was in open and she got 12th at Regionals last year. She was in Margaret's age group."
"Wow! And she quit? Why would she do that?" I ask. Why would you ever quit if you were 12th in the region? Maybe 12th wasn't good. Maybe there were only like 20 or 30 girls in the group. Or maybe there were only 12.
"She had constant Achilles pain, so she decided to stop." Olivia said.
"How many people were in her regional group?" I need to know because maybe the whole injury thing is just to cover up for not being that good and getting last at regionals.
"I think in Sophie's group there were 142 girls."
"WHAT? In the whole regionals?" It had to have been all the age groups!
"No just in U14, which is what she was last year." Olivia says. What? That's a ton of people in just one age group! Sophie must've been amazing then.

Our conversation stops when Razz says to us, "Time to go girls!" The champ dancers wave goodbye and smile at us. We wave back.
"Chloe, can I talk to you for a minute?" Razz asks on our way out. "The rest of you can just head back to studio B and then you can get your stuff and leave if your parent is here." Why does Razz want to talk to Chloe? I wanna stick around and listen to their conversation but if I were to be caught I would get in serious trouble.