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31: Dress Rehearsal

* Rosie POV *

"You have one minute to change and be on stage so hurry it up! Rosie! What are you still doing in your warm ups?" Ms. Marina called from the hallway.

Back stage was a mess of hair spray, ballet costumes and girls everywhere putting on makeup and dance shoes and pinning their hair up.

I was under a table in a split trying to get some clearance from everyone but of course, I was found out and now had to get out of my comfortable clothes.

I groaned and slowly started to fold out of my split when a head popped down under the table where I sat.

"Did you take my eyeliner?" Elle asked, her eyes giving me a judgmental look. I shook my head.

"Sorry I don't wear black eye liner with sparkles." I replied, inching my way from the table. Elle made a noise in her throat.

"That was one time. And plus my mom bought that one for me by mistake. You know how the story goes. Anyway I'm going to borrow yours then since there is almost no time to find mine right now." Elle finished as she grabbed my makeup bag.

I ignored her and threw my sweatshirt and pants on the table.

"Where's the hair spray?" I asked everyone in the room. A fourth year brought it to me with a small smile and ran off. I quickly sprayed the last bits of fly-aways from my hair and placed the bottle back on the table.

"Ready to go?" I asked Elle. Elle screwed the lid back on the liner and stood up and stretched almost like a cat.

"Let's just get this stupid dress rehearsal over with." I chuckled and together we left the changing rooms and ran to side stage. James was already there speaking to one of the adults that volunteered to dance the part of Clara's father. Harper was there as well with Olive. Together both of them were going through the steps from Snow.

Jojo and Tina were on the stage behind the curtain working on turns and Sara stood by herself working on her splits. I saw Cara and Wendy standing a little further off talking to themselves, glancing back toward Sara with worried expressions. Obviously something happened between those three.

"Rosie, grab my leg. I want to see how far it can go today." Elle demanded, putting her right leg on my shoulder. I glanced at her dirty shoe only centimeters from my ear and held my breath.

"You have disgusting feet dude." I commented as I grabbed ahold of her foot and started to push it toward Elle's face, causing the leg to form a vertical split. Elle grabbed ahold of her leg and then let it go and shook her other leg.

"My turn." I placed my leg in her arms. Elle spit her tongue at me and gave me her left leg.

"You do my left and I'll do your right."

This habit of ours was not a new one. We did this before every big dress rehearsal and performance. The stretch always helped us feel more comfortable in our new costumes.

When Elle had finished stretching my other leg, I turned to look for the rosin box while Elle started walking around.

When I had covered enough of my point shoe with the yellow powder and tested out turns in both shoes I looked around and was surprised to find Elle talking to Sara in the back corner.

As I made my way over there, I heard Ms. Marina call to take our places and exit the stage. I also saw a pair of annoyed and jealous friends of Sara glaring at Elle.

When I reached the pair talking, now on the off sides of the stage I saw that Sara seemed calmer than usual and surprisingly nice to Elle.

"He's coming to the last show I think. He is not the biggest fan of ballet any way. Be glad that he is coming at all. He never came before." Elle finished. Sara nodded and looked toward me.