His Tiny Dancer [COMPLETED]

XXII

~Friday January 14th~

"Alright, good morning everyone. We're starting off today's class with some brief notes, then we'll move into a small group activity," Olivia turns around from her usual history seat in front of me to wink, then quickly turns back around. I smile to myself as I take my notebook out and copy down the header of the presentation Mr O'Connor has projected on the board.

After twenty minutes, Mr O'Connor wraps up the presentation and begins to organize us into groups. "Let's do this by rows, in groups of three since there's nine in each row. So Laura, Olivia, and Nick will be a group, so on. The assignment is to read this set of excerpts from sources I'm about to hand out and evaluate the values and limitations or them, in regards to origin, purpose and context. I'm not checking your work or giving you a grade for this, but this skill will be on your final, so I suggest you take advantage of this opportunity to practice." With that he begins to hand out the papers. I look to my left, and see Noah flipping the page of his notebook. I look to my right and see Charlie twisting his pencil in a bright green hand held sharpener, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth. I look back forward and make eye contact with Olivia, who is giving me a pout. I shrug my shoulders, telling her we'll be just fine in these groups. I hope.

As soon as the paper is placed on his desk, Noah picks it back up and puts it on my desk, scooting his chair towards me. Charlie notices the shift and moves his chair too, only instead of ending up right next to my table like Noah, he only moves forward about six inches.

"Okay," I say slowly after a moment of silence between the three of us. "How about we all read the first source by ourselves, then we can do the other part together?"

"Sounds good," Noah says casually. He yawns into his fist before eventually looking down at his paper, while Charlie starts to read immediately, like he was just waiting for someone to tell him to start. I read as well, but after less than five seconds I feel a light tap on my left arm. I look up at Noah to find that his eyes are still trained on his paper where his finger is hovering right below a word. "Do you know what this word means?"I lean towards him to see what word he is pointing to, and can't help but get a whiff of how good he smells. Has he always smelled this good? Like mint and chocolate. But it couldn't be that, because it's definitely cologne I'm smelling.

The word is musket. I immediately know what this means, and am a little surprised that Noah doesn't, but I pretend like it's a hard word in order to not be mean. "Oh, that's a type of gun. I'm not sure what makes it different from other guns, but I know it's a gun."

"Thanks," Noah responds before immediately continuing reading. "Teresina," is whispered next to me not more than thirty seconds later. I look up from my packet to meet his bright eyes, speaking a soft hum. "What's a - uh - parliament?"

"It's the British government," I respond.

"More specifically, the parliamentary republic consists of an executive branch which has the support of a parliament, or the highest legislature in Britain." Charlie speaks, causing both mine and Noah's heads to turn to him in surprise.

"Yeah, that," I say. "Thanks." Noah says nothing. I turn back to him and watch as he breaks his stare at Charlie to glance at me for a quick moment, before returning back to his work. He doesn't ask another question.

After finishing the assignment moments before the bell, I exit history on my own, ready to head to homeroom. Like multiple times before, I find a tall figure walking in step with me, and don't even bother to look up to see who it is - I already know.

"Charlie is..." Noah begins, trailing off to give me a look.

"Oh don't be mean," I say glancing up at him. "He's nice. He's different, but he's a nice kid." Noah rolls his eyes, but I can't help but notice a slight smirk.

"Are you free tonight? You promised me another tutoring session before the test on Tuesday."

"Sorry Noah, I can't tonight." I'm about to leave it at that, when I realize I never elaborated on why I couldn't meet him yesterday - and I don't plan to. He at least deserves to know why I can't do tonight either. "I'll be at an audition."

"An audition? For what, that one I saw the video of?"

"Yup. Giselle."

"Cool. Then how about tomorrow?"

"Sure, I can do after three?"

"That works. Good luck, Tiny Dancer," Noah says before turning away from me, down a separate hallway.

"Thanks," I say quietly, even though he's already out of earshot.

~~~~~

My hair has been tediously slicked back into a perfect bun - meaning my scalp is crispy and crunchy - and a silver, sparkly hair clip sits just below my bun for a little something special. The only jewelry I wear is a pair of small studded earrings that match my clip. My tights are brand new, a perfect shade of soft pink with absolutely no rips or pulls. I'm wearing my favorite black leotard, the one that fits like a glove and manages to make me look skinny while still being comfortable. It's rolled up an inch at my hip to make my legs appear longer. I've touched up my makeup from school, adding extra foundation powder on my t-zone in hopes that it will prevent sweating. Even though it hasn't hurt for a few days now, my injured toe is taped to the one next to it for safe measure, beneath a new pair of my favorite pointe shoes.

I stand in the studio, my leg up on a barre, as I side-eye the group of judges sitting behind a table at the front of the room. Though they are mostly teachers that I've had before - including Miss Erica, who smiles at me - it's still intimidating to see them all scribbling notes down while staring at us. The audition hasn't started yet, so we are all stretching at the barre, completely silent with nerves.

After a couple of minutes, the audition finally begins. As I begin dancing, I try not to focus too much on making everything perfect. Instead, I trust my technique and muscle memory and dance the way I think I will on stage. I try to perform for the judges, not just dance.

And now, I just pray that my legs were turned out.

~~~~~

Written 6/25/18, Published 7/8/18

Boy have I had a long week! For the Fourth of July I drove to Washington DC with my high school's marching band to play in the big parade. It was so swelteringly hot, but a really cool opportunity for our band! And if you watched the parade, you might have even seen me playing and marching!! We also got a nice tour of lots of the museums and memorials so it was a good trip overall, with a lot of my good friends.
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