Slip Jig Summer Read online

  Four

  The drive to Windsor, about five hours south of Toronto, was boring—nothing but flat fields, some trees and giant wind turbines. Finally we turned off the highway and drove until we reached my cousins’ neighborhood, which was row upon row of the exact same house in various shades of brown and gray.

  “This is it,” my mom said as she pulled up to a brown brick house.

  I carried my suitcase up to the front door, but before we even knocked, the door swung open.

  “Helen!” my uncle said as he hugged my mom tightly. “It’s been so long! It’s great to see you again. And Natalie! Look how tall you are! I hope you remember me.”

  I nodded, even though he only seemed vaguely familiar. I took a step back. He got the message and didn’t try to hug me.

  “It’s good to see you, Nolan,” my mom said with a smile. We followed my uncle inside.

  A brunette woman and three girls were waiting in the hallway.

  “So!” my Uncle Nolan said as he clasped his hands together. “They’re here!” My aunt Lydia, I’m guessing, smiled and gave me a quick hug.

  “And these are your cousins,” Uncle Nolan said. “You’ve all met before, but it was a long, long time ago.” My mom and my aunt both looked a bit embarrassed.

  “Fiona,” said one of the girls, formally extending a hand for me to shake. She had long brown hair like her mom and freckles on her nose.

  “Lissa,” the second girl said. She looked just like Fiona but was not quite as tall. Twins but not identical, I thought.

  “They’re both fifteen, like you,” said Uncle Nolan.

  “And I’m Molly,” my smallest cousin said. She had auburn hair and freckles all over. “I’m twelve.”

  “You’ll be sleeping in Molly’s room,” Aunt Lydia said. “There’s more room in there, since the twins already share a room. Why don’t you show her where it is, Molly?”

  Great, I thought. I have to share with the youngest one.

  I followed Molly upstairs. Along the way she informed me that she had bunk beds and she was willing to give me the top bunk and that her goldfish’s name was Henry. She talked a mile a minute.

  Her room was painted pale green and had a big window looking out into their backyard. I could see a large back lawn and a flower garden. Next to Molly’s dresser was a rectangular fish tank on a stand. The fish swimming around the fake plants and sunken pirate ship was bright orange with fancy fins.

  “I thought goldfish lived in bowls,” I said as I put my suitcase down.

  “No. Absolutely not,” Molly said very seriously. “Goldfish should never be kept in bowls. They produce too much waste and grow too large. They need at least twenty gallons of water and a proper filtration system. They’re cold-water fish, so technically they don’t need a heater, but it’s good to have one, just to make sure the water’s temperature stays stable.”

  “Oh…okay,” I said, pretending as best I could that all the information she was downloading on me was fascinating.

  “C’mon, I’ll show you the rest of the house,” Molly said, and I followed her back downstairs.

  I was surprised to see my mom standing at the door. It looked like she was ready to leave already.

  “Sorry, honey, I really have to get going,” my mom said as she drew me into a big hug. “It’s just two months. It will fly by. I love you. I’m going to miss you so much.”

  “I love you too,” I said quietly.

  My mom waved one last time before driving away. For the first summer ever, I couldn’t wait for September.

  Five

  “Your mom told us you like to dance,” Aunt Lydia said at dinner that night.

  “Would you like to go to the girls’ dance class tonight?” Uncle Nolan asked.

  My cousins did ballet? Maybe this summer wouldn’t be so bad after all!

  “I’d love to,” I said almost immediately.

  After dinner I unpacked my tights and leotards and changed into them. I covered up with a pair of lightweight track pants and a T-shirt. I tucked my pink ballet slippers and pointe shoes into my dance bag along with the bottle of water my aunt had given me and hopped into the minivan with my cousins. Aunt Lydia drove us to the local community center.

  It looked nothing like ballet class back home. In the hallway warming up was a dozen or so kids, ranging from ten years old into their late teens. I spotted a couple of boys in the group. Most of the dancers wore shorts and T-shirts. My cousins tried to introduce me to a few people, but there were so many names and faces I was having trouble remembering them all.

  The classroom door opened and a young woman let a group of little students out. The older kids filed into the classroom. I saw some kicking off their street shoes and rummaging in their dance bags, so I took off my track pants and slipped on my ballet slippers.

  “Um…” said my cousin Fiona. “You can leave your pants on.”

  “What?” I asked and looked up to see that everyone else was still wearing shorts and T-shirts and lacing up black shoes over their socks. No one was wearing tights and leotards. No one was wearing pink ballet slippers.

  I could feel my face growing hot. I wasn’t sure what type of dance class this was, but it definitely wasn’t ballet. I had just assumed when Aunt Lydia said dance that it must be ballet. They all stared at me. I grabbed my bag and ran from the room.

  “Natalie! Wait!” Molly called after me.

  I found the sign pointing to the bathroom and kept running. I found the first empty stall and slammed the door shut behind me. I quickly put my street clothes back on.

  “Natalie?” Molly said, entering the bathroom.

  I didn’t answer. I felt incredibly stupid. And embarrassed. And a little bit pissed at my cousins for not telling me we weren’t going to a ballet class.

  “Natalie? I can see your feet. I know you’re in here,” Molly said.

  I heard the bathroom door open again.

  “Is she okay?” It was my cousin Lissa.

  “Come out, Natalie.” And now Fiona. “We thought you knew we didn’t do ballet. We’re sorry.”

  I still didn’t feel like answering.

  “We’re all going to go back in with you,” Fiona said.

  “Yeah, we’ll just explain you didn’t know. It will be fine,” Molly said.

  “We’re really sorry,” Lissa added.

  They sounded sincere. I felt a little bit stupid for locking myself in a bathroom stall. Slowly I opened the door. I looked at all three of them, their faces concerned. I believed them. They hadn’t tried to trick me.

  “So, what kind of dance class is it?” I asked, trying to act like everything was cool.

  “It’s Irish dancing,” Lissa said. “It’s really fun.”

  “You’ll probably pick it up quickly, since you dance already,” Molly said.

  “Yeah, we heard your mom say you’re really good at ballet,” Fiona added.

  “I guess I can try it out,” I said. Better than hiding out in the bathroom until my aunt picked us up.

  As we walked back down the hall I could hear upbeat music flowing from the dance classroom. It sounded like a fiddle. When I stepped back in the room with my cousins, the dancers had formed two straight lines in front of the one wall that had mirrors on it. They were jumping from one foot to the other and pointing the opposite foot. Their arms were held straight down at their sides.

  “Cuts!” the teacher called and then noticed I had returned with my cousins.

  The dance students continued to jump from one foot to the other, this time bringing up the opposite leg, as the teacher made her way over to us.

  “Come join the warm-up, girls,” the teacher said to my cousins. She walked over to me with her arm extended and a big smile on her face. “My name is Anna. Are you Natalie?”

  “Yes,” I said, shaking her hand.

  “I understand you’re a
cousin of the Quinn girls?”

  I nodded.

  “Their mom called ahead. She told me you’d be coming today and that you did ballet. You can wear your ballet slippers if you like—they’re pretty similar to the ones we wear for this class,” Anna said.

  I looked at the black shoes all the students were wearing. Soft leather, like my ballet slippers, but with crisscross laces up the whole top of the foot and a flat brown bottom.

  “Try following along with the warm-ups,” Anna said. “And then I can have one of the students teach you sevens.”

  “Okay, thanks,” I said.

  “Points again, class!” Anna called and guided me toward the back line of dancers. One of the boys gave me an encouraging smile. He had floppy brown hair that bounced around every time he jumped.

  I smiled back as I began to try the point and jump. I was just getting the hang of it when Anna called for the class to switch it up again. “Point hop backs!”

  I had to stop a moment to watch the others. I realized they were doing the same step as before but adding an extra hop. I gave it a try and realized it wasn’t quite as hard as it looked.

  “Good, Natalie!” Anna said.

  I was pleased she had noticed, but right after that I lost my balance. I felt my face grow warm as the boy next to me glanced over.

  “Cuts!” Anna called.

  The students began to kick one bent leg up while jumping from one foot to the other. It kind of reminded me of watching the soccer team warm up at school—except they, of course, were kicking balls, not dancing.

  “Good job!” Anna said as she turned off the music. “Thomas, will you take Natalie out and teach her sevens? Everyone else, pair up for your reels!”

  The boy with the floppy hair smiled at me again. He seemed like he was around the same age as me or maybe a year older.

  “I’m Thomas,” he said. “C’mon, I’ll teach you your first reel step.”

  I followed him out into the hall.

  “Okay. Newbie basics!” Thomas said. “The first thing you do before starting any dance is stand in first position.”

  I watched as he arranged his feet into a familiar position—his left toe was pointed to the left side and his right toe was pointed to the right, with his right heel touching his left toe. I put my feet in what I knew as ballet fifth.

  “Great turn out!” he said.

  I smiled and shrugged. Who knew Irish dancers turned their feet out just like ballet dancers?

  “And then you point,” Thomas said, stretching out his right foot into a perfect ballet tendu. I did the same.

  “Here,” Thomas said, bending down and nudging my foot over a bit so it would be crossed over my left foot. “Always make sure you keep your legs crossed.”

  I felt awkward. Apparently it wasn’t exactly the same as a ballet tendu.

  “Then you rise,” Thomas said, bringing his feet together and standing on his tiptoes, which I knew as relevé in fifth in ballet class. I rose onto my toes and he nodded. “Good. Now we cut, like we just did in warm-up.”

  I watched as he jumped and “cut” his right leg up over his left and then put it back down. He took a few little steps to the right.

  “You try,” he said.

  I tried to do what he had shown me.

  “Wait! I forgot something!” Thomas said, grabbing my arms, which had naturally gone into the position that felt most comfortable to me—a low ballet fifth, rounded and down in front of me.

  “Arms down and at the sides,” Thomas said as he placed my arms.

  Right. I’d seen that in the class. I felt a bit awkward as he held my arms down straight along my body. I had never had a male dance teacher before, and definitely not one as young (and cute) as Thomas. I was trying hard not to think about this as Thomas showed me the steps. It would only make me more nervous.

  “Go ahead—try again with arms tucked in now,” Thomas said.

  Holding my arms straight felt a bit funny—like half of my body wasn’t even dancing. I began again. I stood in “first,” pointed and rose up on my tiptoes. Then I cut my right leg and tiptoed to the right. It felt a little bit like a pas de bourrée.

  “Excellent!” Thomas said with a grin.

  Thomas continued to teach me the rest of the “step”—it was actually a series of steps involving cuts, bourrées and hop backs. More like learning a whole combination. Then Thomas told me I had to reverse it! I started over, learning the same step on my left side.

  “Now to music,” he said, pointing to the classroom door where we could hear Celtic music playing.

  Tapping into the beat of the music, we did the whole step together, both right and left.

  “You’re a natural,” Thomas said. “Let’s go back in so Anna can see.”

  While I was pretty proud of how quickly I’d picked it up, my stomach flipped over at the thought of having to dance in front of the whole class.

  Six

  I followed Thomas into the classroom, where Anna gave us a nod and a smile. Thomas led me to the back of the line of the pairs preparing to dance. I watched as my cousin Fiona and another girl both stood ready in Irish first position. They pointed and rose to their tiptoes before beginning to dance. Suddenly, their feet were a flurry of points, cuts, kicks and hops. They flew across the studio, keeping their arms and upper bodies perfectly straight. The girls in front of us took their turn next. Then it was time for Thomas and me.

  “I’m going to go out there and start with you. You show them what you’ve learned, and then I’ll do my own steps,” he said.

  He waited in first position with me, and I followed as he pointed his right foot and then rose onto his toes. He nodded to me right before we were to begin the first cut and move to the right. I felt my heart quicken as I realized the whole class was watching us. I made it through the entire sequence he’d taught me—I was a little shaky and didn’t feel very graceful, but at least I kept in time with the music. Everyone clapped. Molly pulled me over to the wall, where the rest of the class was standing, while Thomas did his own steps. He moved across the entire room with intricate footwork and jumps. I noticed his shoes were different than the slippers the girls wore. The black leather shoes laced up like a regular running shoe and had small wooden heels. Thomas even managed to click his heels a few times during his dance.

  The class moved on to what Anna called light jigs. Anna asked me to observe and promised I would learn one soon. Then they did slip jigs. The music was a bit slower and very pretty. I watched as my cousins moved gracefully and with confidence. The slip jig was beautiful.

  Then students were given a break to grab a drink and change into their hard shoes. These kind of looked like tap shoes, black with a heel and a tap part under the front of the foot and under the heel. They laced up like a regular shoe, and some of them had decorative buckles on top.

  The rest of the class was much noisier as all the students warmed up. Anna suggested I go over my sevens, but I couldn’t help watching. Two by two they went through their hard-shoe steps to music. I was amazed at how fast they could move their feet and by how many different sounds they could make!

  After everyone had done at least two different hard-shoe dances, the class ended. Molly came over to where I was practicing.

  “We all bow to our teacher at the end of class,” she whispered.

  “Hey, just like ballet,” I told her.

  Instead of the grande reverence we did at the end of ballet class, the Irish-dance students simply pointed their right feet out as if they were going to begin dancing, but instead of going into relevé they bowed at their waists, still keeping their arms along their sides. I followed suit, and Molly gave me a nod to let me know I had done it right. I wanted to make sure I was properly thanking Anna for the wonderful class.

  “So, how did it go?” Aunt Lydia asked as I hopped into the minivan with my cousins after class.

/>   “Natalie’s great. She already knows how to do sevens!” Molly said.

  “Would you want to continue to go to dance class with the girls?” Aunt Lydia asked. “I know it’s not ballet, but if you like it, I’ll sign you up for the summer.”

  I looked at my cousins. All three of them were grinning.

  “Yeah, it’ll be fun!” Lissa said. “You already did so well in just one class.”

  “I don’t know…I’ve only ever done ballet,” I said.

  “Maybe you could practice ballet at home,” Fiona suggested.

  “Shh! Don’t tell her!” Molly said excitedly. “It’ll be a surprise!”

  “What? What will be a surprise?” I asked.

  I saw Aunt Lydia glance back at us in the rearview mirror and smile.

  Seven

  “We should blindfold her!” Molly suggested.

  “No, silly—we have to go down the stairs, and she might fall,” Fiona said.

  “What’s downstairs?” I asked.

  “The surprise!” Lissa said.

  I followed the girls down to the basement. Fiona flicked on the lights and I found myself standing in…a dance studio! The entire basement had hardwood floors, perfect for dancing on, and there were tall rectangular mirrors hanging side by side, covering an entire wall.

  “You have your own home dance studio?” I asked in astonishment.

  “Pretty neat, right?” Fiona said. She began to skip around.

  “We even have music,” Lissa said as she walked over to the entertainment cabinet.

  She opened it up and then connected her phone to the stereo inside. She scrolled through until she found a song she liked—a popular song I had heard on the radio, though I couldn’t remember what it was called.

  Lissa began dancing around the room—but more in a style you might see in a music video, not Irish dancing. Her sisters joined in, but then they joined hands and made a circle. They started doing cuts and sevens together, finding the beat in the song to coincide with their Irish-dance steps.