Shai & Emmie Star in Dancy Pants! Read online

  Program

  SCENE 1 Hurricane Shai

  SCENE 2 The Cupcake Bets

  SCENE 3 A Mystery

  SCENE 4 The Pajama Meeting

  SCENE 5 More Secrets

  SCENE 6 Five Easy Steps

  SCENE 7 Confession Time

  SCENE 8 Worst Dancer Ever

  SCENE 9 Winning and Losing

  SCENE 10 Together Again

  SCENE 11 Onstage!

  SCENE 12 101 Cupcakes

  About the Authors and Illustrator

  To my family, friends, and fans, for the love and continuous support

  —Q. W.

  To Janet Giewont, the best teacher in the universe. Thank you for bringing love and light to our family.

  —N. E. O.

  For my niece, Emma

  —S. M.

  SCENE 1

  Hurricane Shai

  “You are hurricanes!” Ms. Englert called out to the class.

  Shai Williams pretended to be a hurricane. She spun around and around and waved her arms in a swirly pattern. She made whooshing wind noises through her lips.

  Nearby, her best friend, Emmie, did some tiptoe-y ballet steps.

  “Are you raindrops?” Shai asked Emmie.

  “Yes, exactly!” Emmie replied.

  Shai swooped in wide circles around Emmie, spinning and arm waving and whooshing. Emmie quickened her raindrop steps until they were a frenzied staccato: plinkplinkplinkplinkplink. The two girls were a hurricane together!

  “Now the storm is starting to wind down . . . down . . . down,” said Ms. Englert in a hushed voice.

  All the students began winding down, down, down. Shai stopped spinning and arm waving and whooshing. Emmie’s raindrops slowed to a trickle.

  “Oh, look! The sun is coming out!” Ms. Englert exclaimed.

  Shai tipped her face to the sky—or rather, the ceiling of the dance studio—and made flappy jazz hands. Emmie did the same. They smiled sunny smiles at each other.

  Ms. Englert clapped, and everyone came to a halt. “That was lovely. No, not just lovely . . . magnificent! Now we’re going to pretend we are salads!”

  Salads?

  Ms. Englert was the dance teacher at the Sweet Auburn School for the Performing Arts. She was full of zany ideas. Today she was having each student improvise, or make up, dances to go with different themes.

  Shai loved Ms. Englert. She also loved the dance studio, which was on the second floor of the school. It had mirrored walls and ballet barres. It had framed photographs of famous dancers like Alvin Ailey, Savion Glover, and Misty Copeland. It had a poster of three dancing honeybees that said: BEE AMAZING!

  After the salad dance, Ms. Englert had the class improvise a crayon dance. (Shai improvised her favorite color, turquoise.) Then a video-game dance. (She improvised Olimar from her favorite game, Pikmin for Wii U.)

  It was time for a break. The students got their water bottles. Ms. Englert played some relaxing chirping-birds music on her phone. She sat down on her big blue yoga ball.

  “So I’d like to put something out there.” Ms. Englert fluttered her fingers and traced three squiggly letters in the air. “D . . . W . . . K . . . Does anyone know what that abbreviation stands for?”

  Shai made a scrunchy thinking face. D and W and K.

  Decorating With Kites?

  Driving While Karaoking?

  Shai’s friend Rio raised his hand. “DWK stands for Dancing With Kids. It’s a dance competition!”

  “Yes, Rio. Exactly! It’s held in a different city each year. This year it will be right here in Atlanta, at the Robinson Arena,” said Ms. Englert.

  Oh yeah. Shai had seen the competition on TV once, and the dancers had been really amazetastic!

  “Are we going to DWK for a field trip?” a boy named Capone asked Ms. Englert.

  “Even better! I was thinking that we could enter the competition as a class!” Ms. Englert replied.

  Shai’s jaw dropped. Enter the competition as a class? Ms. Englert might as well have said, “Let’s enter the Olympics as a class!” or “Let’s fly to Jupiter as a class!” They were only third graders. Granted, Dancing With Kids was just for kids. But from the one time Shai had watched it, the competitors had seemed like the best dancers in the universe, practically.

  Also, the Robinson Arena was hunormous! Shai glanced out the window. There it was . . . stretching across Atlanta’s downtown skyline like a silver spaceship. Momma and Daddy had taken the family there for the women’s basketball championship, and there had been a billion zillion people in the audience.

  The dance studio filled with buzzy, excited whispers. Emmie raised one eyebrow at Shai. It was one of Emmie’s new skills, raising one eyebrow, and it made her look like a cool mad scientist. Shai tried to raise one eyebrow back, but her eyebrow wouldn’t cooperate, so she ended up squinting and squishing her cheeks instead. Emmie giggled.

  “What’s the grand prize? Is it lots and lots of money?” Gabby spoke up. Gabby was Shai’s frenemy, which was friend plus enemy.

  Ms. Englert shifted on her yoga ball. “Well . . . I’m not sure. But we’re not doing this for money or ribbons or anything like that. We’re doing this so you can get valuable competition experience—and also have a good time! There’s nothing like being under the bright lights on a big stage!”

  “I bet it’s like a hundred dollars. Or maybe even a thousand dollars,” Gabby murmured to a girl named Isabella. Gabby was kind of a know-it-all.

  Shai sipped at her water bottle. She had been in only one other dance competition before. Four years ago her class from the Twinkle Toes Dance Studio had participated in a local competition at the community center. They had performed a shuffly tap routine to the song “I Wish” from Happy Feet. It had been super-scary, especially when Shai forgot her Mumble solo steps and had to improvise new ones on the spot. But it had been super-fun, too, and their group had come in fifth place. They had received a plaque and gift certificates for ice-cream cones at the Scoop.

  But that wasn’t the same as competing in Dancing With Kids.

  And the community center wasn’t the same as the Robinson Arena.

  Not even close.

  Were Shai and her classmates ready for the challenge?

  SCENE 2

  The Cupcake Bet

  Ms. Englert handed out the list of dance routines they would be performing for Dancing With Kids. The competition was next month.

  “Singin’ in the Rain” (tap): Shai, Rio, and Emmie

  “Dance of the Flowers” (ballet): Ezra, Nya, and Sarah

  “It’s the Hard-Knock Life” (contemporary): Ruby, Ben, and Capone

  “I Wish” (tap): Gabby, Isabella, and Jay

  “Over the Rainbow” (ballet): Libby, Nick, and Julia

  “Circle of Life” (contemporary): Glenn, Garrett, and Molly

  Ms. Englert had added lots of smiley faces and hearts and stars, too.

  No one was performing a solo. “I want everyone to work in teams, support each other, and not stress out,” Ms. Englert told the class. “The theme here is fun, boys and girls. F-U-N, fun!”

  * * *

  At lunch Shai and Emmie sat at their usual table in the cafeteria by the potted palm tree and discussed the dance assignments. Wednesday was Chinese Bang-Bang Chicken day, which was their favorite menu item for the whole entire week, especially since Becky the cafeteria lady had a special way of making the chicken with double-triple-quadruple extra sauce. Along with the chicken, Shai had two regular milks, like she always did, and Emmie had one chocolate milk, like she always did.

  “I’m so delighted we
’re doing a dance together!” Shai said.

  “Yes, it’s quite splendid,” Emmie replied.

  Shai and Emmie were reading Little Women for the Cool Books Club, which was their new book club. They were the only members so far. “Delighted” and “splendid” were Little Women words.

  Shai was also delighted that she was in one of the tap groups. The students at the school all studied tap, ballet, modern, contemporary, hip-hop, lyrical, and other styles. Tap was Shai’s favorite.

  Also, Emmie was an amazetastic tap dancer, and so was Rio. They both wanted to be professional dancers when they grew up.

  Shai spotted Rio searching for a table. She waved to him.

  “Would you care to join Emmie and me for luncheon?” she called out.

  “Luncheon? Um, sure!” Rio replied.

  He sat down at the girls’ table and dug into his food. “So when do you guys want to start rehearsing ‘Singin’ in the Rain’?” he asked with a mouth full of chicken.

  “Well, Ms. Englert said she’d be teaching us our choreography this week. So maybe we could start this weekend?” Emmie suggested.

  Shai blew bubbles in her milk, which she wasn’t allowed to do at home for some reason. “We could take turns rehearsing at each other’s houses,” she said in a gurgly, bubbly voice.

  Rio frowned. “Um, yeah . . . I’ll have to ask my mom and dad. Our house is kind of small.”

  “Okay. Why don’t we have the first rehearsal at my house, then? This Saturday afternoon?” said Shai.

  Rio and Emmie nodded. Shai made a mental note to herself: Ask Momma and Daddy if we can use the basement for our rehearsal. Among other things, that would mean telling Jamal, Samantha, Jacobe, and all the dogs and cats to KEEP OUT. Especially Samantha, who could be a pesty pest sometimes. Actually, all the time.

  “What should we call our trio?” Emmie asked.

  “How about the Dancy Pants Trio?” Rio suggested. “You know, like fancy-pants, except with a D?”

  “Delightful!” said Shai.

  “Splendid!” said Emmie.

  * * *

  After lunch Shai headed to her locker, humming happily. She was really glad to be in the Dancy Pants Trio with her friends. It was going to be so much fun!

  When she opened her locker door, a bunch of items tumbled out: sheet music, drama scripts, textbooks, fruity markers, and her apple and cheese stick snack from . . . last month? Oops. She stuffed it all back in and pulled out her clarinet case for her orchestra music class.

  Gabby pranced up to her. She was wearing a T-shirt with a big gold movie-star star on it. Her family used to live in Hollywood, California. She considered herself to be a Real Actress because she had been in a toothpaste commercial and a movie called The Attack of the Zombie Potatoes 4.

  “Hi, Shane!” Gabby sang.

  “Oh, hey Grabby.”

  “Shane” and “Grabby” were their nicknames for each other. When they had first met, Gabby kept pretending that she had forgotten Shai’s name and called her “Shane.” And Shai had thought “Grabby” was a fitting nickname for Gabby, who wanted everything for herself. But now they got along, sort of.

  The truth was, Shai still wasn’t sure if she liked Gabby or not.

  Gabby leaned against the locker next to Shai’s.

  “Soooo . . . I guess you and Emmie and Rio are doing a tap routine for the competition?”

  “Yup. I guess you and Isabella and Jay are too.”

  “Wanna make it interesting?” Gabby said with a sly smile.

  “Interesting . . . how?” Shai asked.

  “If my team gets a ribbon in the tap-dancing category and yours doesn’t, you have to bring me a cupcake every day for a whole week. And the same if your team gets a ribbon. Deal?”

  Shai hesitated. “But Ms. Englert said we’re not supposed to worry about ribbons and stuff. We’re supposed to have F-U-N.”

  “This will be F-U-N. It will be an F-U-N B-E-T,” Gabby spelled.

  A fun bet? Shai considered this.

  “No, thanks,” she said after a moment. She didn’t think Ms. Englert would like her students betting against each other. That seemed like the opposite of F-U-N.

  Gabby crossed her arms and smirked. “Yeah. I figured you’d be too chicken.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re chicken because Isabella and Jay and I are better tap dancers than you and Emmie and Rio.”

  “No way!”

  “Way! I’ve been working extra-hard on my tap lately. And Isabella and Jay are almost as good as me. Your team doesn’t stand a chance.”

  Shai stewed and simmered in her head. She felt like doing a mad Hurricane Shai dance.

  “Fine! I’ll do the bet! Except, the loser has to bring the winner a cupcake every day for a whole month!” Shai blurted out.

  “Deal!”

  “Deal!”

  They made it official with a pinkie-swear. Shai smiled so hard that her teeth hurt. She wanted to let Gabby know how sure and confident she was about the Dancy Pants Trio.

  But inside, her stomach twisted with worry.

  What had she just agreed to? Was it too late for take-backs?

  “FYI, my favorite flavor is chocolate with raspberry frosting. So make sure you have lots of those,” Gabby said with a hair-flip. “Oh, and FYI, ‘FYI’ means For Your Information.”

  Shai glared at Gabby. Forget about take-backs.

  “FYI, my favorite flavor is lemonade: lemon with lemon frosting,” she told Gabby, also with a hair-flip.

  The cupcake bet was on!

  SCENE 3

  A Mystery

  Shai was trying to do her English homework. Ms. Cremaldi had assigned them to write a short mystery story, and it was due a week from Friday.

  Shai’s Morkie puppy, Sugar, was sleeping on her lap. The new cat, Sweetiepie, was making a sphinx position on top of Shai’s desk and gazing at Sugar with hooded eyes. Sweetiepie used to be called Crabbycakes, but Momma thought that calling her a sweet name might help make her personality less crabby.

  It was a dark and stormy night! Shai wrote in her notebook. The notebook was turquoise and covered with fairies and emoji stickers.

  She crossed out the first line and wrote: Once upon a time, a mysterious thing happened!!!!! She knew that exclamation points always made words more interesting and dramatic. But she crossed out that line too.

  Her brain just wasn’t focused on story writing. It was focused on the cupcake bet, and it kept flip-flopping back and forth on the matter.

  At the moment, her brain was flip-flopping in the direction of “Cancel the bet!!!!!” Because how was Shai going to explain to Emmie and Rio that they absolutely had to get a ribbon so she wouldn’t lose to Gabby?

  Yeah, no pressure, guys, she thought glumly.

  But maybe it was no big deal. So what if she lost the bet? Losing was part of life. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, Daddy often said.

  Shai shook her head and huffed out an angry breath. It was a big deal. She couldn’t lose to Gabby. The girl was just so . . . so . . . so . . . arrogant, like she thought she was better than everyone else.

  Shai reached over Sweetiepie, dug into a bowl of gummy worms, and plopped one into her mouth. Maybe a snack would help her calm down and come up with a solution to her problem.

  But the only thing it did was make her hungry for more gummy worms.

  Sighing, Shai headed downstairs. It was almost time for dinner, and Momma and Daddy would not be pleased if she filled up on gummy worms, so she had better put them back.

  Grandma Rosa and Aunt Mac-N-Cheese were in the kitchen cooking dinner. Grandma Rosa was Momma’s momma and lived around the corner. Aunt Mac-N-Cheese was Momma’s sister and lived downtown. Shai knew that Momma was working late at her veterinary clinic and Daddy had taken Samantha for her speech therapy appointment.

  Yummy smells came from the kitchen.

  Voices came from the kitchen too . . . low, whispery voices.

  “W
e can’t tell Annemarie and Shaquille,” said Grandma Rosa.

  “It’ll be our secret,” said Aunt Mac-N-Cheese.

  Shai scrunched up her forehead. What couldn’t they tell Momma and Daddy?

  Obviously, she had to find out. She popped one last gummy worm into her mouth, for courage, and strolled into the kitchen.

  Grandma Rosa was at the stove, stirring something bubbly and steamy. Aunt Mac-N-Cheese was peeling carrots at the sink. Jacobe, who was two, was sitting on the floor with plastic measuring cups and dried pinto beans. The marmalade kitties, Purrball and Furball, were playing cat-soccer with one of the pinto beans.

  “What secret?” Shai asked.

  Grandma Rosa dropped her ladle into the pot. Aunt Mac-N-Cheese dropped her vegetable peeler. They stared at Shai in surprise.

  “Cake,” Jacobe muttered. He scooped a cup full of pinto beans and poured them over his head. Purrball and Furball meowed and scattered. Jacobe gave an evil baby cackle.

  “What secret?” Shai repeated.

  Grandma Rosa picked up a yellow thingamajiggy from the counter. Whatever it was, it was small and flat and papery.

  “Oh, hello Shaianne,” Grandma Rosa said. She slipped the thingamajiggy into her apron pocket. “Your aunt MacKenzie and I were just—”

  “—trying to figure out what to serve for dessert later!” Aunt Mac-N-Cheese finished with a bright smile. “You hungry, sweetpea? Would you like a cup of this delicious soup that Mom made? You can help me with the coleslaw if you’d like. Oh, and there’s a nice banana bread baking in the oven!”

  “Cake,” Jacobe repeated.

  Shai narrowed her eyes with suspicion. Grandma Rosa and Aunt Mac-N-Cheese were both actors, which meant that they were good at lying. Not bad-lying, like when a person might say, “I already brushed my teeth,” but good-lying, as in improvising and pretending. Grandma Rosa used to be a famous stage actor. Aunt Mac-N-Cheese had studied drama in college and now performed in plays and musicals around the city.

  But Shai was also an actor. She planned to be a famous movie star when she grew up. So she could tell when people were improvising and pretending.