Lights, Camera, Dance! Read online

  Ugh. I knew there was a good chance she’d be at the audition, but actually seeing her was ten times worse.

  ‘Er, hi,’ said Benji. He made to move away, decided it was rude, and half-turned back to her.

  ‘Oh, is that for me? Gosh, thank you. I’m so thirsty.’ Indianna took the cup from him and didn’t take one sip. Daisy and another girl I recognised from Dance Art filed into place behind Indianna, like the minions they were.

  ‘I’m soooo glad you’re auditioning,’ said Indianna. ‘You’re such a good dancer. I saw you at the hip hop fundraiser. I really hope we both get chosen for the clip. Oh, and Daisy and Chanel, of course.’ She turned to her two ‘friends’ and gave them a quick smile.

  ‘I hope I get in too,’ said Benji. He sipped his own water. He didn’t say anything about them.

  ‘I love watching you hip hop dance,’ Daisy spoke up.

  ‘Yeah, you always look like you have so much more fun than when you dance with that Paige girl,’ said Indianna. ‘Maybe you just need a new partner? I’ve done –’

  I jumped up then. No one spoke out against my Paige.

  ‘Oh, hi girls,’ I said, walking over to them. ‘How great that we’re all auditioning. Tove said that you guys were with Dream Big, too.’

  ‘Yeah, I heard Brittany signed you.’ Indianna shrugged. ‘I guess winning some dumb competition for Danceworks gets you perks.’

  Let me explain about this Danceworks thing: I won a competition a few months back to be the face of the new Danceworks hip hop range. I knew Indianna had entered too. I think she had sour grapes.

  ‘Ash got into the agency and booked the audition ’cause she’s an awesome dancer,’ Benji said.

  ‘Of course she is,’ agreed Daisy with a sweet smile. ‘Not as good as you, though. Anyway, Benji, we just got told the auditions are about to start, if you want to come in with us?’

  Benji looked at me with fear in his eyes, so I grabbed his arm and started walking towards the studio. ‘Sounds great,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’

  At that moment I was hit with a flood of water all down my front. I jerked back and looked in shock at the water dripping off me into a puddle on the floor.

  ‘Oh gee, I’m so sorry, Ash!’ said Indianna. ‘I just tripped on that cable. There are paper towels over there – I’m sure they won’t mind if you use some.’ She grabbed Benji’s arm and the three of them dragged him away.

  I knew Indianna was trying to scare me off. She hated me because I’d left Dance Art and done well for myself at Silver Shoes. She was scared I would be better than her and get into the music video and she wouldn’t.

  My lip trembled – I knew my nerves and the unfairness of what she’d done were getting to me.

  ‘Take it as a compliment, Ash,’ I heard Riley say in my head. ‘And be better. It takes more than a cup of water to dampen your spirits.’

  So I got the paper towel and cleaned myself up as best I could. I made it into the studio just in time to get introduced to the choreographer, Bliss, and the video director, Shaq.

  Indianna, Daisy and their newest recruit, Chanel, had surrounded Benji so I couldn’t stand near him. But I found a place where he could see me and I caught his eye and gave him a smile. He gave me the thumbs up in return.

  We began to warm up: body rolls, isolations, hip flexors and fluid stretches. I started to relax and let the funky music take me to my happy place, when I noticed the one thing left that would put me off.

  Over in the corner, on some plastic seats, keeping a low profile.

  Fine China.

  Chapter Eight

  My hero. The person who had made me love hip hop in the first place. How did I, Ashley Jenkyns the class clown, find myself here, auditioning for his video clip? I was so in awe I felt like my body didn’t even know how to move, much less dance!

  ‘Other way,’ Bliss yelled to me in the mirror. I realised I was making a total mess of my hip rolls.

  ‘Geez,’ said Indianna over in the corner. ‘And this is only the warm-up.’

  ‘Isn’t that the Danceworks girl?’ Chanel muttered. ‘I thought she was supposed to be good.’

  I took a big breath and tried to get my head right. But my eyes kept sneaking across to Fine China sitting over in the corner so relaxed, watching us. What was he thinking? I knew he wasn’t missing a thing. I had to stop making mistakes!

  So naturally, of course, I kept stuffing up. Stupid things, like body rolls and kick steps, which I’d done a million times before.

  Why would he pick a girl who couldn’t even get the warm-up right, never mind the dance?

  Suddenly I had to be near Benji. I knew he would bring me back down to earth, and that being strong for him meant I would be strong for myself.

  I tried to slowly sneak my way over to where he was, without drawing everyone’s attention. There were about thirty kids auditioning and the studio space was huge, surely no one would notice little old me?

  I got some weird looks as I weaved in and out of the kids. Bliss was taking us through a step that he called the ‘log on’. It was like a step touch to the front with swinging and lots of push on the foot that stepped out. So I ‘logged on’ but I just did it travelling.

  The step reminded me a lot of the dancehall style Jay had begun showing us.

  In fact, the music sounded a lot like Jay’s dancehall beats. The hand claps and the fast tempo and the driving rhythm that was somehow smooth and sharp all at once – like an electronic dance beat with some cruisy island flavour layered over the top.

  Could the choreography for Fine China’s music video be dancehall- and reggae-inspired? Was that the direction of his new album and first single?

  I loved having the inside scoop, and that’s what I was thinking about when I almost ran into a girl who was standing just to the right of Benji.

  ‘Whoops, sorry,’ I muttered as I ‘logged on’ extra hard to the right to avoid her. She didn’t seem to mind, but it caught Chanel’s attention. I’d noticed her watching me as I’d moved across the studio.

  Chanel’s eyes took on a look that would make a cunning fox jealous. Then, before I could step away, she lunged back so I fully ran into her side, pushing her up against Indianna.

  ‘Aah!’ Chanel said, in a very over-the-top manner. ‘Ouch!’ She turned around as if only noticing me for the first time. ‘What are you doing?’

  Bliss turned down the music.

  ‘Er …’ I said.

  ‘What’s the problem, girlios?’ asked Bliss.

  I flung a quick look at Fine China to see if he’d noticed, but he was so still he could have blended into the wall behind him.

  ‘Oh, it’s just that girl, Ashley,’ Indianna said. ‘She tried to trip Chanel up. I guess she thinks she’s better than everyone else because she won that Danceworks comp.’

  ‘I didn’t trip her up on purpose,’ I protested.

  ‘Weren’t you over there?’ asked Bliss, looking back to where I’d been dancing before.

  Well, at least he’d noticed me.

  ‘Uh.’ I silently begged my wit to come up with a snappy reply. ‘I wasn’t feeling the vibe over there,’ I eventually said. ‘Here, I feel way more funky. Sorry to disturb the class.’

  Then, to cover up my embarrassment more than anything else, I did the butterfly move and threw in a couple of nuh lingas that Jay had showed us at Silver Shoes. ‘See?’

  ‘All riiiiight!’ yelled out Bliss. He actually came over to me and held out his hand for a five. I gave it a big slap. ‘You see that?’ He looked over at Fine China, who was grinning. ‘This girl got the flava. How’d you know we were gonna move it into dancehall territory?’

  ‘I smelled the vibes a mile off,’ I said. ‘But they were stronger over here.’

  ‘She’s just trying to move closer to Fine China and sabotage everyone else,’ sniffed Indianna.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Bliss asked me.

  ‘Ash,’ I said, now very aware that everyone was looking
at me. I tugged on my fringe.

  ‘My girl Ash,’ he said, ‘I like that you’re seeking out the vibes. But maybe do it without running into other kids, yeah?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I really didn’t mean to.’

  Bliss laughed. ‘You’re bad,’ he said. ‘I like you.’ He moved back over to the speakers. ‘Now that Ash here has got her vibes, we’ll begin learning the choreography. Some of this will be in the actual music video. We’re going for a dancehall reggae flavour with this one – Fine China going back to his roots.’

  Bliss began counting out the steps. Benji managed to slip back next to me and I felt the yucky feeling in my stomach flow away. I’d made Fine China smile, and impressed Bliss with some of my moves. Plus, Benji and I both had a head start on the choreography as we’d learnt dancehall before, so we had a feel for it.

  The thing with dancehall is that it gets into your body like nothing else. Every part of your body can’t help but smash out rhythm. I felt like I was a long, long way from snobby Dance Art girls and auditions, and instead on a dance floor somewhere with tropical plants and drums and the smell of coconut sunscreen.

  I moved to the sound of Bliss’ words, and then swoosh, on the last beat of the sequence, my head flicked around and then whoosh we finished on the floor.

  I found myself staring at the bottom of someone’s legs.

  I looked up.

  Chapter Nine

  Fine China held out his hand. ‘Need some help getting up?’ he said.

  I didn’t, of course. If I couldn’t pick myself up off the floor, then something was really wrong with my fitness. But when Fine China asks if you need help, you don’t say no.

  ‘I always need help,’ I said, my voice squeaking out like a mouse. ‘Sometimes even getting down is a problem.’

  Fine China laughed a soft laugh that showed off his white teeth.

  ‘I don’t think you need any help getting down,’ he said. ‘I like your style, Ash. Very fresh.’

  I was so busy taking in his light brown eyes, his voice, and the way his hand felt like old, worn leather, that I didn’t even have a quip ready.

  ‘Keep it up,’ Fine China said. He let go of my hand and ruffled the top of my hair. ‘Maybe I’ll see you soon.’ He grinned then swaggered over to where Bliss was talking to a few other kids.

  There was absolutely no way I was ever washing my hair, again.

  When I could at last take my eyes off him, I saw that Indianna, Daisy and Chanel were glaring at me like I was a giant rotten turnip that had just rolled out of a swamp.

  But I didn’t care. I was in Fine China heaven. I couldn’t believe that had just happened to me. I was so happy I wanted to cry.

  ‘What’s that look?’ teased Benji as he came up and grabbed me by the elbow to steer me away from making an even bigger goob of myself. ‘That isn’t the look of love, is it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied, giving Fine China one long last stare before we disappeared through the door. ‘Does my face look the way yours does when you look at Paige? If so, then yes, it’s the look of love.’

  Benji took that one pretty well. All he did was make a face at me, like Gee, Ash, get some original material. ‘Fine China seemed to like you a lot,’ Benji said. ‘Lucky.’

  ‘He liked you too,’ I said. ‘One time when we went through the choreography, Fine China was only watching you. I know, because I was watching him.’

  Benji snorted. ‘Did you come here to audition, or did you come here to stargaze?’

  ‘Benji,’ I said, ‘It’s Fine China. Can you even believe we were just in the same room as him?’

  ‘He seemed like a cool guy.’ Benji grabbed his backpack from where he’d stored it by the couch. Then he handed me mine. ‘I think we both have a good chance of getting in,’ he said, quietly. He gave me a shy grin. ‘I’m glad you were here.’

  ‘Don’t go getting soft on me,’ I said, but I gave him a friendly slap on the back. I guess that was pretty much the same as giving a boy a hug. ‘Thanks, Benj. I’m super glad you were here, too.’

  ‘Celebrating early?’ sneered a voice. ‘I guess I wouldn’t expect anything else from a girl who thinks she’s the star model of the dance world.’

  I turned around, ready to give Indianna (I knew that voice anywhere) a good telling-off, but I stopped when I saw her face. She was trying to look mean but I could see a bit of fear in there as well. It was the kind of look Ellie gets when she’s unhappy if she doesn’t pull off a perfect leg mount in jazz class.

  ‘Thanks for running into me, too,’ added Chanel. ‘If I don’t get into the music video because of that, you better watch out.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, as casually as I could. ‘Which direction should I look? So I can prepare.’

  ‘What?’ said Chanel.

  Benji snickered. ‘Come on, Ash,’ he said. ‘Mum’s waiting to take us home.’

  ‘Ashley,’ said Indianna.

  ‘Yeah?’

  Indianna stepped forward like she was actually about to say something nice, but then another thought clawed its way into her mind and she tossed her hair and pursed her lips. I couldn’t help noticing her lip gloss needed a touch-up.

  ‘You think you’re so great now that you’re at Silver Shoes,’ Indianna said, ‘but you’re just arrogant. Oh, I got into this hip hop fundraiser. Oh, I won this competition. Oh look at me, I got an agent.’

  ‘I got those things because I worked hard for them,’ I said quietly.

  ‘I don’t care,’ said Indianna. ‘You always held us back at Dance Art because you could never do a jeté properly, and now you move to Silver Shoes and think you’re some kind of hip hop queen? Some of us have been working hard on our technical skills since we were two – that’s “working hard”. So if we get in, and you do too, you really better watch out. There’s nowhere to hide at the top. You can’t get out of everything with a joke.’

  She walked off then, leaving me with Benji. My happy Fine China bubble popped. I knew it was only Indianna, but were those things she’d said about me true?

  Or had I just made a fool of myself in front of my hero?

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Then we turn to the side, front leg loose and bent. Starting from the shoulders, full body roll, travelling down … Tove, wrong way, we roll, not contract – yep, that’s it, you got it! Give me some nuh linga on the back leg, wind the body up, legs in, out, we rollin’, we rollin’, have fun with it! Hitch the leg up, turn to face the back and rock, rock, rock, grooooove. Chop di grass!’

  Jay had decided that his dancehall style had gone down a treat the week before so he’d stuck with the same style for this week’s lesson. I was trying to forget about the audition on the weekend.

  It doesn’t matter that much anyway, I told myself.

  But I knew it did.

  Jay leant over, hands on his knees. ‘Love your work, groovers! Take a break.’

  ‘You’re the one who looks like they need a break,’ I joked, coming to get my water bottle. ‘Look at all that sweat.’

  Jay playfully nudged my water bottle away with his toe. ‘What’s that, Ashfunk? You wanted a cuddle?’

  ‘Ew! No!’ I ducked away from him and his sweat drops.

  He laughed and scooped my drink bottle up and tossed it to me. ‘Great work as always,’ he said. ‘How did the audition go? Heard anything yet?’

  ‘Nah,’ I said, taking a swig and wiping my mouth. ‘But you know what’s funny? The choreographer –’

  ‘My man Bliss, yeah?’

  ‘Yes, your man Bliss,’ I said, rolling my eyes. ‘Well, he choreographed a dancehall routine. Because that’s the sound of Fine China’s new song. It’s strange how you introduced us to that style only a few days before …’ I let my sentence trail off.

  ‘The world works in funny ways, Ash.’ Jay grinned.

  ‘It sure does,’ I said. ‘It’s almost like you knew that the audition would be dancehall style, and you wanted to prepare us for some
thing …’ I looked at him slyly from under my fringe.

  Jay was still grinning cheekily. ‘How would I know?’ he said. ‘I’m just the hip hop teacher at Silver Shoes. I don’t have the inside word on all that celebrity stuff. Little old humble me.’

  ‘Didn’t you just say Bliss was “your man”?’ I asked.

  Jay laughed. ‘Sure. But if I thought that maybe some of my fave students had a good chance of getting into a video clip, which I just happened to know the style of, I’d like to think I was the kinda guy who would help them out a bit, you know, with preparing.’ He winked at me. ‘If,’ he stressed. ‘Now get back on that floor. We haven’t finished with the choreography.’

  ‘Ohmygosh!’ shrieked a voice.

  Both Jay and I started. Who should be at the door but Little Miss Jasmine, waving at Tove.

  ‘Is that a banshee?’ asked Ellie, hovering nearby.

  ‘Tove! Tove!’ Jasmine yelled.

  ‘Yo, Jazz,’ Jay said. ‘Not that I don’t love seeing that heartbreaker of a face, but we’re in the middle of class here.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ shrieked Jasmine again. ‘But I have to speak to Tove!’

  Tove ducked her head and looked super embarrassed. ‘What?’ she hissed. ‘Can’t you tell me after class?’

  ‘But they got in!’ Jasmine said. ‘Indianna and Chanel. They got into Fine China’s video clip. Indy just rang to tell me!’

  Benji and I immediately swung round to look at each other. I saw on his face straight away exactly what I was thinking.

  They’d got in. So today must be the day when the calls were made. But so far, neither Benji nor I had heard anything.

  Benji looked so sad. It almost broke my heart.

  I didn’t feel much better. All the things Indianna had said about me rushed into my head. I’d ruined my chances and let down my family, Silver Shoes, Jay, Fine China and myself.

  I tried to stay positive, but when Benji walked over to me I felt like I was standing on a brick wall that had just collapsed.

  ‘Guys,’ said Jay, placing a friendly hand on both our shoulders. ‘Why the long faces? You look so blue.’