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  Warm Up

  Sara Leach

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  Copyright © 2014 Sara Leach

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced

  or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Leach, Sara, 1971-, author

  Warm up / Sara Leach.

  (Orca limelights)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  isbn 978-1-4598-0428-9 (pbk.).--isbn 978-1-4598-0429-6 (pdf).--

  isbn 978-1-4598-0430-2 (epub)

  I. Title. II. Series: Orca limelights

  ps8623.e253w37 2014 jc813’.6 c2013-906638-1

  c2013-906639-x

  First published in the United States, 2014

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2013951382

  Summary: Jasmine’s dance team is falling apart, just before a competition, and it’s up to Jasmine to figure out a way to bring the team together.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Design by Teresa Bubela

  Cover photography by Getty Images

  In Canada:

  Orca Book Publishers

  PO Box 5626, Station B

  Victoria, BC Canada

  V8R 6S4

  In the United States:

  Orca Book Publishers

  PO Box 468

  Custer, WA USA

  98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  17 16 15 14 • 4 3 2 1

  For Michelle, who looked fabulous in a sequined tube top.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter One

  Jasmine unfolded her leg into a high kick, remembering to keep her shoulders down and her toes pointed. Miss Carina gestured from offstage, drawing exaggerated lines beside her mouth. Jasmine frowned for a moment, trying to figure out what her teacher meant.

  Oh. Smile. Jasmine pasted a smile on her face as she and the other seven members of her dance team ran into a V formation in front of the competition judges. They began their pirouettes. Jasmine was off tempo and finished slightly behind the rest of her teammates. She rushed her chassé to catch up for the finale.

  Miss Carina’s voice played in her head. And one and two and reach.

  Jasmine caught herself frowning again and then smiled for the judges, hoping she had only been counting in her head. She could see her mom and Grandma Verbenka in the audience, but she quickly looked away so they wouldn’t distract her.

  She split-leaped past Felicity, who looked anxious. Jasmine smiled even harder, trying to remind her teammate to wipe the worry off her face.

  They were almost done. Only a few more steps. Only a few more chances to wow the judges. She landed her last split leap as the music paused for a beat and then began its final phrase. As the piano notes began to build and the singer’s soulful voice belted out the lyrics, Jasmine stepped back, knowing that the rest of the team was doing the same. Half turn. Step forward with her left foot. The girls faced each other in a circle. The music rose to a crescendo. Each girl raised her right arm, reached across the circle and joined hands with a partner.

  Jasmine clasped Melanie’s forearm as they had done so many times in practice. Gripping hard, they fell away from each other into a layback, looking out at the audience with their backs arched and their heads facing the floor.

  She loved the idea of this move. To the audience they would look like a sunflower, their heads like petals emerging from the center. The reality was that it hurt, and more than once someone had fallen.

  Hold, two, three. Jasmine felt her grip loosen on Melanie. Please hold on, she told herself. Don’t fall today.

  She squeezed as hard as she could and raised her body back up. With a grin at Melanie, she rose on her toes, then dropped to the floor and slid outward on her side. As one, she and the rest of the team rolled onto their stomachs, pushed themselves to their feet and ran to their final formation. Jasmine sank to one knee in front of Felicity, with Chelsea and Shira beside her and the other four girls fanned out behind them. They scooped their left arms out and up and dropped them in unison with the final chord. The music ended. Jasmine smiled, trying not to show how hard she was breathing as the audience applauded.

  They’d done it. No falls. No major errors.

  “Ready, and…” Chelsea called over the applause.

  They all stood, formed a line and filed off the stage.

  Miss Carina nodded as they walked past her. “Good job. We’ll talk in the dressing room.”

  Jasmine followed her teammates through the large warm-up hall behind the ballroom that held the stage. She could see the girls from InMotion, the last group to perform, finishing the preparations for their number.

  “Don’t even look at them,” whispered Shira.

  “I can’t help it,” Jasmine said. “They always look so sharp, even when they’re lining up to go onstage. Their hair is perfect, their costumes are perfect. They even stand exactly the same way.”

  “We look sharp too,” Shira said. “Maybe one of them will fall.”

  “Shira!” Jasmine gasped. “You shouldn’t wish bad luck on another team.”

  “Why not?” Shira asked. “I’m sure they were wishing it on us.”

  Shira was probably right, Jasmine thought. The InMotion team had never shown any signs of kindness toward her team, Moondance. She and her teammates had to walk right past InMotion to reach their assigned dressing room.

  One of the girls from InMotion snickered at Jasmine. “Can’t keep your eyes off the best, can you?”

  Jasmine looked away. She couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “Break a leg,” Shira said in a sickly sweet voice.

  Somehow Jasmine didn’t think she meant it as good luck.

  Miss Carina shooed them into the dressing room. Two other teams were putting on warm-up suits after their dances. The Moondance girls moved as far away from the other teams as possible, so that they could talk freely.

  “I messed up twice,” Felicity moaned, grabbing her hoodie from the zippered garment bag with her name on it.

  “When?” Melanie asked. “I didn’t see anything.” She checked her hair in the mirror, smoothing back the small wisps.

  “On my chaînés, and I got stuck sliding into the final move.”

  Jasmine peeked over Melanie’s shoulder into the mirror. Her straight brown hair was still shellacked into place. It was one advantage to having hair that never curled no matter how hard she worked with a curling iron.

  “Girls,” Miss Carina called. The chatter stopped, and all eyes turned to look at her. “Don’t pick apart what you did. There were some mistakes. But the dance is over. All we can hope for is that the other teams don’t do any better.”

  Jasmine raised her eyebrows at Shi
ra. Was that supposed to be a pep talk? It wasn’t exactly over the top with congratulations. Shouldn’t they be focused on their own performance, not on what the other teams did?

  Shira shrugged and mouthed, “InMotion.”

  Jasmine nodded.

  “Can we go watch the last number?” Melanie asked.

  “If you hurry,” Miss Carina said. “They’ll be starting any moment. But go in quietly. The judges will dock points from our team if you cause a disturbance. Put something warm over your costumes, but leave them on underneath.”

  They were all hoping for an award, and they would need to be in costume to receive it. The Moondance studio hadn’t ever placed in the Star Struck finals competition, and InMotion, run by Miss Brandi, Miss Carina’s biggest rival, had placed first for the last six years. Rumor had it that Miss Carina and Miss Brandi had danced together when they were younger, but after Miss Brandi left to join the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, she’d never treated Miss Carina the same. Miss Carina had opened Moondance, and a few years later, Miss Brandi had retired from performing and opened her own studio. Miss Carina had been desperate to prove that her studio was as good as InMotion ever since.

  The most important thing today was to make it to the finals in June. To do that, they had to get at least third place. But if they could take first place in this preliminary competition, it would send a message to InMotion that Moondance was a force to be reckoned with.

  Shira held open the door to the large ballroom and put her finger to her lips. The team crept in without a word and found a row of empty seats at the back. Jasmine spotted her mom. She wanted to wave or call out to get her attention, but her mom and grandmother had their eyes on the stage.

  The InMotion team filed onto the stage, and a cheer went up from the crowd. It was a big team—twenty dancers, which meant they had a lot of fans rooting for them in the audience. That gave them an advantage over Moondance, the smallest team in their category. Cheering and clapping always made dancing easier, whether you were on a real stage in a real theater or in a big hotel conference room like this one.

  The first beats of the music started, and Jasmine’s eyes focused on the stage again. Her heart sank. The InMotion girls might not be nice, but they were great dancers. Every move they made was precise and on time. On their triple pirouettes, their heads all snapped to the front at the same moment. Their split leaps were high, their legs straight, their toes pointed. But more than that, they had confidence. You could feel it radiating from the stage. They didn’t just smile. It was almost like they were talking with the audience. They communicated their joy of dance through their whole bodies.

  Their cheering section went wild as they hit their final pose and then strode off the stage.

  “We’re hooped,” Felicity said, clapping halfheartedly.

  “Yup,” said Melanie. “We don’t stand a chance.”

  “Let’s hope for third place at least. That’s all that really matters,” Chelsea said.

  InMotion’s dance had been the last number of the competition. Now they all had to wait for the judges to tally the scores and announce the awards. Jasmine fidgeted in her seat. Clearly, InMotion was better than their team. But what about the other groups? She hadn’t been able to watch them, because Moondance had been getting ready to perform. Would Moondance be good enough?

  She looked down the line of seats at her team. Everyone was sitting forward in anticipation. From a distance, they all looked the same—a row of buns, identical makeup and navy hoodies. But on closer inspection, differences became obvious. Shira’s curly brown hair never stayed long in its bun, no matter how much hair spray she used. She pulled at one of the fluffy curls as she waited. Chelsea’s dark skin contrasted sharply with Felicity’s pale skin and freckles. Andrea’s big chest and hips were surprising on a dancer, but she was still very good. Darveet and Robyn were gripping each other’s arms, Robyn a full head shorter than Darveet. Melanie, her blond hair in a perfect bun, was almost falling off her seat, she was sitting so far forward.

  Jasmine stretched her legs under the seat in front of her. She was one of the tallest girls on the team, even though she was the youngest. Her grandmother always said she had a dancer’s body. Jasmine was just glad she’d inherited a slender frame and didn’t look like a sturdy Russian peasant the way so many of her relatives did.

  After what felt like an hour but was probably only five minutes, the head judge climbed onto the stage, holding a microphone. “Thank you to our competitors. You’ve all done a fantastic job. Our top three teams will advance to the finals of the Star Struck competition in one month’s time.” The crowd cheered.

  Jasmine’s stomach turned over. Please let us make it to the finals. Everyone on her team wanted it so badly. They wanted to prove they had what it took to be great dancers. And besides, Miss Carina would flip if they didn’t.

  The judge pulled out some sheets of paper. “In third place, Moondance Studio.”

  Jasmine leaped to her feet and hugged her teammates.

  “We made it!” Shira cried. They unzipped their hoodies, threw them onto their seats and ran to the stage to receive their ribbons.

  “In second place,” the judge said, “Dance for Life!” One of the groups that Jasmine had seen in the dressing room ran squealing up to the stage, the sequins on their green costumes glimmering in the lights.

  “And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for. In first place—and a full ten points ahead of anyone else in the competition—InMotion!” As he shouted the words, the InMotion team and its entourage went crazy. Jasmine winced at the noise.

  The InMotion girls, in their red-and-black leotards, ran up to the stage, jumping and hugging. Jasmine had to force herself to keep smiling. She was glad Moondance had made it to the finals, but first place would have been better.

  Chapter Two

  Jasmine climbed the stairs to the studio, her hair slicked into a tight bun, wearing her practice leotard and tights full of holes. The stairwell smelled of sweat, stinky shoes and hair spray. For the hundredth time, her eyes scanned the notices and studio rules posted on the wall.

  Arrive early. Be prepared to start on time.

  Respect your instructor, respect the studio, respect your classmates.

  Vancouver Modern Dance Festival, June 12-24, 2013.

  Why hadn’t anyone bothered to take that one down? The event had happened ages ago.

  “Hey, Jaz,” Shira said as Jasmine opened the studio door. “Miss Carina wants to meet with the team before warm-up.”

  Jasmine nodded, pulled her water bottle out of her bag and went to sit by the mirrors with the rest of the team. She was two minutes early, but everyone else was already there, sitting in their colorful leotards. They all knew how strict Miss Carina was about being on time. Nobody wanted to do extra stomach crunches—the consequence of being late to practice. Jasmine knew that she was cutting it close, but her mom had driven her, and she didn’t get off work in time to drop Jasmine any earlier.

  The girls were whispering quietly among themselves. Jasmine leaned over to Chelsea, the oldest member of the team, the best dancer and the unofficial leader. “What’s the meeting about?”

  Chelsea shrugged. “No idea.”

  Miss Carina came out of her office a few seconds later. She was holding a small trophy and a sheet of paper. As usual, she wore a baby-pink ballet sweater, a black leotard and a short black wraparound skirt over pink tights. She stood with a frown on her face, her gray hair pulled into such a tight bun that her eyebrows had to struggle to form a V. Her ribs and collarbones were visible under the pale veined skin of her chest. Her right foot, turned out in fourth position, tapped impatiently while she waited for the girls to settle onto the floor in front of her.

  “Well, girls,” she said. “We’ve made it to the finals.” She didn’t look too happy about it. “The competition
will be difficult. And InMotion danced better than you.”

  Jasmine hugged her knees to her chest and rested her chin on them. So much for being happy with third place. It was all about beating InMotion, even for Miss Carina. Especially for Miss Carina.

  “The judges liked the extension of your legs, and they made a special note about the layback. But they thought you could be challenged with more difficult moves. And they also felt that there wasn’t enough emotion in the piece.”

  Jasmine agreed with the judges about the emotion. After seeing InMotion perform again, she understood. Not that she knew how to do what they’d done. But she wasn’t sure about adding more difficult moves.

  “It’s a lyrical piece,” Shira said. “It’s not supposed to be full of fancy moves.”

  Miss Carina glared at Shira. “Don’t interrupt!” She paused. “A lyrical number can be challenging. It doesn’t have a lot of jumps, lifts and acro, but it can still be difficult.”

  Miss Carina cleared her throat and put the trophy on the floor. “I want you girls to have the best chance possible at the finals. Therefore, we’re going to focus on the judges’ recommendations. I’m going to rework the dance, starting today.”

  Jasmine covered her mouth to suppress a groan. She could barely keep up as it was. Everyone else on the team had been competing for at least one full year before this one. Jasmine was the only newcomer. She could barely remember the choreography they’d already learned and had to work on her turns and kicks every day to make sure she could do them onstage. How could she perform an even harder dance?

  “But we’ll never be tight enough for the finals if we learn something new now,” Melanie said.

  Miss Carina straightened, her eyes glinting. “Nonsense. We have a month. I’ve seen you girls learn the ending to a dance the night before a performance, and nobody could tell the difference.” She nodded once to signal the end of the meeting. “Let’s warm up.”

  The girls spread out across the floor. The music started and Miss Carina led them through the first few steps of the warm-up. Jasmine pliéd, bending her knees in a wide second position, sweeping her arms out and then up to meet above her head, breathing deeply as Adele’s voice rang through the studio. This was one of her favorite moves. Something about the air filling her lungs, and the first stretches of her body, always made her feel joyful. She loved the song too. Sometimes she wished they danced to this song onstage. Adele’s music would be perfect for lyrical. She didn’t mind their song—it was by some singer she had never heard of—but it didn’t inspire her the way the warm-up music did.