Читать книгу Ballet School Confidential: The Complete 3-Book Bundle - Charis Marsh - Страница 10

Julian Reese

“I, I wish you could swim — Like the dolphins, like dolphins can swim — Though nothing, nothing will keep us together … We can beat them, forever and ever…!”

Julian woke up and reached to turn off his alarm clock. It wasn’t there. But it continued to beep. He realized that, somehow, he was facing the wrong way. He flipped, reached blearily for the alarm-off button, then flopped back down on the bed and closed his eyes with relief at the silence. He lay there for a second, psyching himself up, then managed to jolt himself out of bed. He yawned as he felt his legs clench. Too many classes. It was five o’clock, way too early to be conscious, but Mr. Yu was making him do school shows with the youth company because they needed another boy. So he was going to some random elementary school to perform. He yawned again and stumbled into his clothes.

Mrs. Yu had gotten up even earlier and made breakfast. Julian was confused. He had assumed that they would just eat cereal, like usual. He looked across at the girls, but they just shrugged. He sat down and took his plate, wondering what the mound of greasy, white, slightly burnt food was exactly. He prodded it with his fork, running a list of possibilities through his head: Fritter? Pancake? Dumpling? He tried a bit. All he tasted was oil, held together by flour. He spat it out in a napkin.

“Its last night’s dumplings,” Mrs. Yu said. “Mash, is pancake. You try.” Julian was horrified. He hadn’t liked the dumplings the first time around, and he was sure that he’d puke if he tried them a second time. The girls started giggling and handed their plates back to Mrs. Yu.

“What’s wrong? You don’t want breakfast?”

Julian handed back his plate, too. “It’s just kinda too early for breakfast.” His stomach growled, and he wondered if he had any energy bars in his room.

“Okay, okay. If you don’t want breakfast, tell me before I get up and make!”

Julian followed the girls out into the hall. “Do you guys have any food?”

Keiko giggled and said, “You should eat Mrs. Yu’s breakfast, if you’re so hungry.”

Mao nodded, grinning. “Then you grow very tall, and not get sick,” she imitated Mrs. Yu.

“Just gimme some food? Please?” Julian pleaded. They went into Mao’s room, and Keiko went to grab some of her stash too. They spread it out on the bed.

“Hurry up,” Keiko said. “We have to get ready for the show, and I don’t want leave you here with my food.”

Julian grinned at her and made his selection. He thanked the girls before leaving with the food under his shirt.

As soon as he was ready, Julian went out into the kitchen. Mr. Yu was already there, eating his breakfast. Julian watched him in amazement. He didn’t even seem to taste what he was eating. Suddenly he stood up and said, “Okay, go now.”

Everyone trudged after him to the van and shoved into the vehicle, trying to make room among all the costumes.

“Where are we going?” Julian whispered to Keiko as they headed downtown.

“To the academy to pick up everyone else,” Keiko whispered back. Julian groaned. Of course, the other dancers needed a ride. But it seemed like an impossible number of people to fit in the van. The others got into the van with a chorus of “Ohayou,” and “’Morning,” and then they all lapsed into silence.

When they finally got to the school, a custodian let them into the gym where they would be performing. Everybody started stripping down to their dance clothes and putting on their warm-ups. Julian stopped moving.

“What’s wrong?” Kageki asked curiously, noticing Julian’s horrified expression.

“I forgot my warm-ups. And my non-costume dance clothes!”

Kageki laughed. “Sorry, man, that sucks,” he said, trying to be sympathetic. “I write a list of everything I need to bring every day, and then I check it all off,” he told Julian as they both went to get chairs to use as a barre.

“What? Like, everything?”

“Yes, everything. Cellphone, dance belt, lunch, pencils …”

“You are really weird,” Julian said shaking his head. Kageki grinned. He didn’t deny it.

Mr. Yu yelled, “Hurry!” impatiently, and began to leading the exercises before they had finished setting up their chairs. Julian reached down to hold his chair and realized that it wasn’t going to be any help at all. It was way too short and light to support him. He moved over to the wall and tried to find a surface that he could grip onto. It was all very smooth, so he gave up and just touched the wall lightly to get his balance. He tried to stand in first position in preparation for the exercise as Mr. Yu tried to find a good piece of music, but his feet immediately slid out of position on the slippery floor. He looked over at Tristan and Kageki, who just smirked at him.

“Got any rosin?” he asked hopefully.

“Nope,” Kageki said, looking forward as Mr. Yu glared at him.

“Sprinkle some water on the floor,” Tristan whispered.

“I forgot my water bottle,” Julian whispered back. Tristan rolled his eyes and passed his over.

When Julian was done sprinkling the floor, Tristan happily grabbed his bottle from Julian and started to spray the rest of the floor, too.

“Ahh! Too much!” Aiko wailed, as Kageki narrowly missed splashing her pointe shoes.

“Enough,” Mr. Yu said impatiently. They all went back to their chairs and walls, the girls glaring at the boys as they attempted to avoid the puddles of water and grumbled about it ruining their pointe shoes. They got through pliés without incident. Mr. Yu actually just stood there, staring into space, as they did the exercise.

He snapped out of it and started to give a tendu exercise, but stopped suddenly and ordered them to take their clothes off. They groaned and began shedding layers. They did the rest of the barre in a hurry and had no centre practice as Mr. Yu suddenly realized what time it was. The second they finished, they changed into their costumes in a panic, and the girls began fixing their pointe shoes and trying to warm their feet up a bit more. The boys went into the centre of the gym and began testing out their pirouettes.

“I love this floor!” Julian said as he went around five times. “It’s so awesomely slippery!”

“Yeah, but wait till jumps,” Tristan said. He turned six times and then fell on his side, one hand on his chest, the other stretching to the sky.

“Bet I can do seven!” Kageki said.

“Bet you can’t,” Tristan said. Julian and Tristan watched as Kageki prepared, and then just as he started Tristan yelled, “Jinx!”

Kageki gave up on doing a proper pirouette and turned into a spiralling spin, both hands clutched onto his heart. “I hate you,” he informed Tristan and prepared again.

“Don’t wind up,” Tristan said, laughing at him. Kageki stopped, looked at Tristan, and then prepared with exaggerated care. He went around one … two … three … four … five … he started slowing down at six, but just as he was about to stop, he twisted his body and managed to get around another time.

“Nice!” Julian said admiringly.

“Cheater,” Tristan said. “Now me.” He did the first three pirouettes normally, then hunched his shoulders and grabbed his crotch for four more.

“It doesn’t count if you do it that way,” Kageki argued. But Tristan defended himself.

Julian did a few pirouettes off to the side. He could do five max, grabbing his crotch or no.

The show went pretty well as far as Julian could tell. The children liked the national dances, tolerated the waltz and contemporary dances, yawned through Aiko and Dmitri’s pas de deux from Le Corsaire, and were wildly enthusiastic about Tristan, Julian, and Kageki’s version of the Russian dance taken from The Nutcracker.

“I need a drink,” Dmitri said later, as everyone unloaded themselves and the costumes out of the car.

“Me too,” Julian said. Dmitri looked at him in surprise.

“We have costume fittings today,” Tristan reminded him.

“You want to go to No. 5?” Dmitri asked Mr. Yu.

He nodded, continuing to unload. Everyone began to go inside, but Mr. Yu called the boys back to help.

“Where’s No. 5?” Julian asked, as they pulled out a trunk of costumes.

“Downtown. It’s a good bar,” Dmitri told him.

“No it’s not,” Tristan said quietly, wrinkling his nose in disgust. “It just has strippers,”

“You want to come with us?” Dmitri asked Julian, ignoring Tristan.

“Sure!” Julian said. “Uh, actually I can’t. I don’t have any I.D.”

Dmitri grimaced. “Too bad, man. You find some I.D. and I’ll take you. They used to have Pam Anderson stripping there before she got famous.”

“No, it was Courtney Love,” Mr. Yu said. “Come on, let’s go.”

Dmitri rolled his eyes and whispered “Pam!” to Julian. He got in the van and they drove away, leaving Julian, Tristan, and Kageki to carry the costumes into the academy.

The whole hall was filled with people waiting to get into the studio, which was full of precariously stacked tutus and large props. As Tristan and Julian walked by carrying a trunk, a peculiar man, who was measuring Taylor’s hips, called out to them. “Boys! Hurry back, I need you next. So nice to see you again, Tristan.”

“Who was that?” Julian asked.

“The costume guy.” Tristan was struggling as they manoeuvred the trunk down the stairs. “His name is Cromwell Gilly. He used to go to McKinley. He’s training to be a designer now, and he likes to practice sewing and stuff at the academy.” They heaved the trunk down onto the costume-room floor with relief. “Whew! Let’s leave the rest for Leon and Jonathon, okay?”

“Sounds good to me,” Julian said, and they trudged up the stairs.

Cromwell Gilly was even more eccentric close up. He was very small and had long, thin blond hair, and he was in constant motion. He wore extremely tight, black skinny pants, pointed leather shoes, a white poet’s shirt open to show a great deal of his chest, a belt with a huge silver buckle on it, three rings, and a leather and silver necklace. As he darted around measuring people, he’d tell them to put their arms up and down, then shout out their measurements to Michael’s mother, and generally promoting noise and confusion. The students were sprawled all over the hall, talking loudly to be heard over the commotion.

“By the way, he likes to be called by his full name,” Tristan whispered to Julian.

“He’s even more interesting with sound,” Julian whispered to Tristan as soon as they were close enough to hear him. They both sat down on the floor next to Alexandra, snickering.

“Oh. My. God.” Cromwell Gilly said as he measured Aiko’s ankle.

“What?” she asked, sounding worried.

“Oh nothing, nothing,” he said, frowning. He called out the number to Michael’s mother, his eyebrows raised. She gave him a weird look, but wrote down the number.

“What? What?” Aiko asked, starting to freak out.

“Oh, nothing,” Michael’s mother said.

“Done!” Cromwell Gilly sang out, smiling at Aiko. She walked off frowning, clenching and unclenching her hands. “Lexi, baby, how are you, love?” he asked Alexandra, gesturing her forward. Without letting her answer, he continued. “I can’t believe I was called in this late. What were they thinking?” Cromwell Gilly didn’t like the Demidovskis. Every year he would design new costumes for them, and every year they would nod politely and continue using the twenty- or thirty-year-old costumes instead. Any time something on the building was fixed, he took it as evidence that they had money they could give him to make the costumes but preferred to waste it on stupid things like fixing the roof.

“Did you know that they got a new car?” he asked ALexandra in a stage whisper as he measured her hips. She shook her head. “Done!” he said, spinning her around by the shoulder and pushing her away.

“Next!” Angela stepped forward, and Cromwell Gilly frowned. “What are you in?” he asked, scanning his list. “Oh, ‘Trepak,’” he answered himself in relief. “Thank god it’s not a tutu! Those ‘Trepak’ dresses are easy to let out.” Behind her Alexandra and Tristan giggled. Angela’s face turned completely red. Cromwell Gilly gestured her away, saying “We’ll just do you later, shall we? Next!” Delilah giggled as she stepped forward.

“Del, darling, how are you! What are we going to do about your boobage m’dear?” he said, frowning as he measured them. Delilah blushed. “We’ll just take some of the material from the waist and add it to the chest, shall we?” She rolled her eyes and he called for the next dancer.

Tristan shoved Julian forward. But, much to Julian’s relief, Cromwell Gilly didn’t have anything embarrassing to say about him, merely remarking that he had “a very nice body for dance, don’t you think, Tristan?”

In the big room where the stacks of costumes were, the girls were rummaging through the tutus, each trying to find one in their size. Taylor was trying to do up Kaitlyn’s Clara costume, but it wasn’t working. Kaitlyn looked like she was about to cry, as Taylor gave up happily and said, loudly, “It’s just not going to do up, Kaitlyn. It’s all right, though. They always have to adjust the costumes for me, too, because I’m so small. Like, in width.”

Keiko found a tutu that fit. But she scowled when she looked at the tag, and went off to find another one.

“Are some of them taken already?” Julian asked Tristan.

“No, it’s just that these tutus are so old, they kind of have history, you know? Everyone wants to get one that a good dancer, or one with a good body type used to wear, just to see if it fits. It’s kind of cool that they used to wear it. So you always look inside the costume to see who wore it before you.”

“Yeah,” Kageki said enthusiastically. “I got to wear a costume that Mr. Yu wore once. It was so cool.…”

“It fit you?” Julian asked.

Tristan laughed. “No, duh! They took it up like 50 percent.”

“But I still wore it,” Kageki said defensively.

Suddenly, they heard Taylor say, “But I got it first!” She sounded close to tears.

Jessica was trying to pry her tutu away from her, saying “I need to wear that one! I’m taller than you. Go find one that a shorter person wore.”

Keiko came up to Taylor holding a tutu. “Taylor, try this one. It’s small, and Leonie wore it!”

“Leonie Camden?” Taylor excitedly shoved the other tutu into Jessica’s arms. She tried it on and Keiko did her up.

“It’ll need to be taken in,” Keiko said.

“No, it’s fine,” Taylor said. She shot Jessica a worried glance to make sure she wasn’t trying to steal this tutu also. “This is so cool! Can you believe that Leonie did this dance once? I mean seriously,” she shook her head. “Thank you so much, Keiko!” She hugged her.

“Can we go, yet, do you think?” Julian asked. He was getting bored and ripping apart tape that held the floor pieces together.

“Yes,” Kageki said.

“Don’t we have a speech thingy from the Demidovskis today?” Tristan asked, turning to Kageki.

“No. The Demidovskis decided that they didn’t want to come today.”

“Figures,” said Tristan. “Come on, let’s get out of here fast, before anyone decides they need us.” He ushered Kageki and Julian down the hall as fast as he could.

“Where are you guys going?” Alexandra asked as Michael’s mother hooked her into a tutu.

“Outta here, loser!” Tristan said, laughing.

“Loser yourself!” Alexandra stuck out her tongue at him.

As they got changed, Julian asked Tristan and Kageki if they wanted to hang out.

“I want to,” Tristan said, “but I have so much physics homework and an in-class English essay tomorrow.”

“Okay, I will,” Kageki said, shrugging.

Julian felt a bit awkward as he and Kageki walked out together. They didn’t normally hang out without Tristan. “So, where do you want to go?”

“I don’t really want to go anywhere, I’m too tired,” Kageki said. “Could we just go to your homestay? I love going to Mr. Yu’s. My homestay is so weird. My homestay mom gets really mad if people come over and I haven’t asked her like a week before.”

“Sure,” Julian shrugged. “Come on, that’s our bus!” He broke into a run.

As they walked up the street to Mr. Yu’s house, they talked about the weirdo on the bus who’d been giving out religious pamphlets and talking about Armageddon.

“Guess what, Kageki. The world’s going to end tomorrow!” Kageki rolled his eyes. “What religion do you have mostly in Japan?”

“Um … well, Buddhism and Christianity. But the Christians are more here, of course. So basically, in Japan, this is most common,” he shaped his hands into the sign of prayer with his fingers out stretched, “and here is more this,” he made the sign of prayer with his fingers crossed over each other.

“Cool,” Julian said, making both signs. “My mom’s Buddhist.”

“Really?” Kageki sounded surprised. “How come you didn’t know that already then?”

“I don’t live with her. With Satya.”

“You call your mom by her name?” Kageki asked as he followed Julian into his room.

“Yeah,” Julian shrugged. “It’s her name, right? She says she wants to be addressed as a person, not as a role.”

“Okay…?”

“Her full name is actually Satyagraha.” Julian flipped open his laptop and signed onto Facebook. “Look, here she is.”

“Mmm … she’s kissing that woman!” Kageki said. “Does your mom … like girls?” He leaned forward to take a closer look at Satya’s profile picture.

“Um, she likes both,” Julian explained awkwardly. “Look …” He searched for another picture. “This is her boyfriend Luigi. He’s awesome. I got a scholarship from the Demidovskis for tuition at the academy, but I still had to pay homestay fees, and he paid them.”

“But … he’s not your father?”

“No, he’s been with Satya for less than a year,” Julian said, switching pages. “This is my dad, Will … and my half-brother River, and his mom, my dad’s girlfriend, Daisy.”

Kageki stared at the picture, puzzlement creasing his face.

Julian flopped onto his bed after dinner and phoned Will.

“Hey,” he said, trying to keep his voice down. The walls were so thin that everyone could hear him if he used his normal voice.

“Hey, how are you? Daisy’s just out taking River to his soccer practice, but you can call later if you want to talk to him.”

“No, I wanted to talk to you, Will. I need to know if you want to come to the performance or not.”

“Well, Jules, I don’t really know. It depends on your grandparents … I’m not sure if they are going to buy us tickets.”

“But they’re not coming, right?”

“No. I’ll get Daisy to phone them tomorrow.”

“They’re your parents, you should call them,” Julian pointed out. “Anyway, goodnight Will. Love you.”

“Sure thing, buddy,” Will said. He hung up.