Sadly, Sumatra rose into the air and headed back toward the dandelion meadow. A gloomy Sirocco, Kona, and Brisa followed her. After they’d flown in silence for a while, Sirocco spoke up.
“I’m sorry that you’re so very untalented, Sumatra,” he declared sweetly. “But don’t worry. Your show will go on. After all, my singing was awesome.”
“And my Mother Goose recital was very dramatic,” Kona noted, “once I got the lines right.”
“And I think I’ve finally got the stage directions straight,” Brisa piped up. “Plus, I have a great idea for how to do up my mane for our show!”
The three Wind Dancers looked at Sumatra expectantly.
But Sumatra only cringed.
And squirmed.
And avoided all six of her friends’ eyes.
Sirocco’s face fell.
“Oh, I get it,” he said sadly. “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all, right?”
Sumatra sighed.
“Right,” she said. “I guess we’re all kind of untalented.”
“Well, I have something nice to say,” Brisa responded. “I thought Sumatra’s twirling was lovely. She looked like a silver and green top! She didn’t make me dizzy at all.”
“Thanks, Brisa,” Sumatra said. “That makes me feel a little bet—”
Sumatra stopped herself with a gasp.
“Hey, hold on just a minute!” she said. “Twirling!”
“Huh?” her friends asked.
Sumatra did a neat pirouette in the air.
“Twirling!” she repeated. “And leaping and somersaulting and loop-de-looping!”
“Do you think the audition got to her?” Sirocco muttered to Kona and Brisa. “She’s talking crazy!”
“I’m talking dancing,” Sumatra retorted. “So we can’t act. Or sing. Or tell jokes. Or tell stage right from stage left. Who cares?”
“I care,” Kona said with a sniff.
“You’ve forgotten who we are,” Sumatra insisted with another pretty pirouette. “We’re the Wind Dancers. Forget about all those other talents—we can put on a ballet! A show that’s nothing but dance.”
Sumatra watched her friends’ faces slowly change from sad to stunned. Kona was the first to agree.
“Of course!” she declared. “Great idea, Sumatra! Dancing is something we can all do. You know, even big horses dance. Their kind of dance is called dressage.”
“Dress-what?” Sirocco blurted. “What kind of weird word is that?”
“It’s pronounced dress-AHJ,” Kona said to Sirocco. “And it’s not weird. It’s French for ‘training.’”
“Ooh! French!” Brisa breathed, sounding impressed.
“Dressage is all about graceful trots and canters,” Kona explained. “Not to mention beautiful pirouettes.”
“It sounds lovely,” Sumatra said, her heart fluttering with excitement.
“Yeah,” Sirocco scoffed. “And, we can do that French stuff one better. Because we can do dress-AHJ on air! No talent? Ha! I don’t think so!”
He did his own pirouette in the air.
Well, sort of.
His spin was more of a wobbly thrash. It reminded Sumatra of a caught fish, flopping about on the bank of a river.
But since that wasn’t such a nice thought, Sumatra, of course, kept it to herself.
Instead, she decided to think about something nice. Very nice. She envisioned herself and her friends dancing before an awestruck audience of frogs, birds, bugs, and big horses. They’d all look glamorous. Their magic halos would be bright and shiny. She would be draped in ribbons and Brisa in jewels. Kona would be decorated with flowers, and Sirocco would be surrounded by butterflies.
And, they’d all be dancing beautifully, of course.
Even Sirocco. All he needs is a little bit of direction—from me! Sumatra thought confidently.
Sumatra was so excited that she cried, “Let’s start rehearsing first thing tomorrow!”
This time, she didn’t have to coax her friends. They were as enthusiastic as she was. She also didn’t have to struggle for something nice to say. A compliment was on the tip of her tongue.
“We,” she declared to her friends, “are going to be fabulous!”
* * *
Well, I was partly right, Sumatra sighed to herself early the very next morning. We are fabulous—fabulously klutzy!
Sumatra and her friends were hovering over the dandelion meadow. Sumatra had made up a short dance for the horses, just to get them started. But already, their rehearsal was going horribly. Kona, Brisa, and Sirocco kept forgetting the steps. Or they remembered them, but did them wrong. Or they did them right, but in the wrong order!
“Okay,” Sumatra said to the other Wind Dancers, blowing her forelock out of her eyes. “Let’s go through this one more time, shall we? Watch me carefully.”
Sumatra performed the dance combination for her friends, narrating as she went.
“You start with a tail wiggle,” she explained, swishing her tail back and forth vigorously.
“Then you leap.” Sumatra sprang through the air, floating in a perfect arc.
“And spin and kick, and work those jazz hooves,” Sumatra ordered excitedly as she twirled, whirled, and shook her hooves.
“And end with a flip,” she said, curling into a neat ball and tumbling through the air.
“Ta-da!” she said proudly as she finished. “See, it’s simple!”
Kona, Sirocco, and Brisa stared at her, open-mouthed.
“Simple for who?” Sirocco squawked. “The Lipizzaner stallions?”
But Kona rose up gently and placed a hoof on Sirocco’s back.
“Be positive, Sirocco,” she said. “Practice makes perfect, right?”
“Right,” Sirocco grumbled. “I guess.”
Kona turned to Brisa.
“Right, Brisa?” she prompted.
Brisa was staring wistfully up at the clouds. She jumped when Kona said her name.
“What was that?” she said, startled.
“You did watch Sumatra’s demonstration, didn’t you?” Kona asked, looking worried.
“Oh, of course,” Brisa said. Then she glanced back at the clouds. “Well, I might have drifted off for a second there. But don’t worry. If I forget a move, I’ll just wing it. Why else would we have wings, right?”
Brisa fluttered her wings and gave a tinkly little laugh—a laugh that made Sumatra grit her teeth.
You can’t wing it, she wanted to cry out. This is choreography. Everybody has to do the same moves! At the same time! And as fabulously as me!!!
Of course, Sumatra didn’t say any of those not-nice things out loud. She only sighed and said, “Let’s take it from the top. And five, six, seven, EIGHT—”
No sooner had the Wind Dancers begun their number than Brisa cried out.
“Ow!” she said. “Sirocco, your tail wiggled right into my eye.”
“Sorry!” Sirocco yelled in mid-leap.
Unfortunately, he forgot to look before he leaped.
Crash!
Sirocco had catapulted himself right into the branches of the Wind Dancers’ apple tree! He straddled a branch, looking woozy.
“Sirocco!” Kona cried. “Are you all right?”
“Keep dancing without me,” Sirocco rasped. “The show must go on!”
So, huffing and puffing, Brisa and Kona moved on to the dreaded spin-kick-jazz-hoof-flip combo.
“Okay, let’s see,” Brisa said, frowning with concentration. “That’s jazz kick—”
She wiggled her back hooves.
“—spinning hooves—”
She flung her front legs out in a big circle.
And then, she stopped.
“Um, what was the next step again?” Brisa wondered—just as Kona flipped right into her!
“Aaah!” Kona cried when her forehead thunked into Brisa’s front legs.
“Oh, yeah!” Brisa said cheerily. “The flip! Thanks for the reminder, Kona.”
Brisa did a wobbly flip in mid-air, then grinned at Sumatra.
“You were right,” Brisa said proudly. “That was simple.”
“Oh, right,” Kona said sarcastically, rubbing her head.
“A breeze,” Sirocco moaned from the tree branches.
“We all agree then,” Brisa said brightly. She turned to Sumatra. “So, Miss Director. What’s next in our fabulous dance show?”
“What’s next, Brisa?” Sumatra asked. “Plan B. As in—let’s take a break!”
“Yay!” Sirocco cried. He flew out of the tree branches and did a celebratory flip in the air—the first perfect flip he’d completed all day.
Sumatra rolled her eyes, but, as usual, she followed her own if-you-can’t-say-anything-nice rule and said nothing at all.