“So you’re saying that City Feet has a new dancer?” Rochelle asked.
“Well, she wasn’t there last week, was she?” Liberty replied. “I wonder what they’re up to.”
“We’re not going to find out standing around here,” Scarlett said. “But I bet I know someone who might blab all the details.”
“Who?” Bria asked.
Liberty, Rochelle, and Scarlett all answered at once: “Mandy!”
It wasn’t difficult to find Mandy roaming the halls of the hotel. They waited until her mom went into the gift shop to corner her.
“What do you want?” Mandy asked, unshaken.
“I just wanted to tell you that we’re going to kick your butts tonight,” Liberty said.
“Oh yeah? In your dreams!” Mandy shot back.
“We know all about the ballerina . . . and the ghosts,” Scarlett added.
“How did you find out?” Mandy gasped. “That’s a secret! No one is supposed to know about Anya!”
Scarlett looked at Liberty and shrugged. “Well, we know all about her,” Liberty improvised. “You’re not as smart as you think you are!”
Mandy shrieked, “I am so telling Miss Justine on you guys! And Mr. and Mrs. Bazarov!” She stamped off in a huff.
Bria began searching the name Anya Bazarov immediately. “All I can find is something about her competing in Los Angeles last year. She was a member of the Shooting Starz Studio team,” she reported.
“How did she do?” Scarlett asked.
Bria swallowed hard. “First overall in the Teen Solos twice. She seems like a pretty serious ballerina.”
“That’s it. We’re toast again!” Rochelle sighed. “Now we have Anya Bizarre-o to worry about, too.”
“Wait! It says she competed in the Teen division—which is twelve and up,” Bria said, scanning the article. “And that was last year. So how is she dancing as a Junior with them? In Juniors, you can’t be older than eleven.”
“Bria, you’re a genius!” Scarlett hugged her. “She’s too old. City Feet must be lying about her age.”
They ran to find Toni to tell her what they’d discovered.
“I told you girls, no spying on the competition!” she scolded.
“But Miss Toni,” Scarlett pleaded. “Anya is doing a Junior Solo and she’s thirteen. They’re cheating.”
“And so are you . . . by sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. I’m surprised at you, Scarlett. I expect more of you.”
Toni turned to face the rest of the team. “I don’t want to hear another word about this. Change into your costumes, get out there, and dance your best. Stop worrying about other teams and worry about yourselves.”
She stormed off in a huff. Scarlett felt terrible. Miss Toni had never spoken to her that way before. She felt like she’d let Miss Toni down—and all she was trying to do was help.
In the dressing room, Scarlett found her mom sewing lollipops last-minute onto Gracie’s costume.
“Miss Toni is mad at me,” she told her.
“We heard—Gracie told us what happened. Spying on them wasn’t right,” her mother said.
“But we found out some really important stuff. Stuff that could disqualify their team from the competition.”
Her mother looked up from her work. “And that’s what you want? To win because they had to forfeit? That doesn’t sound like a very satisfying win to me.”
Scarlett hated when her mother was right. It made her feel guilty.
But there was nothing to be done about it now. The group dances were starting, and City Feet was up first.
Bria was correct: their number was a modern take on Giselle. The girls were all ghosts dancing in a cemetery. Anya Bazarov was everything the article said: a “beautifully poised ballerina.” And Mandy was every bit as impressive as she had been at City Lights. Only now her face was painted a ghostly white and her hair was sprinkled with baby powder.
“They really deserve to win first place, don’t they?” Rochelle asked Scarlett. “That Bizarre-o girl is gooood.”
“Probably. But we’re going to give them a run for it.”
When it was the Divas’ turn, the girls strutted out to center stage in their brightly colored costumes covered in real candy. Liberty was pink bubble gum, Rochelle was blue starlight mints, Bria was green gumballs, and Scarlett was red licorice. Gracie was the cutest of all: a rainbow-swirled lollipop. This time nothing melted or fell off (thanks to a ton of Super Glue!), and the number was light and fun and showed off little Gracie’s tumbling. Every time she did a cartwheel, her face lit up, and the judges seemed delighted. She didn’t even wobble as the girls lifted her high in the air.
“That was flawless!” Liberty’s mom told them as they exited the stage. “Not a step out of place.”
“I saw a few,” Miss Toni said. “But good job, ladies. Really good job.”
At least, Scarlett thought, their coach was proud of their performance. Maybe she’d let the whole spying incident slip? Nonetheless, she felt like there was something she still had to do. She saw Mandy walking back to her dressing room and stopped her.
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” she told Mandy. “What we did to you . . . it was wrong. It was mean.”
Mandy stared. She wasn’t expecting an apology. “Why did you do it?” she asked.
“I guess because we were afraid you were going to beat us again.”
Mandy smirked. “We are going to beat you.”
Scarlett nodded. “Then you’ll beat us fair and square. No tricks. My mom always says a win when you cheat doesn’t feel like a win at all.”
As she walked away, Scarlett saw Miss Toni standing at the end of the hall. That was all she needed: another lecture about talking to the competing team and sticking her nose where it didn’t belong. She braced herself.
“I’m proud of you,” Miss Toni said instead. “I was eavesdropping. Some girls I know taught me how.”
“I’m not sure Mandy really cared what I had to say,” Scarlett told her. “But at least I apologized.”
Toni nodded. “I know it’s hard to do the right thing when you want something so badly. But when you do the wrong thing, you have to live with yourself.”
Scarlett wasn’t exactly sure what Toni was talking about. It sounded personal. Had she made a mistake in the past? Done something wrong that she now regretted? At least she knew her teacher wasn’t furious with her—or planning to cut her from the team.
“They’re about to announce the winners. You’d better get out there,” Toni said. The stage was already packed with contestants eager to hear the results.
When it came time to announce the group awards, the emcee held up his hand and asked for everyone’s attention.
“Judges, we have a protest regarding a contestant’s age.”
Liberty looked at Scarlett. “You don’t think Toni went to the judges, do you?”
Scarlett couldn’t imagine it—not after her lecture about minding your own business. But when she saw Justine and Anya standing before the judges’ table with a stack of papers, she realized it was a definite possibility.
They debated for a while before handing down a verdict: Anya had lied about her age. She was thirteen—which put her in the Teen division. And because she had exhibited “unsportsmanlike behavior” by fudging her paperwork, she would be disqualified from her solo. To be fair, points would also be deducted from City Feet’s group number.
“Take that, City Feet!” Liberty cheered. “That’ll show you not to mess with the Divas.”
“Zip it!” Rochelle hushed her. “They’re announcing the top three groups.”
The third and second spots went to Toes and Bows from Connecticut and InSync Dance from Staten Island.
Scarlett took a deep breath and waited for the announcer to open the last envelope. “Well, no surprise here,” he ad-libbed. “This group had some sweet moves today! Congratulations to . . . the Dance Divas Studio!”
Scarlett wasn’t sure who was screaming the loudest, Liberty or Gracie. “We won! We won!” They held hands and jumped up and down. The girls all rushed toward the announcer to collect their trophy and pose for pictures. As the flashes popped, Scarlett couldn’t stop smiling. It felt amazing to be back on top.
Then she saw Justine walking toward them.
“Congrats, Toni,” she said, extending a hand for her to shake. “I guess I underestimated your team.”
“They’re good girls,” Toni replied. She kept her hands firmly in her pockets.
“There’s no rule against recruiting a gifted young dancer from L.A.,” Justine said.
“No, but there is a rule about faking your age on an application. She’s a gifted thirteen-year-old dancer—which makes her a Teen, not a Junior.”
“And you just had to go and blab to the judges, didn’t you?” Justine asked.
“I didn’t tell anyone,” Toni said calmly.
“I did,” said a small voice. It was Mandy.
Scarlett gasped. As much as she didn’t like Mandy, she wanted to run up to her at this moment and hug her!
“But why?” Justine demanded. “Why would you do that to your team?”
Mandy repeated what Scarlett had told her: “Because a win when you cheat doesn’t feel like a win at all.”
Justine looked Toni in the eyes. “I didn’t know Anya lied about her age,” she said.
Toni raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that? As I recall from our ABC days, lies were your specialty.”
“Are you ever going to get over it?” Justine sighed. “It’s been twenty years.”
Toni shook her head. “Some things you never forget . . . like a best friend who stabs you in the back.”