It was not long before Ivy and Bean realized that they had made a terrible mistake.
Bean began to realize it while Madame Joy was talking about first position. You stuck your heels together and your toes apart. Big deal. Where was the leaping? Where was the kicking? Where was the dancing?
Then Madame Joy chattered for a long time about nice round arms. Who cared about arms? When Madame Joy started in on second position, which turned out to be just regular standing, Bean stopped listening.
Ivy paid careful attention to first position. Heels, toes. Great! Then she paid careful attention to second position. Arms out, legs out. Great! Then came third position.
“Now,” said Madame Joy, “third position. For third position, we slide our right foot, like so, to the middle of our left foot. Then we lift one nice round arm up, up in the air, leaving our other nice round arm—”
Ivy fell over with a thump.
“Goodness!” exclaimed Madame Joy. “Let’s try that again.”
Let’s not, thought Ivy.
But they did. In fact, they did nothing but one, two, three, four, and five for half an hour. After that, Madame Joy showed them something called a plié. She acted like it was the most important thing in the world, but really it was just bending your knees and dipping a little. Dip, dip, dip. Row, row, row your boat, thought Bean.
“Hey, guys,” she called, “Get this!” She sang, “Dip, dip, dip your knees—”
Nobody joined in. Instead, Madame Joy said, “We save our singing for after class, Bean.”
Sheesh, Bean said to herself. You’d think she’d be happy to get a little more pep in here.
But it was even worse when Madame Joy was peppy. “All right, girls! Time to leap like little kitties!” Madame Joy said, springing into the air with her ballet slippers fluttering.
“She doesn’t leap like a kitty. She leaps like a frog,” Bean whispered to Ivy.
“Bean!” called Madame Joy. “You may lead the kitties.” She twirled briskly around and hauled Bean to the front of the line. “Now,” she said, smiling, “you are a kitty! Leap!” Madame Joy bounded across the wide, empty floor.
Bean closed her eyes and imagined she was a cat. She was a skinny black cat that wanted to catch a bird. And then eat it. Bean crouched. She twitched her tail. She narrowed her eyes. “RRRRRrrrowll!” she screeched and then lunged forward, landing on her hands and knees in the middle of the floor. “Got him!” she yelled.
Madame Joy stared at Bean for a second, and then she said, “Dulcie, will you show us how to leap like a kitty?”
“Yes, Madame Joy,” said Dulcie, only she said, “Madame Jwah.” For some reason, Madame Joy liked that. Dulcie came to the front of the line and stood with her arms out and her toes pointed.
Bean rose to her feet. “So I already did it, right?” she asked. “I get to be done, right?”
“No,” said Madame Joy. “You need more practice. Go to the end of the line.”
Bean clomped to the end of the line and stood behind Ivy.
Dulcie lifted her arms higher and smiled proudly. Then she hopped across the empty floor, ker-plop, ker-plop. When she reached the other side of the ballet studio, Dulcie stood before Madame Joy and held out her tiny pink dance skirt. Then she swirled one leg behind the other and curtseyed.
“Show-off,” whispered Bean.
“I can’t believe that we asked for this,” said Ivy, her eyes on Dulcie.
“We didn’t just ask. We begged,” Bean said glumly.
It was true. They had begged.
After everyone had leaped, Madame Joy clapped her hands and told them they had to be butterflies.
Bean raised her hand. “Can I be a Wili instead?”
Madame Joy stared at her. “Not today,” she said in a way that really meant never. Then she turned on some music, and all the other girls ran around the room flapping their arms and pointing their toes.
That’s when Ivy and Bean turned to look at each other, and their eyes said We have made a terrible mistake.
