“Places, everyone!” Ms. Ivey clapped her hands.
Reluctantly, I took a step closer to Scooter Sanchez, who was trying his best to ignore me. It was Monday afternoon and we were in the Daniel Webster School gym with the rest of our classmates, gearing up for our first ballroom dance practice.
I still couldn’t believe I’d gotten stuck with Scooter as my partner. I thought it was a joke at first, when Cha Cha told me. I know Ms. Ivey only did it because we’re both tall. It’s not fun being a seventh grader and my height, since most guys my age come up to my armpit, but Scooter Sanchez? I’d rather dance with Lucas Winthrop’s mother.
Who’d managed to humiliate Lucas yet again about ten minutes ago, when she showed up with a video camera. Ms. Ivey had to ask her to leave.
“I promise there’ll be plenty of photo opportunities later on, Amelia, after the kids are feeling more confident,” Ms. Ivey told her as she escorted her out.
Scooter was all over that, of course. “Smile for the camera, Pookey!” he warbled, doing a little leap in front of Lucas. “Mommy wants a picture for your baby book!”
“That’s enough, Scooter,” said Ms. Ivey wearily, closing the door behind Mrs. Winthrop. I figured she must get really tired of saying that. Scooter only picks on Lucas about a hundred times a day.
Ms. Ivey introduced Cha Cha’s parents, and we all clapped politely when she asked us to thank them for contributing their time. Well, all of us except Scooter.
“This is stupid,” he muttered.
I looked at him, startled. “Mr. and Mrs. Abramowitz?”
“No, dork—Cotillion.”
Privately, I agreed with him. Dancing is so not my thing. Especially not dancing with Scooter Sanchez.
Ms. Ivey had paired Cha Cha with Lucas, probably because they were the two shortest kids in the class. Jasmine had asked to be partners with Franklin, of course—she’s as obsessed with him as Mackenzie is with Mr. Perfect Cameron McAllister—but Ms. Ivey had put him with Amy Nguyen and assigned Jasmine to Calhoun instead.
Which Cha Cha and Lucas and I are hoping will work in our favor.
Cha Cha’s plan meant telling Jasmine about the mystery letter, so now a total of four people know about it. Five, counting Mackenzie.
Ms. Ivey clapped her hands again. She was wearing white gloves, which were identical to mine. I’d picked them up at the General Store—naturally, they carried them—just like the brochure had instructed me to.
“How come you have to wear glovth?” Pippa had asked this morning, when she saw me putting them in my backpack. “Becauth of cootieth?”
I had to smile at that logic. I’d forgotten what a big deal cooties are when you’re in kindergarten.
On the other hand, now that I was actually here in the gym, I was grateful for the gloves. I definitely didn’t want Scooter cooties.
Scooties? The word popped into my mind, and I stifled a giggle.
He shot me a look. “What?”
“Nothing.”
The music started, and Mr. and Mrs. Abramowitz demonstrated how we should position ourselves properly. Scooter watched, then reached into his back pocket and pulled something out. A moment later, he plopped a hand covered with a giant ski glove on my shoulder. I gave him a withering look. He was trying to get a laugh from his buddies, as usual.
It worked. A ripple of laughter flowed across the gym.
“Really, Mr. Sanchez?” said Mr. Abramowitz, when he spotted the source of the hilarity. He crossed the gym and held out his hand. Scooter grinned and dropped the ski glove in it. He was unrepentant, however, and still on the hunt for laughs. We were supposed to be learning how to fox-trot (“Slow, slow, quick, quick,” Mr. Abramowitz called out over and over again, as he and Cha Cha’s mother led us through the steps), but Scooter turned it into a Truly-trot instead. He spent most of his time “accidentally” stepping on my feet. By the time Mr. Abramowitz caught on and told him to knock it off, my toes were numb.
Things went downhill from there. Next, Scooter thought it would be fun to sing “Truly Gigantic” under his breath in time to the music and steer me around the cafeteria like a bumper car.
“Oops!” he said, as we crashed into Cha Cha and Lucas, sending Lucas sprawling onto the floor. “Pardon me!”
Ms. Ivey clapped her hands once more, signaling a break, and I limped over to one of the chairs that lined the wall to sit down. After helping Lucas to his feet, Cha Cha joined me.
“Having fun yet?” I asked sourly.
She smiled. “You’ll get the hang of it.”
“Easy for you to say,” I grumbled. “You’re not stuck with Scooter.” Plus, Cha Cha was an old hand at this. She was even managing to make a pipsqueak like Lucas, who’d probably never danced a step in his life, look like a pro. I, on the other hand—well, let’s just say that I was not looking forward to making a fool of myself in front of the entire town.
Jasmine flopped onto a seat beside us. “This would be so much more fun if Ms. Ivey had let me dance with Franklin,” she said with a sigh. “Calhoun never even cracks a smile.”
“It’s probably because you have cooties,” I told her.
She laughed. “Or because he has two left feet.”
That was an understatement. Calhoun was an even worse dancer than Scooter, as it turned out. He went left when he was supposed to go right, and right when he was supposed to go left, and he tripped over Jasmine’s feet as well as his own. I looked across the room to where he was lounging against the wall, scowling.
“I think he’s gotten worse since last year,” Jasmine said.
“That’s what I’m counting on,” said Cha Cha. “That and the fact that he hates to lose. Especially to Scooter.”
The music started again and Scooter and I stumbled and bumbled our way—slow, slow, quick, quick—across the floor. My big feet just weren’t meant for this. My whole self just wasn’t meant for this. Sometimes I wonder if I’m even meant to be a land animal. Life would be a lot easier if I were a bird—especially an owl, swooping silently through the sky. A fish would be good too.
Thinking of fish made me think of swim team tryouts. They were still a couple of weeks away, but I hadn’t made any headway with my father.
At least my family was talking to me again. The whole “cross my heart and hope to fly” mess seemed to have blown over. There hadn’t even been a big showdown that night when I’d gotten home from the library. My father had still been at the bookstore, finishing up inventory with Aunt True, and my mother was on the couch in the family room nodding off over her homework, too tired to do more than simply remind me of my promise to be more thoughtful of Dad.
“This move has been good for him,” she’d said to me. “I see it already, even if he doesn’t. But he still has a long road to recovery, sweetheart. Physically and mentally. And anything we can do as a family to help smooth that road will really help him. Even the little things that might not seem important, okay?”
I nodded. “I know, Mom. I’m really, really sorry. I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“I know you didn’t, Little O.”
I hadn’t heard that nickname in a long time. It was short for “Little Owl,” which seems kind of silly now that I tower over my mother by nearly a foot. She’s called me that ever since I was a baby and refused to sleep through the night. There’s even a picture of us wearing matching sweaters that she knitted with owls on the front and the initials “L. O.” for me and “M. O.”—that stands for Mama Owl—for her on the back.
The thing is, there are advantages to being a night owl. With five of us kids to take care of and Dad deployed most of the time, there hadn’t always been enough of my mother to go around. And ever since I could remember, when I’d wake up in the middle of the night and go to get a drink of water or whatever, she’d still be awake. Sometimes she’d be waiting for a call from Dad—when your husband is stationed halfway around the world, you can’t be picky about when to schedule a call—and sometimes she’d be reading or knitting or watching a movie, or just drinking tea and staring into the dark. It was the perfect opportunity to get some alone time with her.
I loved those nighttime visits. Sometimes my mother would make me tea or cocoa too, and sometimes we’d talk or she’d read aloud to me, but mostly I’d just curl up beside her on the sofa, content to be breathing the same air.
Since Black Monday, though, the initials in my nickname might as well have stood for “Largely Overlooked.” Between the move, worries over my father and the bookstore, going back to college, and now a part-time job, my mother had reformed her night-owl ways. These days, she was in bed, sound asleep, well before I was.
“Ouch!” Scooter squawked, springing back indignantly. “Quit daydreaming! You stepped on my foot!”
“Like you haven’t stepped on mine a million times already!” I retorted.
The music came to a stop, and Ms. Ivey clapped her hands one last time. “Excellent work, everyone!”
“Before you go,” added Mr. Abramowitz, “we have an announcement to make.”
Cha Cha and I exchanged a glance. This was it—the worm we were hoping would bait the hook for Calhoun.
“This year, for the very first time, the Starlite Dance Studio will be offering cash prizes at Cotillion!”
There was an audible buzz of excitement in the gym at this news. Scooter brightened, and I glanced over at Calhoun to see if it had piqued his interest too, but the expression on his face was unreadable.
“They’ll be awarded in a number of categories, including best dance partners, of course, but also best dressed and most improved.” Mr. Abramowitz slipped an arm around Cha Cha’s mother’s waist. “Mrs. Abramowitz and I are hoping that this will give you all an incentive to work especially hard this year, since it’s the one hundredth anniversary of our town’s Winter Festival. We’re expecting media coverage!”
Media other than the Pumpkin Falls Patriot-Bugle? Fat chance.
“Remember,” added Cha Cha’s mother, “you all need to sign up for two complimentary practice sessions at the Starlite.”
“Attendance will be taken!” noted Ms. Ivey. “Be sure and show up on time, and bring your best Pumpkin Falls manners!”
I smothered a grin. I’d have to add “Pumpkin Falls manners” to my list of things to tell Mackenzie next time we talked. My cousin is completely fascinated with my new hometown.
“It’s like you stepped through a wormhole or something,” she told me the other night. Mackenzie is a big fan of sci-fi movies. “Pumpkin Falls: The Town That Time Forgot!” she added in a fake radio announcer’s voice. “I can’t believe there’s a place that has a dance for the entire town.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Earth to Truly!” said Cha Cha, yanking me back to reality. “Come on—we’re going to be late for math.”