CHAPTER FOUR
OLDIE BUT GOODIE
The next Saturday morning, Chery and her mom, Beatriz, set out to buy a dance outfit. Chery was tired and fell asleep almost instantly in the rocking car.
Before long, the lurching and jerking of her mom’s parking woke Chery.
“This isn’t the mall,” Chery said, looking around.
“If you weren’t asleep, you would have heard me say we’re going to a pop-up flea market,” Mom said, staring. “Did you stay up past your bedtime dancing again?”
“Only until midnight! I had to get my moves right,” Chery said with a yawn.
“Sleep is just as important as practice, young lady,” her mom replied.
“So is getting the right outfit,” Chery said. “I need to go to DanceYes! Everyone said Ana’s aunt has the best dance clothing.”
“We can get something here,” Mom said. “Remember your dance at the community center? When you and your squad wore those tracksuits? I found them in a place like this.”
Chery remembered the suits. They were nice and stretchy. Perfect for doing splits.
Before long, Chery and her mom had been in and out of so many booths that Chery’s feet were tired.
“These aren’t even dance outfits,” Chery said, flipping through old clothes hanging on a rack. “They’re just regular clothes.”
“Hip-hop fashion is about making what we wear our own,” Mom said. “It’s about whatever works for you and your squad.”
“But I’m not with my squad anymore,” Chery replied. “I’m on a school team now. And the other sports teams are on a winning streak. I don’t want to be the one who jinxes it because I wore the wrong thing.”
Beatriz hugged Chery. “You danced just as well in my oversized shirt, remember?”
Chery wondered if Mom was saying this to avoid buying her an expensive dance outfit.
Over a loudspeaker, a record scratched. It pounded with the base of a popular song. Across the way, in the center of the booths, two guys stared at each other. One had on a hoodie, the other wore skinny jeans. They walked toward each other like there was a problem. Their shoulders bumped. Just when it looked like trouble, the music switched, and they broke out into a dance.
Regular-looking people tossed their bags aside and stepped in line with the two dancers. It was a flash mob! It grew from two to five to twelve dancers. Men, women, boys, and girls in regular street clothes moved together.
Shoppers crowded around.
The music changed to an old rap song that talked about hip-hopping non-stopping. The dancers fanned out and formed two lines. Then, two-by-two, dancers battled. The two who shoulder-checked each other were the last to go. One moved like a puppet being pulled by strings. The crowd clapped in rhythm during his performance.
In a surprise move, his dance rival slid across the ground on his head. The shoppers howled. Then he swung his legs around in a windmill before freezing. That was definitely a showstopping move.
“He’s good,” Mom said.
When the dancer rose, his rival gave him a hug and a big pat on the back. They looked like they were having the best time.
After the performance ended, Mom leaned toward Chery. “Are you going to tell them they don’t look like dancers?”
Chery couldn’t imagine a group of better dancers.
She yanked her mom’s arm. “You’re right! We can get a perfect dance outfit here. Like that hat that girl was wearing. It would hold my braids!”