LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Look around,” said Mr. Yu, gesturing around the room. “You see anyone else not wear uniform?”

      “No,” whispered Taylor.

      “What did you say?” asked Mr. Yu. “No, right? Everyone have the little VIBA on hip?” he said, poking Keiko’s hip where the academy’s logo was embroidered on her bodysuit. “Don’t even need to read, just look. Oh, white spot? Must be VIBA, right?” Taylor nodded. Suddenly his smile disappeared and he looked furious. “Next time, no uniform, no class. I will kick you out. Understand?” Without waiting for an answer he began to lead class.

      The class collectively began to breathe again, those around Taylor staring at her with alternating expressions of pity and disgust.

      “And into, hu, ha, phu, ba, ba, chuuuu … pah! Ba, into …” Mr. Yu called out the counts for each exercise in his own peculiar way while banging the Nutcracker Prince’s prop sword in time to the music to make more noise. George gritted his teeth and tried to block him out by hitting the keys louder. WHAP! “Into…!” bellowed Mr. Yu, hitting Julian on his leg with the sword while he was in arabesque. Julian grimaced in pain and squared his hips. “Okay, barre finish. Now stretch,” said Mr. Yu, finally. He went out for a smoke.

      Taylor sat on the ground and rolled into the middle splits. Julian came over and slid into the side splits next to her. “Hey, you okay?” he asked. “That dude is kinda intense.”

      “Yeah, I know. It’s just Mr. Yu, he’s like that,” Taylor was trying not to cry. Angela came and sat down beside them.

      “Taylor, how come you didn’t just wear your uniform?” she asked in a fake-friendly tone. “It says in the rule book to always wear the uniform for class,” she added condescendingly. Taylor said nothing.

      Julian stared at her like she was crazy. “Wow, you’re really rude, you know that? Why don’t you F off?”

      “I was trying to make her feel better!” said Angela, moving away horrified. Taylor started laughing.

      “That was good,” she turned to Julian. “Thanks! She’s, like, always a bitch to me.”

      “No problem,” he said “Anyway, she is so bad! I couldn’t stop laughing at her yesterday while I was sitting out. And she thinks she’s really good!” Tristan came over and sat next to Julian. Delilah followed him, and Taylor quickly got up and left.

      “Did you just tell Angela to F off?” he asked, grinning at Julian.

      “Ah, yeah. But she was being really rude.” he started to try to justify himself.

      “Hey, no, that’s cool!” Tristan said, “I’ve totally wanted to do that since she came, just couldn’t find an excuse.”

      “I gave you loads!” complained Delilah.

      “So,” said Tristan, ignoring Delilah, “we were wondering if you’d been to Harbour Dance yet?”

      “No, what’s that?” asked Julian.

      “It’s this dance place. It’s really cool. They have drop-in classes running all day, every day, and all types, and you just pay per class. It’s really awesome for contemporary and hip hop and stuff. It’s not like they have any good contemporary at the academy. You should totally come with us some day.”

      “I’d like that,” smiled Julian.

      “Right, see you then, Jules,” said Tristan. At that moment Mr. Yu came back, looking distinctly calmer from the smoke.

      “The more you smoke, the more you jump,” he told Alexandra, who was sitting off to the side with a stomach ache, as he walked in. “Everyone, centre,” he called out.

      “I’m nervous,” Taylor whispered to Kaitlyn as they waited for the auditions.

      “Why?” asked Kaitlyn, snorting. “It’s not like we dance, right? Delilah said that we just stand in order of height and they pick.”

      “Yes, but, like, I’m not like really nervous. I just want to do well,” said Taylor, quickly editing.

      “Right,” Kaitlyn rolled her eyes. Mr. and Mrs. Demidovski came in, and everyone slowly quieted down.

      Mr. Demidovski was wearing black dress pants, a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a black vest, black dress shoes, and a green cloak with a multicoloured plaid lining. On top of all this, he had added a gold scarf.

      “I like your scarf, Mr. Demidovski,” Tristan said, grinning.

      “Thank you,” Mr. Demidovski inclined his head toward Tristan and bowed slightly. “And how are you?”

      “Good, sir,” Tristan bit his finger to keep himself from laughing out loud.

      “Okay, everyone line up, smallest to tallest,” yelled Mr. Yu.

      Mr. Moretti stood to one side watching the proceedings balefully. He sighed, and then walked to the front where Mrs. Demidovski, Mrs. Castillo, and Mrs. Mallard were already sitting. Mr. Damon, the artistic director of the youth company, was also there. After due consideration, Mr. Moretti sat down next to Mr. Damon, evidently judging him to be the lesser of the evils. Mr. Demidovski walked to the front of the room and surveyed his students proudly.

      “Today … today we have the audition,” he announced proudly. “We have auditions for The Nutcracker. My academy, it is going to perform The Nutcracker for the Christmas show. Today, we pick the parts of Clara and Sugarplum. Everyone, I do not want you to cry. I do not want you tell your parents that it is not fair. Mr. Demidovski is a very fair man, everyone says that. Everyone. All the parts are important. All take work; all are important for a beautiful show. Mr. Yu, would you like to say anything to the students?” Mr. Yu shook his head. He was standing next to Tristan with his hands in his pockets, waiting impatiently. When Mr. Demidovski turned away from Mr. Yu, Tristan gave a snort of smothered laughter, and Mr. Yu hit him on the ear. “All right, we start!” announced Mr. Demidovski. “Everybody stand tallest to smallest? Okay.” He turned to Mrs. Demidovski and whispered in Russian.

      “Yes, Alexandra is here,” said Mrs. Demidovski loudly in English.

      Alexandra rolled her eyes. “Good thing he knows what I look like, hey?” she whispered to Grace. Grace gave a small smile and kept her eyes facing front.

      “Grace, come front,” said Mr. Yu.

      “Okay, so she’s first cast Sugarplum.” Taylor whispered to Keiko, keeping her eyes on Mr. Yu.

      “So if they know what we’re cast as, we get called up front?” Julian whispered to Tristan.

      “No.” replied Tristan. “Principals get called front, solos and good corps to the side, and losers to the back. Pretty simple, really. They don’t even tell you what you got until rehearsals next week. Not that they have to, we know.”

      “Aiko, Kaitlyn … Anna … Michael …” continued Mr. Yu. Taylor’s stomach dropped. Not Kaitlyn! She just got here, does she have to get Clara? It had to be Clara! She’s the only one short enough to dance Clara. At least they aren’t using the professional company members this year.

      Mr. Demidovski called Mr. Yu over and they had a quickly whispered discussion. “Okay, Alexandra!” called Mr. Yu, not making any pretence of being happy about it. “Julie!” Julian got up as everyone in the room laughed nervously. “And Tristan, Kageki, Jonathon. Are we using Dmitri?” he asked Mr. Damon, who nodded.

      “Okay,” Mr. Yu said, suddenly speeding up, running through the lists of names as he sent them to the sides and back. “Okay, finish.” He went and crouched down beside Mr. Demidovski. “Good?”

      “Yes. Thank you, Mr. Yu. Everyone, you may go. Rehearsal on Saturday. Look on the board. If anyone’s name wasn’t called, go talk to Gabriel in the office.” Everyone clapped and filed silently out of the room,

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