Karimov Dance Project

Chapter 4: The Advantages of Being a 'Karimov'; A New Life

For nearly a whole minute, James and Maddy were just staring at the young teachers who started laughing. Then they turned to each other and their expressions morphed into grins.

"No way! No fucking way!" Said James turning back to grownups.

"Oh my god, no need to be so dramatic! Still don't get why people are so excited about being tortured by my mother!" Aidar was completely ignored by the kids, who were facing each other again, jumping up and down with hands on each others shoulders and squealing.

"No more stupid school with mean kids!"

"No more old Mrs Plank and her favouritism!"

"The Nutcracker Winter Show!"

"The Summer Solstice Show!"

"The modelling jobs!"

"The interviews!"

"Competitions all over the world!"

"Beautiful costumes!"

"Hanging out with Alex!" The moment James said that he became bright red, but he could barely care at a time like this. The two started squealing and giggling all over again.

Zhou Ling put his hands on their shoulders, grounding them. "Right, it's good that you're happy, but I think you're going to have a panic attack in a minute. Let's calm down a bit, ok?"

They let go of each other and jumped on to Zhou Ling, tumbling him to the ground.

Calming down took some time, but eventually all four were sitting on the floor and chatting.

"Coming back to my old question, what did you want to ask?" Asked James, making himself comfortable in a pile of yoga mats.

"Well I say we make a little surprise for Alex. He doesn't know you're coming, so just imagine what he will look like when he sees you two!" Said Aidar from where he was laying his head on Zhou Ling lap.

"All of us here know just how much Alex hates surprises. And not just surprises, anything he can't control really. So I don't think that's a good idea." Explained Zhou Ling.

"It's easy. We'll just do a non-surprise. He's okay with them," James looked at the party like what he said made perfect sense, but the only one who seemed to not understand what was going on was Aidar, the rest just nodded.

"Ok, why did everyone except me just understand that?"

"Oh, thats the thing Jamie thought of when we planned Alex's twelfth birthday party." Maddy answered, "We decided to call it a non-surprise."

Now there was understanding in Aidar's eyes. "You mean the time this curly bastard straight away came up to Alex and told him that there will be a surprise at the party? I thought it was called party-pooping."

"Hey! It worked didn't it? He planned that there will be a surprise and didn't look nearly as freaked out as he would have if he didn't know, when the lights turned off in the middle of the evening, did he?"

At that moment the door opened and a silver head peaked in.

"I accidentally overheard..." started Rissana finding her way to the corner where the little group placed themselves.

"Is this room cursed or something? Why does everyone keep eavesdropping?" Asked Aidar.

"I was just going to check on the babies and couldn't help but hear that you're taking away my students," said the girl positioning herself against a stack of rollers.