Dancing with the Devil ✔️

4

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D A N C I N G
WITH THE
D E V I L
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"Oh my gosh!" Millie exclaimed. "Look who's sitting down at a table in McDonald's right now!"

I followed the direction of Millie's gaze where to my surprise, I spotted Blake, Jack and Alex, the three boys from our dance troupe at school. Their undivided attention was cast towards a girl whose back was towards us. But I knew that I would recognize that flowing long, blonde hair anywhere.

"What are they all doing here together?" asked Millie, curiously.

"I have no idea!" I replied, "But let's go find out." And I strode quickly over towards their table.

Millie and I had decided to spend Saturday afternoon at the mall. I'd had my eye on a really pretty top that had recently come into stock in my favorite store and I had decided I would use my birthday money to buy it. However, to my huge dismay, on entering the store a few minutes earlier, I had discovered that there were none left in my size.

When Millie realized how hugely disappointed I was, she offered to buy me a thick shake at McDonalds to try and cheer me up. That was when we happened to notice our friends from school.

"Hey guys," I said in a friendly manner. "What are you all doing here?"

They had been so absorbed in Sara's conversation, that they had not seen us approach and got quite a start at the unexpected sound of my voice.

"Julia!" Sara exclaimed, "And Millie! What a surprise to see you here." They all shuffled over to make room at the booth for us and although the boys welcomed us without hesitation, I kind of got the impression that Sara did not feel the same way. An uncomfortable tension seemed to appear out of nowhere but then I decided I must be imagining things. So I started chatting aimlessly about it being such a coincidence to run into each other like that. The boys explained that they had been to see a movie and had then bumped into Sara afterwards, just as they were entering McDonalds.

"I was shopping with my mom," Sara said. "When I saw the boys, Mom told me I could meet up with her in about half an hour so I could have some time to hang out with them." Grinning in Blake's direction she continued, "The boys said they might even come to my house tomorrow so we can do some extra rehearsals. You girls can come as well if you want, but if you're too busy, then that's ok. We can just practice at school on Monday."

"I can't make it tomorrow," replied Millie, obviously disappointed. "We're going to visit my grandparents so I'll be out for the whole day."

"Oh, that's too bad!" answered Sara. "Never mind, we can all get together on Monday."

"Julia can probably go, though," Millie quickly responded. "You were saying earlier that you had nothing to do tomorrow, Julia!"

Looking towards Sara, I replied, "Only if that's ok with you, Sara."

"Oh, that's fine, Julia. Of course you can come. I'm planning on teaching the boys some other dance moves that I know. So I can teach you too, if you like."

"That sounds great," I answered, trying to muster some enthusiasm. For some reason though, I didn't feel completely welcome and sat there quietly while Sara continued her animated conversation; with the boys as her main audience.

I suddenly noticed a familiar looking carry bag sitting on the seat between myself and Sara and then recognized it as coming from my favorite clothing store.

"Have you been shopping at Dream Warehouse?" I asked Sara curiously. "That's my favorite store."

"Yes," Sara replied brightly. "I just bought the prettiest top, only about fifteen minutes ago. As soon as I saw it, I just had to have it and I'm so lucky because it was the last one in my size! Do you like it?" she asked, pulling it out of the bag.

I gasped in surprise when I realized that it was the exact same top that I had intended to buy for myself and when I looked at it more closely, I spotted the label and realized that it was also in my size. Sara had beaten me to it. What are the chances of that? I sighed to myself as I commented on how pretty it was.

I decided not to mention that I had actually planned on buying that very top, but then out of the blue, Millie exclaimed, "Sara, that looks like the top you wanted to buy. Isn't it exactly the same one? And it's in your size as well!"

Seeing my expression, Sara responded, "Oh Julia, did I beat you to it? I'm so sorry!"

For some reason, I felt that she really wasn't being sincere, but I told her not to worry about it and decided to put it out of my mind. I didn't know what was bugging me.

Perhaps I'm coming down with something? I wondered. Or maybe I'm just being silly. Sara is a really nice girl, it's obvious how much everyone likes her and we're really lucky to have her in our class.

As Millie and I sat on the bus heading home later that afternoon, I decided to push all the crazy thoughts about Sara from my mind. We really were fortunate to have her come to our school and to actually have her talent included in our dance troupe was something to be very grateful for.

I decided to focus on attempting some new hip hop moves myself that I could share with the guys the next day and tried to remove all the uneasy thoughts from my mind. But for some reason, I just couldn't shake the foreboding premonition that seemed to be tingling down my spine.