The Gift of Dancing (Book 5 of the Ava and Mia Series)

Chapter 2

I wake up and I instantly smell bacon! I jump out of bed and rush down stairs. Uncle David is cooking up some bacon and there's waffles in the toaster. Aunt Tina comes in "hey bud! Remember you all have dance at 10." Omg I almost forgot! We have a rehearsal and costume fitting today at the venue! It's at some meeting hall with a big stage in the middle of a room with a lot of tables for our family members! The waffles pop out of the toaster and I put them on my plate and cut them up then put a pool of syrup on the side. Uncle David finishes the bacon and puts them all on a big serving plate and I grab two pieces as I'm putting my plate in the sink. I head upstairs to change. I grab a tank top and shorts and put them on quickly and then I grab my oireachtas hoodie and dance bag then head downstairs. Mia and Sadie are down there already finishing up breakfast. Aunt Tina gives us each our lunch boxes with snacks because we're there all day.

We all get into the car and we drive to the venue. It's only about 10 minutes away in the center of town. It's in a hotel ballroom! We get there as Alayna, Rebecca and Lydie are! We all run and hug eachother even though it's only been like 2 days! We all walk in together and we follow the sound of reels and hardshoes to the ballrooms we're taking over for the day. We all put our bags where everyone else has and we go see Miss Tammie who has the order clipboard.

"Hi girls. We're starting with sets so can you all put on your hardshoes?" We all nod and head back over to the bags. Everyone else trickles in and 20 minutes later everyone is stretching waiting for what to do. All of the teachers are here. We usually only have Miss Tammie and Miss Amy but Miss Kayle, Miss Bethany, Mr John and Mr Sam are here too! That's how you know this is important to them!

"Okay all we're starting rehearsal. These sets have to be perfect or you just won't do it. First up is anybody with Drunken Gauger. Prelim sets go together then opens go alone. We'll be announcing like it would be at the actual thing." All of the kids with that set go up and the prelims go first.

"First up we have Alayna, Ruby, Mia and Rebeca dancing Drunken Gauger at speed 74!"

We all clap like its the real thing and then they walk onto the stage. All of the teachers are at a big table at the front of the stage with notebooks like judges! One of the older girls is announcing. They finish and nobody says anything so I guess they'll do critiques after we're all done.

"Next up is Teri dancing Drunken Gauger at speed 66!"

Teri is so good! She got 2nd at oireachtas this year, 3rd at Nationals and 5th at worlds! She did this set for worlds (but switched it for nationals and oireachtas) and one of the judges gave her a perfect score in it! At worlds! That's so cool! Her set was basically flawless today!

"ORANGE ROUGE!" Mr. Sam calls out and those kids scramble up and over to side stage.

"First up is Rayen dancing Orange Rouge at speed 69!"

Rayen is one of those girls who is really quiet but an absolute powerhouse onstage! She got 2nd at oireachtas this year after winning last year, 3rd at nationals and 6th at worlds! Her Reel was tied with the girl who got 2nd!

"Now up is Mikey, dancing Orange Rouge at Speed 69!"

Mikey won oireachtas this year after getting 2nd for 5 years in a row! He also won Nationals after getting 2nd at worlds after not recalling the year before! Apparently he worked his butt off and it paid off for him!

"Now up is Darden, dancing Orange Rouge at speed 66!"

Darden is one of my dance big brothers! He's really good but he gets nervous at majors and doesn't do as well as he can. He got 3rd this year at Oireachtas, 4th at Nationals and 9th at Worlds. He was top 10 so that's super awesome but I heard that he really wanted to podium!