Shooting Star

Chapter 2

"Girls! I want you to split up into your scrimmage teams! Our first tournament is this weekend, and I want us to rock it!" Coach Hiller hollered.

I smiled in spite of being sweaty and totally exhausted. I skated over to one side of the ice to join Team A.

"What up, Breeze?" Kylie Morris smiled at me. Breeze was my nickname on the Girls Triple AAA Select Team.

I grinned. "Not much. You?"

"Havin' a blast," Kylie smiled. Kylie was 16, two years older than me. All of the older girls had been impressed with the way I was playing, and they were doubly impressed by the fact that I danced AND played hockey.

"When's dance tonight?" Kylie asked.

"It starts at five," I groaned. "Right after practice."

"Morris! Miller!" Coach Hiller called. "Quit talking!"

"Yes Coach!" I yelled back. I skated over to the face-off zone for puck-drop.

The puck hit the ice and I won the face-off easily. I smashed the puck to Kylie who caught it on her stick and started skating into the other end. She saucered the puck over to Alyssa Jones, who skated past Michelle Weber and fired on net.

The goalie, Stephanie Lechter, blocked it easily with a pad save and the puck bounced back to Michelle, who passed it up to her left-wing, Emily Umberger.

I skated back to the other zone and received the puck from Ruby Leung, who'd stolen the puck from Emily. I skated back into the neutral zone and passed back to Kylie, who stopped at the face-off circle and fired it. It shot wide and bounced off the backboard, where Alyssa picked it up and slid it to me. I raised my stick up and hammered the puck into the back of the net, right over Stephanie's blocker side. GOAL!

I jumped in the air and skated towards Alyssa. "Great shot, Al!"

"Nice one-timer," Kylie said, joining our group hug.

"Shift!" Coach Hiller bellowed. The ten girls on the ice (excluding the goalies) skated over to the benches and a change was made.

There were only 20 girls on the team, meaning there were only two 'full' shifts when we played scrimmages during practice. Plus, scrimmages were half the time of regular shifts during games, since Coach Hiller didn't want us to burn too much of our energy.

"Nice play, you three," Coach Hiller smiled. "Keep it up."

I nodded and Kylie and Alyssa smiled. The three of us were the best forwards on the team, and we made up the first line on the Admirals.

3 HOURS LATER

"I want to see this combination," Ms. Parolee pointed to the screen, "done perfectly, once. You get one shot at this. If you can't, then you won't get a diamond-level routine."

None of us really liked Ms. Parolee. She was very bossy and snobby, but I had respect for her, because her routines were amazing and never failed to win the dancer anything less than a diamond. The only problem with getting one of the best routines was that you had to prove to her that you deserved it. This was probably one of the toughest tests we’d ever been given by her.

Janelle, Aly-G, Natalie, a few other girls, and I looked at each other in disbelief. Since when did Ms. Parolee get to call the shots at this studio? I wondered. Each dancer should get a routine that enhanced their abilities, and the routine’s difficulty shouldn’t be based off of just one performance. But there wasn’t really any point in arguing, because it was just a waste of energy. Instead, I focused on the dancer on the TV screen, and studied the choreography and technique. Once the footage finished, Ms. Parolee selected Aly-G to go first.

Aly-G took center-stage on the dance floor, swallowing nervously. The music began and she began to dance.

Not bad, I thought. Under the circumstances, she's amazing!

But when the routine ended, Ms. Parolee sniffed. "Next," she said disappointedly. It was very, very hard to impress Ms. Parolee. "Natalie."

Natalie's performance, I thought, is really, really good.

But apparently, it just wasn’t good enough.  "Janelle," she said dismissively.

Janelle's routine was spot-on, and I'm not saying it because she's my best friend. It was really amazing. "Very good Janelle," Ms. Parolee said. "But not good enough, I’m afraid."

Janelle looked crushed. "It's all right," I consoled her. "Don't worry." She gave me a sad smile in return.

Ms. Parolee called up the remaining girls to dance. Not once did she say anything good about their performances.

"Brianna," Ms. Parolee said, finally calling my name. I stood up and took my spot on the dance floor. The music started. Pique, pique, chassé, pas de poisson, jump, jeté with an accent. I ran the move through my head before I executed it.

The ending pose was a fouette to all four corners of the world, and then a knee slide with a port de bra at the end.

I slid to one knee and raised my arms in first port de bras. The music ended.

"Wonderful, Brianna," Ms. Parolee smiled. "Excellenté." Ms. Parolee was from Paris, so she knew all the french terms and whatnot.

I smiled and went back to sit with my friends.

"Abigail," Ms. Parolee continued on.

"You were amazing," Janelle smiled. "I wish I could dance like you."

"Nah," I blushed. "that was nothing."

"Please," Natalie whispered. "Your execution looked effortless."

"You made it look easy," Aly-G whispered. “It was flawless.”

"Thanks," I whispered back.

The four of us focused our attention on Abigail, but I couldn't help but think that I'd done two of the exact same things today, one at hockey, the other at dance.

I'd fired a one-timer on net and it'd gone in. I'd attempted the routine only allowed 'one try'. And I'd nailed it. Sometimes, you only had one chance to do things. So you needed to seize the chance you got and just do it.