Shadows to Stages

30 January 2016

Dear diary,

Today everyone competing at internationals had to come into school for the entire day. I knew it was going to be hard but all the practice time we get will really help us at internationals.

I arrived to school with Maya and Abigail and Nathan was at his locker. He was blushing and staring at me and of course that made me blush. Maya said ' You're blushing, what's been going on between you two?' I said 'Nothing, we've been hanging out a lot recently, and we've become great friends. That's all.' Abigail said 'Yeah, but he's blushing too, so obviously it's more than that.' They were both poking me and giggling, I said 'You two are such romantics.' We were all laughing and ran to the auditorium for practice.

When we got there Mrs was on the stage and everyone else was sitting in the rows of seats in front of the stage. Mrs said 'Okay, class everyone come on to the stage. I brought you here for you to see what performing on a stage is like. Though the stage in L.A will be much bigger, this will show you the difference in performing on different stages. Okay, let's get started. Everyone spread out and stretch, kay?' I was stretching with Nathan, Daniel, Abigail and Maya. Maya and Abigail are the only people who know about my situation. It's hard to hide it from people but internationals means so much so I don't think I have a choice.

Me, Maya and Abigail were practicing our trio. It's going REALLY good. It's old school and fun. No one does this anymore so we thought in bringing it back would give us an advantage over the rest of the teams performing. It's so much fun and we are bringing it. When we hit our final poses everyone went crazy. I was exhausted but it was worth it. If we want to stand out, we have got to practice. Our trio is almost ready but I know we can do it. I went into the corner and was practicing my solo. All I could think about was moving. I kept messing up and falling. Nathan noticed and came over. He said 'Hey, are you okay? Here let me help you up.' He grabbed my hand and lifted me up. Our faces were so close. We just stared into each other's eyes for what seemed like forever. We blushed and looked away. 'What's wrong, you're not yourself.' I said 'I'll tell you, but you can't tell anyone. Not Mrs Williams, definitely. Maya and Abigail know as well.' He looked worried and said 'Okay, I won't say a word.' I told him ' So recently my mam and dad got back together and they decided to make our family move. I asked my dad that as long as I went to internationals it's okay, but he said that we are packing on the week of internationals.' He looked so defeated 'I can't believe your parents are doing this to you.' I said 'Anyway, I have a plan. I'm still going to internationals.' He let out a sigh of relief. He hugged me and lifted me up. I felt safe in his arms. I felt something I never felt. At that exact moment I realised something I kept pushing to the back of my mind.

I like Nathan!

I walked over to Maya and Abigail. They looked at me as I was daydreaming. Maya pinched me and said 'Bella, what are you doing?' I jumped and said 'What? Oh sorry, daydreaming.' Abigail said 'About what exactly?' I told them about what I realised. 'Guys, I have great news.' Maya said 'You're not moving. Great, we get to go to internationals together. Abigail, isn't that exciting?' She kept blabbing on but it wasn't my news for them. 'Maya, shhhh, that's not what I'm going to tell you. You can't tell anyone else. I like Nathan.' They both screamed and we all hugged. They said 'Well, we know something, but you can't tell anyone else. Nathan likes you.' I was so happy I wanted to run over to him and jump into his arms but Maya and Abigail told me to tell no one else.

Me and Nathan went to practice our duet. No one else knows about our duet. We were practicing when Luke ran in and said 'Mrs Williams needs everyone in the auditorium.' We ran in to see Amelia telling the class something. We went up and I said 'What's wrong?' Amelia said ' Sasha went to Beldovere with Scott. She told me not to tell anyone. I'm so sorry guys, I've betrayed you all.' I went up to her and gave her a hug. I said 'Don't worry, you didn't betray us, we know you didn't mean to hurt anyone.' I hope me and Amelia can be friends now. I think she just hid behind Sashas shadow. I'm sure she's an amazing person and now she can be herself.

We still have to think about our semi finals routine. We all just sat in a circle on the stage and no one was talking. Mrs said 'Class, come on. We need our semi finals routine.' I stood up and said 'Guys, Mrs is right. We need an idea. We can't do so much to get to semi finals and just give up then.' Everyone nodded. I said 'Okay. So I have a few ideas.

MY IDEAS:
1. Puppets
2. Team work
3. Old school
4. Romeo and Juliet
5. Circus
6. Jazzy

I had a lot of ideas and a lot of people seemed to like them. I said 'Okay, so on this list we have 6. So we have some entertaining routines and also some meaningful routines. So what do you want to do?' Everyone looked at each other. Everyone then said 'Puppets!' I was excited for this routine. It's really fun and entertaining. The whole concept is Nathan is the puppet master. All the girls are puppets being controlled by Nathan. The puppets start trying to take over the master and it's so creative and hopefully we have an advantage over all the other teams. I'm so excited for internationals and I know we're ready. All the excitement made me forget about moving. I just want to go and win.