A Mile A Minute

Chapter 1

"Mom! This isn't the way to the track!" I say from my seat.

Every Monday, Thursday and Saturday we go to the track at the high school and mom lets me run around! It's Thursday and we just turned the opposite way...  

"Today we're going to try something different Scarlet." Mom says as we keep driving down this unfamiliar road.

5 Minutes later we pull outside of a dance studio. I hate dance! I bet she's trying to make me do ballet like Twyla did when she was my age!

"No! I'm not doing some stupid Ballet class!" I say to her as she opens the door to get Ainsley and Wynter out of their Car seats.

"It's not ballet, Just be open minded for once okay?"

With a huff I get out of my car seat and we walk up to the studio. As we get closer I can see the sign that says "The Maloney Academy of Irish Dance."

Huh? What's Irish dance? Are we even Irish? I guess we might be because Ainsley had red hair when he was a baby... But now it's blonde like Twyla's and Wynter's... Mines a dumb old brown color...

We walk into the studio and there are some other girls and one boy who look my age... They all stare at us as we walk in... I take off my big puffy winter coat as mom goes over to a lady.

"Hello!" She says to mom. "What's your name Hun?"

"Scarlet." I say quietly.

"Scarlet. And you're here to start Irish dancing?"  She says.

I look up to mom and she says "Yes, Scarlet has a lot of energy so we were hoping this would be a good place to burn some energy."

"Well Irish Dance does need a lot of energy so I bet she'll be great! Did you bring shoes?"

"We weren't sure what to wear for shoes so I brought some old ballet slippers."

"Those'll work great for now! So She can go put them on and then we'll all head into the studio for our first lesson."

I go over to a seat and mom sits next to me. She helps me take off my snow boots and she hands me the shoes. They're a bit small on me... Some big girl comes by with a name tag for me

"Scarlett"

Ugh it's Scarlet with one T not two! I put it on my shirt anyway. I take off my sweatpants that I had on over my shorts. Since we were supposed to go to the track, I was all dressed for it. Mom puts a headband in my hair and then we all go into the studio. We stand in a line facing the lady that talked to me and mom and the older girl that gave me the name tag. There are Mirrors on all of the walls except for the one behind us. There's a rack with some weird dresses on it and a music player.

"Hello everyone! I'm Miss Roisin and this is my assistant teacher Maya. We're both very glad that you all want to start Irish dance! Today we're going to start with some basics then at our next class we'll move onto harder things."

Wait... I have to come to more classes... I thought this was just a one time thing!

"The first thing we're going to learn is how we hold our arms and feet. With your feet we call first position when both of your feet are out next to each other and toes are facing the walls." She says as Maya demonstrates it. "That's called turn out and it's a very important part of Irish dance. Next is 5th position. You move one of your feet in front of each other, Making a diamond." and Maya demonstrates that too.

"Okay now you all try first position." I try to push my heels out all the way like Maya did.

"Scarlet, Jamie and Claire, try not to bend down on your knees. We want straight knees here." I look down and my knees and I try to make them stop bending without loosing my balance.