On Top Of The World (book 3 in the Irish Dance Camp series)

Chapter 8

Julie
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I wake up to the sound of my alarm blaring.

It's dance day.

Mom's already gone downstairs to help other kids from our school, so I'm left to do my hair and makeup. I put on my new blond bun wig with a huge, crystal-covered crown in about forty five minutes, and then my makeup, which takes another hour.

I'm checking Snapchat as I'm leaving and I click on Ciara's story. It's a picture of her ankle all wrapped up with the caption "love getting hurt the night before worlds😫".

I gasp a bit and then take a screenshot. I open up iMessage and then send Ciara the picture.

Me: omg what happened????

Bae🙌🏻: fell last night while practicing and we're pretty sure I either broke something or sprained it bad....

Me: are you gonna dance?

Bae🙌🏻: I think so...

The irony of this situation is that Ciara thought Carly was crazy when she danced on a broken foot at nationals. She's about to do the exact same thing at worlds...

I put my phone away and start down the hall. As soon as I'm downstairs, I hear people whispering my name every time I walk by. I always wonder if the people might be saying something bad about me, but I'm used to the feeling by now.

I go into the main ballroom and spot Claire stretching by the entrance.

"Hey Claire!" I say, and she turns her head towards me.

"Julie!" She gets up and hugs me. "Have you seen anyone else? I missed you so much!"

"You too! And no, I haven't-"

"We need all dancers to start checking in for competition 5, that's the girls 14-15 championship. We will start with the first 40 dancers in about 45 minutes." An announcer calls over the loud speaker.

Claire and I grab our numbers and walk to the stage. They're starting with 143 and I'm 159, so I need to start warming up. I put on my hard shoes and text my mom.

Me: where are you? they're starting in 45 mins

Mom: stay where you are, I will come over to warm you up

I hope we can be civil towards each other after the whole blow up the other day.... Mom basically didn't talk to me yesterday except for when I was practicing. A bunch of little girls from my dance school danced yesterday, but I couldn't watch them because Mom told me to go drill...

Claire slips into an oversplit next to me with ease.

"Girl, how are you so freaking flexible?!" I ask, half laughing. Claire shrugs.

"I stretch a lot." she says, "Okay, where the heck are Grace and Ciara? This room is too big to see anything."

I scan the hall, and the reality of it all starts to set in. Every single girl in here would like to take the world title away from me. If one of them wins, I'll be letting my mom down, my school down...

Ugh, this is all so stupid. Why should I have to defend a title if I don't even like competing?

Mom walks in, and after telling me that I need to fix my wig, I start dancing in front of her without protest. I can't cause another scene like I did two days ago.