Transitions

Chapter 5 - Concerned

I padded across the deck of the pool over to the Jacuzzi where my sister was sitting, talking with another girl her age. I stepped into the steaming, bubbly water and let myself sink into the hot water. I listened to the girls talk about dance. It turns out the other girl was a dancer who was in town for a competition over the weekend.

"Riley! Can I participate in the competition with JoJo this weekend? Her dance troupe needs an extra dancer and she can teach me the routine. Please? Pretty please? I want to get one last competition in before we go to Sydney." She begged and pleaded until I could give her an answer.

"It's not up to me babe. Go ask Ashton or Mikey."

Mackenzie got up out of the hot tub and padded over to where the boys were lounging, "Hey. I have a question. There's a dance competition here at Mohegan Sun on Saturday and the girl I was talking to over there, her dance troupe needs one more dancer and I'm trained in the style that their group performance is in. Can I please compete?"

Ashton looked at me and back at my sister, and then at the bleach blonde haired girl that was sitting in the hot tub awaiting a response, "I don't have a problem with it. We don't fly out until Monday. Do you need money to enter the competition? Do you have the track you need, a costume?"

Mackenzie summoned the blonde girl over to where we were standing, "JoJo, these are my new parents. Yes, they're from 5 Seconds of Summer. No I'm not kidding."

"Hey. Can Mackenzie dance with us this weekend? We're a competition dance troupe from Nebraska, and one of our dancers is injured and obviously can't compete. We have a bunch of tracks that can be used and there are some dance wear shops around the area where we can find her a costume."

Ashton pondered on the thought for a minute, "You said the competition was here at Mohegan right?"

JoJo nodded in response, "Yes sir."

"Yeah, go ahead. I'd like to see Mackenzie dance. Just let us know what you need and we'll help out."

Mackenzie grabbed her towel and started drying off so she could meet JoJo in the morning to start rehearsing.

"Mackenzie, I'll come up to your room around 8 AM to come get you. We're practicing in the ballroom, but performing in the arena. Do you know where the good costume shops are?" JoJo asked.

"Yes. There is a store right up the road actually. I can contact the owner and have her bring some costumes down. What is the group routine anyways?"

"It's called Stomp the Yard. It's inspired by Orange Is the New Black. It's a prisoner based costume with orange and black, obviously. You would be playing Red. We have a red wig, the orange prisoner jump suit; we just need to get you the white and black crop top and the black jazz shoes. You also have a solo. It's called Sink or Swim. It's basically a red leotard and a pair of red shorts. It's a simple acro-jazz routine."

Mackenzie's face lit up, acro-jazz was her specialty. She grabbed her towel, and said goodnight to JoJo. The rest of us continued to dry off and get ready to head back down to the room. The clock on the wall showed it was half past 10. When we got back to our hotel room, Mackenzie ran straight to the shower to wash the chlorine out of her hair. I had to laugh because I could hear her singing in the shower.

"We're going to Sydney, we're going to Sydney!"

I stuffed myself in one of the closets so I could change while my sister was showering. I threw on a pair of fleece pajama pants and a baggy long sleeved shirt. Once I gathered all my wet clothes from the pool, I put them in a bag and would bring them to the laundry room in the morning. I went back into the main part of the hotel room with the beds and realized there were only two beds, and 4 of us.

"Ash?" I called through the room since neither of the boys were anywhere to be seen.

After waiting a couple minutes for a reply, I decided to make myself comfortable in one of the beds and turn on the television. Halfway through a rerun of Chicago Med, Michael came into the room and plopped down on my bed.

"Hey bud, whatcha watchin?" he asked.

"I'm just watching some TV before going to bed, and thinking about life. Where did you guys go?"

"We took a ride over to the supermarket up the road to grab some snacks and things for you girls to do on the plane. Why are you still up? It's nearly midnight."

I threw myself backwards into the mountain of pillows and sighed, "I don't know. I'm just confused. I'm happy because we are finally out of the shelter, but this whole moving across the world is a little stressful. The only place I ever know is the shelter. I'm worried about my sister. She's only twelve. I don't want her thinking that she's a publicity stunt, you know what I mean?"