Lie Until You Laugh

6- Tough Practices

“I cannot believe that she did that!” Stella shrieks before practice on Wednesday morning.

“Well, she did,” I laugh. I had just finished telling her about my encounter with the mystery blonde girl yesterday who tried to attack me but instead, I just elbowed her in the nose. “I don’t even know who she was.”

“Blonde, preppy-looking, bright pink lipstick?” Mason asks as we walk into the studio, all four of us.

I nod. “Yeah, that’s the one.”

“Ada,” Stella declares. “It was her, definitely. You’re so badass that you got on their radar.”

“Who’s radar?” I wonder in confusion. I recognize that name, Ada, from what Stella told me but I forget what part the name takes place in all of this.

“Ada and Gianna,” Mason informs me. We sit our stuff down in the back of the room with everybody else’s stuff and then start stretching just a little bit. “And I hate to say it, but Anthony and his minions too.”

“You don’t have to hate saying that, I know my brother is a dick,” Stella chirps. “Especially with what he did to Sienna yesterday.”

“Yeah, how is your shoulder by the way?” Brian wonders. I have realized that he’s really quiet, Brian is, but he’s also really nice and I think he seems like a really nice friend.

“I’ll live,” I sigh. I iced it all through last night and it’s a little sore this morning, but I’m confident that I’ll be fine by tomorrow. “Thanks.”

“We can help you get revenge, you know,” Stella tells me. “If you want.”

“No, that’s okay,” I assure her. Revenge seems like something that has the potential to get me kicked out of the school and I don’t want to risk it. “I’m just going to wait it out.”

“These aren’t your everyday bullies though,” Mason warns me. “If you ignore them, they’re just going to make it worse until you fight back or crumble.”

“They seem like lovely people,” I nod sarcastically. “But I’ll fight back if I need to.”

“Line up!” I hear Penn the Petrifying enter the room before anybody can respond to me and then everybody is instantly on their feet in three rows of about ten or so in the back of the studio, waiting for Penn’s next instruction. Just like an army. “Five minutes to stretch.”

That’s new. We usually get ten minutes, but I guess it doesn’t really matter all that much, so I just start stretching. I’ve been through three practices already (one on Monday and two yesterday on Tuesday) and I’ve gotten used to how to stretch. There is no certain way to do it, so I just stretch how I usually do instead of following Stella’s direction like I did the first day.

“Okay, pay attention!” Penn demands from the front of the room. Everybody stops their stretching and looks up at him. He’s commanding the room, like he always does, leaving everyone silent in his path. “I’m only going to show this to you once.”

I watch as carefully as I can as he turns his back to us and then counts off from five to eight before showing us a slowed down dance sequence. It was two sets of eight beats. It was mostly arm movements, but on the third beat of the second set, Penn jumps to the side, lifting both feet off of the ground and jumping to the side. Shoulder pop on five, spin on six and then on seven and eight, there’s two more arm movements. It’s a simple sequence, and I’m confident that I can get it right even after just seeing it once.

“Don’t stop until I stop the beat,” He tells us as he pushes a button on a stereo that now sits on the floor beside the metal folding chair. A loud thumping beep echoes through the room and Penn counts us up to eight. “5, 6, 7, 8.”