The Dance Academy

The Truth

I, Makenna Longcore, have been dancing since I was four-years-old. I've always loved the feeling of letting my hair loose to the sound of my music.

I started out as a ballerina. Ever since I started my passion for ballet, I started putting my hair up in a bun-which was when I was seven-years-old. I had always loved ballet, even when I was just starting out. But when I hit my seventh birthday, my dad had a talk with me. He asked me what I really wanted to do in life.

"Dance," I told him.

"What kind of dance, Makenna? There are so many different kinds," he said.

"Ballet," I answered. This was the only dance I've known at this age. I didn't know about hip-hop or anything else.

But my dad had died the day after my 7th birthday, leaving me and my mother in shock. We always knew that he wasn't doing well. He had diabetes. Ever since his loss, I remember that talk. I would become a devotional ballerina-and I will do anything to get there.

Day by day my mother became more cold towards me...towards everything- towards the world, until eventually she became shut from her own self. I know that grieving is hard to pass by, but I never knew that it could have this effect on someone. I know that dad is watching her from heaven and thinking:

"Please don't cry for me, please, Mary."

But it was the year that I had turned ten-years-old when she stopped crying. She stopped feeling sorry for herself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was the July of my 10th year, when I was playing with my dolls in my room. We had this room in my house that was painted golden yellow and had a patio extending from it that looked down into the city. We lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and when you stood out on the patio you could see the whole city. Our apartment was on the 7th floor of the place. On the patio, we have windchimes that were made out of metal and seashells.

"Those windchimes are great, aren't they?" My mother said to me with a smile as she stood stiff in my doorway. She forced a plastered smile on her face. She was happy.

"Hi mom! I was thinking of-" I started as she cut me off.

"Of dancing?" She asked. We had a ballet studio in the room next to ours, which mom teaches classes in.

"I decided to quit my dance school business. I found your fathers will in the old cabinet," she told me. A will? I barely knew what a will was when I was 10.

"Your father left us some money, so I could quit the studio for a season." My father made good money, and left us all that he had.

"Okay," I said as she grabbed my hand, helping me off of the floor. We walked through the hallway and to our right, and entered the studio.

"Should we start off with our usual?" She asked. Our usual was a simple one line routine that was about a minute long. My mother plays the piano as the song.

"Ahem," my mother clears her throat.

"Five, six, seven, eight," she says clearly. She starts the piece and I mess up on a count halfway through the dance.

"Honey," she says sternly as she bangs her fist on the piano, making a crash.

"We had done this a million times. Let's try this again without any messing up," she says through her teeth. She looked mad.

"Five, six, seven, eight," she called out again. I missed the first beat. I had been looking out of the window because I saw a white bird perched on the patio. I think it liked to watch me dance.

"Makenna. You are being very useless right now. If you want I can sell the piano and the books and your shoes," she said as she scolded at me.

"Five, six, seven, eight," she called out one last time. I did the whole routine perfectly, but fell right after on my last turn.

"That's it! You are a disgrace to dance. I want you in your room. Come back here when you think you are worthy," she tells me.

The rest of the day was misery. We had done the same dance over and over and over again, until she had lost her temper.

"Go to your room! Do not come back for dinner tonight," she scolded. My mom had gone completely crazy.

That night I heard her crying in her room. She would talk to herself. I couldn't tell what she was saying, but I had heard my name- twice.

The next day, at breakfast, she was all happy again.

"I have something to tell you, Makenna," she said as she held my hands on the table top.

"We will keep working on your dance routines. But when you turn 15 years old, you are going to the Lance Acadamy for Dance," she told me.

"It is the most prestigious of dance schools in California," she told me with a stern tone.

"If you can't dance well enough for the Acadamy, I'm afraid we will have to go to extreme measures," she stated sternly.

"Extreme measures?" I asked confused. I knew my mother was going crazy now- I had no doubts that extreme measures would be a nightmare.