Fight Song

Chapter 2

Dianne's PoV
"Oh my god you have no idea how grateful I am that Internationals is in Australia this year," I sighed happily to my brother, Andrew.

"I know right," he grinned back at me. "Means mum and dad can come and watch, but also we won't be jetlagged."

"Massive advantage," I high fived him.

"Canada and Britain landed today," Andrew said. Saw them go to their hotel. They look utterly exhausted."

"Unsurprising, and absolutely brilliant news for us," I grinned. "It's Wednesday, and the competition starts on Friday. I reckon they'll still be tired, meaning we have a huge advantage for the solos. You can take Milo and Joe's and I'll take Amy and Briar's. We deserve these titles, we've worked SO hard this year."

"I know, but I heard Britain have been upping their hours," Andrew said cautiously. "We do 55 hours a week, and I think they do more..."

"If they do more than 55 then they're overworking themselves," I said. "Canada do 60, I know that for sure because I overheard them saying it last year."

"Maybe, but I think we should get in extra rehearsals before the competition."

"Of course we will, our team's work ethic is second to none."

Andrew just nodded, then walked off to Studio 1.

"Hey, Dianne," my right hand woman, aka my bestie, Katie Priest, appeared next to me. "You good?"

"So good," I grinned. "Canada and the UK are gonna be so jetlagged so we've got an immediate advantage!"

"So true," Katie giggled. "Oh Dianne, I feel like this could really be our year! I think we could really win this thing!"

"Don't jinx it!" I laughed, and she touched the ballet bar, for everyone knows you should touch wood not the jinx something.

"Sorry!" she squealed.

"No worries," I laughed. "Come on, let's warm up before the others get here for rehearsal."

———

I always began rehearsals with a positive vibes exercise. It was something I'd been doing for years, and when I became dance captain three years ago I decided to incorporate it into our warm up.

"Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth," I smiled as everyone had their eyes closed sitting comfortably on the floor. "I want you to remove any negative energies you can feel in the room. We can't dance until we've cleansed the space. Any drama or worry or fear you feel, imagine it as a ball of light, leaving your body and going out the window, because we don't need it here. Regardless of any pain and suffering, we must look at the positive of every situation and keep moving forward. Believe and you can achieve."

Everyone smiled and closed their eyes, then laid down with their backs on the floor, carrying on. We always had a five minutes of silence, where we just listened to the sounds in the room and connected with the atmosphere and the world around us. The goal was to free our minds.

"Okay, and up we get," I smiled as everyone bounced to their feet. "Warm up time!"

I led them through a cardio warm up, followed by lots of stretching. I would usually do conditioning too, but time was of the essence now, so we had to skip that out and make it an optional extra task for the end of the rehearsal. Lord knows I'd be staying to do it, I was the soloist, I needed to be in the best shape.

This was going to be our year. It had to be.

I know I've kinda made Dianne's character a bit unlikeable, but I need her to be overly competitive for this to work, and you'll understand why she's like this later on in the story!