Princesses and Football Players

As Leah was french braiding my hair, I scrolled through my Twitter page. Updates from Justin Bieber, Beyonce, Taco John's... The usual. It was only June 12th and I already thought that dance camp was boring as all hell. It's been the same routine every day; get up at six in the morning for our daily run, and then have seven hours of classes with a twenty-minute break for lunch. There was a strict 10 P.M. lights out curfew; you had to be at your cabin by eight. You weren't allowed to leave the camp grounds, and you couldn't socialize with people outside the camps. All because the people who sent us here want us to be world-famous dancers, and they definitely wanted to get their money's worth, even though they had enough of it.

It was five-thirty in the morning. The sun was rising and you could still feel the chilly morning air. For our morning runs, considering they were quite grueling and most of us dancers sweat a good amount, we were required to have our hair in some sort of ponytail, wear a pair of shorts, and have a sports bra on with a cutoff or t-shirt. If you didn't have one of these things, you would earn some time in the mess hall or on camp grounds, cleaning up after your fellow dancers. I haven't gotten any clean-up time yet. I'm planning not to, anyway. If we are late for our curfew, that's another story. You have to go to a cabin, all by yourself, with teachers doing "surprise" checkups on you for a week. Liza Harte had to do that already, and even though she explained that she needed to go to the bathroom, she still got the punishment. She told me that it was the worst time of her life, and most of the time she just slept while she was in there so she wouldn't witness the "surprise" checkups.

At five-forty-five, Leah was done with my braid and had tied it off. I put a headband on and then proceeded to grab my iPod Nano, which I bring with me on my runs, considering I can't really talk when I'm usually out of breath running, anyway. I share my earbuds with my best friend since we could walk, Ciara. Although we usually end up listening to her iPod, because she says my music isn't exactly the music that makes you pumped-up and ready to run. I just roll my eyes and agree, since she is probably the most stubborn person I know and even if I tried, I would never win.

I started walking down the dirt path with my bunkmates, Leah, Rosemary, and Ciara. I know, how lucky am I? My best friend since diapers, bunking with me at camp. She's most likely the only reason I'm holding on. I'm all uptight, proper, and ladylike, and Ciara is the complete opposite. She always is up for some fun, she's pretty, and only proper around her parents. I wish I was even the slightest grain of me like her.

We were walking down the path, all of us in our shorts and sports bras, me the only one with a neon sports bra and a white, puffy-paint decorated cutoff. I was never one to show off my belly, even though it actually was flat because of my hardcore dancing. Ciara was chatting away with Rosemary about a really cute boy she saw from across camp the other night when she needed to go to the bathroom. I rolled my eyes. Who has time for boys when you have to focus on dancing?

We all met at the main lodge, which is where we meet every morning for Ms. Rodgers, our main dance instructor for Pointe and the owner of the dance studio and camp, to tell us our schedule for the day and how long we were running. It was the same old, same old every day. Seven hours of classes, twenty minutes of lunch, same curfew, same amount of miles ran. We usually run one mile, but sometimes we run two miles. Those two-mile days are the roughest. My legs feel like Jell-O by the end of it, and that sure doesn't help my case when I have to dance for seven more hours straight.

As we all lined up at the oak tree that started our morning run, Ms. Rogerson blew the whistle, signaling us to go. Ciara started her music and we went at a slow pace. I know Ciara could easily go faster than me, any day; but she decided to stay by me. I don't know if it's because she doesn't like to work hard, or it's because she doesn't want to make me feel bad. Either way, I'm good with it, as long as we stay at a slow pace the whole time.