My Odette

Chapter 1

"Plie, Tendu, Plie, Releve, En Croix. Balance in Sur le Cou-de-pied" Mrs Valet turned around to press play on the music as we all took our fifth position to prepare. As we did the combination Mrs Valet stopped next to me, I made sure to point extra hard.
     "Don't sickle Miss Robins" She looked at me for a moment more making sure I did as she said. I felt the little hope I had, start to slip out of my grasp, our fall show was coming up and I really wanted to get a lead part. It was one of my last years I could stay with Port de Ballet, I had danced here for my whole life and wanted to finish out strong. I was in my Junior year at highschool and needed something to take my mind off of my loneliness, you see I'm not very popular. Most people either don't know who I am or dislike me for random reasons. Dancing helped me escape from the world and everyone in it.
     An hour later I was packing my ballet bag heading out the door from the studio, I looked around the parking lot to see where I had parked my car. After driving the few miles home I opened our entry door and yelled "I'm home!" I went up to my room and dropped my bag in the corner. In my family there are only two kids, let's just say we are a little spoiled, so in the corner of my room was a little ballet studio with mirrors and all. I went over to it and turned on some classical music, I did some balances and then a turn. All I remember after that was the music ending and me twirling to bed.
     "Lydia!" I bolted up, eyes wide. I saw my brother smirk then say, "you fell asleep and I wasn't sure if you had done your homework." I grumbled a thank you and glanced at the time as I got up, it was nine o'clock. I grabbed my backpack as Cole walked out, I grabbed my worksheet from math. I wrote my name at the top and worked on it till I was done only to move onto my next worksheet.
**********
I woke up to a classical song written by Bach, I slowly got up from my desk where I had fallen asleep the night before. I looked down, relieved that none of the papers were ruined and they were all complete, except the last two questions on the one I had probably fallen asleep working on. After I was done I went to my closet and picked out a dark purple sweatshirt with ripped jeans that didn't hug my legs too tightly. I always made sure to wear clothes that didn't hug my body too tightly because first I'm not exactly weak or in other words by body is pretty toned (I think). Second, I didn't need people knowing I did ballet, not that it would be a big problem but it would give others another way to tease me. I know I shouldn't be afraid of them but I am, they tease me and make fun of me however they can. I'd like to say I didn't know why they disliked me so much but sadly it wasn't a secret. My older brother was in college, but everyone knew about him and how "amazing" he had been in highschool. I do really love him but he can definitely be a pain in the butt.
    Anyway Cole is the "beloved" and so naturally they expect me to be like him, but they don't want be to be his successor because they want to be, I know, its stupid, rediculas and completly imature but its not like I had a say in anything. After I had done my hair and finished getting ready I headed down to the kitchen smelling pancakes, my dad was the best cook ever, so when he is actually home he'll make us breakfast. I sat down at the table and took a sip of the milk in front of me as Cole trudged down the stairs plopping down in front of me.
    My dad walked over to me placing a plate with blueberry pancakes in front of me, naturally Cole reaches across the table and takes the plate from me while I'm grabbing the syrup, "Hey!" I protest.
    "What am I running late?" I roll my eyes and wait for my plate. When it finally comes Cole is gone and I have five minutes to eat, I may be a ballerina but I will never let that get in the way of my eating. Yes I do eat healthy and make sure to not eat too much junk food but I do enough exercise to need the extra sugar. As I finished dad placed my lunch box in front of me and told me to have a good day, I stood up and packed my bag, grabbed the keys to my small blue toyota. Once I got to the school I drove around the parking lot for a minute finally finding a spot next to an all too familiar red truck. That red truck sadly belonged to none other than Ian Talor, I just hoped he wouldn't be here when I came back to go home. He is a popular snob and football player, I don't know what he does for the team but still. I walked slowly to the school glancing at the time, 7:50 ok, so I had ten minutes to put my stuff in my locker and get to my first class. As soon as I walked in the front doors a blast of jumbled noise hit my ears with a slap, it sounded like an orchestra warming up, or my house when we are all playing different songs at the same time.
    As I was walking I heard the most annoying voice ever, Riley Snider. One of the popular girls who are on the cheer team and is, in fact, the capitan. She was one of the initiators of my teasing, her older sister dated my brother for a time I think but who knows, well other than my brother. I suddenly heard her voice getting louder, I walked a little bit quicker but only a little so it wasn't noticeable. Soon I was surrounded, but I didn't even flinch It was so normal. In a moment Riley was standing next to me with a sneer on her pretty little face, but as soon as she saw some of the football team heading my, well more likely her way she smiled innocently and walked up to Carter Evans, her boyfriend, Ian's right hand man, quarterback, you get the idea. Ian may not be the quarterback but he is still more popular or well known. As soon as she got to him they started kissing, it was gross, i'm not against kissing, but in public. I rolled my eyes muttering about how they should keep it pg, I saw a smirk on Ian's face, danget, he heard me.
    Once the first bell rang and Riley was done swapping spit she walked over to me bumping my shoulder hard enough that anyone who wasn't a dancer would have fallen over, she whispered "we are not done here" like what the heck, we didn't even start anything. I walked over to my locker that was a few feet away, as I was putting everything away I heard someone go to the locker next to me. I slammed my locker shut with a satisfying bang! Only to see Ian leaning on the locker next to me movie style, I rolled my eyes, then turned on my heel to walk away.
    Out of the corner of my eye I saw a sharp movement, a foot, I easily performed a little assemble devant into a sissonne. I sat down at my seat and got out my stuff suddenly realizing what I had just done, I looked to see who had tripped me and saw that awful spit swapping idiot Carter. I rolled my eyes again, looking back at my work, he probably didn't know anything about ballet. He was on the football team for goodness sake.
    The rest of class went by quickly and I only had one worksheet to fill out, I packed everything away quickly and as soon as the bell rang I made a beeline to the door but unfortunately Carter was waiting for me right outside the door. As I walked past him hoping he wouldn't see me he grabbed my arm and pulled me into a closet, wow this was really weird, he could like do awful things to me in here. He looked at me seriously.
    "Do you want to tell me anything?" crap!
    "Nope" he rolled his eyes and continued.
    "When you did that fancy thing after I tried to trip you. To me it looked like a dance step." now it was my turn to roll my eyes.
    "Like I said what stunt. I didn't pull a stunt" I say with air quotes. I was honestly getting annoyed and a little worried. "That was all you, all I did was jump over your foot and catch myself"
    "Whatever" he opened the door and walked out with me following for a moment before I turned into my next class. Boys are so dramatic.
**********
    After school I headed over to my car as quickly as I could trying to get there before Ian and no doubt, his friends. Sadly I wasn't fast enough, as soon as I got there Riley noticed me and smirked, and Carter glared. Ian didn't seem to be there, but there were two other boys who looked like football players staring at me with smiles dancing on their lips. I turned away to go back to the school till they left but I ran into a hard chest, clasice. I took a step back and walked around Ian but sadly he grabbed my wrist, could this day get any worse?
    "Where are you going?" I heard him say in his deep voice that sent a shiver down my spine.
I looked up into his bright green eyes and heard myself say "to get away from you" I ripped my hand out of his grasp and walked quickly to the school. I heard him say "well that's harsh" and I knew it had been but it was true I had been trying to get away from him and his snobby crew he calls friends. Once I had been in the school for about five minutes I looked at my watch, 2:50, crap. I had dance at 3:15, I walked out to my car and luckily they had left.
    As I got home I jumped out of the car and ran into the house and up into my room. I slid into my tights and leo not wanting to put up with leggings I put on some shorts. I dashed into the bathroom to put my chocolate brown hair into a tight bun, as soon as it was done I grabbed my bag and water. As soon as I had everything I got in my car and drove to the studio suddenly remembering Mrs. Valet saying something about a special class today.
    Then I was there walking in the front doors, to my right were the boys dressing room that was mostly unoccupied and next to them were three boys that all seemed familiar. I go here because first it's a good school and second the people from my school would probably go somewhere closer and cheaper.
    A few minutes later I stood with everyone else in one of the studios waiting for Mrs Valet. When she finally walked in she had the three boys following her, she looked at us and spoke, "welcome dancers, as you may recall we will be having a special class today." she gestured to the boys. "These fine young men dance hip hop and will be teaching you all the class." I looked at them a little closer and realized why they were so familiar.  
"Also starting in two weeks this studio won't only be ballet, we will be providing hip hop, jazz and lyrical. I will expect each of you to take at least one of these classes regularly" we all nodded as she turned to the boys, "the stage is yours" they smiled and looked at us all.
"I'm Leo, this is Oliver and Jess" the boy in the middle said. They continued to look at us and when they looked at me their eyes flickered with recognition, crap! I knew it was them, Leo and Jess were the other boys that had been near the truck. And apparently they didn't do football.
    Oliver stepped forward and split us into three groups to learn a dance, I was in group one which meant my teacher was Oliver. The dance was to Juice by Lizzo and it was really fun and upbeat. Once we had all learned the dance we grouped back together and performed for everyone we were the second group because Leo wanted to "show everyone how it's done" when they were done we got up and got into position. As soon as the music started I forgot about the new possibility of the group of popular kids knowing about my love for dance, I just danced my heart out and only when we hit our final pose did I realize that Jess had been videoing, Crap!Crap!Crap! Who knows where he might post that or who he would show it to. As the song faded out he lowered his phone to meet my glare, I almost wish looks could kill.
When the class was finally over I rushed to the dressing room to change and get out of here. Unfortunately fate had a different plan for me, as I left the dressing room
I heard Jess say "I didn't know you danced" Ugh!
"Right back at you" I continued walking only to see him follow me.
"Do you perform?"
"Not normally"
"why?"
"Hmm, maybe because I don't want to"
"Ok I was just asking" he put his hands up as if he were surrendering.
"Sorry" I did feel a little bad but not much.
"Anyway, you're really good, how long have you been dancing hip hop?"
"That was my first class" he looked surprised so I continued "I've done ballet all my life but nothing else" I went to my car I opened the door and put my stuff in the passenger seat. Jess was still behind me and said "well I better go get Leo, see you soon"
"Ya" I pulled the door closed and started heading home thinking about how this day might have changed my life.