Isabelle in the City Read online

  Whenever Jade or I do something good, we always share it with the other. “I’ve got to show these dancers to Jade,” I said to Miki as I jumped up and hurried out of the room.

  When I got to Jade’s room, I found Abby in the hallway working on their door. So far, though, she’d just taken some photos from her bedroom wall and postcards of New York and put them on the door. A paper chain formed a big rectangle around all of the pictures. “For me, the summer institute means good memories,” she explained. “What do you think?”

  “You’ve got a lot of great memories,” I said, studying the photos. Then I remembered why I had come. “Can I get past you to see my sister?” I asked.

  Abby looked at me over her shoulder. “You won’t find her in the room. She’s been going to the lounge the last couple of days.”

  The lounge? That seemed odd. Without me hogging all her spare time, why wasn’t Jade trying to hang out more with Abby?

  Curious, I took the elevators down to the dorm lounge. It was a big room that stretched deep across the floor. There were three computers, where two kids were checking their e-mails, but otherwise the room was empty—except for my sister. She was practicing her fouettés as she listened to her music player.

  Rising on her left leg, Jade kicked out her right leg and spun around in a circle. She repeated that again and again as she angled across the floor.

  I sat down on a chair, watching. Jade didn’t stop, even when she noticed me. Her fouettés looked great to me, but my sister wouldn’t be happy until they were perfect.

  When the music ended, Jade finally stopped dancing. “What are you doing down here, Isabelle? I thought you’d be working on your door with Miki.”

  “We’re almost done!” I said. “I wanted to show you the little ballerinas we made out of paper.”

  “Later, okay?” Jade asked. “I have more practicing to do.”

  “Oh, okay,” I said, disappointed. “But shouldn’t you be helping Abby with your door?”

  Jade shrugged. “Abby said she had everything covered.” She shifted her feet restlessly, eager to begin dancing again. “So I’m working on my routine.”

  “But now’s your chance to get to know Abby better,” I said. Hadn’t Jade given me similar advice about Miki?

  “It’s not that easy, Isabelle,” Jade said. I could hear frustration creep into her voice. “Abby’s usually with her friends, and they wind up talking about students and teachers from other years.”

  “Well, she’s by herself right now,” I pointed out.

  Jade shook her head. “I still don’t know what to say to her.”

  Realization crept over me. I thought Jade had been keeping me company here at Knickerbocker so that I wouldn’t feel lonely, but maybe it had been the other way around.

  “Just do what you do at school, Jade,” I said. “You’ve got plenty of friends there.”

  My sister gave a little shrug. “At Anna Hart, the other students already know who I am, so it’s not hard to start a conversation.” Jade was such a great dancer that almost everyone at school treated her like a celebrity. “But here, everyone is so good that I’m just … just another dancer. It’s not like with you and Miki.”

  With Miki and me? I couldn’t believe what Jade was saying. Miki and I had only just become friends, and that was thanks to Jade—I’d only been following her suggestions. I almost said so, but then it occurred to me that maybe I had learned a few things this week that could help Jade, too.

  “I think it’s all about getting people to talk about themselves,” I said. “You should ask Abby questions about her hometown—stuff like that.”

  Jade started to put the earbuds into her ears so that she could begin dancing again. “I’ll keep that in mind for the next time,” she said.

  What about right now? I wondered. Work on the door with your roomie so you can become friends!

  But Jade just kept on dancing, as usual.

  I went back to my room, where Miki was waiting for me. She was rolling up small balls of removable adhesive putty to use to stick our dancers to our door. When we took them off the door again, the putty would come right off, too.

  As Miki lifted the first dancer and started to position it on the door, I flashed back to our field trip to FIT. I didn’t want the costumes to hang on our dancers as lifelessly as the outfits on the mannequins at FIT. “The paper costumes need to dance, just like our ballerinas do,” I said to Miki, even though I knew I was doing a bad job of explaining myself.

  If we hadn’t acted out the story of Cinderella in ballet mime class, Miki might not have understood. But she’d seen me demonstrate what I meant with the magic skirt that pulled me across the dance floor—and maybe there was still some fairy-godmother magic hanging on to us now.

  “The costume and the dancers are like partners,” she said.

  For an instant, I felt again as I had when we were dancing and miming and sharing the same thoughts. “Yes,” I said.

  Miki pointed to herself and crossed her hands over her heart. Then she tapped a single finger against her forehead. That was ballet mime for I love the idea.

  The tricky part was putting my dancer into the right pose. I had to switch back and forth between holding up the pieces and doing short leaps in the hallway while Miki watched. Sometimes she adjusted the dancer’s head or body. Other times it was the legs or arms.

  The second dancer was harder because I had to hold up the paper with one hand while I held a small mirror in the other. That way, Miki could watch herself in an arabesque. But neither of us minded the extra trouble. I think we both felt as if we were working as a team.

  Jade could be doing the same with Abby, I thought sadly. I was sorry my sister was missing out on this experience. But what could I do about it?

  When Miki stepped away from the door, I took a step back, too—and caught my breath. Before now, when the pieces of the dancers had been lying flat on the floor, they seemed part of a giant jigsaw puzzle. But now that Miki had arranged them on our door, they sprang to life.

  The first dancer seemed to be leaping off the door. And the second dancer was poised in that very moment when a dancer rises and extends her leg into a perfect arabesque. The light-blue gown that the dancer wore billowed outward.

  “Do you like our dancers?” Miki asked shyly.

  Opening my hand, I drew a circle around my face. It was the sign for beautiful.

  The next morning after my alarm woke me up, I heard people talking outside in the hallway. Were they waiting for the elevator already? I shook Miki’s shoulder so that she’d get up. Then I got my little bag with my toothbrush, toothpaste, and other stuff. Yawning, I opened the door—and found Abby and four other girls grinning at me. I just stood there with my mouth wide open.

  A brunette held out her hand. “Hi, I’m Piera.” She had a slight French accent. “I really like your door.”

  “My name is Isabelle,” I said. “And thanks.” I motioned to my roommate, who was sitting up in her bed and looking very, very surprised. “But Miki did the hard stuff.”

  One by one, the other girls introduced themselves as well, complimenting us on our door, too.

  Anneke, a girl with black hair, wriggled her fingers at the door. “I love the costumes. I sent a picture to my friends back in Copenhagen. They liked them, too.”

  “I’d dance in either of them anytime,” said a blonde girl named Emma. She had a southern drawl.

  “I’d wear that one to a party,” Betje said, pointing to the blue gown. She had wide shoulders and wore a T-shirt that said “Amsterdam Rocks.”

  “Thanks,” I said. After those compliments about my fashion sense, I wished I’d brushed my bed hair before I’d opened the door. “Miki and I had a lot of fun coming up with those outfits.”

  “Could you help me do ballerinas for my door, too?” Piera asked eagerly.

  “Whoa, whoa.” Abby clapped a hand on my shoulder. “She’s my roomie’s sister, so I get dibs.”

  Miki
asked, puzzled, “What is dibs?”

  “She gets to ask us first,” I explained.

  “No fair. I asked before you did!” Piera insisted.

  Miki got out of bed and padded barefoot over to us. “I cannot make so many ballerinas,” she said, worry creeping across her face.

  “Well, could you show us how to make our own?” Abby asked.

  Miki nodded slowly. “Yes,” she said. “I could try.”

  “Great!” Abby spread her arms excitedly. “Let’s talk to the rest of the floor and see if the other girls want to learn how to make them, too.”

  Betje stared up at the ceiling as if picturing the floor filled with paper ballerinas, and then she smiled. “We might even win the contest. I’ve always wanted to see New York City Ballet.”

  Abby spread her arms wide. “Hey, no guts, no glory, right?”

  Startled, Miki tugged at my shirtsleeve. “What did she mean?”

  In the short time it took me to explain the saying to Miki, Abby and the others had started stopping girls by the elevators and asking them to pass on the word about the paper ballerinas. Once the Abby-mobile got its motor going, there was no stopping it.

  I turned to Miki and silently mouthed, “Help.”

  Miki and I wound up going down to the cafeteria together with Abby and the others. When I left the serving area with my breakfast tray, I saw that Jade had saved a couple of places for us at a table. She started to wave, but right at that moment, Emma put her hand on my shoulder. “Let’s see if we can find a table for all of us,” she said, waving behind her at Abby, Miki, Piera, and Betje. It was obvious we were a group.

  My sister dropped her hand to her lap. Pressing her lips together, she quickly looked down at her plate—almost as if she were jealous.

  I felt a pang of guilt. “Sorry,” I said to Emma, “but I told Jade I’d sit with her.”

  “I promised, too,” Miki said. I don’t think she was comfortable talking to the others on her own.

  We made our way around the chairs over to Jade’s table and sat down, me beside Jade and Miki across the table from us.

  Jade wasn’t eating. She was using her spoon to carve hills and valleys in her oatmeal. “Nice door,” she said without looking up.

  “You saw our dancers?” I asked.

  She twisted around to face me. “Who do you think told Abby about it?”

  “Oh, right. Well, she liked it so much that she wants us to make dancers for your door, too,” I said. I was hoping Jade would get excited about working with Miki and me on her door.

  But Jade just shrugged. “You don’t need my permission. Go ahead and work on our door, too,” she said, spooning some oatmeal into her mouth.

  I glanced at Miki, wondering if she had picked up on Jade’s tone. But Miki was worried about something else right now. “We do not have enough paper,” she said simply.

  “Really?” asked Jade.

  “It’s not just your and Abby’s door,” I explained. “The other girls want ballerinas, too. Maybe the whole floor.” I glanced at Miki and sighed.

  We ate our meal in silence after that, but when we were finished, Jade glanced sideways at me. “Do you really want to help decorate all those doors?”

  I thought about it and then nodded. “Everybody on this floor is older and has so much experience here at Knickerbocker,” I said. “But for once, we can do something they can’t.”

  Jade’s spoon tapped the back of my hand, leaving a little stripe of mush. “How come you keep getting in way over your head?” she asked.

  “Because you usually bail me out,” I joked, yanking a napkin from the dispenser and wiping my hand. “But not this time, I guess.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Jade said smugly. “What do companies do before they ship something?”

  I couldn’t see where this was going. “They put the thing in a box.”

  “And what do they put in the box with the item?” Jade hinted in a fake sweet voice. Sometimes, she was a bigger tease than our cat, Tutu. “And I’m not talking about packing peanuts.”

  I shot up straight. “Paper. They crumple up paper and pack it around the stuff they want to ship.”

  Jade drew a checkmark in the air. “Try the KBC offices and departments. I bet there’s some extra paper somewhere in this building.”

  As usual, Jade had come to my rescue. “You’re a genius,” I said.

  “No, I’m your big sister,” she grinned. “But I guess it’s the same thing.”

  I turned to Miki. “The paper would be thin, but could you show the others how to make dancers out of it?”

  Miki frowned. “Their dancers will not be as good as ours,” she warned. “We used good, strong paper. And the dancers will be plain.”

  I thought of the presents I had bought for Mom. I was sure she’d understand if I used them for the contest. “Their costumes don’t have to be plain. I’ve got lots of ribbon and sequins to decorate them.”

  Miki’s eyes lit up. It was settled then. I grabbed Jade’s hand and stood up. “Let’s find Abby.”

  Abby was sitting a few tables away with the group that had been admiring our door. “Jade’s come up with a way we can get enough paper to decorate the whole floor,” I said, motioning toward my sister.

  Jade stood uncomfortably for a moment as all eyes turned toward her. Finally, though, she told the other girls about the packing paper.

  “Great idea,” Emma said, nodding.

  Abby gave Jade a playful poke. “So, Jade, are you going to work on our door with me?”

  Jade hesitated. “You said you didn’t need my help—that you had it covered.”

  Abby shook her head. “That was just because I could see you didn’t have any photos with you. I didn’t want to embarrass you by asking for something you didn’t have,” she explained. “But you’re my roomie. This time let’s do it together.”

  I held my breath until Jade finally smiled and said, “Okay.”

  As we walked away to return our trays, Jade nudged me with her hips.

  “This time you really dove into the deep end, didn’t you?” she said, shaking her head. But her eyes were smiling when she added, “But I’ll dive, too.”

  I set down my tray and hugged her gratefully. “Like always.”

  In the ballet studio later that morning, all I could think about was the contest, so I got sloppy with my arms at the barre. Ms. Aloff had to keep repositioning them.

  Later, during modern-dance class, I think some of my classmates were thinking about the contest, too, because they also made mistakes they shouldn’t have—so many that Ms. Pujol got annoyed.

  Ms. Pujol had tan skin and blonde hair cut into a short bob. In her salmon-colored T-shirt and pale gray shorts, she could have been mistaken for a student, but when she clapped her hands loudly, we all sprang to attention.

  “I’ve taught here long enough to recognize the signs,” she said. “Your minds are all on winning the contest and seeing New York City Ballet, aren’t they?”

  We all nodded and grinned.

  Ms. Pujol was very different from Mr. Amici, my modern-dance teacher at Anna Hart, but she was just as much fun and just as challenging.

  “Okay, we’re going to shake everything out of our heads until nothing’s left,” she said. “No doors. No contests. No prizes. Nothing.”

  Instead of the pianist we had in ballet classes, Ms. Pujol had a drummer who played the bongos, a snare drum, and even a conga drum. My dad was a drummer, so he would have loved the music. When Ms. Pujol nodded, the musician began to slap the conga drum.

  Ms. Pujol began to wag her head from side to side to the beat, and so did we. As the drummer picked up the tempo, she began to roll her head around on her neck as if it were a ball rolling around in a bowl.

  It felt odd to do that move, but I tried anyway. As I did it, I felt my shoulders begin to loosen.

  “There are no thoughts in your heads now,” Ms. Pujol said. “Only the rhythm.” She began t
o wriggle her shoulders and then dip them downward, lowering one shoulder sharply as she raised the other. “The rhythm wants to grow.” She swung her arms out to the sides and then over her head. We copied her as the drummer picked up the tempo.

  “The rhythm wants to spread.” She closed her fingers and then shot them out again as if they were spring-loaded. With her arms raised over her head, Ms. Pujol began to dance to her right. “Can’t stop. Can’t stop,” she cried. “Come on. Rhythm’s got you.”

  The nearest girl began to dance after Ms. Pujol, and soon we had formed a line, circling the room and moving our arms over our heads. “Touch the sky! Touch the sky!” Ms. Pujol prompted.

  The bam-bam-boom of the drum went right through my skin and into my bones as I stretched my arms as high as I could. Ms. Pujol made me feel like I could do anything.

  As all my worries seemed to drop away, I thought, Miki and I already made two amazing dancers for our door. We can make more!

  Later that afternoon, Miki and I had just showered and changed when we heard a knock on the door. I answered it and found Abby grinning from ear to ear. “We were in luck. The KBC offices just got in boxes and boxes of new stuff, so there was plenty of brown paper.” She had a big stack of brown paper in her arms. Anneke and Piera carried two more stacks.

  “We don’t need that much, do we?” I glanced over my shoulder at Miki, who shook her head.

  “We wanted to be sure we had enough for the whole floor,” Abby said. “Just in case.”

  I took a deep breath. This was going to take some organizing! “We’ll need a lot of scissors,” I said, “and we’re going to need a space big enough so that everyone can see Miki’s demonstration.”

  “There’s the lounge,” Abby said.

  “But who knows who else will be down there?” I said. “And anytime you wanted something from our room, you’d have to get back on the elevator and come up here.” I thought for a moment. “How about the space in front of the elevator?”

  Abby nodded. “That could work. I’ll tell everyone to meet there at about seven.”