Ivy and Bean Doomed to Dance (2 page)

“Okay,” Ivy said finally. “I’m Giselle, and you’re the duke.”

“All right,” said Bean. “But next time, I get to be Giselle.”

It was fun playing Giselle, even though Ivy’s mom wouldn’t let them dance with a knife and they had to use a Wiffle bat instead. After they had each been Giselle a couple of times, they were Wilis, waving long Scotch-tape fingernails as they danced various people to death.

“Mrs. Noble!” shrieked Bean. “I’m dancing Mrs. Noble to death.” Ivy ran to get a pair of her mother’s high heels and pretended to be Mrs. Noble, a fifth-grade teacher who had once given Ivy and Bean a lot of trouble.

Bean the Wili chased Mrs. Noble around the house, waggling her fingernails and screaming. Finally, when they were both laughing so hard they couldn’t dance any more, they rushed into the kitchen and fell over on the floor.

“Well, look who’s here,” said Ivy’s mom. She was making dinner.

“Mom,” Ivy said when she got her breath back, “I
have
to take ballet class.”

Ivy’s mom stirred something into something else. “You had to take ice-skating, too.”

Ivy wiggled her toes. “Yeah, but that was a mistake.”

“How do you know ballet isn’t a mistake, too? Those skates were expensive.”

“Ballet is different,” Ivy explained. “Ballet isn’t freezing and dumb. Ballet is pretty. And it’s good for you.”

“I’m going to take it, too,” Bean said. “That way, we can help each other during the hard parts.”

Ivy’s mom looked at Bean in a surprised sort of way. “You’re going to take ballet?”

“Sure.” Bean’s mom would be happy to let her take ballet. Bean was certain of it. After all, Bean thought, her mother liked nice stuff. And ballet was nice. Except for the part where you danced people to death.

The funny thing was, Bean’s mother wasn’t happy to let her take ballet. Not at all.

“You’ll start it, and then you’ll decide you hate it and want to quit.”

“No, I won’t. I’ll love it,” Bean said.

“I’ll bet you a dollar you’ll hate it,” said Nancy. Nancy had taken ballet when she was Bean’s age. Bean remembered the time Nancy had cried because she was a chocolate bar in a ballet about candy.

“But I’m not going to be a dorky old piece of candy,” Bean said. “I’m going to be a Wili.” She knew better than to tell Nancy that she was going to be Giselle. Nancy would just make fun of her.

“Ha,” said Nancy. “You have to be whatever they tell you to be.”

“Nancy,” said her mom. “I’ll discuss this with Bean in private, please.”

“I’ll bet you, Mom,” said Nancy, getting up. “I’ll bet you two dollars she quits after a week.”

“I’ll bet you a hundred I don’t,” said Bean.

“Good-bye, Nancy,” said their mother. Nancy left, and Mom turned to Bean. “Now, honey, I didn’t want to go into this in front of Nancy, but if I do let you take ballet, there will be no quitting.”

“Quitting? Why would I quit?”

“You quit softball.”

“But that was softball. All you do in softball is stand around waiting for five hundred years until it’s time to hit the stupid ball. And then you miss anyway. Ballet isn’t like that.”

Her mother looked at her.

Bean made her eyes big. “I thought you wanted me to learn new things,” she said.

Her mother looked at her some more.

“Nancy got to take ballet.” Bean wiggled her lower lip. She knew that a trembling lower lip is very sad looking.

Her mother laughed. “You’re drooling. Okay. I will let you take ballet on one condition, and here it is: You will go for the whole session. Four months. Sixteen lessons One performance. No quitting. And no complaining.”

“No problem!” said Bean. She jumped up and hugged her mother. “When can I start? I already know how to kick—you want to see?”

DIP, DIP, CRASH!

It was not long before Ivy and Bean realized that they had made a terrible mistake.

Bean began to realize it while Madame Joy was talking about first position. You stuck your heels together and your toes apart. Big deal. Where was the leaping? Where was the kicking? Where was the dancing?

Then Madame Joy chattered for a long time about nice round arms. Who cared about arms? When Madame Joy started in on second position, which turned out to be just regular standing, Bean stopped listening.

Ivy paid careful attention to first position. Heels, toes. Great! Then she paid careful attention to second position. Arms out, legs out. Great! Then came third position.

“Now,” said Madame Joy, “third position. For third position, we slide our right foot, like so, to the middle of our left foot. Then we lift one nice round arm up, up in the air, leaving our other nice round arm—”

Ivy fell over with a thump.

“Goodness!” exclaimed Madame Joy. “Let’s try that again.”

Let’s not, thought Ivy.

But they did. In fact, they did nothing but one, two, three, four, and five for half an hour. After that, Madame Joy showed them something called a plié. She acted like it was the most important thing in the world, but really it was just bending your knees and dipping a little. Dip, dip, dip. Row, row, row your boat, thought Bean.

“Hey, guys,” she called, “Get this!” She sang, “Dip, dip, dip your knees—”

Nobody joined in. Instead, Madame Joy said, “We save our singing for after class, Bean.”

Sheesh, Bean said to herself. You’d think she’d be happy to get a little more pep in here.

But it was even worse when Madame Joy was peppy. “All right, girls! Time to leap like little kitties!” Madame Joy said, springing into the air with her ballet slippers fluttering.

“She doesn’t leap like a kitty. She leaps like a frog,” Bean whispered to Ivy.

“Bean!” called Madame Joy. “You may lead the kitties.” She twirled briskly around and hauled Bean to the front of the line. “Now,” she said, smiling, “you are a kitty! Leap!” Madame Joy bounded across the wide, empty floor.

Bean closed her eyes and imagined she was a cat. She was a skinny black cat that wanted to catch a bird. And then eat it. Bean crouched. She twitched her tail. She narrowed her eyes. “RRRRRrrrowll!” she screeched and then lunged forward, landing on her hands and knees in the middle of the floor. “Got him!” she yelled.