Someday Dancer Read online

  I strut myself up to the front desk, bringing my knees up high, with my hands on my hips. I ask for my mama. The lady at the desk points me down a long white hallway and some steps to the janitor’s office.

  “Hi, Mama,” I say. She’s standing over the industrial sink, pouring out a bucket of soupy brown mop water. Gran is drinking a cup of coffee with her feet propped on an upside-down bucket.

  “Hi, Gran.”

  The janitor’s office smells better than the rest of the hospital, like starched laundry and bleach. I wish I could stay here, but Mama hands me a broom and a navy-blue smock.

  “You’re in the recovery ward, Casey. You need to sweep all the rooms and empty the trash cans into the big bin at the end of the hall.”

  I nod. I’m not excited, but I’m ready. I’ll get in, get out, and get to New York City. No heap of hospital dirt is going to stand in my way.

  “It should only take a few hours if you don’t dawdle. When you’re done, come back here.”

  I nod again and turn to walk out the door, but Mama stops me.

  “Casey, just so you know,” she says as she scrubs down the sink, “today doesn’t count toward your salary.”

  My mouth hangs open as I spin to look at her.

  “That’s not fair!” I say.

  They can’t ask me to work for nothing. That’s not right. Mama keeps her back to me, scrubbing hard at the sink.

  “Didn’t you explain?” I ask. “I need to earn the bus fare for the audition.”

  Gran interrupts me. “Today is your trial, Casey. Think of this as an audition, too.”

  Mama flicks the dirty water off her fingers and turns to look at me, toweling her hands on the edge of her smock. “Mr. Crampton doesn’t usually hire cleaners as young as you, but I told him you were a good worker. A very good worker. I put my reputation on the line to get you this job, Casey. So you go upstairs and show him I was right.” She puts her hands on her hips for that last bit. “Now stop wasting time. The recovery ward is at the top of the stairs on the left.”

  I am about to say something else. Ask her to explain to Mr. Crampton how important it is to pay me. But the look on Mama’s face says hush! Gran’s face says it, too. So I drop my shoulders and shut my mouth. Then I walk out of the room to find the recovery ward.

  The smock is too big for me. It covers up my little white shift-dress completely. I have to wrap the tie around my waist three times just to keep it tight. The pockets that are supposed to be at my middle are closer to the floor.

  I can’t believe I’m not going to get paid for my work today. I wiggle out the sums in my head, but I’m no good at math without scratch paper. I stop trying when I get to the recovery ward.

  It’s bigger than I expected. It’s a whole floor. Room after room to sweep, with two trash cans in each room. Machines beep and tick and hum, filling the air with robot beats. I step into the first room.

  It looks clean already, but this is a test. Mr. Crampton will probably come in wearing a white glove, and rub his finger along the floor to see how well I’ve done. He sounds like that sort of man. I start to sweep. There is a woman in the bed. She’s asleep, and I feel weird as I push the broom under her bed, like I’m interrupting her. She doesn’t wake up, though.

  She is hooked up to a small beeping box, and I start moving in time to the beat. Beep sweep, beep sweep. Adding a double sweep every few beeps to be interesting. Before I know it, the room is done.

  I take the two trash cans and glide down the hall to the big bin. As I move, the scrunched-up smock around my waist becomes a tutu, and I take tiny steps as if I am walking on my toes. It takes me a while to think of what the trash cans could be, but then I decide that they are baskets of flowers. If I ignore the smell, I can almost see roses.

  The next room goes faster now that I’ve found the beat. I twirl as I push the broom, every now and then stopping to point my toes high into the air as I bend low to pick up a large bit of trash from the floor. It isn’t just beep sweep anymore. It’s beep sweep leap! I am the prima ballerina of the recovery ward.

  I enter the last room and take a grand curtsy before the bed. One knee bends and the other leg sweeps behind as I hold up my smock like a dainty skirt. I’m still nose to the ground when a high, whiny voice claws at me.

  “Who are you?”

  I stand up, and suddenly the stage is gone. I’m just a freckled girl with big ears, standing in a hospital room and holding a broom. I don’t know what to say. A man is staring at me. He extends a long finger and presses a blue button on the side of his bed. His lips curl up at the sides like peeling paint.

  “I’m Casey Quinn,” I finally say. “The new cleaning lady.” I don’t like this man looking at me like I’m just some dust bunny on the floor.

  He eyes me and smacks his lips together. “Not anymore you aren’t.”

  Suddenly, a gleaming white nurse appears in the doorway. “What seems to be the problem, Mr. Homes?” she asks. Her voice reminds me of Mama’s when I ask too many questions.

  “This child.” He rubs his hands together like a bug. “This child has been bounding around the room, disturbing my rest.”

  I take a good look at Mr. Homes. He has a round, unfriendly face and glasses that make his eyes enormous. And those enormous eyes are sparkling with glee. He doesn’t look like he needs any rest. He looks like he needs a spanking.

  “All right, Mr. Homes,” says the nurse. Then she looks at me. “Come with me, young lady.”

  Mr. Homes grins, and I hate his evil teeth. I bet he wasn’t asleep at all. He was just sitting like a spider, waiting for someone to complain about.

  I follow the nurse down the hall to the large white counter. My skin is thick with worry. She sits on one side. I stand with my broom on the other. Before she can fire me, I start to explain.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I was dancing to the beeps because I’m practicing to audition for the School of American Ballet. I was being quiet. I didn’t mean to wake him up. Please don’t tell Mr. Crampton, because I need to earn enough money for the bus ticket. I’ll be quieter, even though I was already being pretty quiet, really. It will be good practice. Ballerinas are supposed to be quiet.” I stop speaking when I run out of air.

  The nurse looks at me. I can tell what she’s thinking. She’s looking at the too-big smock cinched around my waist and my too-big shoes flopping on my feet, and she’s thinking, This child is no ballerina.

  I try my best to stand up tall and graceful, but it’s hard with a broom in your hand. Then her face goes soft.

  “Well,” she says, “Mr. Homes is a very particular patient. So next time, no dancing in his room.”

  She pinches her lips around the word particular, and I know she really wants to say that he is difficult or even rude, but she’s too polite. She smiles at me.

  “Do you understand?” she asks.

  I nod vigorously and look up with earnest eyes.

  “Good,” she says with a smile. I can feel my body going warm and tingly with relief. I like this nurse. Nurse Ryder. Her name seems familiar, like I’ve heard it before. A bell goes off in my brain. But I’m too happy to listen. Nurse Ryder is letting me stay. She has soft blue eyes and butter-yellow hair under her nurse cap. And she has a soft face. She knows what’s what.

  “Well then, go finish your job.”

  I turn to go, but she stops me.

  “What was your name again, dear?”

  “Casey Quinn,” I say.

  “Oh, you’re in my daughter’s class at school,” she says.

  I can feel something stirring in the back of my mind. A tiny seed of something very, very bad.

  Nurse Ryder just smiles at me. “I didn’t know you took ballet, too.”

  I look at her soft face and blue eyes, and then at her blonde hair pulled back in a low bun. She doesn’t have to tell me who her daughter is, because, in an instant, I know. I know as sure as I know the sun’s gonna come up every morning and shine on my pillow.


  I am working for the Priss’s mother.

  And by tomorrow, the Priss will know everything.

  I am sitting in my room thinking about what happened at the hospital. I grind my teeth and scrunch up my face. Stomp, stomp go my feet on the floor.

  I flop backward onto my bed and look up at the sky. It isn’t really a sky, it’s a ceiling, but it looks like a sky. Mama painted it for me when I was a baby. She painted the whole room. It’s the best thing she’s ever done for me. Mama doesn’t paint anymore. She says she doesn’t have time. But my room is something special.

  One wall is painted like a forest, with thick trees going up to the ceiling. Then the forest fades into a meadow full of flowers, which wraps around the wall. On the other sides are a beach and a giant blue lake that sits below my windows. The water looks so real that sometimes, when the sun shines into my room, I really think I’m there. I can hear the water brushing up onto the sand, even though I’ve never seen a lake in my life. I may only have one pair of shoes, but inside my room I have the whole world.

  But none of that is making me feel better tonight. Mama told me Mr. Crampton said I could have the job. That should have made me happy. But all I can think of is that Mrs. Ryder knows I’m working at the hospital, and she knows I’m going to audition for the ballet. She’ll tell the Priss, and once the Priss knows . . . I don’t even want to think about the things she’ll say.

  Something bad is growing underneath the place where my dinner is. I roll over on my stomach to try and squash it. I am not going to let anyone make me feel rotten, especially not stupid, stuck-up, I’m-too-special-for-the-world Miss Priss Ann-Lee. I shove my face into my pillow to block out the laughing picture of her nasty face.

  She is probably sitting at home trying to think up the best way to put me down. I push my head deeper into the pillow, and bite the thin cotton until I can taste feather. I don’t care. So what if I’m working at the hospital? So what if we’re poor? My father died fighting for America. What did Prissy’s father do? Probably nothing. So she can’t say nothing to me.

  But when I wake up in the morning, the thing in my stomach is still there. It’s like an evil worm lurking in my middle, waiting for something bad to happen.

  “How come you didn’t tell me Ann-Lee’s mother worked at the hospital?” I ask Mama.

  “They’ve lived here for months now, Casey. I thought you knew.” Mama reaches forward and takes two strips of bacon off Gran’s plate while Gran is up pouring coffee. “Does it matter?” she asks me.

  “It doesn’t really,” I say as I munch my own bacon strip. It tastes stale. I can’t explain about the Priss. Mama would tell me to ignore her. But how can you ignore someone you know is going to be evil to you?

  Mama makes me my lunch for school. She packs everything carefully into a brown paper sack. It reminds me of Queen Ann-Lee all over again, but I don’t say anything. While her back is turned, Gran winks at me and sneaks three slices of bacon back. Gran always wins.

  I leave late for school and walk slowly. The closer I get, the bigger the worm in the bottom of my stomach grows. It’s a giant worm of worry, munching up all of my good feelings like I crunched up the bacon. I go past the Shell Station, past Willy’s General Store and Vicky’s Ballet Studio. As my feet go slower, my heart goes faster, drumming rat-a-tat-tat with dread. By the time I get to the school yard, my ears are so full of drumming, I can hardly hear.

  The school bell rings sharply. I shake myself. Priss ain’t worth the dirt beneath my toes, so why am I going so slow? I square my shoulders and march up the school steps. The hall is empty and my feet echo as they slap across the linoleum, but I don’t slow down. I am a rocket shooting up to space, and no one had better get in my way. Not the Priss, not anyone.

  I burst through the classroom door and stop fast. I can hear Principal Haydon saying the Pledge of Allegiance through the intercom. The whole class turns to stare, but all I see is the Priss. She’s wearing a smile like a fox eyeballing a lame chicken. She just about licks her lips. I can see a large brown bag tucked underneath her chair. It’s too big to be a lunch bag, and Her Majesty is way too stuck-up to pack her own food.

  “Take your seat, Casey,” says Mr. Richards.

  I make my face go fierce, and scoot to my desk. I won’t let her see me worry. We finish the pledge and Mr. Richards starts the class. Part of me goes all limp with relief, but the worm knows something horribly juicy is coming its way. It roils and writhes in my middle. I try to concentrate, but all I can see is that brown paper bag. Somehow I know there is something for me in there. And I know it ain’t no slice of rhubarb pie.

  As the clock ticks toward lunchtime, I sit at my desk. I’m staring straight ahead, not looking left and not looking right, like that will keep the Priss from coming over. Like if I can’t see her, she will disappear. Mr. Richards is scratching out long division on the blackboard, but I can’t concentrate. The sound of the chalk seems to squeak out a message. She’s waiting, she’s waiting, it says. I scrunch up my face and stop listening.

  The bell rings again at lunchtime. Everyone shuffles their papers and books around me. I keep staring forward. My eyes are on that board like glue and nothing can make me look away, but the worm inside is waiting. Mr. Richards goes out into the hall to open the cafeteria doors. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a pink shape slinking closer. And then the Priss is there standing right in front of me.

  “My mother says you’re working at the hospital cleaning floors after school.” She says it sweetly but loud. She wants everyone to listen. They do, too. They pretend not to notice, but the rest of the class stops shuffling. I can feel them listening. Ann-Lee smiles stickily and smacks her lips.

  “She says you’re trying to earn enough money to go to New York City to audition for the School of American Ballet.”

  I keep my mouth locked tight, but I bet the whole class can hear my heart thumping a beat against my skinny ribs, thump, thump, thump, trying to pound its way out of the room.

  The Priss looks at her fingernails and says oh-so-casual-like, “My father just bought me a new audition outfit and shoes for New York. So we thought you could use some of my old ballet clothes, since they’re so expensive.”

  She drops the paper bag on the desk in front of me. There is steel in her voice.

  “The size should be fine,” she says, “except the shoes. I don’t know if they’ll fit over your fat feet.”

  “I don’t need your help,” I say through tight teeth and push the bag away. Everyone is watching now. They aren’t even pretending not to stare.

  “Don’t be silly, Casey,” the Priss says, all light and airy. “I know how hard it is for your family. You don’t have a father to support you like I do. So you can’t afford to be so proud.” She turns with a swoosh of skirt. “And if you have any manners at all, you’ll remember to write a thank-you card,” she says over her shoulder. “You can send it through my mother. That will save you the cost of a stamp.”

  And at that, the worm does what it’s wanted to do all day. It explodes.

  I leap over my desk, not like a ballerina, but like a tiger. And it seems that before my feet even touch the floor, I am on top of her.

  “I hate you,” I say as I push Priss Ann-Lee with all the force of my leap, trying to dig my fingernails into her scrawny bird-neck.

  She goes down, shrieking. She’s not so uppity now. I try to jump on top of her to crush her into the ground. “Get off me, you stupid hayseed!” she screams, and kicks me hard.

  Her legs are strong, and I fly back against a desk. The rest of the students, shocked by the fight, come to life and gather around us, creating a wrestling ring in the middle of the class. I don’t care. I hardly hear them. All I hear is the snarl in my throat as Ann-Lee and I growl at each other, eyes blazing. How dare she? How dare she say we’re poor? How dare she think I need her help? I don’t need help from nobody.

  “You’re nothing but a no-good piece of trailer trash. I bet your
mother wasn’t even married to your father,” she hisses.

  “My father died in the war,” I say. “Where was your father?”

  Ann-Lee’s face goes white.

  “He didn’t even fight, did he?” I say, squaring up to her. The class stares at her, waiting for an answer.

  “My father has diabetes. They wouldn’t let him fight.”

  I snort.

  “He wanted to go!” she says.

  She shoves me, and I shove her back.

  “Oh, sure he did. I bet he was real sad when he got to stay safe at home in South Carolina.”

  The class is on my side now. I can feel them. I keep going.

  “I bet he was super sad when everyone else went off to fight, and he got to stay here getting rich.”

  “He did, he wanted to fight!” Ann-Lee screams, and launches herself at me. She’s clawing and kicking. “You don’t know anything! You’re just a stupid hayseed! And you’ll always be a hayseed! You’ll never be a dancer!”

  Priss scratches her fingers on my neck. I hit back hard. I don’t care about her father. I just want to hurt her. I want to make her sorry she said I was a hayseed. I want to hit her so hard that she’ll fly away and never come back. I claw my way toward Ann-Lee’s face.

  I manage to get my fingers around that fancy ballet bun, and I pull hard until the band snaps and the hair falls loose. I wrap my hand tight around her hair. I’m about to pull again when another force drags me back. I lash out and realize, too late, that I’ve just punched Mr. Richards.

  I watch as his glasses skitter to the floor in slow motion, a large crack running down the left lens. The room goes silent. Mr. Richards touches his eye where I’ve hit him, and I go limp. There’s nothing else for me to do. Ann-Lee starts crying and is taken to the nurse. I’m not crying, so I’m taken to the principal’s office.

  As I wait outside, I feel something warm and wet slide down my face. For a moment, I think it is a tear. When I reach up and touch it, I am relieved. I am not crying. It’s a bloody nose. I am no sissy crybaby like the Priss. I’m the winner.