Telling Me, Love [Normila]

Chapter Fifteenth

As I wait I hope in the passenger seat and play with the radio. 

When I finally pick a station “As Long As You Love Me” by Justin Bieber and Big Sean is playing and we are already at my dance studio.

“Oh! We’re here.” I say looking around without actually getting out the car, when Liam and I lock eyes he gives me a funny look and rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, we are.” He laughs and gets out of the truck, I turn around and follow him out of my door, I had already forgotten about how far the truck is from the ground and almost fall on my face, but I catch myself before it happens.

“Smooth!” Liam says and rolls his eyes he had already pulled both kids out of his truck. I rolled my eyes and took Ally from his arms and we head into the building.

Kids are already running around already dressed in their costumes, some were stretching and talking with friends, somewhere just laughing and talking. But the whole area was loud and chaotic. I pulled Ally off my hip and laid her down by my feet and clapped my hands in threes, instantly grabbing everyone ones attention.

“I thought we were supposed to be stretching guys? Not yelling and talking loudly”  I said, raising my voice to be heard over the little whispers, but all the attention was on me and everyone knew to shut up.

“OK guys, head into your regular space and start stretching. Anyone know where Leigh-Anne, Lauren, and Dinah are?” I asked looking around.

A teenager named Spencer raises her hand and speaks “Their getting some of the younger kids into their costumes in the back room,” she says

“Alright, will you go back there and ask Leigh to work with the 16 and ups, Lauren with the ten to 13s and Dinah to come work with me and all the young kids?”

Spencer nods and runs toward the back, I turn back to all the kids looking at me “OK, You all know your categories, head over to your rehearsal space.”

Instantly everyone was getting up and moving to the back hallway moving into their classrooms, I smiled and turned to my daughter “let’s go,” I say and she grabs at my hand and I turn to Louis “You too, Louis”

He nods and smiles and Liam lets him down so he can run along beside me.

“Can I come too?” Liam asks and I smile

“Only if you stretch with me and Dinah,”

“OK, how hard can that be?”

Liam finds out stretching is really hard when he tries to bend over and stretch down to touch his toes, which he can’t do.

He gives up after that.

I let the kids go over their two dances a couple times, they have one dance called “Then I Woke Up” to music by an old girl group called the Clique Girlz, it was a mix of hip hop and contemporary. Which I could tell was almost everyone’s favorite, and then we had a straight up hip hop routine to the Kidz Bop version of ‘Can’t Hold Us’. About fifteen minutes to the show I let the kids relax and tried to keep them calm, not letting nerves take them over as I moved them to the other side of my building to the stage area.

The stage was about six feet off the ground and about eight feet away from the 2000 seats that were already filling with parents waiting to see their kids preform.

Getting on stage went by age so the youngest kids went first, I smiled at them all and gave hugs to everyone I could.

“You guys are going to do fantastic, don’t worry.” I say and I can hear Dinah Jane’s voice