Gems of Her Heart

Dying to Dance

"You guys have everything?" Dad asks Anaïs and me as we got out of the car.

"Yep, everything is packed," I assured him. "And if we missed something, Mom as it."

Anaïs and I were sleeping over at Mom's place then next few days since Dad was taking Jess on a two-day spa retreat; they wouldn't be back till Thursday night. We could've have stayed home with Timothée and Marceau, but they were still at their Mom's place.

"You act like it's the first time we stayed with Mom," Anaïs teases him; closing the car door.

Dad chuckles, handing us our bags. "Just making sure," he kisses us both on the forehead. "Have fun."

"We will," I reply, grabbing Anaïs hand, leading her into the studio.

"Morning girls," Mom greets us.

I let go of Anaïs' hand so I could cover a yawn. "Morning Mom" Anaïs greets her as I wave with the other hand.

Mom smiles at us. "Go put your bags in my office, then get changed before coming back here. I wanna talk to you before your privates."

Anaïs and I headed to Moms office, after dropping off our bags we decided to just change in there. When we returned to Mom, she was doing some work on her computer.

"We're going to Starpower, and this is the last regional to qualify for their nationals," Mom says, turning to face us. "Adrienne you didn't get to perform last year because you broke your ankle, but you won one of their regional earlier this year, so you already qualify. Anaïs you won Petite Miss Starpower at their nationals last year, I'm positive you would win again this year, you also won a regional early this year, so you qualify. That got me thinking, and I had a brilliant idea yesterday. I want a clean sweep at nationals - group, solo's, and duo/trio, to make sure that happens you two will be doing a duet." Mom grins at us.

Anaïs and I share a look. "It's been six months since we did a duet together," Anaïs reminds Mom.

Mom nods. "Half a year. The problem is averaging our age's out the two of you would be competing in the junior division. Adrienne that's nothing new to you, but Anaïs you have yet to compete in the junior division."

I nudge Anaïs in the shoulder. "Think you can handle it?"

She shoves me back. "I've got this."

Mom and I look at her in wonder. "Excuse us," Mom says as she chuckles. "Get to your privates you two." Anaïs and I wave bye to Mom as we headed to our privates.

A few hours later, we were in Studio A with the other girls.

"I wanna talk about this upcoming weekend, it's regionals. Everybody knows how important that is," mom tells us as we sat in front of her. She turns the blackboard around. "We are going to Starpower. You know that's one of the toughest competitors out there. This is what's gonna happen this weekend. Maddie new solo, Chloe new solo, Brooke new solo, Anaïs and Adrienne new duet. Now the age categories are a little different, so we want to make sure that your dances reflect you as a dancer now and not at the beginning of the season. We are doing a new group routine, and everybody's in it, the enter cast. It is called "Where Have All the Children Gone." This is a routine about children who have gone missing. You've all seeing the children's face on the milk carton. It's contemporary, it's mature, and it is very dark. You have to be great actresses to pull it off," she turns slightly to the Moms. "They're all in white like they're angels. I don't want any discrepancies I don't want any opinions. Moms I'm gonna go ahead and dismiss you know, we have a lot of work to do. Girls lets get moving; let's get moving. Come on." Since Mom had a class coming in soon, we all headed to studio B as the moms went into the viewing room.