Flying (Fight Song Book 2)

Chapter 29: Nationals

Joe's PoV
We're here at last. Nationals. We left at 4am to travel to Manchester for the competition. Registration closed at 9am, but we've always wanted to get there as early as we can just in case. Usually we'd book a hotel to stay in for the night before, but with all the commotion we forgot and only have it for the weekend. So, a four hour coach journey it is.

I've always loved Nationals, because it's the biggest competition in the country. A lot of people from the UK don't watch Internationals if their dance studio doesn't make it and obviously if you're not a dancer you might not have even heard of such a competition. Nationals has the entire British dance community watching though. Talent scouts from the UK are often at Nationals and lots of people in the past have been offered jobs. I've been offered them twice, but my mum is adamant that I finish my education before accepting anything, so the scouts just hand me their card for a later date.

"This is so cool," Dianne grins, linking her arm in mine. "It's not quite as big as Australia's Nationals, but for some reason it feels more electric. Like the competition seems way more fierce."

I laugh. "I can't understand why that would be, but I'm glad you like it!"

"Guys stop nattering, we need to register," Zoe comes and yanks my arm, pulling me and Dianne to the registration desk.
Because I'm the dance captain of the team, I'm required to sign all the paperwork as well as our studio head and any other supervising adult. I was never quite sure why, but it's just what's done. I approach the lady sat behind the desk who is looking like she got maybe three hours sleep. She sounds like it too when she tells me where to sign. Poor woman must've already had enough and it's only 8am. Perhaps she'd traveled a long distance like we had and had woken up at an ungodly hour.

"Welcome back to Nationals," she smiles and nods to us all. We smile back at her and head off to our dressing room.

We're Nationals legends. We win every year and have done for as long as I can remember. Therefore, we get given the best dressing room in the building. All of them a lush, but this one is just incredible though, even for our standards. I can't even call it a dressing room really. It's more of a suite. It's on the top floor and consists of four different rooms. There are two dressing rooms really, although the wall/door can be pulled apart to make it one room. We usually give the guys the one by the windows and the girls the ones with the mirrors and lights, more because they shotgun them and claim they need them because they have to do their makeup, which I suppose is fair enough. Attached to the dressing room are two communal bathrooms; one for the girls and one for the boys. They're pretty lush, looking more like luxury hotel bathrooms than communal theatre bathrooms. Madness, really. But the most extravagant area is the huge room to rehearse in. The Nationals board tries their best to give every studio a dance rehearsal space, but ours is one of the best. It's got high ceilings, a sprung floor and mirrors, and although it's not the size of the stage we perform on, it's still big. There are a few rooms for other studios that have similar rehearsal rooms, but I believe ours is the only one with a sprung floor. Some of them have mini theatres, but the performance space isn't that big. Plus, there's no audience so what's the point in having seats? More often than not, some people only get those as their dressing rooms and have to put their makeup on in the bathroom. Hideous.

Most of the competition at Nationals would be easy. There are studios that get to Nationals only to have fun, because they know they don't stand a chance of making it to Internationals. However, there are some, such as the English Dance Academy, that are extremely competitive and do anything to win. I know the EDA have a room similar to ours, because that's always the way - the ones more likely to win get the special treatment. Some may see it as unfair, but it's just the pecking order around here. Reach for the stars.