Marching On The Club Book 3

Chapter 27

Chapter 27
We met Mrs. Parker in the cafeteria. We all formed a block inside. Mrs. Parker and her assistant; Miss. Hicks taught us a dance move. She put her phone on a speaker and she put some music on it. The very first dance move she taught us was to the song Sail. At first, I didn't quite understand. 'It's not like we're going to dance like this out on the football field, are we,' I asked myself. I was in the back of the crowd; following everyone's movements but not understanding what a clue what we were doing. Tilt head to the right, then the left. Head up then down. Roll your head around your shoulders. 'What is this, Yoga,' I asked myself, but I choose not to ask anyone about it. Then move your shoulders up, then down. Shoulders to the left, and then to the right. 'What is this,' I asked myself again. Heels up together, then back down. Then Mrs. Parker put the music on pause for a minute. She taught us how to do a plié; feet together touching your angles bending your knees forward. 'Why do we need to learn this,' I asked myself, but I choose not to question. Then she started the music over again, and we danced to the music the same moves as before. When we got to the plié we raised our heels.
"Make six lines," Mrs. Parker shouted so we all could hear her. We all got into six different lines.
"I'm going to put on some music on, you must dance in time to get across the cafeteria," she said.
"I'll explain why later," she added.
  "Go," she said as she put music on. The first person in line started dancing across the room. My heart was racing because I was nervous. I couldn't think straight. I couldn't think of a good dance move that goes with the song to get across the cafeteria. I know some moves, but if I don't know the song then it's going to be harder for me to pick a dance move to it. Sometimes, I dance to the beat, but more times than not I dance to the words of the song. Most of the songs were songs I never heard of before, so it was harder for me to quickly choose a dance move when it was my turn to dance across the floor. At one point, I just gave up and walked across the floor without Mrs. Parker noticing because I didn't know what I was doing and it didn't go well with the song anyways. Erin, stopped me before I got in the back of the line and asked;
  "Why'd you stop?"
"I felt stupid," I answered honestly.
  I then kicked myself when I got in the back of the line. I felt like an idiot.
  "Jennifer, are you okay?"
  I turned around; it was William. "Yeah," I said dully. We danced across the floor one last time to one last song. "Close your eyes," Mrs. Parker said. We closed our eyes. "Give yourself a rating, anywhere from 1-10 on how hard you think you were trying. I want honesty answers," she said. 'Honest answers,' I thought. I wanted to lie and give myself an eight, maybe a nine, but I didn't. I held up three fingers because I was beating myself up harder than I was even trying. I wasn't even giving myself a chance. I was also shaking from my feet to my head. 'She's not going to like my rating,' I fearfully thought. "Open your eyes," she said.
  "I saw many of you guys give me a nine, some tens, a few eights. But I got one person give me a three."
'Oh, crap,' I thought. 'Maybe it would have been better to lie!'                                                       "If everyone is trying there hardest then the chances of us winning the championships would increase and marching band would be more fun if everyone tried their hardest. Because what happens if one person doesn't try their hardest?"                                                                                                    "That one person would be holding the band back, and we wouldn't win the championships because we wouldn't go to the Trops," Cody said.                                                                    "Guys, you have to, have to, have to, have to, have to, have to, have to, have to, have to try your absolute one hundred and ten percent best all the time; anywhere! That doesn't just apply to on the field at competition, okay?"                                                                                         Actually, I was trying my best; I was just beating myself up. I would try my very best and even harder if I wasn't so harsh on myself and if I wasn't wasting my own energy beating myself up all the time.                                                                                                                                                                          "The reason why I made you all dance across the floors is because you need to feel comfortable acting silly and goofy with each other. Because if you don't look unison with everybody else on the field; all eyes go on you because you're the fool out on the field," Mrs. Parker said