Upheaval: Day 1

Word Count: 6,097

Summary of Events:

Leon was woken up by his mom — a proven indicator that she was in a poor mood — and got ready for school. At school the usual bullies bothered him . . . until one of them took a joke by another the wrong way, giving him an opening to escape. Finally he made it to ballet class, which he enjoyed immensely, well, aside from the pas de deux . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Miss Corrine assigned Maeve to dance with him and reminded them of the exercise's choreography before starting the music.

Leon moved with the music as Miss Corrine had told him. Even though he'd consciously drawn a blank many a time as to what he was supposed to do, it was as if the music was fused with his subconscious and would subliminally tell him exactly what he needed to do, his body responding without him telling it to. Miss Corrine believed that he had the best muscular memory of any student she'd taught since she'd retired from dancing professionally the same year he'd started up ballet.

Maeve's movements, occasionally halting and stiff — to say the least, not half as smooth as she looked when she danced alone — out the corner of his eye were almost enough to make him stop and tell her to relax.

He managed, however, to make it through the dance without yelling at her — a restraint Miss Ophelia, his first teacher, had taught him well after he'd stopped mid-dance in his second Year-End show to get upset at one of his classmates who'd kept turning the wrong way.

Miss Corrine shook her head. "For having grown up around him you girls still treat him like an alien. Leon, again, with me."

Leon was astonished. Dance with Miss Corrine? But he'd never danced with Miss Corrine.

"Justine, the music," Miss Corrine said. "Leon."

Numbly he followed her beckoning to the starting position and put his hands in place, although he felt acutely aware that his fingers were not touching the soft cotton-and-elastic of a bodysuit, but were touching the slicker Lycra of Miss Corrine's workout-wear tank top.

As soon as the music started, however, the whole thing was gone and he was lost in the pas de deux, doing all the moves he'd done — or struggled to carry out — time and time again with a flawless ease unlike he'd ever done them before.

The whole thing was a blur until the music ended, then Leon found that he felt elated, breathless, like he'd just performed one of the premier male roles in one of the most famed ballets, and had done so at one of the renowned theatres of the world.

Applause fuelled the image: the audience hidden in the darkness somewhat enforced by a large spotlight shining on him lavishing appreciation.

"That is what dancing with someone looks like," Miss Corrine's frustration-edged voice jolted Leon fully back into the classroom where his classmates were all looking meekly at their teacher, who stood in front of him, hands on her hips. "Prima ballerinas are not just soloists, they are well-rounded dancers who must be able to move with someone as fluidly as if they were one!"

Pronunciation:

pas de deux: pah deh duh