Dance-off!

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“Ready for our prancing class, then?” asked Kenny, slapping her on the back.

“Huh? Oh, yeah…” said Fliss uncertainly.

“What’s up, Fliss?” said Lyndz, getting all concerned. “Has something happened at home?”

“No,” said Fliss. “Well – kind of…” She fiddled with one of her plaits. Then she blurted out, “Mum says we’re going skiing in the holidays!”

There was a split second of silence. Then Frankie and Kenny screamed together: “Skiing??” And Lyndz said, “But that’s a brilliant thing!”

“I know it is,” said Fliss. “And I’ll get a gorgeous tan, Mum says. And we’ll have to go shopping for the special clothes and everything…”

Kenny was rolling her eyes by this point. “What’s eating you, then?”

“Well, being away for the whole of the time we’re off school,” said Fliss. “It’ll be weird, not seeing you lot. And…” She hesitated. “I’ve not skiied before, and I’m kind of nervous.”

“You’re right to be,” said Kenny, nodding, and putting on her really serious BBC2 documentary voice. “Skiing is very dangerous. If you don’t keep exactly to the right path, you might fall down some hidden ravine. And you’ll lie at the bottom with both your legs broken, and no one will be able to hear your cries for help…”

“Kenny, cut it out!” squeaked Lyndz. Fliss looked terrified. Kenny cracked a grin. She wants to be a doctor and loves scaring us with tales of horrific ER-type injuries – the gorier the better.

“I’m so jealous!” said Frankie. “Fliss, it’ll be brilliant! Are you all going? Callum too?”

Fliss nodded. “There are some little kids’ lessons that Callum can go to,” she said.

Just then the bell rang, so there was no more time to discuss the hardships of Fliss’s luxury holiday – or tomorrow’s sleepover, which it struck me we’d hardly planned at all yet.

It turned out that it was going to be our turn for the dance workshop after morning break. When the time came and we’d all got changed, we trooped into the school hall. Some of the class were looking excited, some (the boys and Kenny, mainly) looked like they were about to go to the dentist’s.

The dancers – a man and a woman – were already there waiting for us. They were both lean and fit-looking, and were standing up really straight, as if they had broom-handles instead of spines. Their smiles were friendly, though. Still, everyone immediately went shy and started shuffling around the edges of the room.

“I thought they’d be a bit more glamorous,” Fliss whispered to me. She had a point. The dancers were dressed in faded, frayed old T-shirts and leggings that my mum would’ve put in the bin if they’d been mine.

“I’d like to welcome our visitors to Cuddington Primary,” Mrs Weaver said, looking a bit flushed. “Children, this is Miss Lorna Baker, and Mr Sean Goldman. I’m sure we’d all like to thank them for giving up their valuable time to be with us.”

The bloke, Sean, was pretty good-looking, with very dark curly hair. “D’you reckon Fliss’ll fall for the tall dark stranger?” Kenny whispered, nudging me in the ribs. Despite her disappointment about the clothes, Fliss looked bright-eyed and excited.

We tease Fliss quite a lot about boys. She’s definitely soppier than the rest of us, mainly about Ryan Scott, this boy in our class she wants to marry when she’s older. I mean – Ryan Scott? Yeuch! But that’s Fliss for you. I guess she’s into romance and hearts and flowers and all that stuff. The rest of us are more into girl power, thank you very much.

I was convinced that Lorna and Sean were going to have us pointing our toes and skipping about, just like Kenny had said. But what we actually did came as a big surprise.

First off, there were a few warm-up stretches. Nothing fancy, just reaching to the ceiling and touching your toes-type stuff. Then we played a game.

“It’s called the Newspaper Game,” explained Lorna. “First of all you need to find a partner.”

The Sleepover Club dived for one another, of course. But – major problemo. There are five of us! Because of where we were standing, Kenny and Frankie dived for each other and so did Lyndz and I. That left Fliss, of course, looking a bit miz.

“Grab Ryan!” hissed Kenny teasingly, but Lyndz called out, “Come with us in a three!” and seized Fliss’s wrist and dragged her over to our corner.

The rest of the class had dived for their best mates too. The M&Ms were standing together smugly (wouldn’t you just know it?), and Ryan and Danny, and the other usual pairings, could be spotted all over the room. It turned out that there was an odd number altogether, so there was no one spare for Fliss to partner up with anyway.

“No threes allowed,” said Lorna, shaking her head at us.

A second later, I could hardly believe my eyes. There was Sean, the handsome stranger, striding over to Fliss and saying, “I’ll be your partner.” Fliss blushed right up to the roots of her blonde hair, and looked so pleased you’d think she’d just been asked out by Zac Efron.

Well, Kenny, Frankie, Lyndz and I were all winking at one another madly, as you can imagine. We were nudging each other about the M&Ms, too, who were looking really jealous. They’re such teachers’ pets! The next minute, though, Lorna started to explain the rules of the game and we all had to concentrate.

The first thing she did was hand every couple a sheet of newspaper. “I’ve brought some music,” she said, brandishing several CDs. “Basically, we’re going to have a disco.”

“Excellent!” said Lyndz, grinning at me.

“But every so often,” Lorna went on, “I’ll turn the music off – just like in Musical Chairs. When the music stops, each couple has to stand on their piece of newspaper. If anyone falls off – if your feet touch the floor – you and your partner are out.”

“Easy!” I said, as Lyndz and I practised standing on the paper together. There was plenty of room.

“Hang on!” laughed Lorna. “There’s a twist. Every time the music starts again, you must fold your paper in half.”

Have you ever played this game? It’s such a scream! As your piece of paper gets smaller and smaller, you reach the point where one person has to give the other a piggyback, just so that you can both be ‘on’ the paper without anyone’s feet touching the floor. But it doesn’t stop there…

Soon Lyndz had me on her back and was standing on one foot. All that horse-riding she does must’ve made her legs super-strong. Even so, she was wobbling all over the place because we were both laughing so much.

Loads of people had dropped out already, and now it was the M&Ms’ turn. It was hilarious. Emma Hughes had been doing all the piggyback carrying so far, and while we were dancing, Lyndz and I had heard her complaining that Emily was too heavy. So this time she made Emily carry her. Only Emily’s much smaller than Emma, of course, so when the music stopped and Emma took a flying leap on to Emily’s back, Emily lost her balance straight away.

“Whoooa!” she shrieked, her face turning purple and her mouth blowing out little desperate puffs as she tried to keep upright.

“Stand up properly!” Emma demanded, just as Emily’s legs buckled and she keeled over sideways like those slow-motion films you get of buildings collapsing.

The funniest thing was the way they both sat there arguing about it afterwards.

“You didn’t even try!” the Queen was saying.

“I didn’t stand a chance – you landed on me like a big lump!” the Goblin growled back.

Honestly, Lyndz and I were shaking with laughter so badly that we were desperate for Lorna to get the music back on as fast as possible, or we would be going the same way…

The next time round Kenny and Frankie were out (Kenny had been dancing so enthusiastically, she got her feet in a tangle and couldn’t stay on the bit of paper at all). Then I suddenly realised, looking around, that there were only three couples left: Lyndz and me, Ryan and Danny, and Fliss and Sean.

Lorna put the music on again. By now our piece of paper seemed about the size of a postage stamp – and it was thick and springy with being folded so often, so it was extra tricky to balance on. We didn’t stand a chance. Never mind the Leaning Tower of Pisa – we were the Collapsing Tower of Cuddington.

Ryan and Danny had managed to stay on their paper, though. And across the other side of the room, Sean was balancing perfectly on the ball of one foot, with Fliss on his back as if she was no more bother than the tiniest, lightest rucksack!

Lorna laughed. “I think we’ve got a winner,” she said, pointing to Ryan and Danny.

“Hey!” complained Sean, holding his hands out to draw attention to his perfect balance.

“Yes, I can see you,” said Lorna, “but I don’t think I’ve spotted – what’s your name, sweetie?”

“Felicity,” squeaked Fliss.

“I haven’t spotted Felicity giving Sean a piggyback yet,” said Lorna. “So I think you’ve had an unfair advantage.”

“Right,” said Sean. He let Fliss slither down from his back. Then, all mock-determination, he put his hands on her shoulders and lifted his leg as if he was going to climb on to her!

Fliss giggled and went bright pink again. Sean grinned and reassured her: “Only joking.”

But then he did something amazing. Standing behind Fliss he got her to raise one leg at the back – “It’s called an arabesque,” he said – and then, with one hand under her thigh and the other at her waist, he lifted her till his arms were straight, way above his head.

“Oh my!” exclaimed Mrs Weaver from her chair in the corner, her eyes shining as if she was at some amazing circus show.

“Don’t try this at home, kids,” said Sean, walking round the room while Fliss emitted little delighted squeaks somewhere near the ceiling.

“Big show off!” laughed Lorna.

Sean grinned, stuck his tongue out at her, and gently lowered Fliss to the floor. By this time Fliss was opening and shutting her mouth like a goldfish. And the M&Ms were positively green, they were so jealous!

After that, the rest of the workshop went like a fab party. The whole class were really into it by now. There were no more games – that had just been to get us in the mood, I think – but we tried making pictures of things with our bodies. Things like anger, or excitement, or sadness. Then, after these still poses (it was a bit like pretending to be statues, I guess) we tried moving to express the same ‘feelings’. It was really interesting. Kenny liked ‘anger’ the best – she stomped around the hall, puffed up like some bizarre, Leicester-City-supporting ogre.

“That was sooo wicked!” said Frankie, bouncing about the changing room afterwards.

“We should do the Newspaper Game at our sleepover tomorrow!” said Fliss.

“Hey, yeah!” agreed Lyndz. “But wouldn’t that mean we’d need to invite Sean too, to be your partner?” Fliss went beetroot again, which gave the rest of us such a major attack of the giggles that Lyndz got hiccups.

“That’s – hic – torn it!” she spluttered.

“Don’t worry, we’ll cure you!” yelled Kenny. “Pile on, guys!”

And in a second the Sleepover Club was one big mass of arms and legs. “It’s a dance called Squeezing Out The Hiccups,” said Frankie when Mrs Weaver came in and told us off.

I don’t think Mrs Weaver found it funny. But we did.

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“Oh no – look!” Frankie nudged me. “Mrs Poole is making Lorna and Sean eat school dinner. What did they do to deserve that?”

I craned my head past the people queuing in front of me, and saw the three of them carrying trays over to one of the tables. “Poor things,” I grimaced. “She obviously hates them and wants them never to come back to Cuddington.”

As people collected their food there was a massive scramble to sit on Lorna and Sean’s table. The seats filled up in about two seconds flat.

“Surprise, surprise,” said Kenny, as we all sat down together at another table nearby (the Sleepover Club was far too cool to join in the scrum). “Look who’s sucking up big time.”

I glanced across and saw that the M&Ms had bagged the plum seats right next to the dancers and were beaming sickly smiles at them.

“I’ve never seen the M&Ms move so fast,” said Lyndz.

“Poor Lorna and Sean. Those smiles are enough to put anyone off their dinner,” added Frankie, making sick noises.

“The food’s enough to put anyone off their dinner,” said Fliss, wrinkling her nose. She was fiddling her fork about in her chicken pie as if she was expecting to find a dead beetle in it.

“Ha, ha. They’re not even looking at what they’re eating,” I said, watching as the M&Ms shovelled forkfuls of pie into their mouths without tearing their eyes from their heroes. “Just wait – they’ll be spilling it all down their jumpers any minute now.”

“Perfect opportunity! This is too good to miss!” said Kenny. She searched around, looking on the floor, and on the windowsill next to our table.

“What’re you after?” asked Frankie.

“Aha!” Kenny’s hand dived for something on the dusty windowsill. She flashed her open palm under our noses, then strode off towards the M&Ms’ table.

“Eeyeuch!” Fliss cringed. “Did you see – a horrible, curled-up dead spider! How can she even pick it up?”