Breaking Pointe by Samantha-Ellen Bound Page B

looking.
    Paige went red.
    â€˜Better still, don’t bother turning around, just fall flat on your face,’ I said to Jasmine as I chassé ’d past. ‘It’ll be an improvement.’
    We were practising our sissonnes , which is a series of jumps where you jump from two feet onto one, when Ms McGlone dropped her big news of the week. She has a habit of giving these huge info dumps when we’re in the middle of doing something hard. As if that isn’t torture enough.

    â€˜Who wants to hear some good news?’ she asked.
    â€˜I do!’ said Jasmine, like a total suck.
    I swapped glances with Paige. Paige doesn’t have a mean bone in her body, but Ashley and Ellie don’t take ballet, so I’ve got to bounce off Paige whenever Jasmine does something annoying.
    â€˜Anyone else?’ asked Ms McGlone.
    Most of the other girls said yes, but I didn’t. I don’t play up to the teachers.
    â€˜So you all remember we have the Southern Ballet Eisteddfod coming up, yes?’
    â€˜Oh yes,’ said Jasmine, ‘three weeks from Saturday. I wrote it on my kitchen calendar.’
    â€˜You’re so organised,’ said Jasmine’s best friend, Tove.
    I exchanged another look with Paige.
    â€˜Well, the good news is you’ll all be in the Under 12s section,’ said Ms McGlone.
    â€˜Hooray!’ said Jasmine.
    I snorted my amusement. Who says hooray?
    â€˜We’ll be doing the same dance from the last eisteddfod, the Fire and Ice one.’
    The Fire and Ice ballet is something Ms McGlone came up with: there is an Ice Queen who has a band of followers. She freezes them to make them as emotionless as her, because her heart has frozen over, and she can’t bear anyone to have feelings if she can’t.
    But along comes the Fire Maiden, who melts the followers and then tries to melt the Ice Queen as well. But the Fire Maiden only manages to melt her heart, and the Ice Queen can’t take it – it burns her up, so she rips her heart out. But then the Ice Queen dies because that last bit of love and warmth in her heart was all that was keeping her alive.
    I bet you know who the Ice Queen was.
    No, not me – Jasmine!
    I was the Fire Maiden. It was a part I really loved playing, especially because I got to triumph over Jasmine, if only in dance.
    â€˜I want to rework the end slightly,’ said Ms McGlone. ‘All your movements should be flowing and beautiful when you’re melting, rather than that sharp, shocked look we had before. Girls, are you still okay to play the leads?’ She looked at Jasmine and me.
    â€˜Of course,’ said Jasmine, ‘I’ve been practising that dance in my sleep.’ She turned around and beamed at everyone, as if she really was a queen.
    â€˜Yeah,’ I just said, shrugging it off as if it was no big deal.
    â€˜You could at least be excited,’ Tove muttered.
    I let my eyes slide across her and away, and she turned back around and took a step closer to Jasmine.
    Of course I was excited. But I wasn’t going to do a Jasmine and be all uppity about it. Yuck.
    It wasn’t until later, when we were in the middle of our fouetté practice, that my stupid head caught up to my body and put everything together.
    Athletics carnival. Basketball final. Ballet eisteddfod.
    All on the same day.

Chapter Four
    â€˜And then there’s this really cool bit when the lights come back on and we’re all facing the back, and each of us is doing one small movement, like with our fingers, or knees, or ears –’
    â€˜How do you just move your ears?’ asked Ashley.
    â€˜You know what I mean,’ huffed Ellie, hands on her hips.
    Ashley tried to move her ears but all she made was an ugly facial expression. ‘Not really,’ she said.
    â€˜Benji can wiggle his ears,’ said Paige. ‘It is possible.’
    Benji is Paige’s ballroom dance partner. He’s also in