Sammy by Bruno Bouchet

CHAPTER 1
    I have a plan. I, Sammy Lieberman, am going to study hard, get straight As in every year at school. Then after I’ve blitzed my Year Twelve exams I’ll go to medical school, become a doctor and then a specialist, probably a cardiologist like my dad. Along the way I’ll have just enough time to get serious with Mia, my beautiful girlfriend. I’ll propose, she’ll accept and we’ll have a huge Jewish wedding. My dad will have tears in his eyes as he claps along to
Havah Nagila
and my mother will be so happy she bakes every cake in the secret Jewish mothers’ recipe book.
    It really is a great plan. There’s just one problem – it isn’t my plan. It’s my dad’s plan for me. It’s what his heart is set on. My heart is set on something else.
    I blame
Tap Dogs.
If I’d never seen those brilliant tap dancers, heard the thunder of their boots and the smash of those metal sheets, got lost in their dazzling moves and felt my heart pound, then I might never have said those fateful words, ‘Mum, I want to learn to dance.’
    I wouldn’t have gone to dance classes and learned I could actually dance. I wouldn’t have practised day and night. Today I wouldn’t be here at the National Academy of Dance.
    The Academy is amazing. Apart from being the greatest place to learn dance in Australia, it’s located on a wharf that juts right out into Sydney Harbour. Every day at the school café we can look at the Harbour Bridge, gaze across the water and know that just around the corner is the one place we all dream of performing – the Sydney Opera House.
    Thank you,
Tap Dogs.
    But it’s not all a massive brilliant head rush. The Academy is a long way from easy street. It’s harder than I ever imagined, in ways that I never dreamed of. I didn’t expect so many humiliations, piled onto embarrassments and served with a heavy sauce of cringe.
    The one thing I was really looking forward to was not being the only male dancer in my class. I thought finally I could actually have some friends who were boys. Is it too much for a dancer to hang out and do regular guy stuff? Apparently, yes.
    First off, some joker in admin at the Academy puts me down as Samantha Lieberman so I have to share a room with Kat. She’s great – fun, good-looking, blonde hair with an appetite that would even please my mother – but she is completely and utterly female.
    That’s bad enough, but the day before our first dance she comes in from the shower while I’m putting my contact lens in and takes advantage of my blurry eyesight to strip off and get changed. How’s a man supposed to perform delicate eye surgery under those conditions? I jump, the contact dives down the sink and I’m stuck wearing my glasses to our first mixed classical dancing class with Miss Raine. There’s a first impression I didn’t want to make.
    Miss Raine is the scariest teacher ever. I think she’s physically incapable of smiling. From day one she’s taking no prisoners. Her class ends and I’ve made it through without too many fumbles or mistakes. At least that’s what I think.
    â€˜Samuel? Tara? Please see me before you go,’ she asks.
    Tara and I look at each other. I met her at the auditions. She’s from the country, is gorgeous in that fresh, innocent way: soft skin, a hint of freckles and pale brown hair. We bonded over the bad feedback we both got. I matched her ‘behind, technically’ with ‘problem shoulder blades’ and ‘weak ankles’. Now our problems at the auditions are coming back to torment us.
    â€˜Samuel, you must go with the girls to be fitted for
pointe
shoes,’ Miss Raine announces, as if it’s perfectly normal.
    I gape in horror. ‘What do you mean
pointe
? Boys don’t do
pointe
.’
    â€˜They do when their ankles are weak and yours are from all those years of