Shingaling by R. J. Palacio

completely panicked.
    When it was finally time for us to go on, Mrs. Atanabi brought us downstairs to the back stage of the Stern Auditorium. We peeked through the curtains at the audience as the Upper School Chamber Choir finished its last song. There were so many people! You couldn’t make out anyone’s face, because it was so dark, but it was the biggest auditorium I had ever seen—with balconies and gilded arches and velvet walls!
    Mrs. Atanabi had us take our positions behind the curtains: Ximena in the middle, me on the left, Summer on the right. Then she faced us.
    “Girls, you’ve worked so hard,” she whispered, her voice shaking with emotion. “I can’t thank you enough for all the time you’ve put into making my piece come to life. Your energy, your enthusiasm…”
    Her voice cracked. She wiped a tear away excitedly. If we hadn’t read that article about her, we might not have understood why this was all so important to her. But we knew. We never told her we had found that article about her. That we knew about her childhood friend. We figured if she had wanted us to know, she would have told us. But knowing that little piece of her story somehow made the dance and everything leading up to it that much more special. Funny how all our stories kind of intertwine. Every person’s story weaves in and out of someone else’s story.
    “I’m just so proud of you, girls!” she whispered, kissing us each on our forehead.
    The audience was applauding the choir, which had just finished. As the singers streamed backstage through the wings, Mrs. Atanabi made her way around the front of the stage to wait for Mr. Tushman to introduce her, and we took our positions. We could hear Mrs. Atanabi introducing the number we were about to dance, and us.
    “This is it, guys!” Ximena whispered to us as the curtain started to rise.
    We waited for the music to start. Five. Six.
    Five-six-seven-eight!
    It’s the shingaling, baby!

How We Danced
    I wish I could describe every second of those eleven minutes on stage, every move, every jump. Every shimmy and twist. But of course I can’t. All I can say is that the whole thing went ABSOLUTELY PERFECTLY. Not one missed cue or fumble. Basically, for eleven solid minutes, it felt like we were dancing ten feet above the rest of the world. It was the most thrilling, exciting, tiring, emotional, fun, awesome experience of my life, and as we ramped up to the big finish, stoplighting to
well let me tell you nobody, nobody
before busting into Mrs. Atanabi’s signature shingaling, which was a variation she invented, I could feel the energy of the entire audience as they clapped along to the song.
    Nobody, nobody,
    Nobody, nobody
    Nobody, nobody…
    And then we were done. It was over. Out of breath, beaming from ear to ear. Thunderous applause.
    The three of us bowed in sync, and then we took our individual bows. The audience hooted and hollered.
    Our parents were ready with flowers for us. And my mom handed me an extra bouquet, which we gave to Mrs. Atanabi when she came onstage with us to take a bow. I wished, for a second, that all the fifth graders who’d ever laughed behind Mrs. Atanabi’s back could see her now, right this minute, as I was seeing her. In her beautiful gown, her bun perfectly made—she looked like a queen.

How We Spent the Rest of the Night
    A little later, after changing out of our costumes, we joined our parents for dinner in the banquet hall downstairs. As we wound our way through the round tables full of teachers, other parents, and a lot of grown-ups we didn’t know, people congratulated us and complimented our dancing. I thought to myself,
This is what it feels like to be famous.
And I loved it.
    Our parents were all sitting together at a table by the time we got there, along with Mrs. Atanabi and her husband. There was a little round of applause from them as we sat down, and then, basically, we spent the rest of the evening talking to each other nonstop,