some day.”
“I’d like that,” smiled Julian.
“Right, see you then, Jules,” said Tristan. At that moment Mr. Yu came back, looking distinctly calmer from the smoke.
“The more you smoke, the more you jump,” he told Alexandra, who was sitting off to the side with a stomach ache, as he walked in. “Everyone, centre,” he called out.
“I’m nervous,” Taylor whispered to Kaitlyn as they waited for the auditions.
“Why?” asked Kaitlyn, snorting. “It’s not like we dance, right? Delilah said that we just stand in order of height and they pick.”
“Yes, but, like, I’m not like really nervous. I just want to do well,” said Taylor, quickly editing.
“Right,” Kaitlyn rolled her eyes. Mr. and Mrs. Demidovski came in, and everyone slowly quieted down.
Mr. Demidovski was wearing black dress pants, a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a black vest, black dress shoes, and a green cloak with a multicoloured plaid lining. On top of all this, he had added a gold scarf.
“I like your scarf, Mr. Demidovski,” Tristan said, grinning.
“Thank you,” Mr. Demidovski inclined his head toward Tristan and bowed slightly. “And how are you?”
“Good, sir,” Tristan bit his finger to keep himself from laughing out loud.
“Okay, everyone line up, smallest to tallest,” yelled Mr. Yu.
Mr. Moretti stood to one side watching the proceedings balefully. He sighed, and then walked to the front where Mrs. Demidovski, Mrs. Castillo, and Mrs. Mallard were already sitting. Mr. Damon, the artistic director of the youth company, was also there. After due consideration, Mr. Moretti sat down next to Mr. Damon, evidently judging him to be the lesser of the evils. Mr. Demidovski walked to the front of the room and surveyed his students proudly.
“Today … today we have the audition,” he announced proudly. “We have auditions for The Nutcracker. My academy, it is going to perform The Nutcracker for the Christmas show. Today, we pick the parts of Clara and Sugarplum. Everyone, I do not want you to cry. I do not want you tell your parents that it is not fair. Mr. Demidovski is a very fair man, everyone says that. Everyone. All the parts are important. All take work; all are important for a beautiful show. Mr. Yu, would you like to say anything to the students?” Mr. Yu shook his head. He was standing next to Tristan with his hands in his pockets, waiting impatiently. When Mr. Demidovski turned away from Mr. Yu, Tristan gave a snort of smothered laughter, and Mr. Yu hit him on the ear. “All right, we start!” announced Mr. Demidovski. “Everybody stand tallest to smallest? Okay.” He turned to Mrs. Demidovski and whispered in Russian.
“Yes, Alexandra is here,” said Mrs. Demidovski loudly in English.
Alexandra rolled her eyes. “Good thing he knows what I look like, hey?” she whispered to Grace. Grace gave a small smile and kept her eyes facing front.
“Grace, come front,” said Mr. Yu.
“Okay, so she’s first cast Sugarplum.” Taylor whispered to Keiko, keeping her eyes on Mr. Yu.
“So if they know what we’re cast as, we get called up front?” Julian whispered to Tristan.
“No.” replied Tristan. “Principals get called front, solos and good corps to the side, and losers to the back. Pretty simple, really. They don’t even tell you what you got until rehearsals next week. Not that they have to, we know.”
“Aiko, Kaitlyn … Anna … Michael …” continued Mr. Yu. Taylor’s stomach dropped. Not Kaitlyn! She just got here, does she have to get Clara? It had to be Clara! She’s the only one short enough to dance Clara. At least they aren’t using the professional company members this year.
Mr. Demidovski called Mr. Yu over and they had a quickly whispered discussion. “Okay, Alexandra!” called Mr. Yu, not making any pretence of being happy about it. “Julie!” Julian got up as everyone in the room laughed nervously. “And Tristan, Kageki, Jonathon. Are we using Dmitri?” he asked Mr. Damon, who nodded.
“Okay,” Mr. Yu said, suddenly speeding up, running through the lists of names as he sent them to the sides and back. “Okay, finish.” He went and crouched down beside Mr. Demidovski. “Good?”
“Yes. Thank you, Mr. Yu. Everyone, you may go. Rehearsal on Saturday. Look on the board. If anyone’s name wasn’t called, go talk to Gabriel in the office.” Everyone clapped and filed silently out of the room, except Taylor who was chattering excitedly to Keiko.
“Keiko, I’m so happy!” she said, grabbing onto Keiko’s arm as they walked out. “This is the first year I’m not in like Russian or Arabian, or something stupid. Do you think I’m in Snow? Or Waltz of Flowers? I’m so happy.”
“That’s good,” said Keiko as they went downstairs. She didn’t look terribly happy herself. “I wonder what Chloe got,” she said as they walked into the washroom. “She can’t be Clara, she’s too young! But she can’t be anything else either.”
Anna joined in, “Yeah, I know, it’s stupid. At first I thought Kaitlyn got Clara, but then they called up Chloe. Maybe they’re double cast? But Chloe would look better as Clara, her body type is better.” said Anna thoughtfully.
“Yes, she would look better,” said Keiko. “Yes, maybe it would be good, and she would look nice with Michael as Fritz.”
“Yes,” Anna agreed. They went to join the lineup for the washroom stalls, having reached their verdict.
“Hey, Taylor, what did you get?” Kaitlyn asked condescendingly as they opened their lockers. Taylor deflated.
“Um, I’m not sure…” she said unhappily. “I think probably, like, Waltz of Flowers or Snow? I’m not really sure.”
“Oh, yeah, I liked those parts,” laughed Kaitlyn. “I was both two years ago for second cast, it was fun. But I was Clara for first cast, so I couldn’t do both. Last year I was Sugarplum, though, so I didn’t have time to do Waltz and Snow as well. You’ll like it, it’s lots of fun!” she laughed. Taylor didn’t say anything; she just went and got dressed. She felt sick.
As Taylor walked down the hall to leave, Mrs. Demidovski stopped her. “Taylor!” she said. “Come into office, Mrs. Demidovski wants to talk to you.”
Taylor followed her into the office apprehensively. It was empty except for Gabriel, who was doing paperwork and eating Smarties.
“Come, come, sit down. Your mother, she phoned Mrs. Demidosvksi. She said that you want to take RAD Advanced One exam this spring.”
“Yes,” said Taylor, wishing that she was anywhere but that office.
“Mrs. Demidovski think you are not ready. I think maybe get stronger, need more muscle. Body good,” she grabbed Taylor’s arm and wrapped her fingers around Taylor’s wrist to check how much they crossed over. “But you need more strength. You need to work harder. If ‘push,’ push; if ‘straight,’ straight.”
“Okay,” said Taylor, wanting to leave. Mrs. Demidovski looked at her over
