Read One Perfect Pirouette for Free Online Page B

kids were chatting with me, even though I still couldn’t pronounce some of their names. Mrs Nguyen said she didn’t think I had anything to catch up on, apart from maths, and she gave me a bit of extra homework.
    â€˜Lucky you,’ said Lala, the girl who sat next to me. I’d discovered she was from Sudan – which she pointed out on our classroom map.
    I was first home, as usual, and after a snack, I put the lino down in the garage and practised for an hour. Plies, tendus, ports de bras. Warming up, stretching legs, hips and back, hearing the rhythm in my head like a ticking metronome. Centre work, adage, arabesque. My left leg wobbled and I concentrated on holding strong, balancing, feeling the centre of myself pull up tall. Mrs Calzotti talked about a piece of silver string from your toes to the top of your head, and I imagined it getting thicker and stronger as I improved.
    Finally I tried some pirouettes, staying in one place on the lino and focusing again on balance. It was hard, so hard. I yearned to accomplish perfect pirouettes, a series of graceful turns across the floor, my eyes in one spot, my balance exact and my body flowing in one continuous movement. Just one perfect pirouette would make me happy! But the little square of lino wasn’t a good place to try.
    Orrin passed me with a grunt, which sounded a bit like a hello, and I heard the TV go on. Then he headed out for a training run and I picked up the lino before Mum was due back in the car. Tam came in and went straight to his room without saying a word.
    I’d spent most of the day trying to work out how I could grovel to Mum so that she’d let me try out for the special class, but what it would take was me finding some way to earn money. Babysitting, gardening (I hated weeding, but if that was what it took), dog walking, car washing. Okay, no one in this neighbourhood was going to pay me to walk their dog. And with water restrictions, I wasn’t allowed to wash cars. I’d checked out the whole street and most people didn’t even have a garden. That left babysitting. Yuck.
    The people two doors down had a boy about three, who seemed to spend most of his time playing on their front porch with ice-cream containers. They also had a baby who screamed a lot. A Vietnamese family down the end of the street had three kids, but they also had an old grandma who looked after them. Maybe I could advertise in the milk bar window? But I was going to need Mum’s permission.
    I checked the time – surely netball training would be over by now? But it was nearly dark and if I sneaked off to the school now without telling Mum, she was going to throw a hissy fit. I fumed and paced from the kitchen to the lounge and back again. Then I peeled a mountain of potatoes and got Mum’s coffee mug ready, expecting her to collapse on the sofa and throw her shoes off. Through a friend, she had found a job working in a factory canteen, where she had to be on her feet all day. Her bad leg often ached, especially in the winter, and I hated to think of her being in pain. In Bendigo, she’d had a part-time job answering phones and could sit most of the time.
    She came through the back door, her face drawn and pale. ‘Potatoes, Brynnie! Thanks. I’ll sort dinner out in a minute.’ And she disappeared into her bedroom and shut the door. I poked the spoon into the coffee granules in her mug, pushing them around and around. What was she doing in there? Then I heard the shower going and relaxed a bit. I sat and waited, running through the arguments in my head, so I’d be ready when she came back out.
    She’d changed into what I called her gypsy clothes and piled her hair on top of her head with jewelled combs. This wasn’t a good sign. Mum usually dressed like this when she was trying to cheer herself up.
    â€˜Let’s get dinner rolling,’ she said.
    â€˜Mum, I wanted to ask –’
    â€˜Later,