Always Upbeat / All That by Stephanie Perry Moore Page A

dreams ahead. I’m not going to mess up my life. It’s all good, okay?” I looked at my watch. “Can I go now, please? I don’t want to be late.”
    She stuck out her cheek for me to kiss. “Bye,” she said.
    I met Eva at the door to the gym twenty minutes later. “Somebody’s not so early to practice today,” she smirked.
    â€œI’m not in charge today since we have a choreographer,” I uttered, wanting her to know if I had other duties I would have been there earlier.
    â€œGood,” she said, clearly alluding to the fact that she was sick of my leadership.
    I didn’t even want to respond because I owed her no apology. I owed none of them any apologies. I was doing what was necessary. I was doing what was right. I was doing what they needed, and she just needed to deal with it.
    The choreographer was hip, and after she gave us her background, I was really impressed. She was straight from New York, and had hip-hop, classical, jazz, and tap training.
    â€œEveryone, I’m Brenda Bill. I’m only here for two days. The routine is super tough, and I don’t go at a kindergartner’s pace. If you keep your lips closed, your eyes on me, and your feet moving, you can get this. We’ll add the music to it after we’re done. Hands up in the air, clap, clap, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.”
    She went down. She turned around. She jumped in the air. She stepped back and then she repeated the eight-count. On the third time, I had the dance. Everyone else was looking as if they were in preschool and the routine she was doing was for college girls.
    â€œOkay, okay, hold up, hold up,” Brenda said, frowning at the other girls’ awful adaptation of her routine. She pointed to me. “What’s your name?”
    â€œCharli.”
    Brenda came over to me and patted me on the back. “Everyone needs to be dancing like Charli. Her movements are on point. Watch her. Go, Charli.”
    I started doing the eight-count.
    â€œPerfect precision!” she turned to everyone else. “I can’t keep stopping. You guys are going to have to work on this on your own. I have got to keep moving. Maybe you can get with Charli if you don’t have it on your own time.”
    As the day went on, I was the only one who had the routine down. The next day was more of the same. I tried to get with girls offline, but they said they had it. They recorded Brenda on their phones. I assumed they went home and practiced. I don’t know why they bothered recording her because they came back the second day worse than they were at the end of day one.
    When our time with her was over, Brenda called us all in and said, “Thank goodness she’s the captain because she’s the only one who has it. Straight up, seriously, if you guys are trying to win any competition this year, you are going to have to work like her. Go home, practice, get in front of the mirror, look at yourselves, straighten up, and want this. Be upbeat.”
    Brenda went over and talked to Coach Woods. She had to turn in all the formations on a spreadsheet so we would know where we were supposed to go as we practiced. I was left there with a deflated team. They looked like they were all hit in the gut.
    To pep them up I said, “This isn’t easy, you guys. We all wanted to be on this team. Brenda’s right. If we’re going to win, we have to give extra. I hate that you guys are mad at me. But instead of hating on me, you need to be hating the pitiful effort you guys were giving. If you had it like I do, we’d be a mile ahead right now and could be sharpening up the routine. As it stands, I’ll have to reteach it all next week. It’s not my preference to be tough, but I’d rather be tough than pitiful.”
    Whitney said, “Eva, you better get your friend.”
    Eva shouted out with attitude, “Oh, don’t worry. We’re