At the same time I heard the clicking of a girl’s shoes, I saw the halo of curly brown hair around the head of a girl I had never seen before. By the way she looked I could tell she was in high school. She seemed to be walking toward the lunch table where my friends and I were sitting. As she grew closer to the table a smile slowly started to form on her face. Shortly after her smile widened across her face she stated, “Hi! My name is Abbey, and I’m here to talk to you about Dance Team!” All of my friends at the lunch table simultaneously looked at each other wondering why she was even there. She went on for about a minute or two saying things like, “it’s so fun.” The typical things someone would say to try to persuade you to do something. As she was about to leave she cheerfully said, “If any of you guys are interested here is a sheet of paper with all of the information you would need.” Once she was gone everyone at the table started talking about how they would never want to do anything like the Dance Team. Well everyone except for the four of us.

When lunch was done I ran to catch up to some of my friends and I heard Noelle say to Lexi, “I really want to tryout. I think it seems really fun.”

Lexi replied, “Me too.” I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who thought that. The more we started to talk about the tryouts at the end of May, the more we wanted to do it, and the more we wanted to be on the team. When Alice overheard the three of us talking, I could tell that she was interested too.

She came over and said, “Guys, I really want to tryout.” After we all had talked for a while we decided we were all going to tryout.

At lunch the next day we told all our friends at the lunch table we were all going to tryout. The four of us realized they had all thought it was strange that we could be so excited about dance despite the fact that we had never mentioned the topic before.

As the tryout date of March 23rd grew closer, the nerves started to set in for the four of us. Lexi and Noelle were by my locker and we were talking about what we would wear, how we would do our hair, and if we would have to get certain dance shoes for tryouts. Once our conversation was coming to an end, Alice came up and said that she knew of two girls who had been on the Dance Team before. She also said that they were going to her house later in the week to help us out with learning the basics. Instantly it felt like a weight we being lifted off my shoulders. It was such a relief that I could learn at least something dance related so I didn’t look like a complete idiot at tryouts.

Later that week I panicked as I went into Alice’s house and there were two girls I had never seen before in her kitchen, sitting and laughing. As I looked around and I saw my three friends hidden behind an open cabinet door, I felt better. Throughout the afternoon the two girls, Haley and Clare, had taught the four the concept of turning, leaping, and so on. The whole time Lexi and I gave each other looks as if we were saying, “what.” After these glances we just giggled knowing we were both thinking the same thing.

Then came the first day of tryouts. Of course my mom wanted to walk in with me even after I had repeatedly begged her not to. When we walked into the high school gym, I saw way more girls than I had expected. My mother and I went up to someone who looked as if she was a coach.

“Hi! I’m Jackie Lee, the head coach of the team,” she stated. After my mom had a short chat about how she used to be on dance team too, I get checked in and awkwardly tried to find someone that I knew. I wandered around and eventually found Alice and Lexi. Noelle wasn’t there yet. I could see that Alice and I generally had the same idea with our almost matching outfits. We had talked earlier about how we both didn’t know what to wear. We both thought that cropped yoga pants and a tank top seemed like something a dancer would wear. I just didn’t think that we would’ve looked so similar. As Noelle entered the gym, another girl told us to form a circle so we could all go around and say our names and other information about ourselves to get to know each other.

The closer it got to me the more nervous I got. I didn’t know why, all I was saying was my name and my favorite ice cream but for some reason my heart was beating out of my chest. Oh god. I’m next.

“I-I’m Jackie and my favorite ice cream is chocolate,” I stutter. I could feel my face reddening. At least that was over. After everyone finished we all got into lines to stretch. When we got to the splits I realized how I am truly one of the most inflexible people in the room. I tried to go a little lower so I didn’t look so terrible but when I did my legs started to burn and felt like they were going to fall off my body, so I decided to go back to my original position. From this we went to leaps across the floor. It didn’t take long for me to realize that was awful at leaps almost as bad as I was with my splits. Wow. I had realized that there was no possible way that I could make it on this team. I’m terrible. In only the 20 minutes that or so that I had been there, I had already had so much fun. I loved when Abbey taught the small parts of the tryout dances to everyone. Afterwards the four of us all talked about which dance we liked better the jazz or the kick. Alice and I had said we definitely like kick the best, Noelle liked jazz, and Lexi was undecided.

The rest of the week was the same as the first day. Stretching, leaping, learning more of the dance and practicing it. When Thursday came I was so stressed. It was the day of the final tryouts. I had my mom do my hair with a braid across the front of my head and then I put it up into a bun to try to make myself look more like a dancer. Next I got on my all black apparel as the captains and coaches told us to do. When I got to the Elementary School gym, Jackie Lee gave me the number for my tryout group. A blue number 15 was printed in neat handwriting on a small name tag that I still have to this day. I was so happy when I found out that Noelle was in my tryout group with my so I wouldn’t be all alone.

The next hour went by painfully slowly. The longer I waited the more nervous I had become. When anyone from another group had finished and came out of the small gym everyone would swarm around them asking them how it went and what they did. Eventually it was time for my group to go. When we went into the gym it was freezing cold. We all did leaps across the floor sat in our splits for about 10 seconds and performed each dance, jazz and kick, twice.

When our time was up and our group left the small gym I let out a breath of relief. Later that day the team was posted online but I had fallen asleep before it was put up. When I woke up I saw a text from Noelle saying, “WAY TO GOO!!” I immediately turned on my computer and went to the dance team page. I saw my name along with Noelle, Lexi and Alice’s. I was ecstatic. I ran around the house and told everyone in my family, including my dogs. Ever since I met Abbey, I have just had a love and passion for dance. Now, I don’t know what would have happened if her brown halo of curly hair hadn’t shown up to our lunch table that day.