#despite allegedly being half a chapter it is now over 10k

[sunsafewriting]

Do A Flip, chapter 6 excerpt: at last (i)

Whoever decided that dancing should be on the phys ed curriculum obviously hated ten-year-olds. Maybe they were attacked by a group of ten-year-olds once, and swore they’d get their revenge. Or maybe they were just born evil. Both options seem equally likely. 

Diego has his phys ed last on a Friday, which is normally awesome, because it means he ends the week playing capture the flag or soccer. Today was a betrayal of mammoth proportions, and he might never recover. 

He complains almost the whole walk from school to the apartment, which is maybe a little whiny of him, but he figures he’s earned it, after tripping over his own feet and being forced to awkwardly hold hands with eight different people. 

“It’s the worst,” he tells Ava. “And I’m the worst at it. Do you know how bad that is? I’m the most embarrassing person at the most embarrassing thing.” 

Ava grimaces sympathetically. “Yikes. At least it’s only for a few weeks, though, right? Then you’ll be onto a new unit.”

“Weeks, Ava. That’s forever. I fell over. And everyone saw.”

It’s not like Ava doesn’t fall over — more often than he does, really — but Ava can just laugh it off. And while Diego doesn’t mind accidentally doing dumb stuff around Ava or Beatrice, it’s another thing entirely to do something dumb in front of his whole class. Laughing it off is simply not an option.  

“Do you think Mother Superion would write me a sick note to get out of it?”

Ava pats him on the shoulder. “Not in a million years, bud.” 

Diego groans. 

“Maybe we can help you practice, though? I missed that unit — I can only do cool dancing. But Beatrice was made to do all that fancy shit when she was growing up. She could totally teach both of us if we ask nicely.” 

He doesn’t want to practice, or ever dance again for as long as he lives. 

He also doesn’t want to fall over in public for a second time, though, so he nods.

An hour later, when Beatrice gets back from university, they push the couch and beanbag to the side and clear an area in the living room. 

“I used to really hate dancing too,” Beatrice admits, after he sighs a bit tragically at the prospect of trying again. 

“You did?”

Even now, it’s rare for Beatrice to mention her childhood; he hardly knows anything about what she was like at his age, and it’s impossible to picture — he can’t imagine Beatrice as being any different than she is. 

But that’s not true, really, is it? Beatrice is very Beatrice, but she’s still changed so much since he met her. 

“Every second of it,” she says. “I didn’t like having to be that close to people I didn’t know, and I always felt like everyone was looking at me and waiting for me to mess it up.”

The only thing he’s ever seen Beatrice actually mess up is hot chocolate, and that’s because they have differing opinions about how much chocolate powder is required. 

“Did you ever mess up?” he asks. 

“Lots. But it was okay,” she promises. “And it got easier once I stopped thinking of it as a performance and started thinking of it more as a pattern. It’s like aikido that way. They’re just different kinds of movement.”

Diego stands on one side of Beatrice and Ava stands on the other and together they slowly step through the footwork for the dance he has to do for class. It’s much less stressful without his teacher and his classmates there. 

Plus, he’s better than Ava at it, so that doesn’t hurt. 

They run it through a bunch of times, until it feels like it’s slid from the front of his mind to the back, and he doesn’t have to whisper-count or struggle to remember what comes next. 

“There you go,” Beatrice says. “You’ve got it.” 

He preens, pleased with himself, and flops onto the couch. That’s more than enough learning for one day, especially now that he’s good at it. 

It leaves him watching Ava struggle, until eventually Beatrice adjusts her approach, and switches around so Ava is in front of her. She sets Ava’s hands on her shoulders. 

“Just like a mirror,” Beatrice tells her.

Ava improves almost suspiciously quickly, her smile bright as she moves when Beatrice moves. 

It’s kind of pretty, actually; the patterns Beatrice was talking about are easier to see from the outside. They’re not particularly smooth, but both of them are laughing, and he supposes that being smooth isn’t the point. 

“Why did you have to learn dancing?” he asks. 

“My mother wanted me to,” Beatrice says. “She felt it would — she was hoping it would make me more — well, it was important to her, so I went. I haven’t done this kind of dancing in a long time.”

“How long?”

“Years and years.” Another step, another step, another step: a new pattern. “It’s nice to try it again.”

Ava spins herself in a twirl that is definitely not part of the dance, but Beatrice goes along with it anyway before gently pulling her back in.