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Overview
Kayla never really thought of her double Ds as "problem breasts." It made them sound like children who wouldn't behave.
Kayla Callaway has prima ballerina grace and something else that most ballerinas don't have: a full figure. Her heart is set on a future in dance. Unfortunately, her proportions just got her cast as an ugly stepsister in Florida Arts High School's production of Cinderella. Kayla's disappointment makes her a prime suspect when the dance troupe receives a string of threatening messages.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780061883767 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins |
| Publication date: | 03/17/2009 |
| Sold by: | HARPERCOLLINS |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 224 |
| File size: | 594 KB |
| Age Range: | 13 - 17 Years |
About the Author
Dorian Cirrone is the author of dancing in red shoes will kill you. She lives in south Florida with her husband and her two children.
Read an Excerpt
Dancing in Red Shoes Will Kill You
Chapter One
It isn't every day you walk into your sister's bedroom and find a naked guy on her bed, especially when that guy is your best friend, Joey.
Now that I've gotten your attention — it's not what you're thinking. But isn't it amazing what happens when you hear the word naked? The thing I didn't mention is that my sister, Paterson, is an artist, and her bedroom doubles as a studio.My parents named her that because she was conceived in a Paterson, New Jersey, motel room about eighteen years ago. When she was younger, she used to ask why she couldn't have a normal name, like Ashley or Christine.
"You were lucky," my mother would say. "If your father had taken another road, you could have been named Secaucus Callaway."
It turned out my parents did a good thing — she's definitely not an Ashley or a Christine. She's tall and thin and her wardrobe consists mainly of various shades of black, with an occasional pair of jeans thrown in for comfort. Sometimes her hair is pink. Other times it's orange. Lately it's Electric Blue. She draws the line at piercings and tattoos because of their permanence. She says her body is an ongoing work of art.
Not too long after Paterson was born, I was conceived. It's a picture I don't want to think too much about, but it must have taken place in a pretty ordinary location because my parents named me Kayla — after nothing in particular. Just a name they both liked, with a little bit of alliteration with Callaway to satisfy my mother's enthusiasm for poetic devices.
I'd almost forgotten that Joey was coming over to model for Paterson's senior artportfolio. I knew Paterson had chosen him because he has a body most guys would kill for, but I didn't expect him to be totally naked. Or is it nude? I mean, we're talking full-frontal you-know-what with Saint Rocco hanging out and everything. Saint Rocco, by the way, is what Joey calls his penis. It must be a guy thing. I once saw an actor on The Tonight Show refer to his penis as Little Elvis.
Giving proper names to private parts is something I'm pretty sure most girls do not do. I have never once heard a woman of any age refer to her vagina as Mother Teresa or Little Madonna. It just isn't done.
Anyway, once I got a quick glimpse of Saint Rocco, I put my hands over my eyes and tried to navigate past the piles of canvases and sketch pads, as well as the pastels, pencils, paints, and paintbrushes strewn all over the terra-cotta tile floor. I finally made it to a rocking chair next to the bed, behind Joey. For some reason I didn't mind looking at his butt. I get a good view of that through his tights when he's dancing in front of me in ballet class.
Joey and I have danced together since I was four and he was five. My mom put me in ballet classes because I was born with a hip defect. I don't remember, but she says I wore a cast as an infant. The doctor suggested that early ballet training might be good for me, but I don't think my parents planned on having a ballerina in the family. It was just supposed to be therapy. Joey, on the other hand, originally started with karate classes. One of the other boys' mothers owned a dance studio, and when she saw Joey do a perfect straddle split with no wincing, she offered him free lessons. Good male dancers are always in demand, even when they're only five.
Now Joey and Paterson are seniors and I'm a junior at a magnet school for the arts called Florida Arts High School, affectionately known as Farts High. You'd think at least one of the school board members might have seen that one coming.
At Farts we get to study our own individual disciplines for a couple of hours each day in addition to the usual subjects. At first my parents were afraid a high school for the arts might be a little too crunchy granola. My mom's a third-grade teacher and my dad's a psychologist, so they're both pretty traditional when it comes to education. I think they were afraid we'd forget how to add and subtract and not learn enough about the real world — whatever that is. But Paterson begged them for a whole year to let her go. They finally gave in. The next year I auditioned and was accepted into the dance program.
Paterson's a born artist. She's been drawing almost since she popped out of the womb. I don't even want to tell you about her first art project, but I'll give you a hint. It involved the inside of her diaper and the wall of her bedroom. She's always been full of surprises.
That's why I shouldn't have been too shocked to find a bare-naked Joey in Paterson's room that Saturday morning. I uncovered my eyes and made myself comfortable in the wooden rocker. Paterson, who had been watching me, poised her charcoal pencil in the air and chided, "Kayla, you are soooo Victorian. It's just a body."
"Yes, I know," I said. "Just flesh, blood, arteries, kidneys, intestines . . ." We'd been through this before when Paterson wanted me to pose for her figure-drawing class.
"You can wear a leotard and tights," she had said. "It'll be a good opportunity for the class to draw a body like yours."
What she meant was, with breasts like yours. From the neck down and the waist up I look a lot like Dolly Parton, though I read in a tabloid that hers were artificial, something I could never understand. Why would anyone pay for these things? It's like walking around with two quarts of milk hanging from a necklace. I have to wear three bras to dance class just to keep from hitting myself in the chin during changements.
Dancing in Red Shoes Will Kill You. Copyright (c) by Dorian Cirrone . Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.