Ann Martin: Jessi's Gold Medal

Jessi's Gold Medal

Ann M. Martin

Chapter 1.

"All right, ladies, tour jete across ze room!" Mme Noelle called out.

Our ballet class was almost over. We were all sweating horribly. (Oops! I mean, we were glowing. As Madame says, "Horses sweat, gentlemen perspire, and ladies glow!") Was Madame going to let us do some gentle plies to cool down a little? Nooo. We were going to turn-and-leap, turn-and-leap around the room. That's what tour jetes are. If you can do them really well, like Misha Baryshnikov (one of my heroes), you look like you're flying.

If you're an eleven-year-old girl in Mme Noelle's Tuesday afternoon ballet class inStamford,Connecticut , you look . . . well, you look like you've had a long day.

We lined up on the left side of the studio. Mme Noelle stood by a tape recorder with her finger over the play button, and said, "Mademoiselle Romsey, please lead." (That's me.

Actually, I'm Jessica Ramsey, but it comes out Romsey in Mme Noelle's French accent.)

A loud waltz blared out of the speakers. I rounded my right arm and took a few steps to the right. Then, in a split second, here's what happened: My body spun around. My right leg lifted off the ground. My arm shot forward in an arc — and I was soaring! (Maybe not like Misha, but as close as I could get.) I did it again and again, springing into the air at each downbeat of the waltz.

When I completed a circle around the room, I could hear Madame say, "Good leeft, Mademoiselle Romsey, very gracefool — but do not let zee trailing arm droop."

"Okay," I said, only I was panting so hard it came out more like, "Kuhhh."

I was hot and grimy and I just wanted to plop onto the floor. A big fan in the corner was blowing warm, musty air across the room — definitely not refreshing. But here's the strange thing: I felt great. In fact, I wouldn't have minded if class had lasted another hour. Why? Because I love ballet. Even after seven years of lessons, I still get excited just walking into class. You know how some people seem to be "born" comedians or artists or athletes? Well, I'm a born dancer. Wait a minute, that sounds conceited. What I mean is, dancing makes me happier than anything

else. Also, I have these really long legs, which "turn out" naturally (a big advantage).

I've already learned to dance on my toes (which is called en pointe) and I've played lead roles in a few ballets, like Swanilda in Coppelia and Princess Aurora in Sleeping Beauty. Someday I hope to be a professional ballerina, if I can stand the years of hard work and "dee-seepleen," Madame's favorite word (translation: discipline). And that means the rest of my life would be like this:

1. Watching what I eat. (Have you ever seen a fat ballerina?).

2. Taking as many classes a week as possible.

3. Stretching all the time, to keep my muscles limber.

4. Becoming familiar with the classical ballets I might be in someday.

Pretty tough, huh? My dad says being a ballerina is like being in the army — except in boot camp you don't wear a tutu.

My dad, by the way, has a great sense of humor. Which comes in handy whenever he has to wait for me in his car outside my dance school after a long day's work. Which is what he was doing that Tuesday of the tour jet6s.

Madame's voice was ringing out, "On ze beat, on ze beat, on ze beat, on ze beat . . ."as Julie Mansfield leaped across the room. I

quickly did some stretching exercises at the bane, then ran to the changing room.

In seconds I was dressed in white sweatpants, pink leg warmers, and a pink-and-white sweat shirt that said "ABT," which stands for American Ballet Theater. I stuffed my sweaty (glowy?) dance clothes in my canvas bag, slung it over my shoulder, and ran out of school.

Daddy was waiting in the car, a big* smile on his face. "Hi, baby," he said as I climbed in the passenger seat. "How was class?"

"Fine," I answered. "How was work?"

"Don't ask!" Daddy said, laughing. Lately we say the same thing after ballet class. It's like a ritual. The best part is Daddy's laugh, which is deep and booming. He sounds sort of like James Earl Jones, the famous actor.

Daddy drove away from the curb and headed toward the expressway. We live in Stoneybrook, which is just a few exits away. Stoneybrook's a nice place, but I didn't think so at first. We're black, and Stoneybrook is, like, ninety percent white. We used to live inOakley,New Jersey , in a neighborhood where blacks and whites lived together and everybody got along just fine.

Stoneybrook isn't like that. When we first moved here, it was a real shock. Some people were nasty to us, just because of our skin

color. The things they said and did were so prejudiced and stupid. I wanted to move back to Oakley so much. But my mom and dad always believed things would work out, and they were right.

First of all, people have gotten used to us (doesn't that sound weird?). Second of all, I became best friends with a girl named Mallory Pike. And third of all, Mallory and I became members of the Baby-sitters Club. (I'll tell you more about Mal and the BSC later.)

My dad mopped his forehead with a handkerchief as we pulled onto the expressway. He was sweating — I mean perspiring — like crazy. Even though it was still spring, it felt like midsummer. We had to drive right under a billboard advertising some soda as the "official drink of the Summer Olympics." There was a huge picture of a swimmer splashing through the water, in the middle of a stroke. She was working hard, but boy, did she look coooool. For a minute I thought I was crazy to like ballet. Why pound your body into a wood floor when you could plunge it into water instead?

Daddy was looking at the billboard, too. He sighed and said, "What do you say we use the air conditioner?"

"Sure!" I said. Supposedly air conditioning is bad for dancers, because it can tighten your

muscles. But I have to admit, I love it on really hot days.

So we drove home comfortably, without any perspiration or glow.

Our house is on a street shaded with big maple trees. But it might as well have been theSahara desert when we got out of the car. The hot, steamy air was almost enough to make you choke.

"Hi, Daddy! Hi, Jessi!" squealed my sister Becca from inside the front screen door. She ran outside, wearing a one-piece bathing suit with strange, multicolored designs on it. (No, not some fancy designer swimwear. Becca is eight, and she decided she could make her solid white suit look a lot better with markers.) "Can we play in the sprinkler?" she asked.

"Seee-gahh! Day-eee!"

That last voice was my little brother, Squirt. I had to laugh when I saw him running across the lawn. His teeny legs were doing about a hundred steps per second, but he was moving forward so slowly. Squirt is almost a year and a half old. He's been walking for a few months, and now he's starting to talk. For example, I'm pretty sure "Seee-gahh! Day-eee!" meant "Sprinkler, Daddy!"

My aunt Cecelia suddenly appeared at the door, holding a pair of turquoise jellies. "John

Philip, come in here and put on your sandals!" (John Philip Ramsey, Jr., is my brother's real name. But he was so puny at birth that the nurses in the hospital called him Squirt, and the nickname stuck — except with Aunt Ce-celia sometimes.)

Aunt Cecelia is my dad's sister. She moved in with us to help take care of Squirt when my mom got a job. Aunt Cecelia is sometimes hard to take — and that's a nice thing to say, compared to the way I used to talk about her. I used to think she was a cross between the Bride of Frankenstein and Freddy Krueger's mother. When she first got here she was bossy and mean and awful. She treated Becca and me like babies, and tried to control our lives. But we "had it out" and things have gotten a lot better.