All right! Here we go with dance lessons. Luckily, I just finished musical theatre camp so I committed some of the dances to memory and used them for this! This is the longest chapter yet, by far, so please give me feedback.
Winner of the last challenge was WonderStruck1113! She gave me Henry and Veronica and great, great reasoning.
But everyone who entered the challenge did really well!
Alright, enough of my jabbering. Let's get to it! (Briar lives on in my heart!)
It was bad enough that Sabrina was in the backseat, driving to dance lessons, but worse, she had to wear a long skirt! A skirt!
"Granny!" Sabrina moaned. "Can we please go back and get me a pair of jeans?"
"Liebling," said Granny, "you can't go to dance lesson in jeans. You can't move as well in them."
Sabrina folded her arms. "I have an entire battle history- during which I wore jeans- to disprove what you just said."
Granny just shook her head and said nothing.
Sabrina sighed. The only possible plus-side to this was that Puck was clean, and not wearing anything filthy (that morning Uncle Jake had chased him -half naked and screaming- around the house.) He looks cute staring out of the window, though Sabrina. She quickly decided to stop thinking.
The dance classes were being held by none other than Briar Rose, who taught almost every style of dance in her spare time.
"Welcome!" she said when she saw Sabrina, Daphne, Red, and Puck enter. "Please join us on the dance floor!" The children took their places. There were a few other Everafter children there, including Wendell and Pippa, the little match girl.
"I think we'll start off with some ballet to get our bodies warmed up," Briar said cheerily.
Sabrina tried her best to learn the positions, but it was difficult even for her, the most flexible Grimm child. Standing on her head she could do; grand pleas, not so much.
After struggling to curve her arms properly, Sabrina looked over and, to her dismay; the rest of her family was great at it. Daphne was putting a lot of energy into her movements, Puck was just plain good at dancing, and Red looked like she was in heaven.
Pippa was also good, but Wendell… Sabrina suppressed a snicker.
"Good job, everyone," Briar said, obviously lying through her teeth. "Now pair up!"
Daphne and Red stuck to each other like glue, and Pippa began to walk over to Sabrina, but Wendell came up behind her and asked to be her partner. Wanting to be polite she gave Sabrina an apologetic look and accepted.
Suddenly, Sabrina's stomach flopped as she realized who she would be dancing with. (But yours didn't because you knew all along, didn't you?)
Puck appeared next to her. "Guess it's you and me, stinkpot."
Sabrina stuck her tongue out at him. "Just don't knock me over, Your Idiotness." She could see Red and Daphne looking at her and giggling. She felt her face flushing and decided to ignore them.
"Choose who's going to be the boy and the girl," Briar said.
The children looked at her questioningly.
"I'm about to teach you a boy-girl dance," she said smiling.
If Sabrina's stomach flopped before, it was doing acrobatic diving now. "I guess I'm the girl," she said, trying not to seem nervous.
"Really? I couldn't tell under all that disfiguration."
Sabrina almost had a comeback, but she stopped, surprised. "Since when do you know the word disfiguration?"
Puck shrugged and stuck out his tongue.
Looking around the room, it appeared that Wendell and Pippa had chosen according to their actual gender as well. Daphne was the boy in her group, and she and Red were playing at greeting each other at a fancy ball in their chosen sexes.
"All right everyone!" said Briar, clapping her hands. "Boys, face you partner and put out your hands." Everyone did. "Girls, place your hands on top of the boy's hands." She demonstrated with Daphne, who beamed with pride.
Sabrina put her hands on top of Puck's. She reminded herself to use the hand sanitizer in the car as soon as this was over.
Briar Rose continued to teach them the dance. "Swing your hands forward. Now back. Forward again. Here Wendell, let me help you. Now go outwards, let me show you." Grabbing Daphne again, she moved outwards toward the wall, still holding Daphne's hand. Everyone did as she said.
"Now, girls, twirl into your partners. Boys, when they've twirled into you, grab their other hand, like so."
"What?" Sabrina and Puck said at the same time, hoping Briar had directed them wrong.
Briar showed her again, misunderstanding the question.
Sabrina took a deep breath, remembered she was wearing a skirt, had to take another deep breath, and twirled into Puck. He grasped her hand and they were left in the awkward position of Puck having his arms around her, and Sabrina trying not to think about how warm he felt, or how much he smelled like summer cherries.
Plus, Red and Daphne giggling hysterically didn't help.
Briar continued to teach. "Twirl back out, twirl back in, and rock to the side and rock to the side."
As they swayed to the right, Sabrina made a silent prayer that she wasn't sweaty and didn't smell bad.
"Twirl out, come back to the original position, swing, swing, boys, twirl your partner."
Sabrina expected Puck to jerk her around, but he didn't. She tried to spin gracefully, but she fell a little, using Puck's arm to hold her up. Puck rolled his eyes.
"Come back in, and do two jazz squares."
Everyone said simultaneously, "What's a jazz square?"
Briar taught them a jazz square. They did it. "Okay, do the jazz squares, go outwards, twirl back in and dip."
Sabrina thought, Please don't drop me, please don't drop me. He didn't drop her.
"Excellent! Let's do it again to music!" Everyone did it again, and this time, Sabrina let herself relax. She found that she was enjoying herself, and that seemed totally cliché, but at this point, she didn't really care.
They did it one more time before Briar was about to say something, but Daphne interrupted her with a question. "Can we please do it for everyone else?"
Briar considered this, then smiled and said, "Of course! Everyone, sit down by the mirror." The mirror covered the wall they were all facing.
Red and Daphne moved to the center of the room. Red's cheeks almost matched her dress.
Briar turned on the music and they danced. They were really good, graceful and mostly just plain enthusiastic. When they finished everyone clapped and they took a bow, Daphne nearly toppling over. "Who wants to go next?" Briar asked.
Dead silence.
Wendell slowly raised his hand. He and Pippa got up and did the dance.
Sabrina quickly decided to forget the image of Wendell dancing, but Pippa was very graceful and pretty. She looked miserable, though.
When they were done, Puck whispered to Sabrina, "Guess it's our turn, fartbrain."
"At least I smell better than you," Sabrina said, standing up.
"Hey! I take pride in my smell!"
They got up, and the music started. Sabrina put her hands on top of Puck's, and they were off.
Later, when Granny Relda picked them up in the car, everyone but Sabrina was smiling.
"What happened lieblings?" asked Granny.
"We got awards at the end of class, just for fun!" said Daphne. "I was the most enthusiastic dancer!"
Granny smiled. "What about you Red?"
"I was the happiest," said Red quietly.
"I was the smoothest dancer," said Puck, sticking out his chest.
"What about you Sabrina?" said Relda. "Sabrina?"
Sabrina sighed. "I was the stepped-on-the-most-toes dancer."
Everyone laughed, but no one noticed Puck squeeze Sabrina's hand.
And she didn't even use some hand sanitizer.
Please, please review! I need more ideas. I know what the next chapter is about, but after that, well, I'm blank. See you next time!
