I walked into Happy Dancing and gave a forced smile to Judy, the receptionist. “Hey Emma, it’s good to see you! How’s your week been?”

“Just swell thanks for asking,” I replied in a sarcastic tone. As I walked past Judy I looked at the smiling faces of past dancers beaming down at me from their picture frames; and I listened to the mass of moms gossiping amongst one another. Then when I entered the studio I heard the sound of happy dance feet from next door. “Oh boy, this night should just be great,” I said to myself as I threw my dance bag down on the floor with force. I looked at the clock, three minutes until class began. With the time I had left, I was going to quickly run through the preschool girls’ routine once, but, as if this night couldn’t get any worse, the old dance record, happen to break. “Of course, what else could go wrong?”

“Hi Miss Emma, how are you today?”

“Well hello there Michelle, I’m, okay, how are you?”

“I’m ecstatic! I told my mommy that I couldn’t wait to come to class tonight just so I could do my tap dance with you!”

“Great, well here’s hoping that nothing goes wrong (like anything else could, I added to myself.)”

Soon the rest of the preschool girls in their brand new pink tutus came in and sat down underneath the rays of the glistening sun beaming in from the window. I, on the other hand, sat in the darkest corner of the room, refusing to be in a good mood. “One C and your parents think you’re parents think going to flunk out of high school, I mean come on, whose parents are like that, apparently only mine.”

“Uh… Miss Emma, are we going to start class now?” asked darling little Hannah.
“Oh right, sorry girls, I guess I’m sort of in my own world over here. Okay I’m going to see if I can get this dumb record working, if not we’ll have to go next door and borrow their record player.” After three frustrating attempts, the upbeat sound of Taylor Swift filled the speakers.

“Okay girls, who wants to roll out Mr. and Mrs. Mat?”

“Me, me, I want to, pick me,” all the girls chanted at once. “I guess they don’t realize how nasty those old mats smell, I told myself.”

“Okay, Lauren and Rachel you guys can for today.” Soon the mats were rolled out and everyone began doing their cartwheels. Two girls hurt their heads, one started crying and ran out to her mom, and the others wouldn’t stop running around. “This is the worst day of class, ever.” I muttered under my breath. Not soon enough it reached 6:30 which meant the end of class. “Great job today girls, we’ll see you all in a week,” I tried to give my best fake smile, though it was getting harder and harder.

“Merci beaucoup,” the girls said in a sing-song voice; and finally, they were gone.


I quickly changed into my sweats, cleaned up the room, switched off the lights, slammed the door shut, and got out of what could have only been described as a nightmare.