“One, two, three,
four, five six, seven and eight! Come on, girls! Giant leaps! Bigger! Bigger!”
I jumped and took flight with higher leaps, my arms and
legs stretching out, trying to look like I’m better than those who were so
favoured by the teachers. I tried to plant a nice first impression on teachers
at the start of the lesson.
Well, it was kind of easy to get the full attention at
the beginning. When I walked in to the ballet studio, my heart filled with
excitement, everybody was staring at me with their mouths open as if they saw a
phantom or a monster. Some girls actually looked away and covered their eyes
with their hands. Some girls were talking to each other about me, pointing at
me, laughing. Even the teachers were quietly whispering, “Who does she think
she is? I mean look at her. She obviously doesn’t belong here.”
I knew my body from the outside. I felt the cold stares of people around me. I
didn’t possess the graceful, fit bodies of the girls around me. Yet virtually, I
still had their talents, no other better or worse than me.
We got to have a little bit of a rest after an hour. While
I was sitting on a chair, drinking water, I examined other ballet dancers
stretching and dancing. They were all in such a poised and elegant figures in
every move they made. I was enjoying watching the dancers in a trance, when an
annoying tapping on my shoulder woke me up.
“Uh… Excuse me, what are you doing here?”
A girl with a blonde hair with legs that are almost the
same size as my arms, and two other super skinny girls, asked me in a resentful
voice. Well, it was an obvious question but I knew that there was a real
meaning behind the question. I answered profoundly.
“Oh, I’m here to learn ballet because I really like it. I
decided to take some lessons here. I heard that this ballet school is the most renowned
school and the teachers are really experienced and skilled. So if you guys
wouldn’t mind, could you teach me some of ballet? Like give me a little bit of
an introduction to it. I’m Polly, by the way. Nice to meet you, guys!”
I smiled as hard as I can and waited for a reply. They
glared at each other, laughing. It was an expected answer. Then the blonde girl
started to speak, rubbing the tears off from her eyes.
“Oh my god, do you seriously believe that you have
talent? We believe that you are incompetent in such a beautiful and elegant
dance like ballet. And just to let you know, merely by looking at your ballet
shoes and clothes, which are truly tacky and old, we kind of guessed what
financial level you’re at. So, good luck with paying the fees for this school.
Oh and yeah, let us give you an advice. Why don’t you go to gym first? I doubt
that you can hardly hold your weight up together. I saw you sweating and
looking like you’re in pain throughout the whole lesson. Do not just loiter
around here if you don’t have a perfect body figure like us.”
Then they walked away with malicious looks in their
faces. They didn’t even give me a chance to say something after. Wow, they
didn’t even introduce themselves. I thought back about what they said. I
remembered them saying, “the cost of this school that you have to pay for is
extremely expensive. I mean, can you afford that much?” They are probably very
wealthy. Sometimes I imagined or
daydreamed what the life would be if I was one of them. They have perfect body,
fantastic ballet skills, teachers endorse them, they are so up themselves
thinking they are so gorgeous and elegant, and their parents are wealthy enough
to buy whatever things they need. Their life would be rich, proud, confident
and basically the perfect life with no worries.
The class started again after lunch and the moves got
harder and harder. In the middle of the lesson, when I was about to get into
it, I needed to go to the toilet. I ran quickly to the toilet when I heard
something inside the toilet. Somebody was coughing up vomit in one of the
cubicles. It sounded like he or she was forcing the vomit to come out from his
or her stomach. I waited for a while for it to finish. The person inside the
cubicle was the blonde girl who talked to me before. Well, a bit harsher than
talking. Her eyes and my eyes met and I could see tears in her eyes, telling me
that she is going through a hard time. I got closer to her to pat her back and
hug her but she pushed me away. I asked her,
“Hey, are you okay? Do you need to go to sickbay? I heard
you vomiting in the cubicle. It must have been the food that you had this lunch
or it could be nausea from all the hard dancing we did.”
“What?”
“Oh, I’m not saying that you’re bad and not capable of
doing the hard dancing. You probably aced the dance we learnt today anyway. You
are really good.”
“Don’t say things as if you know everything about me.”
“Oh, sorry. But it is true that you are perfect in ballet.”
“You don’t know anything about ballet. I bet you think
all the ballet dancers are up themselves, boasting around other people and have
a perfect life. Well, you got it wrong. Don’t prejudge ballet dancers on what
you see. I hate it when people don’t acknowledge the fact that we spend hours
and hours to just master one little step.”
I was speechless. She paused for a minute and talked again.
“I try so hard to be a good ballet dancer. A good ballet
dancer’s mind needs to be lithe, flexible and supple to deliver the best
performance. I diet and exercise to death to attain my coveted flexibility that
no one else can have. Do you know what I was doing just then? I was vomiting up
the food that I ate at lunch because I’m scared that I am going to lose my body
figure. People’s pressure kills me and I want to do and eat whatever I want,
but my mum just pressures me all the time. That’s why I said harsh things about
you before. I was jealous of you. You looked like you have freedom. I’m sorry.”
She leaped into my arms and I embraced her saying that I
am sorry that I did not understand those ballet dancers and their feelings and
it’s ok. Everything is going to be okay.