The Red Slippers (Nancy Drew Diaries #11)(5)

Maggie nodded.

“YOU’RE SORRY!?” he bellowed this time with amazing force. If we were in a cartoon, we’d be leaning back from the power of his voice.

Maggie nodded again. The man marched toward us. “I thought you were serious, Maggie. I thought you had the ability to go far. Was I wrong about you?”

“No . . . ,” Maggie said meekly.

“I don’t care if you were technically under twenty-one minutes late, as this”—he paused and gave George a dismissive once-over—“disheveled little girl claims. If you were serious, you would have been here twenty minutes early, warming up, making sure you were in tip-top shape. Fiona was. Maybe I should let her go on instead of you, anyway.” I looked up on the stage and saw a tall blond girl struggling to hide an ear-to-ear grin.

“That must be Fiona,” I whispered to Bess and George.

“Please,” Maggie said to Jamison. “The time on my phone—”

Jamison cut her off. “Stop!” he roared. “How do I feel about excuses?”

“You hate them.”

Jamison grabbed Maggie by the back of the neck and marched her toward the stage. He didn’t seem to be hurting her, but it certainly seemed humiliating. “I just don’t understand how you could do this to me. I thought we were a team; I thought we were going to impress Oscar together. You’ve let me down. You’ll have to dance the best you’ve ever danced today to prove to me that you can do this. If not, Fiona’s up.”

Once Maggie was onstage, everyone sprang into action. Fiona couldn’t hide her look of disappointment, but she got out of the way and let Maggie take her spot.

“Let’s take it from the top,” Jamison said. “Everyone back to starting positions.”

I sighed a deep breath of relief and slumped into a nearby seat. The adrenaline rush from the drive was starting to wear off, and I was exhausted. Bess and George sat next to me.

“That was intense!” George said.

Bess nodded in agreement. “At least he’s giving Maggie a shot. Your race-car driving wasn’t all for naught, Nancy.”

George giggled. “Who knew you could maneuver a car like that! You were like a female Jeff Gordon out there.”

“I was never unsafe,” I protested. “Just a little more aggressive than usual.”

“I’m not complaining,” George said. “I wish you drove like that all the time.”

I grinned but shook my head. I preferred a calmer style of driving. I watched the stage, where Jamison was pacing and speaking to Maggie. He seemed upset, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying.

“You know what’s weird?” I asked my friends.

“What?” Bess said.

“Jamison seemed just as upset as Maggie was. It seemed like he took it really personally,” I noted.

“That’s because Jamison has as much riding on Oscar LeVigne’s review as Maggie does,” a male voice said. We all swiveled our heads to see a thin boy about our age with messy dark hair sitting a few seats down, almost entirely hidden in the darkness. “I’m Sebastian,” the boy said, sliding over to sit closer to us.

“Nice to meet you,” I said. “I’m Nancy and this is Bess and George. Do you have a friend in the production as well?”

He shook his head. “I’m the pianist accompanying the show.” I noticed his long and thin hands; they looked like they were made to play the piano.

“What do you mean about Jamison having as much riding on this performance as Maggie?” I asked.

Sebastian shrugged. “Just like it was really competitive for the dancers to get selected for this tour, all the top teachers in the area wanted the job choreographing it. Jamison is known as a teacher who gets results, but what he really wants to do is choreograph. If Oscar likes what he did, it will open a lot of doors for Jamison. If he doesn’t, it will be tough for him to get another opportunity to break through.”

I nodded. “But why does that make him so mad at Maggie? Can’t Fiona dance the part just as well?”

Sebastian grunted dismissively. “She wishes. The Lilac Fairy, as Jamison choreographed it, is a hugely technical role. To dance that part and make it look effortless takes great skill. Maggie’s the only person in the company who can do it justice. When Fiona dances it, you can see the gears turning in her head as she remembers each step. It’s very mechanical. Fiona tries hard and her parents have given her every opportunity, but she’s just not at the right level.”

“Sebastian!” Jamison bellowed from the front of the room. “Stop flirting and get down here, please!”

I blushed, but Sebastian seemed unfazed. “That’s my cue. See you later.” He strode to the front of the room and took his seat at the piano.

I looked at my friends. “Do you guys want to head home?” I asked. They nodded. As we made our way into the lobby, we bumped into our old ballet teacher, Miss Taylor.

“Nancy, Bess! It’s so nice to see you!” she said. “I still miss you in my class, Bess. You too, Nancy.”

It was no secret that Bess was the more talented dancer of the two of us. I thought back to how Sebastian had described Fiona. That was probably a fair description of how I danced. I tried hard, but it never felt natural. I never became lost in the music the way Bess did. I was always thinking about the next step, concentrating on how I held my shoulders or my hip rotation.