Miss Arden’s smile vanished.
Willa stood on her tape mark with her arms at her sides. She wanted Frank to stop. She wanted him to keep going. Both feelings were so strong that she could not tell which one belonged to fear and which one belonged to hope.
Frank held out his hand to Hannah. “May I see?”
Hannah looked at Willa first.
That tiny courtesy mattered.
Willa nodded.
Hannah handed him the phone.
The messages were short. Miss Arden had changed the middle section on Tuesday. She had told Hannah to drill the new counts with the group but not with Willa. When Hannah asked why, Miss Arden wrote that Willa needed to learn there were consequences for leaving rehearsal and that the recital could not be slowed down for one child.
Another message said, Let her figure it out.
A third said, If she can’t, she sits out Saturday.
Frank read them twice.
Then he gave the phone back.
Miss Arden stepped closer. “She left in the middle of choreography.”
“She went to the restroom,” Hannah said.
“She did not ask permission.”
Willa looked up. “I did.”
Miss Arden turned sharply toward her.
Willa almost took the words back.
Then the dancer beside her, a nine-year-old named Sophie, said, “She asked me to move because you said she could go.”
Another child nodded.
Miss Arden’s hands opened and closed once.
Frank noticed.
“So she had permission,” he said.
“This is a dance class, not a courtroom.”
“No,” Frank replied. “It is a dance class. Which is why I would like to understand why an eight-year-old had to fail a test you secretly changed.”
The children became completely still.
Willa had never heard anyone describe it that way.
A test.
Until that moment, she had believed the missing steps were proof that she had not worked hard enough. She had practiced beside the washing machine until her socks turned gray. She had replayed the music in her head while brushing her teeth. She had wondered whether real dancers somehow learned movements they had never been shown.
Miss Arden crossed to the speaker and shut it off.
