Lupe Wong Won't Dance Read online

  I close out YouTube and open PowerPoint. I click on the first slide and type …

  Square Dancing is Directly Related to Sex and Corruption of Youth!

  CHAPTER 5

  One of the first articles to pop up on a Cotton-Eyed Joe Google search shows he could’ve also gotten his cloudy eyes from alcohol poisoning. It’s Andy’s idea to make all the words swirl or ripple into the screen to hint at something wobbly and disorienting.

  “Are you sure this is going to work?” Andy says.

  “If the disease thing doesn’t work, we can amp up the moonshine angle. Grown-ups don’t want us to see that stuff yet.”

  “We’re going to cover human sexuality and controlled substances next quarter anyway,” she says.

  “That’s the thing. They have to educate us about it. But they don’t want us actually …” I wink. “… thiiiinnnnking about it, if you get my meaning.”

  Andy’s mouth and nose skew to one side. I don’t think she gets it.

  “Maybe instead we should just bring up the point that square dancing is an outdated tradition and has nothing to do with Americans in recent history?” she says. “I mean, what does it have to do with us? Why is square dancing any more important than Kabuki, or Bollywood, or break dancing?”

  She’s right. The whole thing feels wrong. But none of that will matter if I can make it stop immediately. And the most direct path is to shock the heck out of them. “I agree with you. But we don’t want them to get distracted by a side topic.”

  Andy falls back into her pillow with a sigh. I can’t tell if she’s just tired or annoyed with me, but I’m nearly done and out of her hair.

  I open the last PowerPoint slide and type my grand finale statement in all caps.

  “Done.” I hit save.

  I log on to my student portal on the school website.

  I find Principal Singh’s email address and hit compose. I type Coach Solden’s after CC. I can’t help snickering. “Coach is gonna eat her words. ‘You’ll make a marvelous do-si-do-er,’ ” I mimic under my breath.

  Good evening, Principal Singh.

  I would like to request an emergency meeting during lunch tomorrow. I know Coach Solden will want to be there also. I have something very interesting and informative you’d both like to see.

  Our school’s reputation is at stake.

  Andy interrupts right before I hit send. “You aren’t going to attach the PowerPoint?”

  “No way. I want to see their faces in real time.”

  Andy’s voice is shifting. She’s definitely had enough. “And how exactly are you going to show it to them without my computer?”

  My stomach flips. I’m used to handling my causes on my own, so I sort of forgot it was her computer. But I was kind of hoping Andy would be there with me to gasp and cover her eyes for emphasis. “You aren’t coming too?”

  “You know I have jazz band practice Tuesday during lunch,” she says.

  I clasp my hands together, droop my face, and make sad eyes.

  She throws up her hands. “Just keep it in the sleeve.”

  I pat her shoulder. “I owe you.”

  I continue typing. I am happy to meet you in your office during the lunch period. I sign, Andy and Lupe.

  Andy props herself up on her elbows. “Wait. Why are you putting my name too? I just said I can’t be there.”

  “They’ll be more likely to let me talk if they think I’m not acting alone,” I say. “Pleeeeaase.”

  “Fine.” She falls back into the pillow again, this time with her hands balled into fists.

  I hit send before she changes her mind.

  * * *

  Principal Singh opens her door the next day during lunch. She’s holding a cup of coffee and wearing what my mom calls a “serious suit.” Steam spirals up ominously to her face, making her look even more stern. Coach Solden is there too, sitting on the other side of the desk, holding her own coffee.

  “Good afternoon, Lupe.” Coach Solden leans over, trying to look out the door behind me. “Where’s Andy?”

  “Uh, something came up.”

  “It did, did it?” She sets her cup down and crosses her arms over her chest. “I can’t wait to see what’s so important that Principal Singh and I missed our lunchtime Zumba for educators.”

  I ignore the TacoTime wrappers crumpled on the desk and try not to imagine the two of them, or any other sweaty teachers, doing the cha-cha to an “Ice Ice Baby” remix.

  “I promise this won’t take much time, but it will be worth it.” I pull Andy’s laptop out of my backpack.

  Principal Singh sits at her desk. Should I ask her if she’ll move next to Coach for the show? I don’t want to push my luck. I open the laptop at the end of the desk. The screen glows. My PowerPoint is already queued up.

  “I was under the impression you wanted to talk with us about something.” Principal Singh motions to the computer. “If this is some sort of video, you could have just sent it.”

  I keep my chin high and posture straight. “What I have to show you here, you should see together … for support.”

  They make brief eye contact and both quickly take a sip of coffee.

  If speech class taught me one thing, it’s how to get an emotional response. Visual props for emphasis are best. Evoking a gag reflex to square dancing will definitely get it banned.

  I hit the space bar. The whited-over eyeball I found pops up. But this isn’t a plain ol’ “cotton-eye.” Bonus crusts coat the eyelashes. A green mucous glob drips down one corner, with a maggot crawling down the other.

  Only downfall, I found the eye on a guy with half his face missing too, so I’m pretty sure the original helpful graphic wasn’t real. But this cropped, magged-up version does the trick.

  Principal Singh spits her coffee back into her cup. Her entire body lurches forward. “Oh, gawd,” she barely gets out.

  We have gag, check!

  “Yep,” I say. “Square dancing.”

  “Wait a minute.” Coach Solden leans toward the computer and squints. “Is that from Zombie Apocalypse II?”

  I reach over as fast as I can and hit the space bar. “Moving on.”

  Slide two pops up. It’s an image of a Petri dish filled with what looks like hairy, green Jell-O.

  Principal Singh wipes coffee spray off her desk. “I’m assuming there’s a point to all this. I’m hoping you didn’t just call this meeting in an attempt to make us sick.”

  “Of course not.” I hit the space bar again. Chlamydia trachomatis pops up under the greenish-grey fuzz. I hit the space bar again. The cause of Joe’s “cotton-eye.” “I was as surprised as you are. I just happened upon an interesting documentary of sorts.”

  Coach Solden takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. Principal Singh is covering her mouth.

  I lean in for effect. “It turns out Cotton-Eyed Joe likely had a disease caused by you-know-what.”

  Now, they’re both staring at me. I can’t get a read on either of them. The silence is getting awkward so I hit the space bar again. The farmer guy’s Southern accent from the YouTube video twangs out, “That’s right. Cotton-Eyed Joe was doing a little more than farming, folks.”

  I widen my eyes and shake my head in mock disappointment.

  This was supposed to be my pausing place for emphasis. By this point they should both be scrambling to apologize for the years of torture and corruption they’d exposed kids to. But they’re both sitting completely straight-faced.

  I have no choice.

  I hit the space bar for the next slide. It’s an image of a guy slumped over in a jail cell, holding a bottle of whiskey. I’ve Photo-shopped one of his eyes to be white. I’ve added in “Joe—Life Sentence for Corrupting our Youth” above the jail cell.

  I cringe and try to make a little gasp, but it comes out more like a hiccaburp. I really wish I had Andy here to scream.

  Principal Singh hasn’t budged and Coach Solden is now slowly sipping her coffee.

&nb
sp; I’ve got to wrap this thing up with a bang. I hit the keyboard. My final statement pops up.

  IF ISSAQUAH MIDDLE SCHOOL ALLOWS “COTTON-EYED JOE” INTO THE CURRICULUM … THE ENTIRE SEVENTH GRADE CLASS WILL END UP IN JUVIE!

  “So, Coach Solden, Principal Singh.” I narrow my eyes for emphasis. I take time to make eye contact with each of them like we were taught. And I make my voice raspy like the salt-and-pepper-haired guy on the Dateline Mystery show. “With every ‘Where did you come from Cotton-Eyed Joe,’ we are reminded of sex, drugs, and … square dancing.” I reach over and grab the top edge of the computer. “Juuuvieeeee …” I finish, closing the laptop at the same time.

  Coach Solden rolls her eyes (must be shock) and Principal Singh turns in her seat and bows her head (horror and shame).

  “Well Lupe, that was quite a slide show.” Principal Singh folds one hand over the other on her desk. “I’m not sure where you are getting your correlations, but I appreciate your concern and effort. I will take all that I’ve heard under advisement and do what’s best for the students.”

  The bell rings and Coach Solden picks up her coffee and clipboard. She flicks her hand at me in a shooing motion. I take this as approval. I see the hint of what looks like a smile on her face.

  I walk out and promptly put my ear to the closed door.

  “Wow,” Principal Singh says. “Can you believe that?” It’s muffled, but the words are clear enough. My heart is pounding, and I feel like jumping, but they might hear me.

  That can only mean my presentation was a success. Just as I’m making a victorious fist pump, the school janitor, Mr. Helms, pushes his broom around the corner. He shakes his head and continues on.

  I can barely focus on where I’m going. “Wrong period, Lupe,” Mr. Lundgren says from his desk when I walk into science class.

  I turn around and continue toward the gym. I’ve finally won. I’ll forever be known as the kid who ended square dancing. No one will ever make fun of me or my causes again. But most importantly, P.E. will go back to normal. I’ll get straight As and I’ll meet Fu Li Hernandez. Dad would definitely approve.

  I don’t need to tell everyone what I’ve done for them. They’ll know it was me anyway.

  I walk into the locker room and hand Andy her laptop.

  “Thanks,” I whisper. “I owe you one.”

  “How’d it go?”

  I can only smile back.

  She grabs my hands. “You did it?” she asks too loudly.

  We back away from each other quickly. We need to remain calm. We’d agreed not to tell anyone just yet if I was successful, so we didn’t jinx it.

  “Looks that way,” I say out of the side of my mouth, getting my stuff ready for class. “Now we can get back to basketball and volleyball like normal kids.”

  Samantha and Claire are tying their hair up in buns and securing them with pencils. “This whole square dancing thing is stupid,” Samantha says. There’s one thing she and I actually agree on. “I mean, I take professional dancing.” She lifts up on her toes for a split second. Even in her gym clothes, she looks like a swan. “This is a waste of time.”

  “My dad says it’s part of the American way of life,” another Pencil Bun says. “It would take a miracle or a genius to get us out of it.”

  Before I can stop myself, I blurt out loud enough for Samantha to overhear. “My presentation had Principal Singh so freaked out, I wouldn’t be surprised if they outlawed square dancing in the entire school district.”

  “Lupe!” Andy shakes her head in warning. “Don’t …”

  One side of Samantha’s mouth curls up like the Grinch. “Hey Claire. Lupe here says she got them to outlaw square dancing.”

  They all start laughing.

  “Whatever,” I say. “You’ll thank me later.”

  Andy pulls me out of the locker room and into the gym. “Why’d you do that?”

  I slump a little. “I don’t know. I couldn’t help myself.”

  Niles is already out and runs across the court to join us. Coach Solden blows her whistle. Within thirty seconds the rest of the boys and girls have piled out of the locker rooms.

  “Sorry I was delayed. I had an important meeting,” she says, tipping her head at me. “I have a special announcement.”

  Andy nudges my arm. I nudge her back. This is it.

  Coach claps her hands in three loud pops. “Someone …” She glances at me. “… brought to the attention of Principal Singh that the square dancing song we were using might be inappropriate.”

  Samantha’s mouth drops open. “No way …”

  Coach Solden continues, “All P.E. classes will no longer be dancing to ‘Cotton-Eyed Joe.’ ”

  For a second there is complete silence.

  Gordon Schnelly is the first to react. “But I practiced with my grandma.” The gap-toothed smile he’s had on during this entire square-dancing debacle falls.

  “You did it?” Niles whispers.

  Clapping begins to echo in the gym, and gets louder and louder. Two boys high-five and start dancing around—to celebrate not having to dance. A girl I’ve never heard speak before makes an awkward whoop that sounds like she has a bubble lodged in her throat. Everyone except Gordon has huge smiles on their faces. Even Samantha and Claire are staring at me in amazement.

  Now’s the time. I give Blake our baseball signal for a sacrifice bunt, and he grins in acknowledgement. I’m going to be legendary.

  Mumbles go around the gym along with the clapping. In the fastest game of telephone ever, all forty kids know I was behind the change in a matter of seconds.

  Niles pats me on the shoulder.

  I suck in my gut and stand taller.

  Coach Solden screeches her whistle four sharp times, bringing the gym to an echoed silence. She’s looking right at me. The same hint of a smile she had on her face earlier after our meeting is back. She winks at me and hits play on her stereo. It sounds like the ice cream truck has pulled up outside. She yells over the familiar music.

  “This means everything you learned yesterday goes out the window. We start over. We’ll now be twirling our partners to ‘Turkey in the Straw’!”

  Pinpricks run over my face and scalp, then down my back all the way to my butt.

  Blake’s arms are now firmly at his sides and he’s giving me an annoyed look.

  The semicircle of girls with messy buns surrounding Samantha is glaring at me. I half expect the pencils to catapult out of their buns in my direction. I turn to Andy. She’s biting her lower lip and her face looks like a puppy’s caught chewing on a slipper.

  My own face turns hot and my ears are ringing, but I clearly hear Gordon yell out, “Yee-haw!”

  Coach Solden skips around the table pretending it’s her dance partner. She balances her CD player on her shoulder. Fiddles echo throughout the gym, then …

  Turkey in the hay, in the hay, in the hay.

  Turkey in the straw, in the straw, in the straw,

  Pick up your fiddle and rosin your bow,

  And put on a tune called Turkey in the Straw.

  I’m in even worse shape than before. There’s nothing disgusting in those lyrics I could even begin to argue against.

  A quick image of Fu Li Hernandez holding his hand up for a high five just like Dad flashes in my mind. I hardly ever cry. Not even when I broke my big toe on Paolo’s weight set. But right now, I want to.

  How am I ever going to meet Fu Li if I have to learn to dance better than girls like Samantha? All my hard work was for nothing.

  I rack my brain for a solution, but it’s pretty clear there’s only one way I have a chance.

  CHAPTER 6

  If I’m doing this, it’ll be on my own terms. So, an hour and a half after school ends, I’m kicking my pillow out of the way to make a bigger dance area on my bedroom floor. I bow to Andy; she bows back.

  “And … go.” I start with a sideways step.

  “Ouch!”

  I yank my foot off Andy’s.
“Sorry.”

  Andy puts her hand on my shoulder. A tiny piece of what looks like grey fur hangs off one of her dark curls. I reach out and flick it onto the ground, hoping it’s not from one of her owl pellets.

  “Do you want me to lead instead?” she asks with sympathetic eyes.

  “No. I’m gonna get this. If we practice together every day and make sure we end up as partners, we can make top eight in the class and get the A we need.”

  “You mean, the A you need,” she says.

  “I know, I know,” I say. “I’m gonna owe you big time.”

  She casually boops me on the nose. Our own secret handshake seemed clever when we were six. Now, it’s starting to seem unsanitary. “It all evens out in the end,” she says. “Remember when I peed my pants in the fourth grade?”

  “Yeah.” I shrug like it was no big deal, but it was one epic accident.

  “My mom isn’t the one who got Ms. Cox in trouble for not letting me go to the bathroom after I’d already asked four times.” Her jaw is tight. “You did. You’re the one who got equal potty rights for everyone even if we’d just been at recess. You’re the one who made sure no one teased me.” Andy’s eyes are welling up a little.

  I never actually told her I ruined my jacket too by throwing it over the pee puddle in her chair so no one would see.

  “And that’s just one of the times you’ve stood up for me.” Andy makes a huge inhale through her nose and her nostrils flare. “We’re a team, Lupe. We will get you that A.”

  I think she wants me to get the grade now as much as I do. I boop her nose and hold my hand out. “We’re gonna get this.”

  After another five minutes of me stomping around on her toes, we decide to move into the living room, where we can at least put music on.

  We sit at the desk for a quick break, Andy with a bag of frozen peas on her feet. I pull up YouTube. There are even more videos of “Turkey in the Straw” than there were of “Cotton-Eyed Joe.”

  Little square pictures line the side of the monitor. A cartoon of a mutant, singing turkey leads the views on YouTube. But the same farmer-band I first watched playing “Cotton-Eyed Joe” has the next “Turkey in the Straw” video.