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Chapter 1
“That was really hard.”  I moaned.
“Actually, I thought it was quite easy.  You would have too, had you studied.”  Trish said in her annoying, matter of fact way.
“Shut up. You’re so smart that you’re stupid.  I hate you sometimes.”
“Excuse me for studying every once in a while and for striving for greatness.”
“More like perfection.”  I mumbled, under my breath.
Trish just stormed off.
“Finally, I got rid of her,” I thought, “she’s so annoying.”
Meet Trish.  Her real name is Ana-Patricia, but I call her Trish just to annoy her.  She’s the local genius, and likes everyone to know it.  No one knows it better than me though, because I’m her older sister.  I love her of course, but sometimes, it’s really hard.
“See Ana-Patricia, Lilly?  She’s studying.  Maybe you should try that.”
“You’re in the same class, how can you be doing so poorly?  You can’t say it’s the teacher, Ana-Patricia is doing just fine.”
“Why can’t you be more like your sister?” That one hurts the most.  My parents can be cruel sometimes.  I’m the black sheep of the family, so they pick on me.  I’m not smart like the rest.  I’m a ballerina.  (Not that I’m saying that ballerinas can’t be smart, just that I’m not smart, and I’m also a ballerina.)  Ballet is the most important thing in my life, heck, it is my life, and college just isn’t very important to me.  It is to my parents, though, so I go to Melon Rose Preparatory Academy (I know, stupid name, it’s the last names of the founders), and I do alright.  They just don’t understand that I’m going to dance forever.
“Hey girls!”  My mom said, cheerily.
“Hey Daisy.”  I said.
“Hello Mother.”  Ana-Pat never called mom Daisy like she was asked.  That was the only thing she had ever done that even slightly resembled disobedience.  She simply didn’t think that it was appropriate.
“How were your days?” Daisy asked, ignoring, as usual, the rigidness of her younger daughter’s voice.
“Eeew.  We had this really hard test today in history.  We have a lot of homework too.” I said, miserable at the thought of the piles of homework that I would half-ass and still spend 2 1/2 hours on.
“Oh.  I’m sorry.” Daisy said, and I knew she meant it.  The cruel comments usually came from my dad, but when they did come from Daisy, they weren’t sincere.
“That test was super-easy and the homework will only take half an hour, if I spend a lot of time on it.” Trish said briskly.
“Well then dear, that’s your opinion.  You and Lil are different.  You’re just very good in school.” Daisy said, sounding a little nervous.
“You mean smarter.” We said in unison.
“I’m smarter.” Trish mumbled, the same time I said, “She’s smarter.”
“Now girls. Stop…just stop.” Daisy sounded angry, but also a little sad.
I sighed and looked out the window.  As soon as we got home, I rushed inside and changed into my ballet gear.
“’Kay Daisy!  I’m ready!” I yelled, for I could not see my mother.
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” Daisy was talking in the tone of voice she always used when she was lying or trying to cover something up.
“Tell me what?”
“Your Dad and I have decided that until your grades improve, you can’t go to ballet class.” Daisy spit this out so fast that it took me a minute to decipher what she had said.
“What?!  You can’t do that!  Ballet is my life!”
“That, my dear girl, is the problem.  We fell that you spend to much time improving your toes, and not nearly enough on your schoolwork.  Lil, it’s just for the rest of the year.
Oh good.  It was October, it wouldn’t be too much longer.  “Oh, so just for a couple of months then!”  I was so relieved I reached out to hug Daisy.
My mom, however, pushed me away. “You might not want to do that just yet,” Daisy took a deep breath, “the rest of the school year Lil, not the chronological year.”
“You can’t do that you, you, Mother!” I screamed as loud as I could.
“Lilly…”
“What? Are you going to tell me not to breath now?”
“Oh come on Lilly.  You’re over reacting.” Now Daisy was mad too.
“Am I?” I screamed.  Then I ran to my room and slammed the door.  The thing was, the doors in that cursed house didn’t slam, so the door just sort of whooshed and nearly closed.  I smacked it to close the remaining distance.  Then I screamed wordlessly, just as an added measure to make my mom miserable.  If my dad had been home, I never would’ve done that.
“What’s all the screaming about, Lil?” Trish asked, sounding gleeful.  She never called me Lil.  It wasn’t proper.  I was getting very suspicious.
“YOU! You suggested that to Mom and Dad!”
“Well, maybe I did, but it was for your own good you know.  It was to help you.”  The grin on her face was so big as she said this, that I don’t know how she managed to get the words out.
“Help me! Help me! What are you, out of your mind?!  You stupid lunatic!  I hate you!”
“I know that, you tell me every day.”  The grin was a little less huge at this point.
“Well, it’s really very true.  You helped take my entire life away.  School won’t help me where I’m going.  I intend to dance forever.”
“You can’t dance forever, Lilly.  You can only dance for another thirty years or so.  You won’t be able to dance forever.”
“I’m going to retire early, nimwit.” I said, icily.
“You’re going to retire at forty?”  Disapproval leaked out of every word.
“45.  What does it matter to you, though?”
“Why does it matter to me is the correct way to say that, idiot.  Anyway, you won’t have any money.  You’ll have to depend on someone else for your life.  I’m pretty sure Mom and Dad will be having a party when you leave, so I wouldn’t count on them for anything, and the way you treat me, you’ll be lucky if I don’t steal money from you.”
“You’re nice.”
“You hate me.” She said, and she sounded so miserable, that I almost felt bad.  Almost.
“Fair enough.” I replied, not daring to look at her, for fear that she would be crying, and then I would feel a little bad.
“Well, I’ll leave you to study.  Unless of course, you want help.”  Trish was so eager to rub her intelligence in my face, and I knew she would tell mom and dad that I wasn’t studying if I didn’t let her.
I rolled my eyes.  “Okay, runt.  I guess I’ll need help.  I haven’t really ever studied before.”  I never had really thought about it, but it was true, I had never studied in my thirteen years.
“Well, what do you suck at most?” She asked.
I decided to ignore this.  “I’m not great at history, it’s my worst subject, so I guess we should start there.
“Ooh!  History!  That’s my favorite subject!” Of course it was.
We sat down at my desk and emptied our backpacks on the floor.
“Read chapter six in your textbook and take notes.  That’s what I’m going to start with.”
“Alright.” I sighed.  I didn’t particularly like being bossed around by Trish.
I began to read, but I stopped and looked over at Ana-Patricia.  Her thick red hair had fallen from her clumsily done ponytail and her face was screwed up in concentration.  She read and scribbled notes with lightning quickness.  She was such a good student.
“I don’t hate you Trish.” I whispered.
“Don’t you?” She sounded as though I was telling her the sky was blue.  She didn’t seem to notice quite what I was saying, and it hurt.  Now I knew how she felt.
“No.  It’s just…you’re so…good.  I’m jealous of you Trish.”
“Okay.” She said, tonelessly, and she went back to her notes.  I knew that we were okay, at least for the time being.