Dancing Lessons

by Deidrene Crisanto

I stood there looking calm, collected and a little bored, in hopes I would look cool enough for a boy to ask me to dance. It worked; the boy whom I had been smitten with for the past few months took my hand and told me in a sure and confident voice that he was going to teach me how to swing. He was marvelous and I was terrible, we laughed and joked (and flirted a little bit) with every awkward step and stumble. It seemed like we would make it through the song when suddenly disaster struck; I looked at my feet and when I looked back up, my braces had made contact with his arm. We pulled away from each other as fast as we could (which is to say, not nearly fast enough); his arm bleeding, and my head throbbing from the unwanted impact. Our dance met its end at that point, yet the story lives on every time the familiar first drum beats of "Sing Sing Sing" are heard.

6S

Deidrene Crisanto is a teenage girl whose daydreams seem to come true in the most unwanted fashion.