Alone at 90 Foot Read Free Page B

don’t believe this. This is obscene. She’s actually introducing him and he’s waltzing across the floor, kicking his legs. Who does he think he is? If he starts to moonwalk, I’m out of here. He’s smilinglike a hyena. Don’t have a major heart attack, Mr. Bartell. I can guarantee we’re not going to be tripping over each other to give you mouth-to-mouth. How can anyone be so happy about making such a fool out of himself?
    He tells us we’re going to learn the fox trot first. John Robbel wants to know what’s the point of learning something straight out of the dark ages. Danny Kim wants to know if he’s trying to turn us into pansies. Shauna Whittaker tells him there’s no way she’ll dance with just any geek in the class and if he doesn’t let her choose her own partner, she’ll go to Mrs. Lofts. Darla Miller says that it would probably be some kind of abuse or harassment or something if he forced us to.
    Mr. Bartell is quiet while we all protest. But I can see something brewing behind his great bug eyes. Then to all of us he booms in his loudest Shakespeare-reading voice, “You’ll do it because I said so!”
    That basically shuts us up until after he’s taken attendance, when he gets that hyena grin again and teaches us stuff like movement and rhythm and partner positions and step combinations and whatever. Then he tells us we have to break into partners, at which point we all groan.
    â€œPair up with the boy or girl, as the case may be, who has the same last initial as your own. Or,”he adds, “the closest to it.”
    â€œThis is sooo juvenile,” Joanne whines.
    Mr. Bartell claps his hands, because none of us have moved one inch. “Come on, come on, people. I’m guessing you all passed kindergarten or you wouldn’t be here. It’s not too hard to figure out. Let’s see, B, B, B — no B’s. C, C — Miss Collins — “
    I am going to die. I am actually going to die right here on the spot. No kidding. Mr. Bartell is walking toward me. Mr. Bartell is bowing to me. Mr. Bartell is taking hold of my hand!
    â€œMay I request this dance?”
    This is truly
the
single most humiliating event of my entire life. I wish I’d stayed down at Ninety Foot. I wish I’d tripped on a root and broken my foot. I wish I’d been kidnapped by a UFO and forced to submit to inhumane experiments. Anything other than having to dance with Mr. Bartell. I can’t even look at him, let alone remember what he just taught us.
    â€œMiss Collins?”
    I can hear Joanne and my other so-called friends snickering.
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œMay I request this dance?”
    Like, do I have a choice?
    â€œI guess so,” I mumble into my hair.
    Mr. Bartell turns toward the class and bellows half an inch from my ear, “Now, gentlemen! What have I just demonstrated?”
    No one has a clue what the answer is.
    â€œIt’s called proper etiquette, gentlemen! It is proper etiquette to ask for the privilege to dance with your partner. Now I want you all to demonstrate proper etiquette and the young ladies will respond accordingly.”
    There’s all this shuffling around, which I don’t really see because I’m too busy staring at the floor, but, like, all thirty guys repeat what Mr. Bartell asked me. With the enthusiasm of a bunch of dead cod, I might add. I’m not sure what the proper responses are supposed to be, but mostly I hear answers like, “Get serious,” and “Alright, but only because I need the marks.”
    Mr. Bartell drags me to the CD player, starts this majorly bad music, if you can even call it that, and while he jerks me back and forth and around and around, hollers out orders to the class. “Alright people, the box step! Eight counts. Quick, quick, quick, quick!”
    His breath is like the worst swamp in the deepest depths of Borneo and he’s sweating