"Gnarly," I said to myself. "Max Casella, huh? Vinnie Delpino from Doogie Howser."

"That's right," Kenny said while emerging from behind the podium.

"Geez! How do you do that?!"

"My secret. Okay, the guys will be here in a few minutes. We aren't going to do anything too difficult today. Just 'Simon Says' and posture checks."

"Guys? As in the general term for kids, right?"

"Well, actually-" he was cut of by about 20 guys coming through the door.

"Ahh...Kenny," I said in a monotone voice. But, Kenny was already trying to quiet down the guys.

"Okay, nice to see you all again. Now I want you to meet someone who's going to help teach you to dance. This is Avalon O'Shea."

"Actually most people call me Juls. Hi," I guess I must have scared them a bit with my appearance. I had made my complexion paler than it should be. I also had dark eyeliner around my eyes and black lipstick on. Along with looking like I belonged in a funeral parlor, as one of the corpses, with my fishnets, black shorts, and black shirt. I got a mix of gasps and "that's going to teach us?".

"What you've never been to L.A. before?" I retorted. Sure it hurt, but what was I going to do? I did get some laughs out of my retort though.

"Okay we're going to do a role call," I said taking the cast list. "Christian Bale?"

"Here," called an English sounding voice.

"Cool. Empire of the Sun. Right?"

"Yes! Did you like it?"

"Ahem! I think we're getting off the subject guys," Kenny interrupted.

"Sir, yes, sir!" I said while saluting him. "Marty Belafsky?"

"Here, ma'am"

"Okay. Please don't call me ma'am. It makes me feel like an adult," perish the thought.

"Vinnie Delpino?" I asked, hoping that Max would answer.

"Yes," he answered laughing.

"Okay, I didn't think that would work. Dee Caspary."

"Right here."

"Joseph Conrad?"

"Over here."

"We love you Conrad, oh yes we do...Sorry. Mark David."

"Here."

"Ivan Dudynsky?"

"Hello."

"Ukrainian?"

"Yeah. Most people think I'm Russian."

"Well, I'm not like most people." I was going to go on to say that the reason I know he was Ukrainian was because I was a Rhythmic Gymnast. Most Rhythmic Gymnasts tend to be Ukrainian. But, a glare from Kenny stopped me. "Luke Edwards."

"Here."

"Robert Feeney."

"Hi."

"Hola. Matthew Fields." By now I was having fun with the names, and acting like an announcer at a hockey game or something.

"Here."

"Michael, um, Goorjian?"

"Yep."

"I actually pronounced your last name correctly?"

"Nope."

"Oh, well, fine then. Aaron Lohr?"

"Over here." This guy was, well, fit. He had well defined arm muscles (and chest muscles and stomach...well you get the idea), and in his tank top they showed. He was also pretty cute.

"Alrighty. Arvie Lowe."

"Here."

"Dominic Lucero?"

"Here." You could tell by the way this guy held himself that he was a dancer.

"Dominic Maldonado."

"Here."

"David Moscow?"

"Huh? Oh, here."

"Are you sure 'bout that Dave?" a guy with shaggy blond hair and blue eyes asked.

"You aren't by any chance Trey Parker?" I asked.

"That would be me," he answered.

"You're in the band E.Y.C. aren't you?"

"Um, yeah. How did you know?" he asked with suspicion. He probably thought I was a stalker or something.

"I'm from Australia, and still-"

"Juls," Kenny said.

"I'll tell you later. David Sidoni."

"Here."

"And Kevin Stea."

"Here."

"That's it," I said with a sigh.

"Thank you Miss Drifter. Okay, we're going to learn some basic dance steps today. Or for the 'dancers' go over some basic dance steps. Juls could you play the tape that's in the tape player?"

"Great. I'm getting paid to push the play button on a tape player," I said sarcastically.

"Who said that you were getting paid?" grinned Kenny.

"Very funny Ortega," I muttered.

"Okay. Play. There ya go," I said while pushing down the play button.

"This is an actual song from Newsies This is 'Carrying the Banner'. It's the opening number. First off we're going to do a basic spin...."

That's how the first day of dance class went. Mostly everyone got the steps down. Except for David Moscow. This guy couldn't dance if his life depended on it. What made that worse was that he was totally against dancing. Well, at least he could do a basic spin.

After class I went out front to wait for my dad. I started to do tricks on my skate-board, like spins and stuff like that.

"Hey, Juls!" I turned around to see Trey running toward me.

"Yes?"

"You have to finish your sentence," he said with a grin and a Southern accent.

"Oh yeah. I'm from Australia and still have relatives there. I visit Perth every so often."

"You don't smile a whole lot, do you?"

"Not really. Don't really see anything to smile about." I guess I also should have told you that I had tried to kill myself that winter. My dad never saw it coming. He's a lawyer, and a single parent, in L.A. Usually it was just me and Brett, my older brother.

"You need a reason to smile?" I nodded. "Really? I just smile for the hell of it," he grinned.

I, of course, stayed stone faced. I wanted to smile, really bad, but I think that I had forgotten how to after my mom died.

"Well, I guess my mission for the next 10 months is to make you smile. With teeth."

"You have an impossible mission then."