Dazzling Danny. Jean Ure

could I do that no one else could? Nothing, as far as I knew. I was the only one in my family who wasn’t gifted. My mum and dad both run for the county. Dad runs long distance, Mum’s a sprinter. They’ve both won medals. They’ve even been given special Achievement Awards by the Mayor. My sister Carrie, who is one big pain, is brilliant at practically everything. She’s two years older than me. Her last school report said, “Carrie works hard and plays hard. A first-class student!”

      I just bet nobody would ever say that about me. Only the other day Miss Pringle had told me to stop daydreaming and pay attention. But now she wanted me to do something special!

      Miss Pringle was busy telling us how the Year 5s were going to paint the scenery and the Year 4s were going to design the programmes. Last year we had been Year 5s and had painted scenery. Clint Parker had painted two of the girls bright green. This year we were the big shots. We were the stars! And Miss Pringle wanted me for something special …

      The bell rang for break. All the rest of the class went rushing out into the playground, but Miss Pringle beckoned me over to her table.

      “Now then, Danny,” she said. “We must talk. There are two very important parts that I didn’t mention… one boy, and one girl. These are the ones who have all the dreams. We’ve already cast Coral as the girl—”

      She paused, just for a second. I waited, breathlessly. Was she really going to say what I thought she was going to say?

      “Both Mr Hubbard and I,” said Miss Pringle, “think that you would be perfect as the boy.”

      Wow! Maybe I was good at something, after all.

      “The only thing is,” said Miss Pringle, “it does mean that you would have to dance…”

       Chapter Two

      Dance???

      Miss Pringle tilted her head to one side. “How would you feel about it?”

      How I felt about it was, you’ve got to be kidding! Only you can’t say that to a teacher.

      “What do you think?” said Miss Pringle.

      “If I don’t do it;’ I said, “does that mean I can’t be in the show?”

      “Oh, Danny, of course it doesn’t! Of course you’ll be in the show.”

      I said, “What would I be?”

      “How about one of the speakers?”

      I frowned. I didn’t want to be one of the speakers! Not if Clint was going to be. I wanted to be something special.

      “Look, don’t get all worried about it,” said Miss Pringle. “We can find someone else if we have to.”

      I didn’t want that, either! That would mean that someone else was special. Instead of me. It might even be Clint!

      “It’s just that we really do feel you’d be good at it. You’re a nice little mover! You’ve got a lot of style. Did you know that?”

      I didn’t know what to say. My mum always tells me that I’m like a tornado. She says that one of these days the roof will cave in, the way I crash around. Now Miss Pringle was saying I had style!

      “I was watching you, the other day,” said Miss Pringle, “when you were playing football.”

      I said, “Yeah, well… football.” That was different.

      “If you watch the really top players,” said Miss Pringle, “you’ll see they move very much the same way as dancers do.”

      I didn’t want to be rude or anything, so I just kept quiet.

      “I’ll tell you what,” said Miss Pringle. “Tomorrow after school we’ll go through some of the steps together, just you and me, not anyone else, and you can decide whether you want to do it or not. How about that? Would that be a good idea, do you think?”

      I nodded.

      “All right, then. Don’t forget to ask your mum if it’s OK. Tell her we’ll just be about half an hour.”

      As soon as I hit the playground, Darryl came charging over.

      “So what was it? What’s she want you to do?”

      I mumbled, “Wants me to do something special.”

      “Like what?”

      “Just something!’

      I wasn’t even going to tell Darryl, in spite of him being my best friend. Not until I’d made up my mind.

      I said to Mum that I had to stay late at school the next day. I said it was something to do with the library. Mum’s quite keen on books so she said that was fine.

      “I’ll come by half an hour later.”

      I wasn’t even going to tell Mum the real reason. She’d only go and tell Dad, and I definitely didn’t want Dad to know.

      Next day, at the end of school, I went to the hall. Miss Pringle was there waiting for me. She was wearing a T-shirt and joggers. I like it when she dresses like that! She looks cool; not like a teacher. She said, “OK, Danny! Football number. I’ll show you what we had in mind.” Then she put on some music and started to dance.