Chapter 7
The historical stuff was working out okay but Ms Cutter wanted to know what we intended to do for the contemporary bit.
‘You said in your outline, Chelsea, the production would progress through time, so I suppose you are concluding with the contemporary aspect as a climax?’ she asked me.
‘Um, yes, that’s right,’ I agreed, not admitting that there were at least two words in that sentence that I didn’t understand. I looked desperately at Sarah who came to the rescue.
‘We are going to end with Hip-Hop, Ms Cutter,’ she said earnestly.
‘And how are you planning on doing that?’
‘Er, we’re not sure yet,’ I admitted.
‘Make sure you get onto it,’ sniffed Ms Cutter. ‘Now get out your books. We are going to do some comprehension.’
We all whinged about her as we went to PE, but not too loudly in case any of the other teachers heard us. Mr Sadler, who takes us for PE, is really nice. I guess it helps that he is taking a subject everyone enjoys and we get to play heaps of games and use the equipment in the gym and everything.
‘Why such glum faces?’ he asked when he saw us.
‘Because we have so much to do for the Dance/Drama,’ I burst out.
‘We have to learn how to do breakdancing,’ put in Mike.
‘Ms Cutter tells us to learn everything in our own time, then she makes sure we haven’t got any by giving us homework,’ added Grace in aggrieved tones.
Mr Sadler thought for a minute. ‘I am sure that Breakdancing, or Hip-Hop could be categorized as physical activity,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘It all looks fairly physical from what I’ve seen of it. How about if I let you practise during your PE periods?’
‘That’s awesome, thanks Mr Sadler,’ we chorused.
‘I could ask my cousin Jake to come and teach us some stuff if you like,’ Rangi offered. ‘He’s a B-boy in a crew in Auckland and he’s staying down here for a few weeks.’
‘That’s sounds like an excellent idea,’ agreed Mr Sadler. ‘How about we start tomorrow, okay? Rangi, you let me know if that doesn’t suit Jake.’ We all went out to play a great game of softball then, wishing that we had Mr Sadler for English instead of Ms Cutter.
No-one missed the PE lesson the next day. Even Janice, who usually ‘forgets’ her gym gear, had shown up ready to have a go. Jake was awesome.
‘Hey guys, I’ll show you a bit of what I do then we’ll talk about it,’ he said. He put some Hip-Hop music on, it was a neat one by King Kapesi, and then he started breaking. Wow! He popped and he froze and did backspins and windmills. We couldn’t believe a person could twist himself into so many spins and positions. He made it look really easy. Mr Sadler was impressed as well.
Jake talked a bit about Hip-Hop and its philosophy.
‘Now while you can start by copying what I do, because that’s a really good way to learn, it’s important that everyone develops their own style. The essence of Hip-Hop is to have the freedom to move the way you want to and to express yourselves. If you watch me I will show you some of the simpler moves. Then you can put them together into a routine or pattern of your own. The main thing is to listen to the beat of the music and let your body move as you react to it in your own way.’
I could see that heaps of the boys and a lot of the girls were really keen on breaking. Not Gemma and the other ballet girls, of course, who scorned to do anything that didn’t involve pink shoes, but nearly everyone else. I reckon even Mr Sadler would have liked to have had a go but he thought it wouldn’t be dignified. He probably thought we’d laugh at him if he did it badly and we probably would have. He let Jake demonstrate a few of the easier movies then teach us how to do them.
‘Ow, my body doesn’t bend the right way. I’m sure my arms and legs are put on differently from everyone else,’ I complained.
‘You do look a bit awkward,’ said Sarah, eyeing me critically. It didn’t help that she was effortlessly copying Jake and he had said she was brilliant twice already.
‘Try to relax, Chelsea and flow with the music.’ I stumbled though a few more moves then collapsed at the side to watch the others. Some of the boys were very good at it and Rangi was nearly as good as Jake.
After we had copied Jake for a bit he said,
‘You should all practise what I’ve shown you and I’ll come back for the next session. You may want to have a few breakdancing rehearsals after school and I can come in for those too, if you want. I’m not doing anything else at the moment.’
We all thanked him and Mr Sadler said how good it was of Jake to come in and why didn’t we show our appreciation in the usual way. So we all clapped like mad and some of the boys whistled and Jake looked really pleased.
‘Can you help us work out a routine for the show?’ Jason asked him.
‘Yeah, okay. I don’t mind doing that. I’ll bring along some CD’s of great music to use.’
Mr Sadler immediately said, ‘No no, that’s not necessary. I don’t think the sort of music you would have would be suitable for a school production. Anyway, aren’t you children writing your own music? ‘
‘No,’ I said and Joey said ‘Yes,’ at the same time.
‘We can’t possibly write halfway decent music, especially Hip-Hop stuff,’ I protested.
‘Yes we can,’ said Joey defiantly. ‘Mike and I can do it. You liked the ghost music.’
‘That’s because it is mainly sort of atmospheric background stuff,’ I explained. ‘It’s not like proper music.’
‘What do you mean, not proper music?’ demanded Mike.
‘I meant it wasn’t like a tune or anything.’
‘Music doesn’t have to have tunes, you idiot,’ scoffed Mike.
‘I’m not the idiot round here,’ I sneered. Mike is always so full of himself.
‘Now, now, children,’ Mr Sadler said soothingly. ‘There’s no need to get upset. You should be able to have a reasonable discussion without descending to abuse.’ We both scowled at him.
Mike and I carried on a big argument about the music, with a heap of other kids all taking sides, and that went on into the next period and made us all late for Maths. We ended up by compromising. We decided to use a piece of music that Ty’s brother had recorded with some friends and Sarah told Mr Sadler,
‘Chelsea will write a rap to go with it.’
I was furious. ‘Why did you say that?’ I demanded, as we walked to the next class. ‘I mean, if it is such a great idea to have a rap then why don’t you write it? Or someone else? Why do I have to do it?’ Sarah just smiled and said,
‘I knew you’d do a good job of it and it is mostly using Shakespeare's words anyway. And it isn’t as if you don’t have time. You can take all week to write it, as there are still five weeks to go before the performance.’
I decided I would make her do my Maths homework for me as revenge. Not that it was a good idea to have Sarah do my homework too often. The problem is that she always gets all the answers right, while I can never manage better than about sixty per cent. This means that if I hand in stuff she’s done for me, I’d get one hundred per cent and have to spend the next couple of weeks working flat tack. Otherwise the teachers would be suspicious of why my marks had dropped,
‘We know you are capable of better than this, Chelsea.’
I suppose I should have been grateful that Ms Cutter was letting us use music at all.
‘Why don’t we go to my house after school and go through our tapes and CD’s to see what else we can use for the production,’ Sarah suggested. ‘You can come too Janice,’ she added kindly.
‘Good idea. You’re bound to have better music than we do,’ I agreed.
Sarah’s family sure had a lot of CD’s and tapes and even a whole cabinet full of records. ‘They belong to my Dad,’ she said hastily. We sorted through her stuff and put on some really funky music that we were just starting to really get into when Sarah’s Dad came in. I don’t know what he works at but he
does quite a lot of it from home.
‘Turn that rubbish down,’ he screamed. He turned down the volume on the CD player to a whisper. ‘And that’s still too loud,’ he grumbled.
‘Dad,’ whined Sarah. ‘That’s too quiet. We can hardly even hear it.’
‘Sounds plenty loud enough to me,’ replied her Dad.
‘Don’t you know anything? You have to have it up loud enough to feel the beat pulsing, that’s the way the music was designed to be played,’ Sarah explained patiently.
‘Not in this house, it doesn’t,’ he said grimly.
Sarah was looking really embarrassed. ‘Don’t worry,’ I whispered. ‘My Dad is just the same. He goes berserk as soon as any decent music comes on the radio or TV.’
‘We’re trying to find some music to use for the production we’re doing for school, Dad,’ explained Sarah. Her Dad said, ‘Oh, why didn’t you say so. I’ve got some great music here.’
He strode across the room and put on a record.
‘No, Dad,’ groaned Sarah. ‘Please, not one of your old records. They are practically pre-historic. We must be the only people on earth who still play records,’ she said rolling her eyes at Janice and me. ‘And it’s all old stuff. Some of it is actually pretty cool, like the Beatles,’ she murmured to us, ‘but I would die rather than admit that. ‘
‘This is the Rolling Stones. It’s a classic. It will be played for years and years.’ Sarah’s Dad nodded his head in time to the music.
‘My Dad has stuff like that too,’ whispered Janice.’ He’s far too mean to buy anything new.’
‘At least he’s not singing. My Dad sings to the records, loudly and off key,’ I pointed out. ‘And then he has the gall to tell me to turn the sound down when I want to listen to something. It is so unfair.’
Sarah complained, ‘Why can’t the music we listen to be classic as well? People might be playing it years later so how do you know that it’s rubbish anyway?’
Sarah’s Mum came in just then with a jug of orange juice and some crackers and cheese. She said, ‘I’ve listened to the sort of music you play, Sarah. I am surprised that the record companies would record music with such dreadful words on it. They all seem to be about swearing and blood and death these days.’
‘If you don’t want my help then I’ll leave you to it,’ sniffed Sarah’s Dad, turning off his record and stalking from the room.
‘Oh,’ moaned Sarah, when her mother had gone back to the kitchen, ‘the trouble is they are both are so old they obviously don’t get it. They’d rather listen to ghastly old singers moaning on about their ghastly old girlfriends who have left them and broken their hearts than to anything decent.’
‘My Dad always shouts at me, ‘Do you want to be deaf before you’re twenty?’’ Janice remarked.’ So I say 'Pardon?’ to him and it really pushes his buttons.’ We laughed and Sarah made me make a list and start writing down the music we would use. We did end up using a range of stuff in the end, as we had to regretfully admit that our own CD’s weren’t really suitable.
For the Minuet we decided on that one by Beethoven that everyone seems to learn on the piano when they’re about ten years old. Minuet in G. The next day Ms Cutter taught us a dance to it that we actually did in our English class. We nearly fainted with the shock. It was such a pleasure to do something other than comprehension that even the boys agreed to try it.
‘The Minuet was done in the French Court and it was a walking dance,’ Ms Cutter explained. ‘The king and queen would lead a whole line of people behind them as they glided around the room with tiny steps.’
Apparently this was a highlight of their day, which goes to show how boring life in the court of France must have been.
Ms Cutter went on to say, ‘Men and ladies would communicate by gestures during the dance and even by kissing.’
‘I can communicate with gestures. I’ll demonstrate a couple, if you like?’ offered Mike. We were really looking forward to that, but Ms Cutter turned him down.
‘Now please take a partner, yes that means a girl, Hamish, and decide on what signals to use. I suggest you use such things as lowering the eyes to mean yes or squeezing the fingers to mean no. Take your hands out of your pockets, you boys. And yes, you do need to hold hands with the girls.’
‘Please Ms Cutter, Hamish is making improper suggestions to me,’ Janice complained.
‘I was only trying to communicate to Janice what a graceful dancer she is,’ Hamish said virtuously. Yeah, right. Even Ms Cutter didn’t believe that for a minute.
Brian rushed up and claimed Sarah as his partner and I ended up with that toad Eric. His mother is friends with my mother and they can never understand why we don’t get on. Eric doesn’t understand it either but I just don’t like him. It’s probably because our mothers shoved us together practically from birth and thought it would be so lovely if we were friends. That is enough to make two people enemies for life. Unfortunately Eric thought that being friends was a good idea as well. I don’t. I don’t want him following me around. I don’t like looking up and seeing his sad sort of spaniel eyes gazing at me. I don’t want him to carry my books or pump up my bike tyres or anything. And I mainly don’t want him getting in the way of any other boy who might be interested in me.
I once tried to explain all this to my mother who was, as usual, totally unsympathetic.
‘I expect you to be friendly with Eric,’ she said, and ‘or else you’ll be in big trouble’ was written across her forehead in letters six metres high. Okay, so I may be exaggerating slightly but you get the picture.
So there’s little Eric prattling on suggesting signals.
‘I can hold up one finger to tell you how pretty you are,’ he said.
Urgh!
‘I can hold up two fingers in reply,’ I said. Eric looked hurt. He’s good at that. He gives the impression that you’ve taken away everything he ever cared for in life and his only remaining course is suicide.
I wish!