Girl Can't Dance

At first sight of me, I guarantee you’d want my autograph. Well, maybe not now. But there was a time, not so long ago, when that was true.

It’s not that I am crazy beautiful, or talented, or tremendously smart. In fact, I’m pretty ordinary, which is why what happened was extraordinary. My twin brother, Theo, said that I should thank him. 

“For what?” I asked. “For making my life miserable?”

“You made your own life miserable,” he said. “I just happened to be there.”

Maybe I should start at the beginning . . . 

My best friend, Aubree, and I were obsessed with celebrities. You know: boy bands, movie stars, anyone on that TV show Immediate Access. Plus we’d spend hours watching YouTube, especially videos starring my favorite singer, Jackson Jax. One time, Aubree’s mom took us to his concert, and I swear, even though I was one of 15,000 screaming girls, Jackson Jax pointed to me and said in his signature whisper, “Girl, this song is for you.”

So, a couple of months ago, Aubree and I were watching videos when she asked, “Emma, what’s the most important thing to you?” 

“Fame,” I said. “What about you?”

“Friends,” she replied. “If you ever got famous, you’d still be my friend, right?” Aubree and I had been friends since first grade.

“Of course!” I answered. “And I’d also go on the Gary Larry Show and ride in a limo.” 

As it would turn out, I would soon do two out of three of those things. 

It started with the karaoke machine my Uncle Roger gave me for my 13th birthday. For the longest time, it stayed in the box—and for good reason. My singing is so bad that when it’s someone’s birthday, it’s best for everyone if I just mouth the words. 

One Saturday night, Aubree and I opened the box. 

“Karaoke!” Theo exclaimed as he barged into my room. “Can I try?” 

“Go away,” I said. 

“Please . . . ” he begged.

“Go away!” I shouted.

“You’ll be sorry,” he warned.

I started belting out Jackson Jax’s mega-hit, “Girl, It’s Gotta B U,” then began to dance. 

I looked like a cat trying to cough up a hairball. Aubree laughed so hard she couldn’t even breathe. “Emma,” she cried, “please promise me you won’t ever do that in public!” 

“Oh, right,” I said. “Like that would ever happen!” 

On Monday, Theo was eager to get to school. That should have been a clue that my world was about to turn inside out. I have P.E. first period. Being as uncoordinated as I am, I hate P.E., and I think it’s fair to say that P.E. hates me. We were lining up to play basketball when suddenly a bunch of boys started singing a horrible rendition of “Girl, It’s Gotta B U.” Everyone was laughing, including me. But when they started dancing, I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. 

The boys were imitating me! 

But why? 

How . . . ? 

“Hey, Emma,” Julian said as he dribbled the basketball. “You’re a star!”

All through middle school, I had hoped that Julian would notice me. I had even practiced talking to him in front of the mirror. “Oh, hello, Julian,” I’d say in a sophisticated voice.

Julian was waiting for me to speak.

“Whaaa . . . whaaa . . . whaa?” I stammered.

“ Saw your video on YouTube,” he said, grinning. “You know, ‘Girl Can’t Dance.’ ”

Julian pretended to spit up a hairball.

Things only got worse after that. It seemed like the entire school had seen my “Girl Can’t Dance” video. 

And then I knew: Theo. It had to be Theo. When I spotted him at lunchtime, he started running. He was fast, but I was faster. “You creep,” I yelled, “you’re going to pay for this.” 

Just then I noticed Serena Malik and a bunch of popular kids laughing. A couple of them did the hairball dance move, while one sang horribly off-key on purpose. I let go of Theo’s shirt and ran to the bathroom to hide.

Mom and Dad grounded Theo and took away his computer privileges for a month. But it was too late. “Girl Can’t Dance” had received more than 500,000 hits—and we had only 600 students at our middle school. Even after Theo took the video off of his YouTube account, it kept showing up on other people’s. Then the strangest thing happened. Some kids started being nice to me. And one day someone I didn’t even know was wearing a “Girl Can’t Dance” T-shirt with my photo on it!

My video had gone viral. 

“You’re a celebrity,” Aubree gushed. “Emma, you’re famous!”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “But I’m famous because I can’t sing or dance. Because I humiliated myself. This is not how I imagined it.”

“Enjoy the ride,” Aubree said. “Everyone knows who you are.”

It seemed like she was right. The day “Girl Can’t Dance” surpassed a million views, Aubree and I jumped up and down and hugged each other. By the time it hit 14 million views, I was on Wake Up A.M. and even Immediate Access. When I got the call to be on the Gary Larry Show, the producer said they’d send a limo for me. As the studio audience looked on, Gary Larry asked, “Emma, how many people have seen your video?”

“Well, Gary,” I said, turning to wink at the camera, “I stopped keeping track when it passed 20 million.”

Gary Larry grinned. “Emma, we have a surprise for you.”

The curtains parted, and out came . . . Jackson Jax!

He sauntered up to the microphone, looked straight at me, and whispered, “Girl, will you join me?”

The crowd went wild as Jackson Jax sang “Girl, It’s Gotta B U,” and I did my famous moves from “Girl Can’t Dance.”

I was a star.

Everywhere I went, people asked for my autograph. Total strangers would do my dance when they saw me. Everyone wanted my photo. I started wearing sunglasses to hide from my fans. 

“Hey, Emma,” a boy said at lunch. He held out a piece of paper. “Can you sign this for my cousin?” 

I took off my sunglasses and asked, “Do I know you?” 

“It’s me, Julian,” he answered. “We have P.E. together.”

I let out a sigh and then scrawled a giant “E” on the paper. 

“Thanks, Emma!” he said. “You’re amazing.”

“Whatever,” I said.

“You’ve changed,” Aubree commented as she bit into her cheese pizza.

I looked at my fingernails. Maybe I’d try deep-purple polish next. 

“How so?” I threw my head back and smiled as someone took my picture.

“Well, you’re sort of . . . and don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re kind of . . . stuck up,” Aubree said softly. 

I put my sunglasses back on. Aubree just didn’t get me. 

“You’re jealous,” I told her. “Maybe I need a new best friend—someone who can deal with all of this.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Aubree said, her voice cracking. I thought she might be crying, but it was hard to tell since my sunglasses made the room so dark.

Theo walked past us and muttered, “I’ve created a monster.” 

I stopped eating lunch with Aubree and started sitting with Serena Malik and the popular group. A couple of weeks earlier, they had made fun of me. Now they wanted to hear about Jackson Jax, and the limo, and Gary Larry. 

After a while, though, I learned that you can tell the same stories only so many times before people get bored. My YouTube hits began to dwindle to only a few thousand a day, then a few hundred, then a couple, until it seemed like no one was watching my video anymore. The new top trending video was called “Betty & Herman.” It was of a dog and a duck who’d become best friends. 

“Your 15 minutes of fame are up,” Theo said one night.

I was sitting alone in my room, watching “Girl Can’t Dance” on YouTube. I looked like an idiot. A happy, clueless idiot.

“Huh?”

“Andy Warhol said that—that everyone will be famous for 15 minutes,” Theo explained as he stood between me and the computer.

“Who’s Andy Warhol?” I asked. “Does he do karaoke?”

“He’s an artist,” my brother told me. “You’re hopeless.”

As quickly as I had become a celebrity, I had turned back into a pumpkin. A pumpkin with no friends.

“Hi, Julian!” I said. He was at his locker. “Did your cousin like the autograph?”

He looked like he didn’t know who I was. 

“It’s me, Emma,” I said. “You know, ‘Girl Can’t Dance.’ ”

I did a couple of hairball moves.

When he cringed, so did I.

Even though I still sat with the popular kids, I was pretty much ignored. After several days of this, I picked up my tray and walked to where Aubree was eating with a bunch of kids from our English class.

“Hey,” I said, motioning to an empty chair. “Mind if I join you?”

When Aubree shrugged, I sat down. No one said a word. It was beyond awkward. After 10 minutes of silence, I got up and left.

As I ate alone, I thought about how I wasn’t famous for something I could do. I was famous for something I couldn’t do—sing or dance. I was famous for not being talented. If that was my 15 minutes of fame, I had wasted it.

It took 3 minutes for me to do “Girl Can’t Dance,” 16 minutes for Theo to upload it to YouTube, and 14 million views to make me a star. And what did that all add up to? I lost the one friend who really counted.

I owed Aubree an apology. Maybe even 14 million apologies. Fame wasn’t important to me anymore. Friends were. I tossed my sunglasses in the trash and then headed back to Aubree. I had something to tell her.