::Tiny Dancer::

Tiny Dancer

It was two weeks later and Cali was doing the final speech exit for the day’s last taping, but was having a hard time because Ashleigh was singing and dancing in her seat like a Muppet.  “Annie are you okay, okay, okay annie….you’ve been hit by you’ve been struck by a smooth criminal…”
	“OH gawd here it comes,” Maddie sighed.
 “Wooooo wooooo woooo wooooo woooo wooooo wooooo!!!!!”  Ashleigh kept tossing her head back and forth.  Madison grabbed a pillow, but Kyle beat her to it, the pillow knocking Ashleigh in the head.  Cali finished her speech.  “Jensen!!  Replay that song and turn the music up….” Ashleigh shouted.  Alien Ant Farm’s song was playing again and louder this time.  “Everyone!!!!  Get up and dance!!!”  Audience members got up and started to dance in their spots. “Everyone!!!  Including you in the blue shirt!!! Yea you.  Dance.  It’s fun!!”  Audience members moved more to the beat.  The camera lights finally flicked off and they were done taping.  Ashleigh grabbed Madison and made her move to the song.  “Maddie are you okay…okay okay maddie??  Maddie you near to cheer up, cause u’ve been real quiet…and there were…pop stains on the carpet…”
	Maddie laughed.  “I’m fine.  Just thinking…”  Ashleigh had her ‘I want to play Bust A Groove’ smile on her face.  Her favorite part of the song was on again.
	“Wooooo wooooo woooo wooooo woooo wooooo wooooo!!!!!”  She raised Madison’s left hand on each wooo.  “So were you thinking of Tyler, huh?  Man you got it bad.”
	“She’s got it bad,” Piper giggled. “What about you and that girl’s brother?”
	“Who?” Michael asked.
	“His name is George.  And he’s oh-so-cute.  His little sister dances at the same school that I teach at.  He dropped her off a couple of times and he asked for my number a bit ago.”
	“So are you guys going out??” Tyler asked.
	“Nooo not yet.  We talk, but he is always busy. I thought I was bad!  I called him the last two times, so it’s his turn now.  I can’t call him until he calls me.”
	Maddie shook her head, “You and you rules.”  She sat down next to Piper.
	“I don’t want to appear too available.  Plus, he can always come visit me at his sister’s dance.”
	“That reminds me.  I have a prior engagement to go to,” Kyle sat up and stretched. “Tyler are you coming?”
	“Yea.  One second.” Everyone watched Kyle walk out the set.
	“What was that about?”
	“Oh.” Tyler scratched his head, embarrassed.  He has a date with this girl tonight and she’s bring a friend, so I have to do the horrible honors of entertaining that girl.”
	“Ahh.”
	Ashleigh tossed her hair over her shoulder, “Is his girl cute?”  Tyler stared into space, ignoring her. “Well, where is it at?”
	Tyler continued to ignore her. “Uhh…”  
	Cali’s phone rang, “Hey you.  I missed you too Cutesywutesy…Yeah we’re done here…. Uh-huh…I’ll try.” She hung up the phone.  “Are you leaving Tyler?  I’ll walk out with you.”  Tyler nodded, with one last look at Madison and headed out with Cali.  Michael looked at each of the three girls.  Ashleigh stood giving him a dirty look.  Madison sat resting her chin on her knees in a sad, little girl fashion. Piper sat there, looking at the ceiling with a pissed off look. 
	“I can see I’m not wanted here…I’m gonna catch up to….Bye girls,” He stepped off the stage.
	“Uh, not yet…”  Piper and Ashleigh surrounded him.  “You aren’t leaving until you tell us everything.”
	Ashleigh nodded in agreement.  “Yea.  Fess up.”
	Michael unfortunately told them everything, because it was useless to lie to Piper unless you wanted to crap beaten out of you and Ashleigh had a set of lungs on her for ear-deafening screaming.  They let their captive go.  Piper sat back down next to Madison. 
	Ashleigh, who was still standing, stomped her foot angrily.  “You guys wanna know what I’m thinking?”
	“What?”
	“What?”
	Ashleigh spun around and strutted, pretending to be a model, “I think that we need to go get beautiful, cuz tonight!!  Tonight we are going to check out this Club Moulin!!”

“Are you sure this is such a good idea?” Piper frowned.  “I’m all for stalking the guys, but…” 
	“Can’t hear you!!  Music-entering-blood-system…body-moving-to-beats…must-dance-my-ass-off!!  C’mon ladies!!!!”  Ashleigh grabbed her friends hands and dragged them to the dance floor.  Piper shook her head, but smiled.  Madison swayed to the beat, uneasy to the people around her.  “Maddie!  That better be a warm-up.”  Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Piper, making a quick exit.  “HEY!!” 
	“I’m worked up!!! Phew!!!  Time of a break!”  Ashleigh gave a cold stare… “Fine.”  the girls danced for about half-hour when Ashleigh finally gave in to a break, when the other two told her they wanted to talk about strategy.  The girls went upstairs to the balcony that looked above the dance floor.  “This place is kinda small,” Piper noticed. 
	“It should be easy to spot the guys.”
	“There and there.”  Ashleigh pointed to below.  “And it looks like Tyler isn’t having much fun…ugh!!  Look at Kyle.”  Ashleigh leaned over the balcony. “Get your hands of her, fuckhead!!”  She yelled. 
	Madison grabbed Ashleigh’s arm and pulled her back to her seat.  “Ash!! They’ll hear you!!”  <p>
	“Nah, they won’t.  It’s loud.”  She gave a quick look down below and snorted angrily, “So what do we propose we do?  Should we interrupt or just strut for a bit?” 
	“Neither.  Some of these guys are slimey,” Piper noted. 
	“Well.  Why don’t we go down there and dance for a bit and see what goes on? The dance floor is much bigger and maybe they won’t see it, then we’ll just think of what do later.” 
	“Oooo!!  My Maddie wants to dance!! This is the happiest day ever!!”
	Piper laughed. “This is??  What about the day you tried Kit Kat Mini-Bites??” 
	“Okay…so I have a list of happy days!  Get up girls!!  Lets go dance!!” 
	So the girls danced for about almost an hour and we’re having a great time with all the new guys they were dancing with.  The music was euro, but they were starting to have regular songs on with the euro beats.  All the girls were having a good time.  Madison learned that she wasn’t as bad dancer as she thought she was.  Ashleigh was being Ashleigh and Piper found herself moving pretty well too, until her feat started hurting.  She borrowed her mom’s nice black shoes, but her mom had smaller feet.  She could feel the blisters coming.  “You guys I’m going to take a break. My feet hurt.”
	The girls frowned, “Do you want us to come with??” 
	“No.  I’m fine.  I’m going to be in the same area as we sat before, so you guys can find me okay? I’ll be on the lookout.” 
	“Okay.  We’ll come soon.”
	“Eh, don’t worry about it!” Piper spun and headed to the table, which surprisingly wasn’t taken.  She threw her shoes off.  “Holy shit!  My mom has Cinderella feet. Why in the hell did I think I could fit these cloppers in?!?”  She ordered a water, total rip-off, given that it was three dollars, but got it anyway. 
	Meanwhile everyone else was on the dance floor and all of them, except for Tyler, was having a good time.  Kyle looked over at a small group of guys huddled around.  He saw two blondes in the middle and shrugged.  “Figures,” he thought.  Lila signaled him to go take a break.  He nodded and looked over at the group again.  One girl wore a bubble-gum pink sparkly top.  He laughed, “Ashleigh would wear a top like that.” 
	“Who’s Ashleigh?” 
	“She’s a close friend of mine.  She always wear pink, even though her favorite color is blue.  She’s an odd girl,” he laughed to himself. 
	“Pinky over there? …I like her outfit.  She’s sorta cute…C’mon.  Let’s get some water.” 
	Madison smiled.  Who knew that they would be dancing with a couple guys?  “This was so much fun,” she thought. “But Tyler isn’t having fun.”  The beginning of Christina Aguliera’s “Dirty” song came on the systems.  Ashleigh pulled her friend closer and whispered in her ear. “This is our song…go to Tyler and dance with him…” 
	Maddie smiled.  “What about you?” She whispered back. 
	“Me??” Ashleigh pointed to herself.  “I am perfectly fine with these young gentlemen!! Go.  Shoo shoo!!” 
	Madison left the little group and took a deep breath.  “Here goes.”  She walked over to where Tyler and a brunette bitch were dancing. Tyler was a good dancer, but he looked terribly uncomfortable.  Maddison tapped the girl on the shoulder. “Excuse me, I’m going to cut in!!”  Tyler’s face lit up.  Maddie swung her hip cutting in between Tyler and the girl and gently pushed Tyler backwards away from the brunette bimbo.  She looked over her shoulder, only to see the girl standing there with her arm’s crossed looking pretty pissed.
	“I am so glad to see you!  Kyle’s here with his date, Lila, and she brought her friend Margo.  That girl is cute, but has the brains of a turnip.” 
	“Good. Then I’m glad I interrupted!!”  With a bigger boast of confidence, Maddie began dancing and Tyler followed. This time, Tyler didn’t look uncomfortable. 
	Margo sat down for ten minutes, scanning the place for her best friend, Lila.  She looked at the dance floor, different color lights were twirling everywhere. The fog was going down and things were a little easier to see.  She noticed Tyler and that girl who cut in.  She shook her head, at the smiling couple.  She didn’t have to put up with this. She eagerly went to find her friend and Kyle, her date. 
	Piper looked down at the dance floor. The fog was clearing up, but it was still hard to see cause lights were shining everywhere.  She tried to spot her friends. She had a harder time than Ashleigh, but she found them.  She saw Kyle and his date were sitting down.  Ashleigh was still dancing with the group of guys, especially a tall blonde one.  She admired how Ashleigh kept all her options open.  She wanted to be more like that.  “I shouldn’t be so picky.  I won’t know if he‘s Prince Charming, if I keep turning guys down.”  Madison and Tyler were dancing together.  Both with smiles, that concealed how really happy they were in case the other didn’t feel the same. Tyler didn’t look like the stuffy dancer he was with the other girl. Piper nearly squealed in happiness.  “Yea they are together!!” 
	“Hey honey.  Why aren’t you down there having fun?  Come dance with me and I’ll show you a good time.” 
	Piper looked to her left, a short greasy guy was eyeing her.  “I know I have high standards, but c’mon!” She thought to herself.  The greasy guy sleezed closer to her.  She took one step over to make distance.  The guy followed, taking another step closer.  Piper raised an eyebrow, contemplating if she should give him a right hook him in the jaw.  If he stepped over one more time, she was going to give him one so hard he would fly out the building.  She took one step over and glanced at Sleaze-O man.  He was about to take another step closer (and get his ass kicked) when another guy, this one taller and not greasy, squeezed in between and smiled, “Hey hun.  It took me a while to find to the bathroom.  Did I miss anything?” 
	Huh?  Oh, he was playing the suave guy that was trying to protect her. How sweet!  She was trying to figure out how to hit Sleaze-O without hitting this handsome guy with a blue shirt.  “You didn’t miss anything honey.”  The other guy sized the tall dude, figuring that they were going out and walked away grumbling to himself.  Piper sighed a breath of relief.  
	“Hey, My name is Evan.”  He stuck this hand out.  Piper shook it.  “I know that you can take care of yourself, but I know that you like when guys do cool things like that. You’re Piper from ‘Rollercoaster of Love’ right?” 
	“Yea.”  She smiled and asked him to sit down. “I didn’t think we were that famous.”
	“I love your show!  My friend showed me the article that was in the Trib.  It’s pretty awesome to see you guys get more credit.” Piper smiled politely.  “So you guys are all friends and you guys act that crazy all the time?” 
	“Yea and first and foremost, it isn’t an act…” 
	“Cool.  Does Ashleigh go into song and dance when not on the air?” 
	Piper laughed, “She does it all the time.  It’s annoying, but it’s funny when she does it.” 
	“That’s cool.  And you are as sarcastic in life as you are on tv??”  He leaned over.
	“Yea.  A lot of my material comes from dealing with idiots, especially my family.” 
	Evan laughed.  “Wow.  You are exactly how you are on tv…”  His laugh was cute.  Evan sat back taking everything in.  Piper bit her lip.  She couldn’t wait to tell the girls what happened.  He began to talk about himself.  Piper smiled some more.  They would have to go here more often.  He may not be the prince that was going to sweep her off her feet, but it wouldn’t hurt to talk to him. 
	Meanwhile Margo finally found her friend and her date.  “What the hell is wrong with your brother??” 
	Kyle turned his head to the direction of the screechy voice, Lila’s friend Margo stood there with her hands on her hips.  He tried to keep his smirk inside thinking, “He probably thought you were too skanky and bitchy and snotty and bossy and …” <p>
	But his thought was interrupted by Margo’s screeching.  It was worse than Ashleigh’s when she was pissed as hell and on her period.  “This girl…” Her head tilted on the world girl. “Came in, pushed me out of the way with her ass, and took him from me.”
	Lila frowned, “Bitch!!  Kyle!  Go find your brother and say something.” 
	“Like what?  He’s a free agent Lila.  I’m not going to tell him not to dance with a pretty girl.”  Lila and Margo just stared at him with vacant expressions.  He had to talk to someone with half a brain.  “Fine.” 
	He walked off to find Tyler.  He soon spotted his brother with a cute blonde girl.  He didn’t want to ruin his brother’s fun.  The girl was cute and Tyler deserved the attention.  The blondie turned around and Kyle almost fainted on the floor. 
	The cute blonde girl was Maddie!!  Madison!!  No wonder Margo was so pissed.  She must have realized how happy he was to see Maddie.  Tyler was having so much fun.  Madison was laughing, the couple dancing to the beat.  Kyle just stood there.  This was an awesome outcome.  Tyler didn’t even want to come because he wanted to have another movie night and a chance to sit near Madison.  I’m sure Maddie was the same way. This was pretty cool.  Who would have thought that Maddie would have been here and Tyler here too?  He turned around, trying to figure out how to break the news to Barbie and Midge when it hit him… 
	He made an one-eighty and sped to his brother and Maddie.  “Where is she?? I know she’s here!!!” 
	“Who??” 
	“Who do you think??”  Both of them stared at Kyle.  It was clear that for however long they were dancing, they were both oblivious to the rest of the world. He looked at Madison, who hid a sly smile from behind his brother’s shoulder. “I know she’s here.  Where there’s you…there’s her…”  He waited for Maddie to answer him, but she just looked at Tyler and shrugged. 
	“I have no idea who you are talking about!” Madison lied. 
	Tyler laughed, “Yea.  Me either.”
	“We all know.  She’s yay-high, blonde hair, blue eyes, kinda annoying.”  The couple shrugged completely aware who they were talking about and started to dance again.  Kyle turned around in disgust.  He would have to find her himself.  Then it hit him again.  “Pinky.  The blonde with the pink shirt…” 
	He couldn’t believe that he didn’t notice Ashleigh before.  No matter where she was, she still stood out.  She was being her usual tease, but took a special interest in one guy in particular.  Kyle marched over.  “I need to borrow her for a second, guys.”  The guys eyed Kyle suspiciously but didn’t want to start any fights.  “What are you doing here??” 
	Ashleigh didn’t turn around and didn’t stop dancing.  She knew immediately who it was. “I’m having fun.”  She smiled. “He was yummy looking.  Smelled good too.” 
	“No really.  What are you doing here??” 
	Ashleigh laughed.  “I’m here to ask you the age-old question.”  She turned around to face Kyle.  “Do you want to dance??  It’s really easy.  You move your hips to the beat.”  She placed her hands on his hips and moved them in attempt to get him to move.  “Loosen up! You are like a tree trunk!!  Be the branches!!” She lifted her arms and swayed them in the air imitating an actually tree branch swaying in the wind. 
	He rolled his eyes, “I know how to dance.” 
	“Good.”  Ashleigh rested her hands around Kyle’s neck and began to dance the same way before she imitated the tree.  “Then dance with me.” 
	Kyle sighed and looked around for Lila and Margo.  No sign of them.  He could dance for a bit. “Now what are you doing here?” 
	“Kyyyle!!” She leaned back.  “You are ruining my fun by talking.  You know that right?”  Ashes was a good dancer and he could feel heat coming off of her body.  Kyle couldn’t afford to lose his concentration.   
	“Ashleigh!!” He threw her hands off his shoulders.  “Ashleigh!! What the hell are you doing here??” 
	Ashleigh immediately stopped dancing.  “You called me Ashleigh…” 
	“This little ploy…it has your name all over it.  You come here, dragging the other two.  You make them dance, tell Maddie to find my brother, which I don’t mind that part actually…You’re hoping to find someone ‘cute’ for Piper, but she probably got tired of dancing cause prancing on her toes getting guys isn’t her cup of tea.  The worse thing about your little plan is I have to deal with my date’s pissy friend.  You know very aware that if your friend is mad, you aren’t exactly going to be in the mood to…” 
	“Ohhh!!”  Ashleigh slid her hand thru her hair pulling her hair out of her face. “I see.  I interrupted your plans to get some tonight.  I’ll just think of another ‘crazy plan’ and get that ugly pathetic Barbie to go home with you tonight so you can jus…” 
	Kyle smiled, “You’re jealous…  You are soooo jealous.  You are turning green from jealously.”  <p>
	Ashleigh looked Kyle in the eyes and started to dance again.  “Hmph!  You wish…” 
	Kyle turned Ashleigh around, wrapped his arms around her tummy and smiled behind her back.  He knew she was jealous.  “Well, you can at least make ugly pathetic Barbie jealous, right?”
	Ashleigh laughed, “Damn straight!!” 
	Piper made her way down the stairs. She sure had a funny story to tell the others.  She spotted her four friends all on the dance floor.  Ashleigh spotted her first and broke away from Kyle’s embrace. “Oh I’m sooo sorry I didn’t go up there. I meant to.” 
	“Don’t worry about it, Ash.”  She laughed.  “It was good.  A guy talked to me.”
	“Oooo!!  Really??  Was he nice??  What did he look like??” 
	“He was pretty cute, and really nice.  He saved me from this sleaze ball guy.  He totally just saved me.  He thought I needed help.” 
	“So he came up to you?”  Ashleigh tapped her chin and spun around.  “Hear that Kyle!!  I didn’t set her up.” 
	“Good for you.” 
	“Anyway,” Piper said.  “We were talking about the show and our lives and everything…and then he goes, ‘I know you aren’t on the job but can you help me with a question.  I know that you are the one that can help me the most.’  and I’m like, ‘sure.  Go ahead.’ and he goes, ‘my girlfriend says I’m not romantic.  I think that I am, but she’s a very high maintenance girl… blah blah blah…  He had a girlfriend!!  Aghhh!!” 
	Ashleigh gave Piper a hug. “I’m sorry girl.” 
	“Hey, it’s okay.  Speaking of girlfriend…Kyle, isn’t your date, like somewhere…” 
	“OH shit.”

~*~ rol home ~*~