So, there was once this bad thing I did...

I had ballet class today. As I stood there with my hair pulled back in a high, tight pony-tail, staring into the mirror, concentrating on my turn out and whatnot, it took me back to my childhood.

I've told you before that I took dance for a long time. When I was about 10 years old, my class was a bit of a mixed bag. There were several other petite girls, a girl with a glass eye, and there was Big Val. Besides Big Val and the girl with the glass eye, the rest of us girls were at about the same ability level. We were also about the same height/weight, and had the most dancing experience, so we were always in front. This was all fine and good, and as it should have been. BUT.

There was Big Val. She was a big burly gal. At the time she seemed to be about 6 ft tall, but that could be an exaggeration from my then young mind. Ohhhhh she was big, alright. And clumsy. Her brown, thick, curly hair was always cut short, and she ALWAYS had a snarl on her lips. She had large round glasses that would always slide to the end of her nose.

One could always expect to be hit with one of her flailing arms if you came anywhere near her during practice.

Our sweet dance teacher would show us a new step, and we would all begin to practice it. Then one at a time, we would try our best to imitate what she had done.Big Val's steps always looked the same. NO MATTER WHAT. And it didn't look good. NOT.AT.ALL.

Now, I know what you're thinkin. You're thinking that I am being mean to this poor , big, awkward ballerina. Well, you can just stick that sympathy in your pocket, and save it for someone else, because Big Val doesn't deserve it. You see, Big Val beleived that she was ......A STAR. If you accidently came near her during dance, while we were practicing, you would undoubtedly get a blow to the face from one of those bohemoth arms flying about. ANd then she would snap around, come so close to you that you could smell her hot, poridgy breath, and bellow down to you in her man-like voice, "WHY DON'T YOU LOOK WHERE YOU'RE GOIN??!! I'M TRYING TO DANCE!!! You're SO DUMB!" It became clear the next year, that in order to preserve the posterity of the class, and indeed the school, it would be the job of those of us in the front row, to keep Big Val from dancing her way up front during performances. The music would start, and here she would come, from the back row, flailing and thrashing about in all her glory. We would have to sort of squeeze together,in mid dance, to keep her from getting by.

Our sweet teacher tried to help her, but Big Val was the same size as our sweet teacher, and would snap back at her in the same way she did us. She WOULD NOT be corrected.Ohhhhh....she was a mean one. We all feared her.

One day my best friend J. had to catch a ride home with Big Val and her mother. I'll never forget seeing poor little J, sitting in the back seat all quiet, kinda slumped over, staring back at me from the back window. She rode out of the parking lot with Big Val and her mom just yelling at one another.

For several years in a row, nothing changed. Big Val held us in a sort of gripping fear, every dance class. And she never got any better. EVER. And she hated us.

One night, after a particularly grand string of performances, and several curtain calls (Again, this is as I remember it), we all headed back to the dressing rooms backstage. J. and I were the very first to reach the dressing room. The room would be strewn with 100's of costumes and all manner of dance shoes and tights. There were bags, upon bags of personal items which every girl must bring in case something is lost, torn, or stolen. And it smelled of sweat. It was in this massive pile of smelly dancing perephinalia, that we were to change out of our costumes, and into our going home clothes.

J. and I were electrified with excitement from our performances. We were giggling and talking as we hurridly changed before the mass of other girls arrived to do the same.

Then, it was as if a light shined down from somwhere above. I don't know where. Maybe it was a broken light from the dressing room,...or perhaps it was something more. But there it was.......... a beam of light shining right down on Big Val's panties.

We saw them simultaneously, and we acted with lightening quickness, as if this spontaneous moment had been planned out in a back room for days. So smooth and so cool were we. In a nano second, Big Val's giant panties were dangling on the end of a clothes hanger, being held by my partner in crime. We began to hear the other girls coming. We must act quickly! Big Val could come in at any moment, and she would crush us. She would hold us down and suffocate us.It would take several strong men to get her off of us. Our hearts were pounding. Where could we put them?? WHERE??

Now I'm not saying it was Providence or anything, I'm just telling you how it went. Again, the answer was revealed. Above our heads a ceiling tile was loose, leaving just a small, dark space exposed.Oh, but our short legs be damned!! We began tossing the panties up furiously, over and over. Each time retreiving them again from the floor with the coat hanger. And all of a sudden, the door burst open and in walks Big Val.Just before the screams left our lips, as if by some miracle.....(eh?)....the panties were gone, and there we stood innocently with a coat hanger in our hands. The enormous skivvies were in the ceiling.

As we left the dressing room, Big Val's mother was yelling, (They always yelled at one another), "VALERIE JEAN! WHO IN THE WORLD WOULD GO AND STEAL SOMEBODY'S UNDERPANTS?!" She just kept yelling it over and over in a quick,nasaly voice, not unlike Joy on "My Name is Earl".

I'll never forget driving out of the parking lot that night, and seeing Big Val walking to her car in a big, bright orange tu-tu, with her tennis shoes on. I sat quietly, watching Big Val yell at her mother. That night, in my 10 yr old mind, all seemed right with the world.

And may I not to this day, enter into that most terrifying of thoughts. May I not think for even the faintest of seconds the horrors that would lay in store for me if Big Val ever finds out who hid her panties. I would imagine that the evidence still lies there, cold and dark in the ceiling of S.S. High School.