“Beautiful! Both of you, beautiful!” Mama Rizzo cried, standing. “Now, one more part. We need to see how fast you learn, eh? Tony’ll teach you the dance and words to a song from a, how you say, recent hit. Tony!”
Tony quickly mounted the stage.
“Wait,” Lin stuttered, “we have to learn it in front of everybody?”
“Oh pipe down,” I murmured.
“Speak for yourself,” she hissed back.
“Now, let be nice now. We start slow. Give me the pitch Cricket.”
We went through the whole number “Puttin’ on the Ritz” step by step, beat by beat. All afternoon we shuffled through, until finally we could each do the number separately with a fair amount of speed.
“Brava, bellas! Brava!” Mama Rizzo called after we’d finished. “Lin, you were, how you say, most improved from yesterday, no? Well done.” She glowed with pride. “However, I say this round go to Xiaoli.”
My eyes widened. That meant the score was tied! One event to go!
Cricket also realized this fact, rising from the piano with that sparkle in his eye.