In spite of the fact that they’d only had one hour to rehearse today, the routine was coming along. Derek and Vijay had already choreographed most of the song. There were a few gaps where they both agreed they needed to find new moves to cover. But for that, they’d have to watch some music videos for research. As for the monster’s part, it would have to wait until Gary was there.

The two boys spent the rest of their time teaching each other their moves. They promised each other to have them down by next week’s rehearsal, so they could try them out in unison to the music.

After Vijay was gone, Derek continued to practice the moves his friend had taught him. There was the sphinxlike head move, with the chin jutting out then in, and the side-to-side head shift, left to right and back again without tilting the head. There were the arm waves, like swimming—Vijay had picked those moves up at the family wedding in India. And there was this wobbly leg thing Vijay did that was really good for showing how scared they were of the monster.

Derek finished off his practice session by doing some more worms, twists, and anything else he could do in the family’s small living room, which had the most open space of any room in the house. Things like cartwheels and such would have to wait till they had a bigger space to practice in.

“Derek? Dinner is ready!” his mom’s voice called out from the kitchen. “Everyone else is at the table. Are you coming?”

“Be right there, Mom!” He put away the CD and washed his hands, then joined the rest of the family at the table.

He went to bed that night feeling tired and a bit sore. He hoped he hadn’t overdone it. But there was always tomorrow to rest up and get ready for Saturday morning’s big tryout.

He was excited about the talent show, too—for sure. But he was twice as excited about making the basketball team!

And ten times as nervous that he wouldn’t.

“OW!! Ow! Ow! Ow!”

Derek shot up in bed. The pain in his neck was sharp and intense. Every time he tried to move it to the right or forward, the pain shot through him and made him cry out in agony.

No, no, nononono—this cannot be happening! he thought, a wave of panic coming over him.

He must have twisted it last night, doing some of those new moves! But it hadn’t bothered him at the time.

Then he thought back to Tuesday, when Ms. Terrapin’s sharp rebuke had caused him to twist his neck around. He’d been looking back at Gary and Sam, he remembered, and the quick maneuver had caused that same spot in his neck to hurt for just a second.