THe dancing child

Why are they so grumpy, thought the girl, as she stared at her shiny black shoes resting, touching.
This is one of the greatest days of my life and all they can do is fight. If they didn't want me to dance, why did they pay for all those lessons. If they didn't want me to go onto the stage, why did they let me audition.
Maybe they thought I would never get the part, that it was just a dreamt that would disappear once I got a taste of rejection.
Hah. Rejection. Forget it. I wanted it. I got it. I am the dancer on the stage.

The girl looked up from her shoes and out the window at the dreary landscape bouncing by. Winos and homeless people, sketchy looking guys with their pants falling down. Graffiti, broken out windows, look at that burned out building. A boy, no more than 9, dashes out of a building, down the stairs and down the sidewalk, the direction of the taxi, for a moment, for a split second, the boy looks over and meets the girl's eyes. He smiles.
She is frozen.
"Why do they have to have this on a Saturday afternoon," barks the father, just as the taxi hits a bump and jostles everyone, the mother and daughter, too, in the back. "Hey," yells the father, "what kind of driver are you. Watch those potholes, mac."
"Sorry," says the driver, his eyes, furtively, angrily glancing in the mirror and then looking back.
The stage, thinks the girl. soon I will be on the stage.
The taxi pulls up to the theater, under the marquee that proclaims the show and, third from the bottom, is her name: "Introducing, child sensation, Judy Haines."
"Wow," says the mother. "Look at that will you."
The father doesn't see. He's too busy counting out the change and trying to figure out the tip as the girl bounds out, onto the sidewalk and into the doors of the theater.
"Good luck," yells the mother, hesitantly.