Winning Team Read online

  Noelle hushed her, although I did notice that Noelle’s face turned abnormally red, and it couldn’t have been from exertion, because, in spite of the fact that I personally hated these pointless beam exercises, they were far from being the most strenuous things we did.

  “Don’t try to hide it,” Jessie teased. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of. He’s cute!”

  Mo arrived just in time to catch us talking and gave us a sharp look. One thing I’d learned in the few practices I’d had so far: Mo and Cheng took gymnastics very seriously. Our leotards might as well have been those orange vests people wore when they picked up trash on the side of the road—the second we put them on, it was time to work. I missed the atmosphere back at Loveland, where Dionne and I had been able to scheme and giggle all through practice.

  I executed my half turn at the end of the beam, sneaking a peek to see this guy the girls were talking about. Personally, I didn’t see anything special about him. He was wearing a faded gray shirt with birchbark high school emblazoned across the front of it, and a pair of those baggy shorts that basketball players wear. His dark hair was way too curly (in my opinion), and he had a little bump on his nose. But the way the girls were drooling over him, you’d think that he’d stepped right off the cover of a teen magazine and started doing chin-ups on the high bar.

  Of course, I wasn’t about to mention that I thought he looked like a dork. Not when I was only a prank away from getting them all to see that practice could be fun—that I could be fun.

  Because Mo was watching, Noelle tried to look as if she was working on her dance series instead of sneaking peeks at the boy. But it was so obvious it was kind of funny.

  “Posture, Noelle,” Mo said. She must’ve noticed Noelle’s distraction, too, because there didn’t appear to be anything wrong with her posture—other than the fact that she was craning her neck to scope out the cute guy.

  “Jessie, I need to see at least one hundred eighty degrees on leaps,” Mo added.

  This woman did not play around.

  The cute guy was now doing handstand push-ups on the parallel bars. Apparently, he didn’t play around, either. Although I didn’t really see his appeal, I did have to admit that that was pretty impressive to watch. I could probably have done five of those before getting tired or bored, but he was still going.

  “You have all seen Scott train before,” Mo said, exasperated; I whipped my head around so she wouldn’t think I was one of his admirers. “He is training for the college team this fall. In some years, maybe you will get scholarship like him. But it won’t happen if you don’t practice. So I want to see your series—Christina, go.”

  As though Mo had whistled loudly or clapped her hands, Christina took her position at the end of the beam, looking taller than ever as she stretched both arms above her head. One minute she was facing backward, clenching the fingers of one hand with the other, and then all of a sudden she was flipping. She did a flawless Onodi to twist herself into a forward-facing position, and then executed two elegant front aerial flips in a row.

  Front flips with no hands are tough.

  “Good,” Mo said. “But do not pause so much after first element. Square your body, and go right into second. They should flow, yes?”

  As far as I was concerned, Christina had been flowing so much she was practically Niagara Falls. But what did I know?

  “Jessie, go,” Mo said, and Jessie launched into two back handsprings and a layout that got high above the beam, finally landing on both feet. Which, on a four-inch beam, is not exactly a cakewalk. Most moves on the beam have you landing one foot in front of the other, to make it easier.

  Mo grunted. “Britt, go.”

  I’d been working on a tucked full twist back at my old gym, but didn’t quite have it down yet. Still, I figured, why not give it a whirl? I took a deep breath and did my round-off, but as soon as my feet hit the beam, I knew my center was off. I could feel my body leaning one way, trying to twist before I actually got into the air. Rather than crash and burn, I balked, stopping in the middle of the move and jumping off the beam.

  Mo just nodded. “Your series will be round-off to layout with two-foot landing,” she said. “You need to refine before you add twist.”

  Okay, so obviously I was still struggling with my full twist. But how was I supposed to learn it if I didn’t even get to practice it?

  I barely heard Mo signal Noelle to go, but all of a sudden, she was flipping across the beam. And then her foot must’ve slipped or something, because her third layout lacked a lot of height. She missed her landing on the beam and ended up with both feet on the mat, a startled expression on her face.

  “Again,” Mo said. I saw Noelle glance at Scott over on the parallel bars, but I doubted he was even paying attention to her. Why would a high school guy care about a twelve-year-old gymnast practicing her beam routine?

  We were all supposed to continue working on our dance series, but none of us could take our eyes off Noelle as she climbed back onto the beam. I’m sure Christina and Jessie were thinking exactly what I was: Come on, come on. You can do this.

  Noelle took a long time setting up for her pass, making sure that her feet were in a straight line on the beam and her arms up by her ears. Finally, she launched into the series—one, two, three, and then, bam! She split the beam on her way down and found herself belly-flopping onto the mat, her face hitting the blue vinyl with a sickening smack.

  Even though I barely knew Noelle, and still had no clue how she felt about me, I almost jumped down to make sure that she was okay. But neither Christina nor Jessie made a move, so I just stood there, unsure of what to do. Was there some rule about comforting fallen gymnasts? Was it like a war zone? Each girl for herself, with no time to go back for anyone left behind?

  Noelle barely flinched, though. Her expression was stoical as she got to her feet, placing her hands on the beam like she was going to go again.

  Mo stopped her. “Okay,” she said. “Get a drink of water. Girls, I need to see your dance series. Let’s go!”

  Considering we all had our own water bottles, I figured that sending Noelle to the water fountain was just a way to make her take a break for a second. This time, when she walked by the area where Scott was training, she kept her eyes straight ahead.

  “We need to choreograph new beam routine,” Mo said, watching me as I did a series of mincing dance steps and struck a small pose. “This one is choppy.”

  It’s not that I disagreed with her. My beam routine involved a lot of quick, jarring motions with my hands, where I whipped them up above my head and then back down again. It made me look like a toy that had been wound up too tightly.

  But still. This was the routine that my old coach had worked with me on, the routine that had gotten me Elite status. This was the routine that was supposed to include a tucked full twist, instead of some lame back layout.

  “Where’s Sparky?” Noelle asked, holding her open gym bag, which held a neatly folded workout suit and extra leotard, but no stuffed Dalmation.

  Mo was watching Jessie do a scale and barely glanced up. “Hmm?” she said.

  “Where’s my stuffed dog? Where’s Sparky?” Noelle demanded, and now her voice sounded really strained, as if she’d been crying or was about to be.

  Oh, crap. My eyes immediately went to my gym bag, which was zipped up, thank goodness. I could make out the vague outline of a stuffed animal in there, but surely it was just because I knew what to look for. Right? No one else would be able to tell that the dog was in there.

  “Someone took Sparky,” Noelle said, and now she was definitely crying. Her face was splotchy and red, and she was frenziedly emptying her gym bag. “No wonder I can’t stay on the beam. Sparky hasn’t left my gym bag for three years. Who would take a stuffed animal?”

  Mo was paying attention now. Everyone was, including Scott, who’d stopped doing press handstands and was looking in our direction.

  What had I done? Noelle wasn’t suppose
d to know that her dog was gone until I’d had the chance to think of something funny to do with it. By then, everyone would have been laughing, and there’d have been no way she could get mad.

  But nobody was laughing, least of all Noelle. Just my luck: the first prank I tried to pull involved Noelle’s special charm. But how was I supposed to have known that?

  “Are you sure you had Sparky today?” Mo asked calmly.

  “I told you, that dog never leaves my gym bag. Aren’t you listening?”

  Christina and Jessie exchanged a shocked look. I hadn’t heard Noelle snap at anyone like that before, much less the coach.

  “Maybe we should look in the locker room,” I said. If only I’d had a second alone I could have taken the stuffed animal out of my bag and put him somewhere else, like in one of the younger gymnasts’ cubbies or something. Noelle might have thought it a little weird, but at least she wouldn’t have thought I’d purposely stolen her good-luck charm.

  Just then, Scott walked over. Up close, I guess he looked a little cuter than I’d previously thought. He had really blue eyes, for one thing. But I still didn’t see anything to swoon over.

  “What’s up?” he asked. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Noelle just put her head in her hands, emitting a weird muffled noise when Christina patted her on the back.

  Mo shook her head. “Cheng will be here soon to work with you on tumbling,” she said to Scott. “We need to get back to practice, too.”

  “I can’t practice without Sparky!” Noelle wailed, lifting her head. “You saw what happened. I almost killed myself!”

  “Where did you last see Sparky?” Scott asked. I had to give him credit. He somehow made it sound like a legitimate question, instead of letting it seem as if he was asking, What’s your problem, psycho? Which is the way it would’ve sounded coming out of my mouth.

  “Right here, this morning,” Noelle said. “He was in my gym bag when I got ready. Then I went to grab my water bottle to fill it up, and he was gone.”

  Her voice broke on the last word, and I considered coming clean. I could just say it was an accident. But what, like someone else’s stuffed animal just fell into my gym bag? Everyone would think I was a thief.

  I considered explaining the prank idea, but when I actually imagined saying it out loud, it sounded really dumb. And also like a flimsy excuse that I’d made up on the spot, to hide the fact that I was a thief.

  The only way to do it would be to find a way to distract everyone again, and then make the switch when no one was looking. Maybe I could think of another prank to redirect their attention. If only I’d known how to throw my voice.

  “Well, why don’t we start here?” Scott said. “Everyone, empty your gym bags, and if he’s not in any of them, we can check the lost-and-found.”

  I take it back—Scott was not cute. He was obnoxious. “I think I see Cheng waiting for you,” I said.

  “Britt,” Mo said warningly, but Scott just smiled.

  “I know what it’s like to depend on a good-luck charm,” he said, winking at Noelle. “On the morning of big meets, I always put on the same pair of socks. They’re full of holes, now, but I won’t trade them for anything.”

  That sounded kind of gross.

  Jessie and Christina were already down from their beams and had unzipped their bags and turned them inside out. I started to seriously sweat. Would the gym kick me out for stealing?

  “Why don’t you look in your bag?” Mo said, cocking her head toward me.

  “But why would it be in there?” I asked. I could feel this terrible itch on the bridge of my nose, but I’d watched a whole TV program about how little tics like scratching a nose or pulling at an ear were dead giveaways of liars. “It’s probably sitting on her dresser at home or something, and we’re just wasting time.”

  “Perhaps so,” she said. “But Noelle will not feel comfortable unless we look.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. I tried to make it sound breezy, but I think it came off as more wheezy instead. “I’ll check out the locker room. That would make the most sense.”

  Mo’s gaze grew sharp. “Why don’t you just open your bag?” she said. “Noelle will feel better once every possibility has been eliminated.”

  I could feel my face turning red as I leaned down to unzip my gym bag, immediately revealing a patch of black-and-white spotted fur inside.

  Noelle gasped. “Sparky!” She reached into my bag and snatched the dog, clutching it to her chest as if it was her most prized possession. If you asked me, she was just hamming it up.

  “I was going to give it back,” I said, but it sounded weak even to my ears. Why did I have to make the truth sound like a lie? I had planned to return the dumb dog. “It was just going to be a little joke. I was going to do something funny, like put it on the vaulting table or…whatever.”

  Mo looked at me with an expression that made my throat tighten. It wasn’t even like she was angry. It was more like she’d just found out that I was a completely different person from who she thought I was. “We don’t touch other people’s personal property,” she said. “Ever. Not even for joke. Understand?”

  “Yes,” I said, raising my chin. Noelle was staring at me as if I was the devil, Christina looked ready to punch me, and Jessie was shaking her head. At least stupid Scott and his stupid nose that he liked to stick into other people’s business had walked away. As if I needed one more member of this jury, which had all decided I was totally guilty.

  I would not cry.

  “Are we ready to go on?” Mo asked, her tone letting us know that there was only one answer. “We’ve lost enough time.”

  “Yes,” the other girls answered in unison.

  Mo looked at me.

  “I’m ready,” I whispered.

  As I passed by Noelle to climb up on my beam, I wanted to tell her I was sorry. But she wouldn’t meet my gaze, and I didn’t know how to say it. So instead I just went back to working on my choppy hand movements.

  It was a badly choreographed routine, but at least I’d done it a million times before. So when my eyes got too watery to see the beam, it didn’t really matter.

  At Texas Twisters, it was a tradition every Friday after practice for the Elite girls to go get frozen yogurt. It was supposed to build team spirit or something.

  Technically, if you really wanted to get down to it, we were not all Elite. Noelle and I both were, but neither Jessie nor Christina had qualified yet. In fact, that was why Christina was so determined to get that tucked full-in on floor—Mo told her she had to upgrade her level of difficulty if she expected to make the Elite team.

  Ever since the incident with Sparky, Christina had been shooting me death glares in practice, Noelle had been ignoring me, and Jessie just lifted her shoulders in a helpless gesture, like, It’ll get better.

  How can you have team spirit when you’re part of a team that doesn’t completely exist, and where nobody trusts you?

  Jessie and Noelle rode with Christina and her mom, since she came to every practice. They didn’t invite me to join them, but whatever. Mrs. Flores must have driven one of those newfangled SUVs with only four seat belts. Right.

  Mo drove me to the yogurt place. Cheng was back at the gym, since, as Jessie said, “If it doesn’t directly deal with gymnastics, he’s like a fish out of water.” Apparently, once he’d had to attend a banquet, when Noelle made the Elite team, and he had just sat there shredding his napkin until Mo told him to go on home.

  At first, it was super quiet—Mo didn’t even play music in the car, which struck me as the weirdest thing ever. She didn’t seem to be in the mood for conversation, either, but I decided to start one up anyway.

  “So,” I said, “I can totally do a full twist on beam, you know. I just messed it up before. But you should really think about putting it back in my routine, because that’s the move that’s going to get me to the Olympics someday.”

  Okay, so the last part might have been an
exaggeration, but that move would definitely have gotten me there faster than a stupid layout, that’s for sure.

  “You want to go to the Olympics?” Mo asked.

  Duh. Doesn’t everyone? Mo’s voice hadn’t lost its calm, even tone, so I wasn’t sure how she meant the question. Was she surprised because she didn’t think I could make it? Was she just curious? Was she bitterly reflecting on her own missed opportunity? I’d read in my mom’s brochure that Mo had been all set to make the Chinese Olympic team when she was eighteen, but that they’d replaced her with a vault specialist at the last minute, and that by the time the next Olympics rolled around, she had been past her prime.

  “Um, yeah,” I said.

  “Toe point get you to Olympics,” Mo said. “Clean lines. Consistency. Hard work. Those get you to Olympics.”

  “Right,” I said. “I know. All of those things, and awesome moves, like a full twist on beam. It qualified me as Elite, didn’t it?”

  “I saw that competition,” Mo said. “Full twist was good, but not good enough. You not ready.”

  “What do you mean, you saw that competition?”

  This time when she glanced at me, there was a slight sparkle in her eyes. “You think I sign just anyone for my gym?”

  This was the first I’d heard about there having been any sort of audition. Had she seen me compete and approached my parents? Or had they sent her a tape, and had she then invited me to come? I had so many questions, but when I opened my mouth to speak, Mo just shook her head.

  “You know what else get you to Olympics?” she said. “No talking. Just doing.”

  That seemed to be the Li family motto, because Cheng hadn’t spoken more than ten sentences to me during the last week I’d been training. And Mo didn’t say another word until we reached the yogurt place.

  To be honest, I’m more of a straight-up ice-cream girl. But welcome to the world of Elite gymnastics, I guess—from here on out, it was all about the frozen yogurt.

  Jessie’s mom was waiting for us, having headed over directly from her job. She’d brought a couple of bags of chips—“After a long day at work, I need something more substantial than yogurt,” she said—and she offered Jessie the sour-cream-and-onion ones, but Jessie refused.