Tumbling (4 page)

Monica had been standing in the middle of the floor, her right arm poised over her head, her left hand holding her leg up so it was practically touching her left ear. Her chest was sucking in air. Her muscles were jumping. Her eyes were wide open. For that split second—after the music stopped and before the clapping started—gymnastics belonged to her alone. There weren't any cameras, because she'd been a surprise. There were rarely good surprises in gymnastics. There were bad ones all the time—the steadiest gymnasts would fall, the most powerful gymnasts would miss a connection, the most consistent gymnasts would stumble on a landing—but the good stuff in the gym was pretty predictable. Monica on the floor one month ago had managed to be a surprise. And that was why she was here.

She was
lucky
to be here. That's what they were saying. But that moment after that floor routine at Nationals didn't feel like luck.

“Monica!” Ted whisper-yelled. He was standing over her, his large elbows on her shoulders, his coffee breath inches away from her cheek, as he assured her that there was no pressure on her.

“Look, it's not about the Olympics for you today, kiddo,” he said, his bushy blond eyebrows jumping around his forehead.

She made herself focus on him. She hadn't
expected him to pay her any attention at all today, with Grace, his star athlete and daughter, competing alongside Monica for the chance of her life.

“But it is about something, okay? I know you're years away from college, but you'll go this Olympiad, right? Well, let me tell you, there are recruiters here everywhere. I've talked to Arkansas, Florida, UCLA, LSU, Stanford, all the biggest programs.”

Monica stared at him, wide-eyed. Why would he choose this moment to lay out this information? Why would he wait until minutes before she was about to mount the podium for the first event in the biggest meet in her life to tell what her stakes were?

“And, kiddo, they're watching you. Almost every other gymnast in this room has given up her eligibility to compete in college gymnastics by taking endorsements and going pro. Not you. You are still technically an amateur. And that means the colleges, the NCAA programs, will be after you. They'll be paying extra attention to you today. And you're taking this gymnastics thing to college, right? That's always been our goal, right?”

Monica nodded. Most of the other GymCade elite gymnasts dreamed of Olympics and Worlds teams and nailing gold medals into the wall, but Monica wasn't that kind of gymnast.

Monica was a second-best kind of gymnast. An almost-good-enough-but-not kind of gymnast. It had been that way since she was a little kid: always the second
best in her gym, the red ribbon at the meet, the silver medal. And that was okay.

“It almost doesn't even matter how you do today, Mon. You're at the Olympic trials! We get you through the weekend with no disasters, we keep you healthy for two more years, and you should have a college scholarship in the bag. That's the goal, right?”

Monica whispered to herself the goal she always set: “Don't fall.”

Ted laughed. She hadn't realized she'd said it out loud.

“Sure,” he said, like he was brushing her off. “Don't fall. Also, let's get you an NCAA scholarship one day.”

“And now on uneven bars,” the announcer's voice called through the Metroplex, “Monica Chase!”

Her heart pounded, her kneecaps vibrated with nerves. Here she was, about to begin the most important event of her career—what was he doing writing all her goals in this minute? Here she was competing alongside stars like Wilhelmina Parker (who was Monica's secret gymnastics hero) and Leigh Becker (who was as nice as everyone said she was) and Georgette Paulson (who had wished her luck before the meet today). Now was the time to be steady and focused and to
not fall
.

“Have a good day, Mon,” Ted said. “That's all I'm saying. Just have a good day.”

Monica nodded.

She approached the platform with that mantra running through her head.
Just have a good day. Just have a good
day.

She chalked her hands and turned to salute the judges.
Just have a good day.

Before she threw her hands over her head, she noticed the cameras were gone. She glanced around. There were some at the vaulting table where Wilhelmina Parker was warming up. There were several gathered around Leigh where she sat on the floor munching on a PowerBar. There was one still zooming in too closely on her coach. Even at a meet this small—twelve competitors as opposed to twenty-four at Nationals and fifty at Classics—Monica would be ignored.

Her heart slowed just in time. That camera had been interested in Ted, the Coach of the Stars, not Monica. No one was paying attention to her. It was as if she were invisible. It wasn't a happy thought, but it was a calming one as she stood beneath the bars. This was like any day at the gym, any day at practice, any silly Level 9 dual meet like the ones at which she'd won silver after silver a few years ago.

Just have a good day. Don't fall.

Monica saluted the judges and piked onto the low bar. She transitioned off it in a straddle, launching her hips over the height of it and extending her arms so that her entire body hung in the air for a moment before she grasped the high bar.

She raised her body into her handstand, knees straight, toes pointed. Then she spun on her hands, a double pirouette, and swung her entire body around the high bar in a giant.

This was Monica's favorite event. It was like ballet, but upside down. She felt precise whenever she worked bars: her legs extended and split, knees straight and toes pointed, making her look like a human arrow.

Most of the time, in her tiny body, with her sheepish smile, Monica felt awkward and silly. But it was different in the gym. On bars, she felt beautiful.

When she released the bar, she flew feet above it and heard a few gasps from the audience. By the time she grasped it again, she was smiling.

She did two more giants, then her twisting backflip dismount.

She landed on the blue mat as if she were a butterfly on a windowsill. She stuck it. She saluted the judges.

No falls
, she thought.
A good day.

“Good job, kiddo,” Ted said when she hopped off the podium. He put one arm around her and patted her head. She stood still next to him, her blue-and-silver chest heaving for air, her muscles hot and taut, her abs flexing behind the silver fabric to keep the air in her lungs.

Then, in a blink, Ted was gone, the cameras trailing him across the floor as he searched for the real reason he was here.

“You were so good!” Kristin came up squealing behind her. She hugged her friend tight, then hugged the other gymnasts who lined up to congratulate her.

Leigh was last. “Good job, kiddo?” she whispered, mimicking Ted into Monica's ear.

Monica let go of her, took a step back, and lowered her eyebrows at Leigh.

“What's with that: ‘Good job, kiddo'?” Leigh asked.

Monica swallowed. Did Leigh think she didn't do a good job?

“He's your coach. He owes you more than ‘good job, kiddo,'” she said. “First of all, that was amazing. And, secondly, if you were Grace, he'd be telling you about every out-of-place pinkie toe.”

Now Monica's eyes got wide. She didn't know what to say.

“Well . . . you know . . . it's the Olympic trials . . . and Grace . . .”

Leigh shook her head and bit her lip. “I'm sorry. Not my business.”

Monica stared.

“I just think you did a really great job,” Leigh said again.

Inside, Monica squealed.

Then the numbers came booming across the gym speakers. Immediately both of their faces fell—Monica's to shock and Leigh's to horror.

Monica had just outscored the national champion on bars.

WILHELMINA

Wilhelmina hated her birthday.

For the past four years, it felt like it had shown up just to remind her how screwed over she was.

No, it wasn't today. If it were today, August 2 instead of January 4, everything about her life would be just fine.

She stood next to Camille and Samantha, halfheartedly shaking out her shoulders as she watched tiny Annie Simms launch her feather-like body over the vault.

“Remember when we looked like that?” Camille laughed.

Wilhelmina stretched her lips like rubber bands, hoping they looked like a smile. Camille was the only other one left from their old group of gymnast friends. They'd been friends because they were around the same age and started elite gymnastics at about the same time. They weren't best friends or anything. There was a whole group of girls, and they were each members of it, but they rarely spoke just the two of them. Wilhelmina and Camille hadn't been a pair of friends until the rest of the group disappeared.

And now Camille really wanted to be Wilhelmina's friend, and Wilhelmina was trying not to be a jerk about it. She'd managed not to hate Camille all year, which was impressive, considering their history.

But Wilhelmina was mad that Camille was here a second time when she hadn't even gotten a first chance yet. And then Camille woke her up last night, disturbing her sleep right before the biggest meet of her life, for a truly silly reason. Mina couldn't help but be annoyed about that.

“Welcome to the fogies club, ladies,” Samantha said. Once an all-around gymnastics sweetheart, Samantha wore her full warm-up suit because she wasn't even competing on vault today. At this point, Samantha competed only on bars and beam. But Wilhelmina knew that underneath the fabric she was still slender with ropelike muscles lining her pale arms and legs. Even her white-blonde hair, pulled into a bun, was thin.

Camille was built more like Wilhelmina—thick muscles clustering onto every bone, breasts and hips and a butt that made her look like an actual woman, enough body fat to have rolls on her stomach if she sat slouched over. They were like gymnastics twins: same shape, different color. But they weren't the same. Camille had been a skinny, feathery gymnast once, but Wilhelmina was always built like this. And, back when they were in their prime, Camille had been given a chance. Most of their friends had been given a chance. Wilhelmina hadn't.

“I wouldn't want to be that skinny,” Wilhelmina said.

She liked being larger. She was built like a tree. Instead of flying above the equipment in the gym, she took
it sailing with her, becoming a part of the vault, a part of the beam the way an oak is rooted to the earth no matter how fast the planet rotates. Wilhelmina was so solid that when you watched her perform—when you saw her flying above the vault or bars or beam all smooth, dark skin and bright leotard and muscles, muscles everywhere—you couldn't imagine her falling.

And she never had. Wilhelmina had pulled off the almost impossible: a long career in gymnastics with zero major injuries. Yet now Wilhelmina was almost unknown.

“It's awful to be a skinny mini,” Camille said. “Trust me. I know.”

Wilhelmina sighed and dropped into a split beside her. It would be impossible to avoid Camille all day. Wilhelmina was going to have to try to get along with her. After all, they were roommates for the weekend.

But it was hard to stand the sight of her because there was a good chance Camille was about to steal Wilhelmina's Olympic dream. There were Magic Markered, multicolored poster boards lining the stands with the phrase
Comeback Cammie
for a reason. Camille was a fan favorite as well as one of Katja's pets. And she was a hell of a vaulter. If she landed her four vaults in this meet, she was jumping on a plane to Europe.

Wilhelmina was like a ghost. The only people in the stands who remembered her name were probably her parents. And Davion. (Because he was here. He said he would be. But Wilhelmina wasn't going to let herself
get distracted by any boy—especially not today.)

Phil came over to the group and pulled Camille away. Wilhelmina's mouth relaxed out of its forced smile.

It was too hard to think about being nice. Wilhelmina was here to prove something. To prove everything.

• • •

Four years ago, when Camille and Samantha were named to the Olympic team, Wilhelmina could have beaten both of them with her arms tied behind her back. But four years ago, Wilhelmina's sixteenth birthday was four days shy of allowing her to compete as a senior.

In the year leading up to that Olympics, the FIG—the International Gymnastics Federation—was rethinking the rules about what age constituted a senior gymnast. Decades ago, there was no age limit. Then it was fourteen, then fifteen, then sixteen. The year Wilhelmina was fifteen, an Olympic year, her coach Kerry kept telling her to keep her fingers crossed. “They're talking about moving the age back down to fifteen, huh?” Wilhelmina would nod. “If they do, you'll be ready, huh?” Wilhelmina would nod. She'd kept her fingers crossed so tight they hurt.

The weird thing about the FIG is that it doesn't care when your birthday is. It's all about your birth year. So if you were fifteen in August but would turn sixteen before the end of the year, you were considered a senior already. Wilhelmina was born at the beginning of the
year. She didn't want that to screw her over.

But the FIG had maintained the age limit. A girl would not be considered a senior gymnast until the year she turned sixteen. And a junior gymnast could not compete at the Olympic level.

It was such an unfair, arbitrary rule that had robbed Wilhelmina of this experience when her body was most ready for it. She'd won the Junior National Championships and watched the Olympics on television. The next year, when Wilhelmina was finally a senior, she went to the World Championships as the USA star. She'd been one measly point away from beating the Chinese girl and winning the gold medal.

When she'd gone back to the gym after Worlds, Kerry had pulled Wilhelmina out of her warm-up drills. It was surprising. Kerry was more focused on warm-ups than any coach Wilhelmina had ever heard of.