by Laurence Yep
I might have been unlucky with the Coin of Destiny, but I was a genius with cards. I managed to shoot the moon in the next two games, with appropriate groans and lamentations from my brothers. I was trying my best not to gloat, because I’d never skunked them by seventy-eight points before, when suddenly it hit me. I’m good, but not that good.
I squinted at them suspiciously. “Have you guys been letting me win?”
Rick straightened indignantly. “I’m offended that you’d even suggest we’d throw a game. You’re just too sharp for us tonight, Sis.” Perry and Skip just nodded.
I glared at my three brothers until softhearted Skip cracked. “We didn’t plan it, Sis,” he said, scratching behind his ear guiltily. “It just sort of happened.”
“I don’t want cheap victories,” I snapped.
“Which is why you get in over your head,” Rick said. “Remember that time you got stuck on the monkey bars at the playground?”
“I was only five,” I reminded him.
“All the more reason why you shouldn’t have taken that dare from the other kids,” Perry said.
They had heard me crying, stuck at the top of the monkey bars, and had gotten me down.
“And you’re still getting in over your head,” Rick said. “Don’t get me wrong about your figure skating. I realize now that what you do is great—and you’re good at it. But did you have to pick something where we can’t help you anymore?”
“Yeah,” Skip agreed, “do you know how frustrating that is? If you get into trouble during your routine, all we can do is sit on our hands.”
“We’re not used to feeling helpless,” Rick agreed.
“Especially where you’re concerned,” Skip added.
“Enough,” Perry said to our brothers. “Mia’s got more guts than I’ll ever have—than any of us has. I’d be scared out of my wits to be out there all by myself on the ice.”
Skip winced. “Yeah, I’ll only play sports that surround me with lots of teammates. I know if I make a mistake, they’ll make up for it. But out there, in the middle of an empty rink, you’re all on your own.”
I knew their words were meant to support me, but I wished they hadn’t reminded me of how lonely it can be out on the ice with everyone watching only me. Not that it matters anyway, since now I’m not going to Regionals, I thought.
“I smell chocolate,” Dad said from the doorway as he sniffed the air. “Just the thing to warm someone up.”
“Want me to make you a cup, too?” Skip offered.
Mom and her crutches came thumping up behind Dad and into the room. “That depends on if it’s really chocolate or if it’s mud,” she teased.
Skip rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed. “That was a long time ago when I played that trick on Mia.”
Mom plucked a tissue from the box on my desk and wiped my upper lip. “You’re off the hook, Skip. It’s just a milk mustache this time.”
“Mom and I came up to tell you again how sorry we are,” Dad said. He was wearing a heavy jacket and a wool cap.
My parents were still looking sad and worried. “What for?” I asked. “You’re the best parents anyone could want.”
“Ahem.” Skip cleared his throat and clinked a nail against the side of the cup.
I laughed. “And the best brothers, too.” I began to gather up the cards. “And this time, let’s play hearts for real. Want to join in?” I asked Mom and Dad as I scooted over on my bed to make room for Mom and her awkward white cast. Dad pulled my desk chair close.
“It’s been a long time since we had a six-handed tournament,” Dad agreed.
Mom was already reaching for the deck to shuffle the cards.
At my next practice, with nothing to lose, I just tried to skate to the music. It was almost as if I felt every note in my body, and it made me all the sadder to realize that I wouldn’t be able to perform at Regionals.
The coach grinned and nodded through it all, and when practice was over, she said excitedly, “You’re finally getting it! That was the best you’ve done so far!” She broke off when she saw my face. “What’s wrong, Mia?”
When I told Coach Schubert, she looked as upset as Mom and Dad had been. She skated away in a wide ragged circle before she looped back to me. “I wish I could buy your boots and dress for you,” she said, “but if I did it for one of my students, I’d have to do it for all.”
“Thank you, Coach Schubert, but that would be special treatment—and that wouldn’t be fair,” I said.
“You’re right.” The coach nodded her understanding. “Still, I wish there was something I could do.”
I thanked the coach for her concern and then left the rink as quickly as I could. I didn’t want to break into tears in front of her. Later, all day at school, I moved like a zombie, and I still felt numb inside when I went home.
Even if I didn’t feel very happy, I put on a cheerful face when I walked through our front door. I’d intended to do Mom’s chores, but I could see that she’d finished a lot of them already, in spite of her leg. She is a wonderful mother but a terrible patient, so I scolded her about overdoing it.
“Enough, already!” Mom protested with a laugh. “Claire brought me lunch and did a few things to help out this afternoon.” Claire is our next-door neighbor. “Now,” she stopped to yawn, “if you’re done lecturing me, I think I’ll take a snooze.”
I was glad that I could get straight to my homework and keep busy. I didn’t have a moment to think about my lost opportunity until I had finished all my assignments.
When I went back downstairs, Mom was still napping on the sofa, so I tucked a blanket around her—even though she was wearing a scarf and a coat. It was colder than ever in the house and we weren’t scheduled to get our new furnace until tomorrow.
Bundling up even more, I left Mom a note and went down to the pond.
The cold, sunny weather had brought the color out in the trees, and I felt as if I were walking through a tunnel of bright red, gold, and orange tiles. The air was still, so the water was calm, reflecting the colors of the grove and the blue sky above.
The surface was so smooth, it might have been ice—and I wished it were. Skating on the pond always makes me feel better. It’s my true home ice.
I brushed some leaves off a log and sat down, remembering all the hockey games my family had played here. Life was a lot simpler when my brothers and I were younger and the pond was the center of our world. There were no tournaments, no Regionals, no fees, and no disappointments—just skating and playing.
I sat there for a long time, ignoring the chill that started to creep through my jacket. Suddenly I heard the muffled strains of Swan Lake from inside my pocket. Rick had downloaded a section as the ring tone on my cell phone. I made a note to myself to ask him to change it to something less painful.
“Mia?” Mom’s voice came through the phone. “Where are you? You’ve got visitors.”
Puzzled, I said, “I’m at the pond. I left you a note on the table. But who’s here?”
“I’ll send them down to you,” Mom said.
I started walking back up the path and ran into Bob and Nelda before they had come a third of the way. “Look at this,” Nelda said as she took a big whiff of fresh, cold air. “I feel as if I’ve walked right into the middle of a greeting card.”
Bob is happier with machines than he seemed to be with Mother Nature. “Humph,” he snorted, “it would take some clearing up out here if you wanted to bring the Beast here to sweep the pond.” “The Beast” is Bob’s nickname for the Lucerne’s old ice-resurfacing machine, and he tends it as if it were his baby. “But we didn’t come here to commune with the Earth, did we?” he asked, nudging Nelda.
“No, we most definitely did not.” Nelda tore her gaze from the trees and gave me a grin that Zuzu might have worn if she’d found a giant box of chocolate-covered nuts. “When the coach told us about your circumstances…well, we all thought it’d be a waste if you didn’t get a chance to go to Reg
ionals.”
Bob shifted uncomfortably. Give him a microphone in the sound booth at the rink and he can talk all day, but he isn’t used to giving speeches in person. “Mia, if you’re not skating at the Lucerne, you’re helping out there, so you spend almost as much time there as the staff.” He cleared his throat. “We’ve come to think of you as one of the gang, so”—he took a plastic bag from behind his back and held it out to me—“Mona and I and the whole gang all chipped in to get you these.”
I reached out my hand eagerly but then stopped. “I…I’m sorry, but I can’t take it.”
“You’d take help from your family, right?” Bob argued. “Well, we’re like your family, aren’t we?”
“Sure, but…” My fingers were itching to take the bag, but I still held back.
“We already asked your mom, and she said it was all right,” Bob said.
When I opened the sack, I took out a pair of boots. “You got me new ones!”
“Technically, they’re a used pair, but they’ve hardly been worn,” Bob explained. “Mona must have called up every shop in six counties, and then she drove over to pick them up personally.”
I ran my hand over the leather, which felt as smooth as if the boots had just come from the factory. It took me a moment to find my voice. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
Bob pointed at the blades with the guards he held in his hand. “I’ve been saving those to give you. They’re the top of the line, with very little wear on them. And I sharpened them special for you.”
Nelda held out another plastic sack. This one had Zuzu’s face on it. “And here’s my latest pattern for a skating dress, some new fabrics, and some special trims and embellishments that I think will go great with it. I believe in helping those who help themselves.” She grabbed my free hand and pressed the sack into it. “And don’t argue. Take it. Consider it payment from Zuzu for all the publicity you got her. And actually, you’d be doing me a favor if you would try it out. Test it, sort of. See if it’s a good pattern.”
Bob nodded encouragingly. “Yessir, Mia, you’re going from squirrel to guinea pig.”
Because of them, my miserable day had turned right-side up again. I couldn’t believe it! I reached out and hugged both of them, thanking them over and over.
Nelda gave a snuffle and wiped her eyes. “Well, I shouldn’t keep Zuzu waiting. She’s got that new set of ads to shoot, and I ought to be there.”
“And the Beast was coughing this morning, so I ought to see what’s wrong,” Bob said with a wave.
I walked them back to their cars, thanked them a few dozen more times, and then went inside the house where Mom was waiting. Together we examined the contents of Nelda’s bag. The pattern was for one of the prettiest skating dresses I’d ever seen, and when we took the silvery fabric from the bag, it shimmered in our hands.
“Do you know how much this stuff costs?” Mom gasped.
“Lots?” I asked.
Mom took the trims and decorations from the bag and laid them across her lap. “Let’s just say that when Zuzu thanks you, she really thanks you.”
I looked again at the fancy material. Crooked seams and puckered fabric would ruin even the best dress design. “Um, do you think you can handle it, Mom?” I asked, remembering the Halloween costume disaster.
“It’s so beautiful that it makes me nervous to even think of cutting it. And I don’t know how I can sit at the sewing machine with this cast. But maybe you can help me with it,” she said. “You know how to sew now.”
“But I’m just a beginner. Sort of like a Twinkle, only in sewing,” I pointed out. “Where do we start?”
We gazed helplessly at Nelda’s gift, spread out in front of us on the coffee table. “Such a lovely design and material,” Mom said, running her fingers wonderingly over the fabric. “It’d be a waste not to use them, and yet it would be such a waste to botch sewing them.”
“Hey, no guts, no glory,” I said, reminding her of the family motto.
But each of us was so afraid to attempt it that we just sat there holding the material. We might have been sitting there all afternoon if Coach Schubert hadn’t rung the doorbell.
“I just came by to see how things were going,” she explained. “How’s your leg, Eve?” Then she saw the gifts from Nelda and Bob. “Is this what Nelda brought? She asked me if I thought you’d accept it, and I told her it was a possibility.” Her eyes shone as she inspected Nelda’s gift. “Wonderful! She’s outdone herself with the design. And the material! It’s so lovely, and such a perfect color for you, Mia. I can’t wait to see it when it’s finished.”
“Neither can I,” Mom said gloomily.
“Is something wrong?” the coach asked, puzzled.
Mom cleared her throat uncomfortably. “I haven’t always had the greatest success sewing stretch fabrics.”
“It can be tricky,” the coach acknowledged, and then she turned her eyes to me.
I shook my head. “I’m still pretty new at sewing.”
“No wonder you both looked so down when I came in.” The coach rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “This is like giving a hungry person a can of ravioli and no can opener.” She started to take off her jacket and then thought better of it in our chilly house. “Maybe I can help. I can’t buy a dress for you. However, there’s nothing wrong with helping you make one.”
“You sew, too?” Mom blurted out in amazement.
“I wouldn’t have had skating costumes if I hadn’t learned how. My family never had a lot of money.” She held up her hand. “When I was a kid, I used to have bandages on all my fingers at first. I’ve got the photos to prove it. But I think the most painful part was having the other skaters make fun of my clothes while I was learning how to sew my dresses.”
I let that sink in. “If it was that hard, did you ever feel like quitting?”
“It was even harder on my family,” the coach confessed, “but there was never a question of quitting. My father always used to say that it takes a lot of work to get anything of real value. But then it’s all the sweeter when you attain it.”
Mom’s sewing machine was set up on a small table in the corner of the living room. The coach took some measurements and then sat down and made adjustments to the machine. “I warn you, though, Mia,” the coach said, “this is going to cost you. I’m going to expect you to work twice as hard at practice from now on.”
I felt a wave of excitement surge through me now that I had hope again. “That’s just what I plan to do,” I promised. “You don’t throw away a second chance.”
“I thought you’d say that,” she said approvingly.
It was like magic watching the dress take shape under the coach’s skillful hands, and while she cut and sewed, we eagerly discussed my routine. I had performed it so often that by now we’d developed our own shorthand method of talking about each element, so it was almost like a secret code.
The coach and I were lost in our own little world when Mom interrupted. “I’m a terrible host. Can I get either of you anything?”
That was the last thing she should be doing with a broken leg. “Please, Mom. I’ll do it. You take it easy,” I urged.
“But you’re busy, and I’m not doing anything anyway,” she said.
At first, I couldn’t understand why she was frowning. After all, the coach was sewing the dress for us so that I’d be able to go to Regionals.
“I’m sorry,” the coach apologized to Mom. “We’ve been rude, talking skating like that.”
“No, please don’t mind me,” Mom said. “You can help Mia with this, and I can’t.”
When I thought about it, I guess we had sort of left Mom out of the conversation.
The coach glanced at me. “I hope you won’t be disappointed, but I can only help you with the sewing machine part.” She nodded at everything that was still spread across the coffee table. “It’s all those things that will really make the dress, and I’m not good with a needle and thread. My mother and aunt used
to finish all my skating outfits for me.”
Mom perked up. “I’m much better with a needle and thread than I am on the machine.”
“Then maybe you and Mia should start thinking about the next step,” the coach suggested. “Anyway, I should focus on the dress instead of babbling.”
Mom looked at the coach skeptically, as if she suspected that the coach was as skillful with hand sewing as she was with a machine, but she was glad of the excuse, and so was I.
It was fun to plan out the rest of the dress and the hair accessory with Mom, and as we discussed it all, Mom was always diplomatic enough to ask the coach’s opinion. And the coach was just as polite, deferring to Mom’s judgment.
The two of them could have given lessons to the United Nations about getting along.
Mom’s leg was healing well, so the doctor replaced her bulky and heavy cast with a lightweight fiberglass one just before we left for Regionals. Mom said it was more comfortable, and I could see that she was getting around more easily. We rode up with Anya and her mother in their car, the moms in the front and Anya and I in the back. Even with the competition looming ahead of me, it still felt like a holiday to be together with both Mom and my friends.
When I travel with my brothers to hockey tournaments in faraway cities, we always stay at inexpensive motels that are nothing like the Oakville Arms. At twelve stories, the hotel towered above the surrounding buildings, and it actually had a chandelier in the lobby!
The lobby was packed with skaters of all levels and their families and coaches. Some of the skaters were even younger than we were. Adding to the hubbub were fans snapping pictures.
Anya, her mother, and I tried to protect Mom as we threaded our way through the mob and got into line at the reservation desk.
Back home, I’d felt so important to be competing at Regionals, but now that I was here, I felt as small and insignificant as a candle trying to compete with the sun. Instinctively, Anya and I drew close together until we were shoulder to shoulder.