Handsprings and Homework

by Jane Lawes

  Worn out and hands aching, Tara eventually sat down at her desk and opened her geography book. She knew the maths would take ages, so she rushed through the geography questions and moved on to Mr. Spencer’s worksheet. But she only got halfway through before she gave up. It was time for dinner and she was exhausted.

  After the competition training session on Sunday morning, Tara changed into jeans and a pretty pink top instead of just pulling comfy clothes on over her favourite black leotard with silver sparkles as usual. She pulled her messy blonde hair out of its ponytail and quickly brushed it. Even though it was the end of January and it was cold outside, the gymnasts had been working hard in the gym and Tara felt hot and sweaty as she hurried to put her leotard and tracksuit away in her bag. Mum, Dad and Anna would be waiting for her in the car park so that they could all go to Auntie Hazel’s house.

  Outside, the freezing air was refreshing.

  “Have a good afternoon!” called Lindsay, heading for her dad’s car.

  “Maybe see you at school tomorrow,” replied Tara. Suddenly she froze on the spot. School was tomorrow – and she still hadn’t finished that maths homework! Lunch with Auntie Hazel would take all afternoon, and then Emily and Kate were coming over to watch a DVD. How was she ever going to get all her homework done?

  “Emily!” Tara cried on Monday morning, seeing her friend standing by the school gate. “I need to ask you for something. A massive favour.”

  “Sure,” said Emily. “What do you want?”

  Tara took a deep breath. “I need to copy your maths homework.”

  “What?” gasped Emily. “But last night you said you’d done it.”

  “I don’t want to copy all of it…”

  “Why didn’t you do it?” Emily asked. Her blue eyes were wide with worry.

  “I started it,” said Tara, “but I didn’t have time to finish. There was so much, and I had geography and history to do too. Please, Emily,” she begged. “I really don’t want to get into trouble with Mr. Spencer.” Emily didn’t say anything. “Are you mad at me?” asked Tara.

  “No,” said Emily. Tara could almost see the thoughts going round and round in her friend’s head. “No, of course I’m not mad,” Emily said suddenly, more like her usual self again. “It’s no big deal. I’ve seen other people copying homework. I just never thought…” She didn’t finish. She dug around in her bag for her maths book. “Tara…maybe…do you think you’re spending too much time doing gym?”

  “Don’t worry so much, Em!” said Tara. “I’m fine. It’s been a bit busy but everything’s under control.”

  “Okay,” said Emily, holding her book out to Tara. She still sounded a bit unsure – although whether about letting Tara copy her work, or whether things really were under control, Tara couldn’t tell. “I don’t know if all the answers are right. Probably not.”

  Tara hesitated. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

  Emily hesitated too. “It’s fine,” she said finally. “It’s just homework. I don’t want you to get into trouble either.”

  “Thank you so much,” said Tara. She shoved the book into her bag, looking around to see if anyone was watching. She felt like she and Emily were doing something illegal. “I promise I won’t do this again.”

  Emily didn’t reply; she just looked worried.

  Chapter Eight

  On Wednesday, Tara sat in her geography lesson thinking about the Nationals. Mrs. James was handing back the class’s books with the previous week’s homework. Tara’s book slapped down onto the table, breaking her out of her daydream. She flipped the pages until she came to the last one she’d used. There was red writing all over it. See me, it said at the bottom. She glanced at Kate’s page, which was covered by neat handwriting and pretty red ticks. Tara waited while Mrs. James explained the task for the lesson and handed round some pictures to look at. Then she got up and took her book to the teacher’s desk.

  “Tara,” sighed Mrs. James. She pointed at Tara’s open book. “This isn’t good enough. I know you can do better.”

  “Sorry,” Tara said quietly.

  “How long did you spend on this?” asked Mrs. James. Tara was silent. Not long enough, she knew. Mrs. James sighed again. “I know you all like to go out and have fun at the weekends—” she began.

  “It wasn’t that!” Tara interrupted. “I had gymnastics both mornings, and loads of maths and history homework too.”

  Mrs. James raised her eyebrows. “You do a lot of gymnastics, don’t you?” she commented. Tara remembered that she’d talked about doing gym on her first day in Year Seven, when Mrs. James had got her form to tell everyone a bit about themselves. “Just make sure it doesn’t get in the way of your schoolwork,” she continued. Tara fiddled with the pink beads on the bracelet Kate had made her for Christmas. She nodded uncertainly. What could she do? It wasn’t as if she could just stop going to Silverdale and she didn’t think she’d spent that much time at home doing gym… “Go and sit down then,” said Mrs. James. Tara went back to her seat and miserably wrote the date at the top of the next page.

  Kate raised her head from her work and looked at Tara, full of silent questions. Matt grimaced and rolled his eyes, as if to say Teachers! Always complaining about something! It was meant to make Tara laugh…but it didn’t. She’d never been told that her work wasn’t good enough before.

  Maths was later, and it was worse. Mr. Spencer gave the class’s books to Alex, and he went around the room, handing them out and chatting. It gave the rest of the class time to chat, too. Tara had turned round in her seat and was talking to the girl who sat behind her when she heard someone come up to her table.

  “Tara, can I speak to you for a minute?” asked Mr. Spencer. Tara looked up at him, alarmed. Her hands went suddenly cold. She got up and went to the teacher’s desk, expecting him to follow. He didn’t. When she turned to look, he was standing by Emily and Kate’s table, and Emily looked just as worried as Tara. Emily stood up and came to the front of the room, followed by Mr. Spencer. Tara glanced at his desk. Her maths book was open at the page where she’d copied Emily’s homework. Emily’s book was open, too. Tara closed her eyes. She’d been caught.

  “Did you two do the homework together?” Mr. Spencer asked them.

  “No,” Tara whispered.

  “You’ve made a lot of the same mistakes,” the teacher said. He looked at them each for a long moment.

  “It’s not Emily’s fault!” Tara said. Her voice cracked on the first word.

  Mr. Spencer crossed his arms and looked at Tara. “What’s not Emily’s fault?” he asked.

  “I copied some of the questions,” Tara admitted. “I…I hadn’t finished and I…” She started to mumble, embarrassed. “I was scared of getting in trouble.”

  “You can sit down, Emily,” said Mr. Spencer. Emily took her maths book from the desk and looked worriedly at Tara as she went back to her seat.

  “Now, Tara,” Mr. Spencer continued. Tara was glad that their maths class was a noisy group. She hoped all the chatter would cover the sound of Mr. Spencer telling her off. “Can you tell me why you didn’t finish? Was it too difficult? You know that you can come and ask me for help.”

  “No, it wasn’t that…” said Tara. “I just didn’t have time.”

  “I see.” Mr. Spencer’s expression changed from kindness to a stern frown.

  “Because of gymnastics,” Tara explained. He probably thought she’d decided to go shopping or to the cinema or something instead of doing her homework. She had to make him see that it wasn’t like that at all. “I’m training for a big competition so there are extra sessions at weekends.”

  “Well,” said Mr. Spencer, “if you’re not able to keep up in school, maybe you need to think about giving up gymnastics. I’m going to have to mention this to your form teacher, and it’s up to her whet
her she takes it any further. If this happens again, we’ll have to speak to your parents. You can stay in at lunchtime and do some more questions on percentages. You won’t learn how to do this by yourself if you just copy the answers from your friends.”

  Tara went back to her seat. She felt angry for a second, but then she was ashamed. Mr. Spencer was right to give her detention. She had cheated on the homework, after all, even though she could have done the questions by herself. At least she didn’t have to stay behind after school to do it, so she was saved from having to miss training at Silverdale. At the thought of Silverdale, she remembered what Mr. Spencer had said – he couldn’t really think she should give up gym to concentrate on school stuff, could he? Well, so what? thought Tara. Teachers didn’t have the power to stop her doing gymnastics.

  But he could tell Mum and Dad that it was getting in the way of her schoolwork, she realized. And if that happened, would Mum and Dad still think gymnastics was a great idea?

  “Are you okay?” asked Alex.

  Tara nodded, hardly even hearing him. If Mr. Spencer or Mrs. James spoke to Mum and Dad, they might decide she had to stop going to Silverdale. No more Nationals. No more Acro. No more Clare, or Lindsay, or all that wonderful equipment. She couldn’t go back to practising by herself in the garden. Her eyes filled with tears just at the thought of it.

  Chapter Nine

  The most wonderful thing about gymnastics, Tara thought, was that it could instantly make everything better, even if it was only for a little while. Tara and Lindsay tried the straddle lever balance again that afternoon. It didn’t come immediately. The first few tries were almost as bad as when they’d first started learning it. As soon as Tara took her feet off the floor, she went tumbling down to one side. But once they got into it, the balance started to come more easily. Half an hour and countless attempts later, when Tara’s leotard was sticking to her back with sweat, they held the balance well for four whole seconds. Then Tara brought herself neatly down to stand on the floor behind Lindsay’s head, back in her starting position, still gripping Lindsay’s hands. She grinned down at Lindsay, who was laughing up at her from her position on the floor. Tara swung Lindsay’s arms back and forth excitedly.

  “Nationals here we come!” said Lindsay. The others, who’d been secretly watching while they worked, clapped and cheered. Then it was straight back to work.

  By the end of the session, they’d really got it, and Tara felt like anything was possible. She couldn’t wait to tell Mum and Dad about it!

  “How was school?” asked Mum, as soon as Tara got home from Silverdale that evening. Lindsay’s mum had driven her home.

  “Okay.” Tara shrugged, disappointed that Mum hadn’t asked about gym. There was no way she was telling her what had happened in the maths lesson. Maybe if she did her homework really well for the next few weeks, Mr. Spencer wouldn’t tell either.

  “Have you got any homework?” Mum asked, while she was setting the table for dinner.

  Tara frowned, kicking her shoes off and dumping her school bag on the kitchen floor. “Some English,” she said, and then scowled even more. “And some French questions I’ve got to give in tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” Mum sounded surprised. “They don’t usually ask for something in the next day.”

  “It was set on Monday,” Tara told her guiltily.

  “I’ve done my homework,” Anna said proudly.

  “Yours was only a bit of reading,” said Tara. “Wait until you get proper homework, then you won’t want to do it so much.”

  “I thought you liked French,” said Mum.

  “It’s alright,” said Tara. “But I’d much prefer to get homework from Silverdale!”

  “I bet you would,” laughed Mum. “And I bet I’d never have to nag you to get on with it.”

  Tara smiled, but she couldn’t help worrying about what Mum would think if Mr. Spencer told her she’d copied Emily’s work. Feelings of guilt crept over her again, so she grabbed her school bag and ran upstairs, away from Mum and Anna. She was afraid they’d guess that something was wrong.

  She changed quickly out of her navy blue and grey school uniform, which she had put back on after gym, and into a pair of jeans and a cosy green jumper. She set her French exercise book and textbook out on her desk, all ready to go as soon as she’d finished eating dinner.

  When they sat down to eat, Anna chatted on and on about her day at school. Tara let her talk. She definitely didn’t want to tell everyone about her own day, and she didn’t want anyone to bring up homework again.

  As soon as dinner was over, she went back upstairs and sat down at her desk, but the blocks caught her eye and she couldn’t resist. Doing the balance on Lindsay’s hands had felt so good, and she wanted to get that feeling back. Worrying about homework and Mr. Spencer and being in trouble for copying felt horrible. She knew that a few minutes on the blocks would help…

  The next thing Tara heard was Anna saying goodnight and going to bed. She looked at the clock. It was 8 p.m. already! She still hadn’t even taken her pencil case out of her bag. Mum knocked on her bedroom door.

  “Watch this,” Tara said grinning, when Mum opened the door. She performed her best straddle lever.

  “Brilliant!” said Mum. “Did you get all that homework done?”

  “Oh, um…yes.”

  “Good,” said Mum. “How about you stop working hard for the evening and come and watch a bit of telly with me before bed?”

  Tara couldn’t admit that she hadn’t really done her homework. She had no choice but to follow Mum downstairs, desperately trying to figure out when she was going to do those French questions. Maybe if she got up really early the next morning…

  Chapter Ten

  But the next morning there wasn’t time. She was kept awake all night by worried thoughts, and when she finally got to sleep, she was so tired that she slept right through the extra-early alarm she’d set. In fact, she didn’t wake up until Mum called her. She got dressed and ate breakfast as fast as she could, but she didn’t have time to do even one question before she had to leave to catch her bus. She knew she wouldn’t even be able to do the work at break, or lunch, because French was the first lesson of the day. Maybe her French teacher would forget to ask for their books. All she could do was cross her fingers and hope.

  There was no chance to rush through the questions in her form room during registration either, because they had to go straight to a big assembly for all of Year Seven, Eight and Nine. Tara caught sight of Lindsay and Megan sitting with the other Year Nines. They smiled at her and Lindsay waved, but Tara was too worried to do anything except smile quickly back and look out for Miss Carter sitting with the other teachers. Her last hope was that the French teacher might be out of school today.

  That hope didn’t last long. She spotted Miss Carter, and then saw that Mrs. James was sitting next to Mr. Spencer, talking quietly and looking concerned. Tara swallowed. Was Mr. Spencer telling Mrs. James about Tara copying Emily’s maths homework?

  Assembly went on longer than it should have done. When they were finally released from the hall, everyone rushed off to their first lesson. Tara hurried along the corridor with Kate, but inside all she wanted was to slow right down and never get there.

  Miss Carter didn’t ask for their homework straight away. They learned the names of different foods and then spent the rest of the lesson in pairs, pretending to order things in a cafe. By the time the bell rang, Tara felt much more relaxed. She’d almost forgotten about the homework, and the class immediately started putting away books and pencil cases.

  “Not so fast!” called Miss Carter. “Pass your books to the front, please.”

  Tara felt her stomach plummet down to her feet. Everyone began to pass their blue French exercise books forward to the person sitting in front of them. Matt, in front of Tara, looked back
at her, holding out his hand. She quickly shook her head, and he shrugged, turning back to the front.

  When the books were piled on Miss Carter’s desk, she counted them. Then she frowned and went through them more slowly, looking up at the class every few seconds to check names against people. Finally she raised her head again, looking straight into Tara’s anxious brown eyes. Tara’s heart beat as fast as if she’d just taken a big run-up on the tumble track and flown into a handspring.

  “Where’s your book, Tara?” asked Miss Carter.

  Tara swallowed. “I haven’t done the questions,” she said. She could feel twenty-seven pairs of eyes staring at her.

  “I see,” said the teacher. “You can all go,” she said to the rest of the class. “Tara, we’ll talk about this at break time. Go along to your next lesson now.”

  Tara gratefully got up and hurried out of the classroom, where Kate was waiting for her after her English lesson in the room next door.

  Tara barely heard Kate’s chatter as they walked towards their next classrooms. There were too many silent questions going round in her own head. Was Miss Carter going to tell Mrs. James? Tara had already had detention for copying Emily’s maths homework, and she guessed that Mrs. James knew about that now. What was going to happen this time?

  Music was next, but Tara barely heard any of the lesson and she spoke as little as she could get away with. In less than an hour she was going to find out how much trouble she was in. She was afraid she was going to cry.

  At break time, she forced herself to go back to Miss Carter’s classroom. Mrs. James was there too, sitting at her desk with a mug of tea.

  “Um…hi…” Tara said quietly. Mrs. James looked up and put down her pink and white polka-dot mug.