by Gail Nall
“I’m not ready. Like, I know it’s important to compete the new program before Regionals, but what if I can’t do it?” Saying those words out loud is beyond scary.
“Kaitlin, you work harder than anyone else here. If you want it, you can do it,” Miyu says.
I smile. “Thanks. Greg keeps asking me things like, ‘Where’s the emotion? Where’s the heart?’ and telling me I have to feel the music, whatever that means. Sometimes I think the entire thing is just going to be this huge disaster, and maybe I just should’ve stuck to Swan Lake.”
“I know what you need,” Miyu says. “Time on the ice that’s not practice. Just fun. Let’s stay and do the public skate.”
I bite my lip to keep from smiling too much. I never knew what I was missing when I thought Ellery was my friend. Miyu always seems to know exactly the right thing to do. I check with Mom, even though I know she’d never say no to more skating time.
I haven’t been to a public session in years. I forgot how crowded it is. People cling to the boards to stay upright, and kids chase one another and crash everywhere on the ice.
Music blares from the speakers—music people actually listen to, not the classical pieces we use for our programs. And it’s loud. Really loud. People shout across the ice at one another, scream when they fall, and sing along to the music. One girl is doing some kind of dance on her brown rental skates to the song playing, her friends watching and laughing.
“This is insane,” I say to Miyu as we quickly maneuver around a guy who’s just fallen in front of us.
“I know. Isn’t it great?”
“Yeah.” And I mean it. “No one here cares about landing jumps or qualifying for Nationals or whether their mom thinks they’re wasting their time.”
“I wish someone would tell Addison that.” Miyu nods toward the middle of the ice.
Addison’s plugging away at her own footwork, a determined look on her face. I glance toward the bleachers, knowing what I’ll see there. Sure enough, Mrs. Thomas is camped out, watching her daughter’s every move. I half expect her to leap onto the ice with a camera, the way she did at the dance class.
“I know Addison hates me, but I kind of feel bad for her. Like her mom is making her practice,” I say.
Miyu watches Addison for a moment. “I know. Let’s go make her loosen up.”
“How?” I ask, but Miyu’s already gliding around other skaters to get to the middle.
“Hey, Addison,” she says.
Addison stops mid-turn. “What do you want?”
“To challenge you to a friendly competition.” Miyu smiles.
“How is that going to loosen her up?” I whisper in her ear.
Addison’s eyes bore into me. “Are you talking about me?”
I shift in my skates and pull on my new club jacket. “Um . . . no . . .”
“I can beat both of you at any competition.” Addison’s talking to Miyu, but she’s only glaring at me.
Miyu taps a finger on her chin like she’s thinking really hard about the perfect challenge. “How about a spin-off?”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“You don’t know anything, do you? You start with a basic spin. The next person adds a different position, the next person adds something else, and on and on until someone falls over or messes up the order.” Addison explains this to me like I’m some little kid who asked her how to skate backward.
“So, are you in?” Miyu asks her.
Addison glances up at her mom in the stands. “Of course I’m in. I’m a better spinner than either one of you. But only if Miss Klutz doesn’t punch me in the nose while she tries to keep up.”
“That was an accident,” I say, but Addison’s already doing tiny back scratch spins, rotating on the ice with her left foot crossed in front of her right. I flash back to my first week at Fallton, when Addison copied what I was doing, and I completely crashed on that sit spin combo. At least now I know what to expect from her.
Addison stops spinning long enough for a round of Rock, Paper, Scissors to see who starts. Miyu’s paper smothers our rocks. Addison and I stand on either side to keep anyone from running into her while she spins. Miyu does a perfect camel, her arms outstretched and her right leg lifted high behind her as she spins around and around.
She finishes with a flourish. “Next!”
I take her place and do the camel, then crouch down into a sit spin.
“Easy,” Addison says as I exit the spin.
“Do I see a spin-off?” Braedon skids to a stop, spraying ice all over Miyu’s tights.
She swats the ice off her legs. “You’re not invited.”
“Miyu . . . ,” I start to say. She’s the last person I’d expect to be so mean.
“It’s okay. She doesn’t like me. Though I don’t know why.” Braedon sticks out his bottom lip in a mock pout. “I know Kaitlin’s glad to see me.” He punches me lightly on the arm, and it feels like molten lava is spreading through my body.
Addison’s eyes flick from me to Braedon. “Why can’t he join? It’ll be fun. Who put you in charge anyway, Miyu?”
“We’ve already started, and he’s a level ahead of all of us,” Miyu replies.
“But I’m awful at spinning,” Braedon says.
If he doesn’t like to spin, then there has to be some other reason he wants to join us. I can’t help but hope it’s because he wants to hang out with me.
“Fine.” Miyu sighs. “You go after Addison.”
Addison shoots a smile at Braedon and starts spinning. She adds a layback after the sit spin, arching her back until she can almost see behind herself as she spins. Her arms form a perfect circle and her right leg is extended back and just slightly bent. “Good luck with that,” she says to Braedon after she finishes.
I wonder how in the world Braedon’s going to pull off a layback. Guys hardly ever do them.
“Just watch.” And he does it—sort of. He sticks his leg out at an awkward angle behind him and tilts his head back.
Addison dissolves into giggles. “That’s the worst layback I’ve ever seen!”
“Not cool!” he shouts as he does some weird thing with his leg out to the side and his body leaning the opposite direction.
“What kind of spin is that?” Miyu asks.
“I call it the Braedon,” he says.
“That’s a perfect name.” Addison’s smiling more than I thought was possible for her.
Then I realize she’s been smiling almost nonstop since Braedon showed up. It’s like the pieces of a puzzle have just fit together in my head. Addison likes Braedon. And I really hope he doesn’t feel the same way about her.
We go around and around, adding to the spin and getting dizzier with each turn.
“We have an audience,” Braedon says as Addison goes through the motions of our crazy spin.
Sure enough, there’s a circle of kids standing around us, watching Addison twirl away. She ends with an I-spin, her left leg practically touching her cheek in perfect splits. The kids around us clap. Addison ends with her arms gracefully outstretched and flashes a smile to everyone.
“Always performing,” Miyu whispers in my ear.
“Okay, that’s not fair,” Braedon says to Addison. “You know I can’t do that.”
“Then I win!” Addison jumps up and down on her toe picks.
“And I challenge all of you to a jump-off,” Braedon says.
“I don’t know. . . .” Miyu glances around the rink. “It’s really crowded. There’s not enough room.”
“Are you afraid I’ll win?” he asks.
“Of course not,” Miyu says.
“I’m in,” Addison says.
“Me too.” I look at Braedon. “You know I’m a jumping machine, right? There’s no way you’ll beat me.” If I’m confident about anything, it’s jumps.
“You’re on, Double Axel.”
I turn to Miyu. “C’mon, please? We’ll be careful about where we jump. It won’t be as good without you.”
“It does sound fun. . . .” Miyu surveys the crowd again.
I put my hands together like I’m praying.
Miyu rolls her eyes at me, but she’s smiling. “Okay, fine. But only jumps that all of us can do are allowed. Meaning no double axels or triple sals, Braedon. And it doesn’t count if one of us has to stop jumping to avoid hitting someone.”
“Sounds good,” Braedon says. “I’ll start.”
“Wait . . . ,” Miyu says, but Braedon’s already flying down the ice, weaving around little kids and their parents.
“Watch this!” he shouts.
“That’s too fast. He’s going to run someone over.” Miyu stands on her toe picks to try and see him.
I clench my hands as Braedon does a perfect double flip at the end of the rink.
The kids standing around us ooh and aah.
“That’s nothing.” Addison flips her ponytail over her shoulder and pushes off. She circles the rink a couple of times, spots an empty corner, and does a double flip and then a single loop with her arms over her head, jumping up and landing on the same foot.
“Awesome!” a kid next to me says.
“Show us what you’ve got, Double Axel,” Braedon yells across the ice.
I smile at him and take off. I pass a big group of ten-year-old girls with HAPPY BIRTHDAY ASHLEY T-shirts, doing their best to stay upright. I dart to the left to miss hitting a teenager in hockey skates, and then to the right to get around a mom and dad holding their little daughter up between them.
“Kaitlin, here!” Miyu shouts from behind me.
I do a quick glance and see the area where she’s pointing, just past the middle of the rink. I gather speed, turn backward, and pick in for the double flip just after I pass my friends. I land it easily, add the single loop with my arms over my head—which isn’t so easy—then step forward and leap up into a single axel. As I turn one and a half times in the air, Miyu shouts something. The jump moves so fast, I don’t have time to see what she’s yelling about.
But I find out when I land on top of one of the Happy Birthday Ashley girls.
Chapter Sixteen
“Oomph!” My breath rushes out as I crash into her. We both fall in a tangled mess of limbs and skates. I roll off her and sit up as fast as I can. My right elbow is throbbing where it made contact with the ice. I bend it. At least nothing’s broken.
“Are you okay?” I ask the girl with blond hair and braces lying next to me on the ice.
“Uh . . .” is all she says as one of her friends helps her sit up.
“Kaitlin!” Miyu scrapes to a stop beside me, Braedon and Addison right behind her.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Just bruised.”
Braedon reaches out a hand to help me up.
“I saw her at the last minute and tried to warn you, but it was too late.” Miyu peers around me. “She’s bleeding.”
I spin around to see the girl still sitting on the ice, her face turning white as she watches blood spread into the knee of her jeans.
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “I didn’t see you.”
The girl gives me a half smile. Her friend glares at me. “Isn’t it illegal to do crazy stuff like that when there are people who don’t know how to skate?”
“I—I’m sorry.”
Miyu touches my arm. “Kaitlin didn’t mean to hurt anyone. It was an accident.”
“We need to get you inside,” Braedon says to the girl. “Can you hold on to me and stand up?”
Two men push Braedon aside. “We’ll take her in,” one of them says. They must be fathers of a couple of the girls in the birthday group. They aren’t even wearing skates—just sneakers. They carefully pull the girl up and carry her into the lobby.
“I can’t believe that happened. What if she’s not okay? What if she’s hurt really bad?” I pull on the fingers of my stupid pink glove. Maybe if I was wearing my good striped gloves, this wouldn’t have happened.
“She’ll be fine. You just nicked her shin with the back of your blade,” Braedon says.
“She was bleeding!” There’s an edge to Miyu’s voice.
“Please. It’s not like blood was gushing out all over the place.” Addison twirls the end of her ponytail with her index finger as she looks up again at her mom in the stands. Mrs. Thomas is making this circular motion with one of her fingers, universal Skate Mom speak for Stop talking and go practice. “This is boring. I’m going back to my footwork.”
“Haven’t you done that to yourself before?” Braedon asks Miyu. “Like when you land a jump and you don’t pull your leg around fast enough?”
“That doesn’t matter. That girl wasn’t a skater. She didn’t come here expecting to get a blade to her leg.” Miyu’s hands are on her hips. She looks ready to start World War III with Braedon.
Braedon’s about to say something else, but I cut him off. “Hey, let’s go check on her,” I say to Miyu. I give Braedon a quick smile before skating off with Miyu toward the doors. He grins at me, and I go warm all over.
“I should’ve known that something bad would happen when he showed up,” Miyu says as we step onto the rubber mats. “It was his stupid idea to have a jump-off. I don’t know why I went along with it.”
“He just likes to have fun,” I say. “It’s more my fault than anyone’s, since I’m the one who ran into her.”
But Miyu’s right about one thing. Trouble seems to follow Braedon.
Mom talks nonstop about the Chicago Invitational while she drives me to Pizza Supreme to meet everyone from the rink. When we finally get there, she says, “I’ll be back to pick you up after the movie. Nine thirty on the dot. No later. You need your sleep. And don’t forget to have a salad with your pizza.”
I give her a kiss on the cheek and jump out of the car. When I open the door to the restaurant, I spot Miyu with a bunch of other kids in a booth near the back. Across from her is a guy with brown, swishy hair. Braedon.
Miyu spots me and waves. She scoots over and I sit next to her.
“Hey, Double Axel,” Braedon says in his smooth voice.
I can’t help the smile that creeps across my face.
“More like Klutzy Kaitlin.” Addison’s sitting to Braedon’s right. She giggles like she’s made the best joke in the world.
“Hey, Addison, I’m glad your mom let you out on your own for the night,” Miyu says with a fake smile.
“What does that mean?”
“She usually watches every move you make, doesn’t she?”
Addison narrows her eyes. “At least she cares. I’ve never seen your mom at the rink.”
“That’s because she works for a living.” Miyu sips her drink.
“Oh. So that’s why you’ve worn the same dress to every competition since last year,” Addison says with an innocent lift of her eyebrows.
“Quit being rude, Addison,” Jessa Hernandez says from the corner of the booth. “Everyone already knows about your four hundred dresses with ten million Swarovski crystals.”
“Kaitlin, did you meet this weirdo yet?” Braedon nods toward the guy sitting across from Jessa.
“Tom,” the weirdo who doesn’t look so weird says. Although he does look a little like a Q-tip, with his pale skin and blond buzz cut.
I recognize him as half the ice dancing team I saw doing all the crazy moves. “I’ve seen you at the rink.”
“Samantha and I just got back from training camp at Lake Placid,” Tom says.
“Really? That sounds cool.”
He runs a hand through his almost nonexistent hair. “It was brutal.”
“Tom and Samantha are the best dance team in the state,” Addison purrs. “Not th
at Kaitlin would know. She’s going to take beginner dance lessons with Svetlana.”
I kind of wonder if Addison will show up and crash my ice dance lesson the way she did the tango class. “I’ve taken dance before. It’s just been awhile. My old coach wanted me to focus on freestyle.”
Addison puts on a super-serious face. “That makes sense. No offense, but it’s obvious in tango class that you aren’t a natural dancer.”
Okay, I know I’m not that great, but I’m definitely not any worse than Addison. Miyu’s glaring at Addison. I clench my hands together and try to think of a good comeback.
“Need a partner?” Braedon gives me a half smile. “I’m always free for tango. Especially in a parking lot.”
I laugh a little too loudly and gulp ice water before Braedon can see how red my face is.
“So . . .” Addison shifts her gaze from me to Braedon. “What kind of pizza are you getting? Pepperoni? You look like a pepperoni kind of guy.”
“Actually, I can’t eat pizza crust,” Braedon says as he studies the menu. “I’m allergic to wheat. I have to order crustless pizza.”
Miyu elbows me. It looks like she’s biting the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.
“You are, really?” Addison’s practically simpering. “That sounds awful.”
“My pizza doesn’t even look like a pizza anymore. It’s just a pile of melted cheese, toppings, and some sad-looking sauce oozing out.” Braedon’s looking Addison right in the eye.
I shift in my seat and pull the menu up in front of my face. Hmm . . . pineapple and black olive pizza or . . .
I peek around the menu. Addison’s giving him flirty eyes. The kind of eyes Greg keeps telling me I need to do in my program. Except she’s really good at it. I try to memorize the look for my next lesson. Then I notice Addison’s hand on Braedon’s arm. Something sour rises from my stomach, and I feel the need to jump across the table and pry her hand away.
But I don’t. I just peer at them from around my menu until I hear a funny noise from down the table. Jessa’s hands cover her mouth, but little strangling sounds come out.
Miyu grins at me. I look around the table, and everyone—except Braedon and Addison—looks as if they’re about to burst into laughter. I’m trying to figure out what’s so funny when the waiter shows up.