Friendships and Backflips

by Jane Lawes

  “We’ll see,” muttered Sam, standing behind them.

  By the time they finished on the track, Tara had ended another two somersaults sitting on the mat, but had landed one more on her feet. The landing might not have been perfect, but she was just happy to be standing up.

  Later, while Tara was holding a steady front angel above Lindsay’s head, she looked around at the rest of the gym. One of the things that she really liked about the Wednesday afternoon training sessions was that they used the gym at the same time as the more advanced Acro squad. They were in training for international competitions and some of them were already World Champions. Tara loved stealing glances at them while she warmed up, or when she was doing an easy balance. She often saw Jasmine watching them too, and guessed that her friend had set her heart on being part of that group someday.

  Lindsay brought Tara down from front angel and back to reality. She took another quick look at the advanced group and made a promise to herself that she would be one of them in a few years. The Regional competition was the first step on the way.

  “Do you think they ever struggled with the kind of balances we’re doing?” Tara asked Lindsay, tilting her head towards the advanced group on the other floor area.

  “Of course,” said Lindsay. “Steph used to be in this group – she started here the same time as me and she found things hard just like everyone else.”

  “How did she get into that group?”

  Lindsay shrugged. “Partly luck. They needed a new base and she was the right height. If they’d wanted a small gymnast to be a top in balances, it would’ve been Jasmine. But Steph’s good, and she always works really hard. They notice that sort of thing.”

  Tara nodded. She could do the hard work part. Maybe if she crossed her fingers and used all her birthday cake wishes for the next few years, someone else would take care of the luck.

  “Let’s get back to work,” said Tara. “Do you want to go through the whole routine, or just balances again?”

  “Have you got plans to move group, then?” teased Lindsay with a knowing smile.

  “Not just yet,” said Tara. She grinned. “Let’s win this competition first.”

  Clare asked Tara to stay behind at the end of training. As she sat down on the floor and waited for Clare to finish chatting to another coach, Tara watched her group disappear into the lobby, and felt her stomach plummet down to the springy floor. What did Clare want to talk to her about? Had she done something wrong? Maybe Clare had decided to pull her out of the competition…but then wouldn’t she have kept Lindsay back too?

  The advanced group still had another half an hour of training and Tara watched Steph and her partner enviously as they performed neat backflips followed by back somersaults, perfectly in time with each other. She wished that she could do a backflip so easily. With all the practice for the competition, she hadn’t had a chance to work on them for a while.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Tara,” Clare said, coming back to the floor.

  Tara got to her feet nervously. “Is something the matter?” she asked.

  Clare smiled. “Don’t look so worried! You’re not in trouble. Come with me.” She turned and walked towards the door. Tara followed her coach out to the lobby and into the gym club’s small office. She looked around at the cluttered shelves and the desk piled high with folders, pieces of paper, water bottles and lunch boxes that had been left behind. She’d never really thought about this side of the gym; she’d had no idea that so much went on behind the scenes of coaching and competing. Just like in the lobby, there were lots of photographs on the walls – old Summer Display pictures, and more photos of gymnasts holding up trophies and medals. There was a beautiful framed poster of an Acrobatic Gymnastics mixed pair too. The boy was holding the girl high above his head; she was standing on his hands, balancing on one foot. She was holding the other foot up behind her to touch her head. Tara gazed at the image in awe.

  Clare smiled, seeing her expression. “That was a long time ago,” she said. “They were one of the best pairs we’ve ever had here. They won every competition going, when they were at their best.”

  “Wow,” breathed Tara.

  Clare let Tara look at the poster for a few more seconds. “Now,” she said. “I asked you to stay behind because we need to get you sorted out with a leotard and tracksuit for the competition.”

  Tara’s entire face lit up. One of the things she’d noticed about the photos in the lobby was that a lot of the gymnasts who’d won competitions were wearing the same leotard. She couldn’t wait to have one of her own; an official Silverdale leotard.

  Clare pulled a box out from under the desk. She rummaged around, and handed Tara a leotard folded and wrapped in plastic. Then she pulled out a bigger package that contained the tracksuit. Lindsay and the others in her group often wore their Silverdale tracksuits to keep warm at the beginning of training.

  “Go and try these on,” said Clare.

  Tara didn’t need telling twice. She beamed, then skipped out of the office and into the changing room.

  The leotard fitted perfectly. It felt as if it had been made especially for her. She looked in the mirror. The Silverdale squad leotards were sleeveless and velvety; dark blue with a white flame that licked down diagonally from the right shoulder. Only gymnasts who competed were allowed to wear them. She tried the tracksuit on too. It was also navy blue and white, and said Silverdale Gymnastics Club on the back in white letters. It fitted well.

  Tara hugged her arms around herself with excitement. She couldn’t wait until the competition, when she could wear the leotard and tracksuit for real as part of the Silverdale team. With only three weeks to go, it suddenly felt a lot closer.

  Chapter Nine

  “I’ve just had the best idea!” Kate said on the first Sunday of half-term. She was sitting on the floor of her bedroom with her back against the end of her pink and white bed. She tilted her head backwards to look at Emily and Tara, who were lying on their stomachs, side by side on the bed. They were watching a film they’d all seen before, so they were talking over most of it. Tara was tired from a hard session at the gym that morning, but she was so happy to finally be watching a DVD on a Sunday evening with her friends. She felt like she hadn’t seen Emily and Kate for ages and she really missed them. Half-term meant that homework could wait. Tonight was all about films, fun and friendship.

  Kate turned to announce her plan. “Do you guys want to go ice skating tomorrow?”

  “Can’t,” said Tara. “I’ve got gym.”

  “But it’s half-term!” moaned Kate. “We’ve survived almost two months of Year Seven, now we need to have some fun. Don’t you get any holidays?”

  “No. We have extra training for the competition instead,” Tara replied. “I don’t want holidays from gym, anyway. The extra sessions are great. Megan did the funniest impression of Clare the other day!”

  “Can’t we go in the morning, before gym?” suggested Emily.

  “Not really,” Tara said. She was trying to see if she could lift one leg behind her and touch her foot to her head without raising herself up. She stopped for a moment and reached for a handful of popcorn from the bowl next to Kate. “I’ve spent so much time training for Regionals that I’m really behind on homework. I haven’t even started my art project yet.”

  “Why don’t you come round to mine another day and we can all do our homework together?” said Emily. “Do you have to do a talk about something important in history? We’ve all got different teachers, so Kate and I thought we could all pick the same topic and do the research together.”

  “We were thinking of doing the Great Fire of London – something really dramatic,” added Kate.

  “Oh, well…” Tara mumbled, wondering when they had made all these decisions. “I kind of wanted to do mine about the history of the Olympics.”r />
  Kate rolled her eyes. “Let me guess: so you can talk lots about gymnastics?”

  “Mr. Bruce did say we should choose something we’re interested in,” Tara said, trying to defend herself, but Kate sighed loudly and angrily.

  “All you care about is gymnastics!” she said.

  “That’s not true!” Tara sat up on the bed. “It just takes up a lot of time…”

  “Yeah, we know that. We never see you any more! And when we do see you, it’s all you ever talk about!” Suddenly Kate was almost shouting. “You’re always talking about your Silverdale friends – it’s like you don’t want to be friends with us any more.”

  “Kate, stop it…” Emily said quietly.

  But Kate was too angry to stop. “It’s always ‘Lindsay this’ and ‘Megan said that’ and I’m sick of it. I wish you’d stop being so boring!”

  Tara stared at Kate. She couldn’t believe what her friend was saying. “I do want to see you! There’s just so much to fit in… I’m so sorry, I didn’t know I was being like that…” She couldn’t say anything more; she had started to cry. She was so tired. With school and gym and homework, she felt like she hadn’t stopped for a rest for months. She didn’t get to see Emily and Kate as much now that they were all in different classes at school, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t like them any more! Earlier, she’d felt so relieved that she could finally spend some time with her best friends, but now everything was getting ruined.

  Kate looked shocked. “Tara,” she said, her voice softening. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  Emily put her arm around Tara’s shoulders. “Don’t cry,” she said. “You’ve got so much going on, and it must be so exciting…just don’t forget the people who’ve been your friends since nursery, okay?”

  “I haven’t forgotten!” cried Tara. “You two are my best friends ever! It’s just…I’ve been desperate to do gym for so long, and I’m so excited about it that I wanted to share it with you guys… I promise I won’t go on about it any more though.”

  “And if you do, we’ll tell you to shut up, alright?” Kate grinned. Tara laughed and nodded. “Sorry, Tara,” said Kate. She scrambled up onto the bed and put her arm around her friend from the other side.

  “Friends?” asked Tara.

  “Best friends,” Kate said firmly, with a nod. Then she reached out and put her other arm around Emily, squeezing the three of them tightly together. They collapsed onto the bed, giggling and gasping for air.

  “So I guess you’re too busy to do anything tomorrow?” Kate asked later, while Tara was tying the laces on her pink Converse trainers. Mum was chatting to Kate’s parents in the kitchen. Emily’s dad had picked her up ten minutes ago.

  “Yeah,” said Tara. “Sorry.”

  Kate sighed. “It’s alright.” She shrugged. “The competition’s important to you. I know that.”

  But Tara knew Kate as well as she knew her own family. She could tell it wasn’t alright really. She hugged Kate tightly when she left, trying to show her that they were still best friends. It was the only way she could think of.

  On the way home in the car with Mum, she stared silently out of the window.

  “Have you and Kate fallen out?” Mum asked, as if she could read Tara’s mind.

  “She’s upset that I’m spending so much time doing gym,” said Tara. “She thinks I don’t want to be her friend any more.” Her voice wobbled as she spoke and she felt like she was going to cry again. “Mum, what should I do? I miss Kate and Em, and I feel like I hardly ever see them now, but Clare said we had to be one hundred per cent committed to the competition.”

  “I don’t know,” said Mum. “What do you think Clare meant by that?”

  “Well, she meant that we have to go to every training session and work hard, and that we should put the competition first… And I thought that meant we should practise by ourselves as well as at Silverdale, but now I’m not sure. Perhaps I’m doing too much… I just don’t know.”

  She’d thought of another way to show Kate and Emily that she still cared about them, but she wasn’t sure if she was prepared to do it. Cutting back on gymnastics training would definitely save her friendships…but it might also mean giving up her shot at a gold medal, her chance to prove Sam wrong, and her first opportunity to show everyone at Silverdale that she was going to go far. Hard work was going to get her into the advanced group one day.

  “I don’t know what to do!” she said, looking desperately at Mum for an answer. “If I stop doing all the extra practice with Lindsay, will I be throwing away my chance of getting to Nationals? And if I don’t stop, will I lose my friends?”

  Chapter Ten

  There was extra training for the competition on Monday, and then a family visit to Auntie Hazel on Tuesday. The Wednesday afternoon training session came around and Tara hadn’t been in touch with Kate or Emily at all. She still hadn’t started her homework either, she remembered, which would take up at least another day. When had life got so busy? To push away her worries, she threw herself into practising with Lindsay.

  “How about the Regionals gymnasts show us their routines?” Clare suggested to the group, when they were coming up to the end of the regular training session.

  There were eager yeses from everyone. Tara and Lindsay’s routine was so much better now that they were practising at school, and she was really proud of it. She couldn’t wait to show the others. The gymnasts settled down at the edge of the floor area to watch.

  The group of four boys went first. Tara found their routine exciting – they did balances she’d never even imagined, and their perfectly timed round-off flicks looked great. Because there were four of them, they could perform human pyramids and other balances that were three people high. Jack, who was at the top of all these balances, fearlessly climbed up to stand on Dom’s shoulders, while Dom balanced on the thighs of the two strongest boys.

  Sam and Jasmine went next – they had a great routine, and Tara could tell they stood a good chance of winning the Level 4 competition. Tiny Jasmine held handstands on Sam’s hands, was thrown over in somersaults and showed amazing flexibility. Sam lifted her up as if she was a doll. They performed to a piece of beautiful classical music that built up to an explosion of sound as Sam threw Jasmine high into a double somersault at the end.

  “They’re so good!” Tara whispered to Megan.

  “Sickening, isn’t it?” Megan replied.

  But Megan and Sophie were good, too. Their routine wasn’t as difficult and impressive as Sam and Jasmine’s but they did their balances well and had a great rhythm that was fun to watch. Megan was a born performer, and she charmed the small audience with her smile, packing loads of personality into the routine alongside backflips, jumps and turns.

  Tara and Lindsay went last. Now that she’d seen the others’ routines, Tara felt nervous. She and Lindsay were competing in a lower level, so they weren’t expected to do such difficult balances. But she wasn’t sure that they even performed their simple balances as perfectly as the others did theirs.

  As they began the routine, Tara tried to push away the thought that everyone was watching…that Sam was just waiting for her to make a mistake. And everything went well until they got to the Y-balance on Lindsay’s shoulders. They were facing their audience, and Tara caught Sam’s eye. She couldn’t tell what the older girl was thinking, but Sam was looking at her very critically. Tara had just straightened her leg up to the side, and she hoped Sam might be impressed, but the older girl’s expression didn’t change. Distracted, Tara lost her balance just for a moment – but a moment was enough. As she tilted over to the side, she could do nothing to stop herself from falling. She crashed to the mat.

  Tara got to her feet, burning bright red, and almost cried. None of the others had fallen from a balance. Sam was right – she was going to let Si
lverdale down. She wanted to run out of the gym, run all the way home and hide in her bed for ever, but she knew they had to finish the routine. Clare had told them again and again how important it was to keep going if they made a mistake. They performed the last moves well enough, but Tara hardly cared. She wasn’t as good as the others. They weren’t going to win.

  Sam exchanged a look with Mel. She didn’t say anything, but Tara didn’t need her to. This time, she knew exactly what Sam was thinking.

  Tara felt sick as she sat back down with the others. What would Clare say about her terrible mistake? There were two weeks left until Regionals and it had all gone wrong.

  “Don’t worry so much,” said the coach, when she saw Tara’s miserable expression. “Everyone has bad days. I know you can do the balance better than that.”

  Behind her, Sam raised an eyebrow at Tara, then turned and walked off to the changing room.

  Tara couldn’t stop worrying. On Friday morning she went shopping with Kate as Emily’s birthday was coming up and they both wanted to find the perfect present for her. Falling from the balance was still on Tara’s mind, and she really wanted to talk to Kate about it. But after the argument they’d had at the beginning of half-term, she thought it was best to keep her mouth shut about gymnastics – Kate didn’t want to hear it. And the last thing Tara wanted was another fight. She just wished everything could go back to how it was before. It felt horrible to keep her worries about Sam and the balance to herself. She felt like she was keeping a big secret from one of the people who knew her better than anyone.

  They wandered around the shops until Tara had to leave, but they had no luck with finding gifts for Emily.

  “We’ll just have to go shopping separately, whenever we have time,” sighed Kate. “I can go tomorrow morning but, of course, you have gym then.”

  Tara felt Kate’s words prickling her but she couldn’t miss a training session, not after what had happened at the last one. She needed the practice now more than ever, no matter how much she missed her friends.