by Jane Lawes
At last evening came. Emily was the first to arrive for the party. Her brother Adam, who was in Anna’s class at school, came too. Kate was next, and Tara rushed them both up to her room to show them the new leotard.
“It’s pretty,” said Emily.
“Yeah,” agreed Kate. “Really nice.” But they were more interested in the new top and jeans she was wearing.
Other girls and boys from school began to arrive then, so they went back downstairs. Dad got the barbecue started and set up his laptop and some speakers so that they could have music in the garden. Soon everyone was chatting and singing along.
Some of the boys found a football and began to kick it about with Adam and Anna, while Tara and the girls sat in a circle on the grass, talking and giggling. Then the football got stuck in the hedge, so the boys started to play chase instead. Matt, who was usually quiet at school, tore across the garden trying to catch someone, but tripped and fell into Emily on the ground.
“Sorry!” he said quickly. When he saw Emily wasn’t hurt, he grinned cheekily, then tapped her arm. “You’re it!” he said, and leaped up to run away. Emily sprang to her feet and chased after him. The other girls, laughing, got up to join in the game.
Finally worn out, they all sat on the ground eating burgers and hot dogs, and then bowls of ice cream, which Tara and her friends covered in chocolate sauce and brightly coloured sweets. When it began to get dark, Mum brought the birthday cake out. It was covered in pink icing and in the middle was a small figure of a gymnast in the splits, made from fondant icing. It must have taken Mum ages, Tara thought. The light from the candles glowed on the faces of all Tara’s friends, and she put her arms around Kate and Emily while everyone sang “Happy Birthday”. She blew the candles out in one go, and made a secret wish – but anyone who knew her could guess what it was: to be an amazing gymnast.
Her friends’ parents started to arrive after that, and soon it was just Kate and Emily left. Mum and Dad helped them to put mattresses, pillows and sleeping bags down on the living-room floor and then gave them a useless warning about noise before going upstairs.
The girls watched a film and started a game of Cluedo, but mostly they just talked. It took a long time for them to get worn out, for their giggles to stop and their heads to fall onto pillows. Tara didn’t want to sleep, and she wasn’t tired. It had been the most brilliant week of her life, and this was the perfect way to end it.
“Em,” she whispered. “Are you awake?”
Emily turned over to face her. “Yeah,” she whispered back. “Kate?”
“I’m awake too,” came a murmur from the other side of the room. Kate got up and tiptoed across to the sofa where Tara lay.
Tara sat up on the sofa to make room for Kate. Emily curled up and hugged her knees on the mattress next to it.
“Come up here,” offered Tara. She and Kate were sitting under Tara’s duvet, and they moved along to make room for Emily.
“You never finished telling us about your gymnastics club,” said Emily. Tara had started to tell them earlier about joining Clare’s group, but then everyone else had arrived and there hadn’t been time to explain everything. “I can’t believe you’re a real gymnast at Silverdale now!” said Emily. “Will you learn to do all the difficult things they do in the display?”
“Was it amazing?” asked Kate.
“So amazing,” Tara sighed. She told them everything – all about the gym and Clare and Lindsay and Sam; about how much fun it had been to work on a real floor area, and her worries about being behind the others. She hadn’t even told Mum that. Somehow, it was easier to talk about it in the middle of the night – secrets and worries were what sleepovers were for.
“Maybe you should just try to focus on the exciting parts and not worry so much about trying to catch up?” suggested Kate.
“Yeah,” agreed Emily. “It must feel horrible to be so worried about that, and you do gym because you enjoy it, right?”
“Like our dance show,” added Kate. “We’re only doing it because it’s fun. It doesn’t matter if we’re not completely perfect.”
Tara knew they were only trying to help, but they didn’t really understand what it was like to love gymnastics so much, and want to be the best she could possibly be, yet feel so far behind everyone else. It wasn’t like the dance show to her – gymnastics mattered so much more.
She hoped that after training for a while she would start to catch up to the others. But what if she never did? No matter how many times she reminded herself that Clare had chosen her, she couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe Sam was right – maybe Clare should have picked someone who’d been training for years.
Chapter Eight
Wednesday couldn’t come soon enough. Tara had managed to push her worries aside for the moment and was desperate to get back to the gym and wear her new leotard for the first time. Her group’s training session started at five in the evening. Clare’s competition group trained all year round and even though it was the summer holidays, their training sessions were in the evenings because that’s when they would continue once everyone went back to school. Tara counted the hours and minutes all day. She was ready to go ages before she needed to be and then she bugged Mum so much about being on time that they arrived at the gym early.
“Bye!” Tara yelled, slamming the car door shut and heading for the main entrance.
Mum laughed. “Anyone would think you’d been away from the gym for weeks, not days!” she called through the open window.
The changing room was almost empty. Tara put her bag down on a bench and changed into the beautiful black leotard. She went over to the mirror and checked her hair, which she’d already tied back in a ponytail.
While she was doing this, Jasmine came in. Tara smiled, glad to see someone she knew. Jasmine said hi to a few of the girls who were getting changed or sitting chatting. Then she came over to talk to Tara.
“Hi, Tara! I’m glad you came back,” she said.
“Of course I did!” laughed Tara.
“You never know,” Jasmine replied. “Clare works us pretty hard.”
“I want to work hard,” Tara said.
Jasmine grinned. “Then you’ll fit right in.”
“Ooh, Tara, I love your leotard!” gushed Megan, coming into the changing room with Sophie.
The sound of voices rose as the room filled up. It was nearly five o’clock. Sophie started a conversation with Jasmine about something she’d been working on the week before, Megan chattered away to anyone who was listening and Tara could hear at least three other conversations going on as well – people talking about TV shows and music and gymnastics all at the same time. Then she heard a quiet voice beside her ear.
“I think Clare wants to get us going on some other balances today.” It was Lindsay, in a lovely dark green leotard with a strip of white that twisted like a ribbon in a similar pattern to the silver sparkles on Tara’s new leotard.
“Cool.” Tara nodded. “Is it time to go in yet?”
“Yeah, come on. It’s too noisy in here.”
Clare was waiting for them in the gym. Sam was there too, with a couple of the boys. Tara caught the older girl rolling her eyes at them when she and Lindsay walked in.
After the warm-up, stretching, and performing moves across the floor, the gymnasts sorted themselves out into their usual pairs and groups. The four boys worked together – three were tall and looked strong, and the fourth one was tiny. He looked about Tara’s age, and she could see why he needed to be small; the other boys lifted him high into the air and threw him into somersaults as if he weighed nothing. Tara was starting to realize that, in gymnastics, being short for your age wasn’t a bad thing at all.
Clare worked with Tara and Lindsay again for most of the session. The others knew what they were doing and what they needed to practis
e, but Tara was learning everything from the beginning.
She was amazed by all the different balances she and Lindsay could do. Even though she was just starting to learn Acrobatic Gymnastics skills, there were lots of basic balances that she knew she’d be able to manage with a bit of work. Her favourite was one where Lindsay kneeled with one knee on the floor and one foot planted securely in front of her to keep her steady. Her thigh was horizontal, almost like part of a beam. Tara stood to one side of her and put her hands on her thigh, while Lindsay held her waist, one arm going across Tara’s front to hold the other side. Then, with a push off the floor and lift from Lindsay’s hands, Tara was upside down with her knees tucked in to her chest. After a bit more practice, she could straighten her legs up into a handstand. She came down grinning, and then caught Jasmine and Sam watching them. Jasmine gave her a big smile, but Sam shrugged and muttered something about the balance being easy.
“Don’t go just yet!” called Clare, when the session finished. Megan, who had made it halfway to the door already, bounded back to the rest of the group. “Make sure you’re all here on Friday – we’re going to be working on the routine for the Summer Display.”
Tara wondered if that included her.
“Tara,” said Clare, as if she could read her mind, “we’ve been working on the display for the last month or so, but if you can learn the routine quickly you can be in it.” Tara was thrilled. She’d only been a Silverdale gymnast for a few days and already she was going to be in a display! She wondered what kind of routine it would be – balances, probably. Maybe she would get to include some of her new skills with Lindsay.
She told Mum about it on the way home, and then phoned Emily as soon as she got through the front door.
“Hi, Tara,” Emily answered.
“I’m going to be in a gym display!” Tara squeaked.
Emily laughed at her excitement. “The Silverdale Summer Display?” she asked. “The one we’ve been going to watch for years at the summer fête?”
“Yes!” Tara replied, still giddy from the thrill of her news.
“That’s amazing!” said Emily, almost as enthusiastic as Tara. “Tell me everything.” But just then, Mum called Tara to have dinner.
“Gotta go,” said Tara. “But we’re going to Kate’s tomorrow afternoon, aren’t we? To practise for our dance show. I promise I won’t stop talking about it then.”
“I believe that,” Emily laughed. “See you tomorrow.”
Tara was glad she was going to see her friends the next day. She couldn’t wait to tell them all about her experiences at Silverdale. After all, she wasn’t going back to the club for two whole days, and she knew it was going to feel like for ever.
Chapter Nine
Clare’s group were going to perform all together for the display. The coach had chosen a summery pop song, and worked out a routine, which she’d already taught to the rest of the group. Tara had to learn fast. For the next two weeks, they hardly worked on anything else.
The routine had some quick dance sections that Tara found tricky to learn at first, and she just knew that Sam was watching every mistake she made. Lindsay turned out to be a great dancer though, and she helped Tara go through the difficult bits slowly until she’d got them. As well as the dance moves, the gymnasts were going to perform balances in their usual pairs, trio and the boys’ four. With all of them doing different balances at the same time, the routine was busy and exciting.
Everyone’s favourite part was when they all came down from different balances in their pairs and groups and went straight into handsprings. Tara knew it would look fantastic when they’d got the timing perfect, but there was a problem: she couldn’t do it. Working on the trampoline and tumbling track had helped with her handsprings, but on the floor they were still not as good as the others’. None of them said anything, but she saw the looks Sam kept giving the boys.
When she wasn’t at the gym, Tara spent a lot of time at home practising the routine in the garden. She hadn’t forgotten the dance show with Kate and Emily, either, and she found time to work out a gymnastics routine for that too. When she added in afternoons at the shopping centre with her friends, and rainy days practising their dances in Kate’s living room, she was so busy that she hardly had time to think. Kate had made up another dance to a beautiful, slow song and taught it to Emily and Tara. They hadn’t had much time to learn it though, and Tara kept forgetting it. She’d just have to follow Kate and hope it wasn’t too obvious.
All the hard work at Silverdale meant that her backward walkovers were almost perfect now. By the day of the dance show with her friends, she could just about manage a forward one too, so she decided to take a risk and add that to her solo routine. At least, performing in Kate’s back garden, no one would be judging her or thinking she wasn’t good enough.
It was Sunday, and Tara and Emily spent the whole day at Kate’s house. They had practised the group dances in their matching outfits and they all thought they looked great. For her solo, Kate had a red and white skirt that was great for twirling, and a white top with silver sparkles. Emily was going to wear jeans and a top made of layers of floaty, lilac-coloured material. Tara, of course, had her leotard.
They rehearsed all day, and then set up the garden for the performance. They lined up chairs at one end of the grass. Emily was really good at art, and she’d made an invitation for each parent (delivered the week before when they’d spent the morning at Tara’s house, the afternoon at Kate’s and the evening at Emily’s). When Tara’s and Emily’s parents arrived, Kate showed them to their seats along with her own parents. Anna sat on the ground in front of the chairs with Emily’s brothers, six-year-old Adam and two-year-old Luke.
Kate fiddled with her iPod for a few seconds. The dads were all still chatting about the Grand Prix race they were missing.
“We’re starting!” called Tara. She looked pleadingly at Mum, who nudged Dad and got them to stop talking. The girls ran into their starting positions, standing in a line with their backs to the audience and their heads down. The music began and they went into the first dance they’d made up, the one that had started the whole idea. It went better than it had ever done before – even Emily remembered all the steps – and the audience burst into loud applause at the end. The girls grinned at each other and at their parents.
Kate, after a lightning-quick costume change, started off the solos, because Tara and Emily had said they didn’t want to go first. They got changed quickly too, and then stood to one side to watch their friend dance. Tara was impressed – Kate was great at doing all the pop star dance moves and her routine fitted really well with the song she’d chosen. Emily was next. Her dance was a strange mix of steps Kate had made up for her and sections that Emily had worked out by herself. Tara preferred the bits Emily had done – they suited her much more.
When it was Tara’s turn, she walked into the middle of the garden. In her leotard, she really felt like she could be walking out onto the floor at the Olympics. She took up her starting position, kneeling on one leg with the other pointed out to the side, and Kate started the music.
Tara had practised the routine so many times that her body naturally flowed through it. The backward walkovers, in a long diagonal line from one corner to the other, were a big success, and the forward walkover was her best yet. She jumped and turned, head held high like Beth Tweddle, and she was sad when she knew she was nearly at the end. She felt like she could keep going all afternoon and into the night. She took a deep breath, stretched her foot out in front of her and launched herself into a short run-up and a handspring. Even without the sprung floor of the gym, her landing was better than it used to be. She stretched, performed a neat backward roll to handstand, and danced forward into her finishing position as the music ended.
“Wow!” said Dad, clapping so hard she thought his hands must hurt. Everyone else clapped too,
including Kate and Emily. Tara was out of breath and full of delight. Impressing the parents was just a bonus; the best thing had been actually performing the routine. Nothing had ever felt so wonderful.
They still had one more group dance to perform, but Tara had to change back into her skirt and pink top. She ran into the house to change in the bathroom, where she’d left her clothes ready. While they waited, Kate and Emily handed round lemonade, orange juice and biscuits to the audience.
They hadn’t spent as much time on the second dance, so there were moments when only Kate really knew what they were meant to be doing. They got through it and kept smiling, but Emily turned the wrong way three times and Tara lost the timing on one difficult sequence. The audience clapped at the end anyway, all except Luke, who was crawling under his dad’s chair, and Adam, who was too busy pulling Anna’s hair. Then the three performers came to the front and took bows while their parents cheered and clapped some more.
“Your gymnastics was great, Tara,” said Mrs. Walter, Emily’s mum.
“All that thumping around was worth it,” joked Dad.
“Oh, stop,” said Mum. “Tara, you were wonderful. So were you two,” she said, turning to Kate and Emily. “I have no idea how you all remembered everything.”
“I didn’t,” said Emily, blushing a bit.
“Didn’t matter,” said Kate, putting her arm around Emily. “Your routine was definitely the best though, Tara.”
Tara smiled at Kate. She knew that Kate had worked really hard on her own dance. “I could never have danced like you, though,” she said.
“You were all good,” said Mr. Wakefield, Kate’s dad. And everyone nodded.
Later on, Emily and Kate’s parents kept asking Tara about Silverdale. They sounded really impressed when she told them about doing all the different balances and that she was going to be in the Summer Display – but somehow, the conversation made Tara feel uneasy. She knew she’d done this routine well, but it was a routine full of easy stuff. And while she’d loved every second of performing, at the back of her mind was one constant thought: she wasn’t any good compared to the brilliant gymnasts at Silverdale. That was the standard she’d have to live up to next time, and she just wasn’t sure that she could. She was good enough for the garden, but was she ready to perform in front of half the town at the Silverdale Summer Display? She didn’t think so. Not yet. And time was running out.