Summertime and Somersaults

by Jane Lawes

  Chapter Ten

  The dance show had been a triumph, but back at Silverdale it was hard work as usual. Other groups were using the two floor areas at the beginning of the Wednesday session, so Clare gave her gymnasts a break from rehearsing for the display. Instead, they worked on somersaults, practising on the trampoline so that they could get extra height until they were ready to try them on the tumbling track. Tara couldn’t believe what she was hearing when Clare said she was going to teach her to do a front somersault. It wasn’t something she had to learn for the display, but it was a skill she needed to start learning if she was going to improve her gymnastics.

  “Keep your eyes up,” said Clare. “If you look down you won’t get enough height and then you won’t have time to get your feet round.”

  “Okay.” Tara nodded, and took a deep breath. She bounced a little on the trampoline while she found a spot to focus on, high up on the opposite wall. Then she bounced properly, once, twice, three times and then…up she went, tucking her knees in to her chest and pulling her arms in to get her body round in a front somersault…almost. She didn’t get round far enough for her feet to come down, and she landed in a sitting position on the trampoline.

  “Height, Tara,” Clare said again. “You’re still looking down, and your body goes where your eyes are looking. Don’t be scared.”

  That was easy for Clare to say, Tara thought. She wasn’t the one throwing herself into the air, unable to see where she should be landing.

  “Try again,” the coach encouraged. In the background, Sam sighed loudly. Her turn on the trampoline was next and she was obviously getting impatient.

  Look up, look up, look up, Tara repeated to herself silently. She bounced and flew up into the somersault, only tearing her eyes away from the wall at the last second, tucking her head in as her body rotated. She got her feet down on the trampoline first, but she’d rotated too far instead of not enough, and she went flying forwards onto her hands.

  “Better,” said Clare. Then she grinned. “Not so much rotation next time.”

  Tara laughed and nodded. She picked herself up and bounced off the trampoline into the foam pit next to it.

  “Finally,” muttered Sam, taking Tara’s place on the trampoline. Tara sat with Lindsay and Megan and watched Sam learning to do a full-twisting back somersault. Tara couldn’t wait until she got onto twists. She almost laughed out loud at herself – she really was dreaming far ahead! She couldn’t even do a single front somersault yet. But she knew that she would – and that brought the dream a little bit closer.

  Later, she was brought back to reality by her problems with handsprings. She was so nearly able to do them properly, but Sam made it clear that nearly wasn’t good enough.

  “Clare, I think Tara needs some help with her handsprings,” she said loudly, while they were going through the routine without the music. Everyone stopped. Most of them looked at Tara, who had gone bright red. She bit her lip; she was not going to cry in front of everyone. Especially not in front of Sam.

  “Sam, you just focus on yourself and Jasmine and let me worry about what everyone else is doing,” said Clare. “Practise your balances, please,” she said to the group. “Tara, let’s go up to the tumbling track. Lindsay, Jack, Mel, your handsprings could do with a bit of work too.”

  Tara could have hugged her coach for that – for including the others in the extra training and not singling her out.

  “Sam’s an idiot,” Lindsay muttered as they followed Clare to the track.

  “She’s right though,” Tara whispered. “My handsprings are rubbish.”

  “You’re getting much better,” said Mel. “I’ve been in this group for two years and Clare still thinks my handsprings need work! Yours’ll be perfect in no time.”

  Tara felt a bit better, knowing that not everyone agreed with Sam. The extra help from Clare turned out to be really useful, and even though it had felt horrible, she was glad that Sam’s comment had given her the chance to improve. She just hoped she’d be able to improve fast enough – the display was in three days’ time.

  That evening, Tara and Kate went to Emily’s house. The Walters owned a bakery, and they lived in the rooms above it. They always had a stall at the town summer fête, which Emily, Tara and Kate sometimes helped with.

  “Are you excited about your gym display this weekend?” asked Emily.

  “I can’t wait to see you perform!” said Kate.

  “Oh…you don’t have to come,” said Tara.

  “Don’t be ridiculous! Of course we’re coming!” said Kate.

  “I really don’t mind if you don’t want to,” said Tara. “Or if you have to help out on the bakery stall.”

  “Don’t you want us to come?” Emily asked quietly.

  “No, I do…but…” Tara trailed off.

  “But what?” asked Kate. “We want to see you doing your amazing balances!”

  “But I’m not amazing,” Tara replied. “I’m not even good.”

  “That’s not true,” Kate insisted. “We’ve seen you doing gym in the garden, remember. We know you’re good.”

  “Not compared to everyone at Silverdale!” said Tara. The tears that she’d managed to stop earlier came then, and her voice wobbled. “There’s this one bit that I can’t do very well, and the whole routine will get ruined, and everyone will see that I’m not good enough to be in that group.”

  “Oh, Tara…” said Emily, and gave her a big hug.

  “You’re worrying too much,” said Kate. “Remember how much fun it was when we did our dances for our parents? You loved that! And your solo was brilliant.”

  Tara nodded tearfully. “But this is different,” she said.

  “Not that different,” said Kate. “Your parents are going to be there, aren’t they? And the other gymnasts’ parents? So it’s just the same, only a bit bigger.”

  “That’s true,” sniffed Tara.

  “Anyway, you are good enough,” insisted Emily. “Your coach wouldn’t have picked you for her group otherwise.”

  “Thanks, guys,” said Tara, hugging them both again. “I’d really like you to come and watch.”

  “We wouldn’t miss it,” Emily said with a smile. She handed Tara a tissue to dry her eyes.

  “Come on, let’s kick the boys out of the living room,” said Kate. “I want to watch a film.”

  Luke and Adam were about to go to bed anyway, so they had the TV to themselves. They watched High School Musical. Tara guessed Emily had chosen it to remind her of how much fun it was to perform. It didn’t really work. It was fun performing something you believed you were good at, but Tara couldn’t stop thinking about the one moment she was dreading: performing a handspring in front of a gym full of people and all the Silverdale coaches. And everyone would see that she wasn’t as good as the others.

  Chapter Eleven

  The day of the town summer fête was beautiful, sunny and warm. To Tara, that meant only one thing: a lot of people were going to turn up, so the Silverdale Summer Display would have a big audience. She couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing. She had to admit she was excited to show everyone what she could do. But if she messed up, the whole town would be there to see it. Either way, the good weather made the rest of the fête more fun. Last year, it had rained and the whole thing had been miserable.

  “Where shall we go next?” asked Emily as they came out of the library, which had been taken over by face-painters. They’d waited for half an hour while Adam and Anna were transformed (from the neck up) into Spider-Man and a glittery butterfly.

  “Anywhere that’s outside,” said Kate, tipping her head back and smiling up at the clear blue sky. “It was way too stuffy in there.”

  “Well, that narrows the choice down to just about everything,” said Tara. They were standing in the centr
al square, which usually had a noisy market on weekends and pretty stalls that smelled like cinnamon at Christmas time. Today it was lined with stands selling cakes, toys, jewellery and plants, and quite a few with games and raffles. Tara looked at her watch. “I’ve got to go and get ready for the display in fifteen minutes,” she said. The gymnasts had gone to the gym in the morning for a final rehearsal, then they’d been given a few hours off to have lunch and wander round the fête. They had to be back at the gym at 2.30 so that they had enough time to get changed and warm up before the display started at 3 p.m.

  “Hook a Duck, maybe?” suggested Emily, thinking of Anna and her own younger brother, who was spinning round and round in dizzy circles. She was in charge of Adam for the day while her parents ran the bakery stall. Not wanting to be left out, Anna had demanded to be part of the group too.

  “Yeah!” cried Anna, jumping around and clapping her hands at Emily’s suggestion.

  “Let’s go,” said Tara. “I think it’s on the way to the gym, anyway.”

  It was funny seeing a paddling pool full of yellow plastic ducks on the pavement in the middle of town. Tara held the wooden pole she was given nervously, hoping no one from Silverdale walked past – Sam thought she was childish enough already. At the thought of Sam and the gym, her stomach tensed and she was suddenly very aware of how soon the display was. Her hands shook as she reached out with the pole, trying to push the metal hook through the ring on top of a duck’s head.

  “Come on, Tara,” Anna said loudly. “It’s easy!” She’d already caught a duck and been rewarded with a bottle of strawberry bubble bath. Kate’s duck had won her some bracelets made from brightly coloured plastic beads. Lucky Emily won a small teddy bear, which Anna eyed enviously. Adam was swishing his pole through the water, making waves for the ducks to bob up and down on. At last he hooked one, and the lady running the stall turned it over to check the number written in black pen. She handed him a packet of fizzy sherbert sweets.

  “Oh great,” groaned Kate. “Now he’ll be even more hyper.”

  Emily laughed. “I’ll take him back to Mum and Dad when it’s time for Tara’s display.” Tara had just got hold of a duck, but her hand trembled at the mention of the display and the duck slipped off the hook and bobbed away. She finally caught another one and ended up with a packet of sweets like Adam’s.

  “Here,” she said, offering them to her sister. “I’d better go to the gym.”

  “We’ll be there early so we can get good seats,” said Kate. “As soon as we’ve taken Anna and Adam back to the parents.”

  “Good luck!” said Emily, grinning. Tara felt sick.

  She hurried off to the gym. Silverdale was in the centre of town, perfect for the summer fête. Tara was glad they didn’t have to perform on mats in the central square like dance groups sometimes did. There was something comforting about being in the familiar gym. As soon as she stepped into the changing room, she felt a little better.

  Jasmine and Sophie were sitting on a bench, already in their leotards. They were doing their hair and chatting as if it was just a normal training session. Tara smiled at them and got changed, keeping that thought in her mind.

  The music for their routine was a fun pop song about summer, so they were all wearing brightly coloured leotards. Tara had been worried when Clare suggested this, as her only leotard was the black and silver one she’d got for her birthday. But Jasmine had come to the rescue and lent Tara one that was bright blue with swirls of lime green across the top. Even though Jasmine was three years older, she was very small for her age and the leotard fitted Tara well. As a bonus, it nearly matched the one Lindsay was going to wear, which was apple green.

  As the changing room got busier and busier, and noisier and noisier, it became clear that this was not just any Saturday at Silverdale, however much Tara might have wished it was. The display was important for the club because it helped them to get funding and it was a good way of encouraging new people to join, so the gymnasts all had to be at their best. Tara thought about all the photos on the walls of the lobby. Clare had said that they would have a photo taken at the end of the routine, in their finishing poses. Tara was looking forward to being in a picture on one of those walls. But she had to get to the end of the routine first.

  Megan was moving round their group with a can of hairspray that had glitter in it and made their hair sparkle while holding it in place.

  “Close your eyes,” she told Tara, and then sprayed a cloud of silvery glitter over her head. Tara turned to look in the mirror, half-expecting her whole head to be silver. It wasn’t – she was still blonde but her hair, tied back in a ponytail, had a definite sparkle now. She grinned at her reflection and hoped her gymnastics would sparkle just as much.

  Chapter Twelve

  Out in the lobby, Tara twisted her hands together nervously and hopped about from one foot to the other.

  “Stop it!” laughed Jasmine. “You’ll make me nervous!”

  Jasmine didn’t have anything to be worried about, Tara thought. She was one of the best gymnasts in the group. Looking at the photos on the walls again, she recognized Jasmine and Sam in quite a few of them. In each one, they had gold medals hanging round their necks.

  The afternoon was getting hotter, and the big double doors into the gym were propped open to let in air. They could hear music, and if they stood to one side of the lobby they had a clear view of the floor area. At the moment, a group of four- and five-year-old girls in pink leotards were performing a simple routine.

  “Aren’t they cute!” gushed Megan.

  “Remember when our routines were like that?” Sophie said to Jasmine, who laughed. Tara felt another wave of worry, remembering that the others had all been doing this for a really long time. It was fine for the little girls in pink to get things wrong; they were only tiny. She was performing with gymnasts who won competitions and she just had to do everything perfectly.

  “You’ll be great,” whispered Lindsay from behind her. At that moment, the little girls finished their routine and ran off the floor to their coach. Clare’s group were next.

  They walked out onto the floor in single file. Tara was near the end of the line, and watching the others in front of her, she suddenly felt really proud to be part of the group. Exhilaration bubbled up inside her. The colours of their leotards filled the floor as they walked to their starting positions. She knew the routine was going to be as bright and exciting as their leotards.

  Just before the music started, she caught sight of Mum, Dad and Anna in the audience. Next to them were Emily and Kate. They’d all come to watch her perform, and she realized that she couldn’t wait to show them what she could do. The chairs – taking up all of the other floor area – were full of people from the town, and there were lots of other people’s parents and friends there. But the only ones she wanted to impress were her own and, in that moment, suddenly everything seemed easier. It didn’t really matter what Sam thought. Tara was here to perform for her family and friends, and that was what she was going to do.

  The music started, and she focused on the routine. She knew now that it didn’t matter if she didn’t do things absolutely perfectly. It wasn’t a competition and there were no judges to say she wasn’t good enough. The group performed most of the routine together, but there were also moments when they performed balances in the pairs or groups they usually worked in. Tara and Lindsay performed all their balances well– including standing on shoulders, and counterbalance, where Tara stood on Lindsay’s thighs and they held hands, leaning as far away from each other as they could. And she felt perfectly in time with everyone else in the sections where the whole group did the same steps and moves. It was tempting to look for Mum and Dad’s reaction to some of the skills she’d learned, but she didn’t want to lose concentration.

  The trickiest section was near the end of the routine. The pairs and t
rio and the group of four boys all performed a different balance at the same time. Tara and Lindsay had been working on their favourite balance – where Lindsay held Tara in a handstand on her thigh – and Tara could now move her legs from a straight handstand into the splits, upside down. While she held the position, Tara imagined the looks on Kate and Emily’s faces. She brought her legs back up to a handstand before twisting them to one side to come down neatly to the floor. Lindsay stood up and a fraction of a second later, the entire group – who had all come down from their balances at the same time – bounced forward into handsprings. Tara landed hers more neatly than she’d ever managed before, stretched and grinned widely at Dad. A few more dance steps and jumps and it was all over. They finished in a group in the middle of the floor and everyone threw one arm up towards the ceiling on the last note of the music.

  The sound of the audience clapping was much louder than it had been in Kate’s back garden. Of course, Tara remembered, there were a lot more people here! The gymnasts posed as a group while someone took a photo for the lobby wall. Tara smiled at her friends, gave Anna a tiny wave, then followed Lindsay and the others back out into the lobby.

  She couldn’t stop smiling. That was the most fun she’d ever had in her life! She grabbed Lindsay’s arm and started jumping up and down with her.

  “Amazing! Brilliant!” she sang.