Ann Martin - Jessi's Gold Medal

"Watch out for the stump," Buddy warned.

"I know," Mal said, "I live here, remember?"

"Okay, ready?" Claudia asked.

"Yup," Mal answered.

"Set . . . go!"

They began hopping. Buddy and Jordan cheered them on. Surprisingly, Mal was whooping and yelling and really moving fast. In fact, she reached the stump way before Claudia did.

And that was when she collapsed to the ground.

"Yeeooooow!" Mal wailed, grabbing her left ankle.

Claudia jumped out of her sack. Jordan and Buddy ran to them. "We told you to watch out for the stump!" Jordan exclaimed.

"Easy, Jordan," Claudia said. "Mal's hurt." She knelt down and put her arm around Mal's shoulder. "Are you okay?"

Mal was grimacing. "I — I think I twisted my ankle," she replied.

"Let's see," Claud said.

Mal took her hand away. The ankle wasn't swollen, so Claudia asked, "Can you move it?"

Mal tried. "It hurts a little."

"A little?" Claud asked. "Can you stand on it? Here, let me help you." She moved her arm under Mal's shoulders for support and lifted.

Mal stood up on her right foot. But when she tried to shift to her left, her knee buckled. "Owww!"

Fortunately Claud was still holding on. "Uh-oh," she said. "I think you better go to the doctor when your parents get home. Come on. You should sit down."

Claudia helped Mal to a beach chair by the refreshment table. Most of the kids, who had been watching the episode, began going back to their "training."

Mal sat down, keeping her ankle up. By that time, they could see some swelling.

"Looks like you sprained it, all right," Claudia said.

"Darn," Mal replied. "Oh, well. I guess

there's no way I can be in the Sports Festival now."

"Oh, it's okay," Claudia said. "There'll be another one next year. Let me go inside and get an ice pack."

But Mal's reaction struck Claudia as kind of strange. She didn't seem at all upset about missing the Festival. Claud thought she actually sounded glad.

That night, after Claudia told me what had happened, I called Mal. "How are you?" I asked her. "I heard about your ankle. Did you go to the doctor?"

"Yeah," Mal said. "It's a sprain. I have to keep off it for a couple of weeks. I have to use crutches."

"That's awful," I said.

"I'm really upset. I mean, what with the Sports Festival and all. Oh, well. At least it'll be okay by the time school ends."

Now, Mal may be a great writer, but she is not a great actress. At least not over the phone. I could tell she wasn't terribly upset about missing the Festival. So why was she making believe? I felt that she didn't trust me or something.

Or maybe I was just tired. We wrapped up our conversation, and I went right to bed.

Chapter 11.

"Let's ... try it ... again! Okay?"

"Wait . . . wait . . . phew . . . okay, ready."

The first voice was mine and the second voice was Elise's. Can you guess what we were doing? You got it — practicing.

For at least the two hundredth time.

It was already Tuesday, D-day minus one. Just one day before the SMS Sports Festival! I had re-choreographed part of our pairs routine, trying to make it easier. We had practiced every day after school (except ballet class days) and on weekends for two whole weeks. How did we feel about it? How was our confidence after all that?

Don't ask.

We were still having trouble with the routine — but we were determined to get it right.

"One, two, ready, go," I said. "Head, head, arm, arm, out, in, left, right ..."

That was where I always stopped speaking.

It's hard to talk, swim, and dance at the same time.

Elise was doing the moves right, more or less. She definitely was more graceful, but still rough around the edges. I wished I could bring Mme Noelle to one of these practices. She could help Elise.

As for me, well, I still tended to sink into the water below my mouth a lot, but I was getting stronger.

We came to the end of the routine. We hadn't been perfect, but it was the best we'd ever done.

"Want to rest a minute?" I asked.

"Let's do the group exercise," Elise suggested. "At least we can get those strokes down."

We worked through that routine, which consisted of the basic moves we'd learned in the class. By now we knew them in our sleep.

Finally we took a rest. Together we hopped onto the side of the pool and caught our breaths. At the other end, a few kids and a grownup were swimming lazy laps, back and forth.

I looked at them longingly. "They seem so relaxed," I said.

Elise sighed. "Well, they don't have a competition tomorrow.

"Yeah."

We sat silently for a few minutes. My mind was fried. Even though the pool was quiet, I kept hearing the dance music Ms. Cox always used in class. My body seemed to be rocking back and forth as if I were still in the water. I've always been a hard worker, but I didn't think I'd ever worked this hard.

And yet, I wasn't sure how well we were going to stack up against the others. I wished we could have practiced with another pair, just to compare.

"Elise," I said, "have you noticed that we never see any of the other pairs working out here after hours?"

"I guess they don't need to. Unlike us."

"It's too bad," I said. "If we could just see them, it would be such a help. We could tell right away if we're doing things right."

"Yeah." Elise nodded, then began dangling her feet in the water. Her brow was squinched up, as if she were deep in thought.

"Jessi?" she finally said.

"Uh-huh?"

"We haven't talked much about tomorrow — I mean, really talked."

"What do you mean?"

"Well. . . are you as scared of this as I am?"

I hesitated. Then I said, "We're making really good progress, and we're so far ahead

of where we were when we started, and our moves aren't as awkward . . ."It was no use. I couldn't lie. "Yeah,"I said. "I'm scared out of my mind."

"I just know we're going to embarrass ourselves!" Elise exclaimed.

"Maybe we should run away."

"Or hire doubles to take our place."

"Or secretly drain the pool!"

We looked at each other and smiled. It was nice to know Elise and I had a similar sense of humor. "This is so weird," I said. "We've been practicing together for — how long? A month and a half? And we don't even really know each other."

Elise laughed. "I knowl I was thinking the same thing. We'll have to do something together after this is over."

"Yeah!"

Then we turned back toward the pool. There wasn't time for any more conversation, not during our last big practice.

I realized something then. I wasn't sure whether Elise and I would end up being friends or not, but we did have one thing in common: When we put our minds to something, nothing stopped us.

Even if it meant making fools of ourselves.

"One last try?" I asked.

Elise looked at the clock above the pool. "We have time. Let's go for it — make this the best one ever!"

We jumped into the water. This time I didn't shout out instructions. I couldn't see or hear Elise very well, but we'd performed the routine so many times I could tell exactly what she was doing. It was like having ESP. And every time I did catch a glimpse of her, we were in perfect synch.

When we finished, we grabbed onto the side of the pool and caught our breaths.

"Well," Elise said. "What did you think?"

I exhaled heavily. "We still don't look terrific, but at least we know the strokes are okay."

An unfamiliar voice interrupted our conversation. "You girls look fantastic. Are you on a team or something?"

It was the grownup who had been swimming on the other side of the pool. He was a trim, gray-haired man with a friendly smile.

"Yeah," Elise said. "We have a competition tomorrow."

"Well, good luck," the man said. "Although I don't think you'll need it."