Ann Martin - Jessi's Gold Medal

"Yeah ..." Andrew replied in a teeny voice.

"Would you like me to coach you?"

Andrew's lips curled into a little smile. "Okay."

"Good. We'll figure out something you're good at. What do you want to start with?"

Andrew sat up and pointed to the basketball hoop. "That!"

Kristy ran to the driveway with him and picked up the ball. "This might be too hard," she said. "But give it a try."

Andrew lifted the ball to his shoulders and heaved it, but it didn't go anywhere near the basket.

Kristy grabbed the ball as it came down. "Try it underhanded, like this." She demon-

strated an underhand shot that went right in. "You might get more power that way."

Andrew tried, but the ball went crashing into the garage door.

"Uh . . . let's do something else," Kristy said quickly. "I don't think any four-year-olds are ready for a net this high. It's . . . regulation height, you know. The same height that pro basketball players use."

"Oh," Andrew said.

Next Andrew wanted to try some weight lifting, but he wasn't even strong enough to lift Watson's lightest dumbbell. "I can do it," Linny bragged. He yanked two of them off the ground and held them over his head.

You can guess what Kristy wanted to call him (I'll give you a hint: Linny was holding one in each hand). Instead she said, "Linny, that's not fair. You're eight years old!"

"Yup," said Linny proudly.

"Come on, Andrew," Kristy said, "lefs try Karen and Hannie's obstacle course."

Well, Andrew had fun running around the first few wickets, but his foot got caught in the last one and he fell to the ground.

Next he tried a three-legged race with Karen. Karen tried to be gentle, but Andrew didn't have a knack for it at all. He couldn't take even two steps without falling.

Roller skates, volleyball, long jumping —

Kristy tried everything she could think of. But Andrew just kept feeling worse and worse. Even if he could do something, the other kids could do it better.

By the time her parents came home, Andrew was in his room, sucking his thumb and crying. Bill and Linny were racing around, accusing each other of cheating. Timmy and David Michael were fighting over where one of them had landed in a long jump. Melody was holding an ice pack on her ankle.

And Kristy? Well, she felt as if she needed to be scraped off the floor.

Maybe my great idea wasn't so great after all.

Chapter 7.

Boom . . . Boom . . . Boom . . . Boom . . .

That was the beat of a dance tune blasting over the pool loudspeakers. What tune was it? I can't remember. The only thing I was paying attention to was the beat — and Ms. Cox's voice:

"Extend right leg, extend left leg, layout, oyster. . . . good!"

Boom . . . Boom . . . Boom . . . Boom . . .

"Tub position, right side scissors kick, left arm crawl, left side scissors kick, right arm crawl!"

The entire class swam back and forth in rhythm, following Ms. Cox's instructions. Sometimes we bumped into each other, but we mostly stayed in even lines.

Synchronized swimming, as you've probably noticed, is always performed to music. In fact, some fancy pools have underwater speakers. But in the not-so-fancy Stoneybrook com-

munity pool complex, we use a big tape player on the deck. The music has to be unbelievably loud for us to hear anything underwater. And Ms. Cox had to use a bullhorn to be heard over it.

Let me tell you something else about synchro. It looks easy, but it's not. Not only are you performing a choreographed dance routine, but you have to worry about staying afloat and keeping a constant distance from everyone else. You can't stop moving, and sometimes you're doing one stroke per beat.

"Finish waterwheel . . . good, Hannah! . . . layout. . . back tuck somersault. . . head up ... arms . . . that's the end!"

Ms. Cox pressed the button on the tape recorder, and the music stopped in the middle of the tune. You could hear the frantic breathing of sixteen exhausted girls.

"Good work!" came Ms. Cox's voice. "Abby, that back tuck was great. Kate, you're like a new person today! All of you, congratulations. Let's take a breather."

As we climbed out of the pool, Ms. Cox approached Elise and me. "You girls okay?"

"Sure," Elise said.

"Are you feeling tired, Jessi?" Ms. Cox said. "You were a little behind."

"No, I'm okay," I replied.

"Good," said Ms. Cox. "Elise, your pres-

entation is much better, but keep your strokes smaller, closer to your body. All right?"

"Sure," Elise said. "Thanks."

As Ms. Cox walked away, Elise and I looked at each other and sighed. For awhile, neither of us said anything.

It was Elise who finally broke the silence. "That felt awful."

I nodded. "I know. All I could think about was keeping up with everybody. I mean, I've learned all the strokes, but I have to think so much that my form is starting to stink."

"Your form? I still feel like a water buffalo in there. I,must have bumped into twenty people."

"Which is hard to do in a class of sixteen."

We both cracked a smile, but we were too depressed to laugh. Here it was, four weeks after I'd started synchro, and Elise and I were both lagging behind the rest of the class. Ms. Cox was complimenting everyone except us.

It was so weird. I had never felt awkward or slow when I began taking ballet class. At least I don't remember feeling that way.

"Okay, girls," Ms. Cox called out. "We've got about ten more minutes. When you're feeling rested, you can do some work in pairs."

I looked at Elise. "Want to?"

"Yeah, but let's talk about the routine for a minute, okay? I'm confused about what hap-

pens after the back tuck somersault."

Oh, that's another thing. Since I'm the one with the dance training, Ms. Cox had asked me to choreograph our pairs routines. What's a "pairs routine"? It's the only part of the competition we create ourselves. Each pair gets to do one, but only after performing a required series of figures. So I jumped at the chance to choreograph — and of course, I made up something much too complicated. It looked great, with these weird ancient Egyptian-style hand and head movements. The only problem was, both Elise and I were having trouble doing it.

After we discussed the routine we jumped in and got to work. We tried to go through the whole routine, but after only four measures or so we were completely out of whack. "Oops, sorry," Elise said, treading water. "No, my fault. I was slowing us down." "Hey, Jessi, help me with my arms a minute. Is this right?"

Treading furiously with her legs, Elise began moving her hands and head above the water. Have you ever seen those old Egyptian paintings on the sides of vases? You know, like Queen Nefertiti and King Tut, with heads turned to the side and their arms and hands bent in angular positions? Well, that's what I was trying to do in the routine.

I hate to say it, but Elise looked terrible.

To do the routine right, you have to form sharp angles and graceful movements. Elise was all jerky, almost as if she were making fun of the moves.

"That's basically it," I said, "but try not to work so hard at it. It should be more like this . . ."

Then I tried to demonstrate it — and promptly began to sink. My arms were great, by my head was underwater!

"Pkaccchh!" I said (more or less), as I stopped being Nefertiti and started frantically treading water. "Why can't I keep myself afloat?"

"You really have to push off with your legs," Elise explained. "Watch."

We worked like that for a while, until Ms. Cox blew her whistle signalling the end of class. Then we hauled ourselves out of the pool and walked to the lockers.

The locker room was noisy with laughter and conversation and gossip, but Elise and I hardly said a word as we changed into our street clothes.