Jessi's Gold Medal Read online

  A few of my friends nodded, but Mary Anne said, “Thanks but no thanks. I’d probably drown.”

  “Boy, you really do love sports, don’t you?” Stacey said with a laugh. “You ought to get together with Charlotte.”

  Stacey meant that jokingly, but it made me stop and think. Becca had told me about the afternoon at the Johanssens’, and I could imagine how awkward Char felt. Suddenly I realized a way to make her feel better. “You know, that’s not a bad idea,” I said.

  “What’s not?” Stacey asked.

  “Well, maybe you should call Charlotte, Mary Anne. Tell her you’re not going to be in the Sports Festival. She looks up to you. Maybe when she hears that, she won’t feel so bad about not being in the Mini-Olympics.”

  “That’s a great idea!” Stacey agreed.

  “Sure,” Mary Anne said. “I’d love to do that.”

  The phone rang again, and the meeting returned to normal. We had solved a lot of problems. The Mini-Olympics was becoming a reality. Charlotte would soon be feeling better, I was sure. Mal — well, I’d have to figure out what was wrong with her.

  But for some reason, my mind kept going back to the pool. All I could think about was the placement of my hands in a tub turn. It was going to be a long two weeks.

  As you can see, Claudia and Mal had Pike Duty that Saturday. What’s Pike Duty? It’s sitting for the seven younger Pike brothers and sisters.

  They are good kids, but they are a handful. Besides Mal, these are their names, in order of … appearance (I guess you could call it that): Adam, Byron, and Jordan (ten-year-old triplets); Vanessa (nine); Nicholas (eight); Margo (seven); and Claire (five). I could also count Frodo, but he’s a hamster.

  When Claudia reached Mal’s house, she found the whole Pike clan in the backyard. The kids were running around like crazy, dragging a weight-lifting set onto the driveway, setting up markers for a race, piling up potato sacks and old rags, arranging an ice bucket and refreshments on a card table. And screaming and yelling. It made Kristy’s sitting experience sound positively peaceful.

  “Hi, guys!” Claudia called out as she strolled into the backyard.

  “Hi, Claud!” Mal called back.

  “Hi!” yelled Vanessa and a few of the others.

  “Yo,” said Jordan Pike, who was walking around with his chest out and his shoulders lifted high. As he turned away, he sort of waddled from leg to leg. “Come on, look lively!” he yelled, clapping his hands. “Let’s go!”

  Claudia giggled. “What got into him?” she asked.

  “He’s Spuds Diamond today,” Mal said.

  “Who?”

  “Spuds Diamond. He’s the coach of some Olympic thing. Jordan saw him yesterday on TV and wants to be just like him.”

  “Does Spuds Diamond have something wrong with his shoulders?”

  Mal laughed. “No. Jordan thinks he looks muscular when he scrunches them up like that.”

  “Oh,” Claudia said, smiling.

  “Okay, let’s start the training program!” Jordan bellowed, trying to use a deep voice. “Adam, Byron, you guys look a little soft in the belly —”

  “Look who’s talking!” Adam said.

  “Fatso!” Byron remarked.

  Jordan sucked in his stomach (which must have been hard to do, because actually he’s pretty skinny). “You guys run a few sprints between the markers. Nicky, let’s see a few push-ups. Vanessa, you and Margo do sit-ups —”

  “We want to lift weights!” Vanessa protested.

  “Well, okay … Claire, you can do jumping jacks.”

  “Silly jumps!” Claire squealed. “Like this.” She began jumping up and down, making weird faces, her arms and legs flailing all over the place.

  Jordan swaggered over to the card table. He opened up a container of brown powder, spooned some into a glass, then poured in water from a pitcher.

  “What is that?” Claudia asked. It looked absolutely disgusting.

  Jordan raised his eyebrows as if Claud had just asked the world’s dumbest question. “Brewer’s yeast,” he said confidently. “It’s very rare in nature,” Jordan said as he began mixing the drink. It became muddier and grosser looking, and Jordan’s face quickly lost its macho grin.

  “It’s my dad’s,” Mal whispered to Claud. “He tried it once and couldn’t stand it.”

  “And he let Jordan take some?” Claudia said.

  “Dad warned him, but Jordan said —”

  “Yuuullllk…. ucccchhh!”

  Spuds Diamond suddenly disappeared. He was replaced by Jordan Pike.

  “Yuchh! … yuchh! … yuchh! …” he kept repeating, his face contorted. “I have to go to the hospital!”

  Mal rushed to the table and grabbed a pitcher of orange juice. Pouring some into a cup, she said “Here, have this. It’ll wash away the taste.”

  Jordan swallowed it down like a thirsty person in the desert. When he came up for air, he was still gagging, but not as much.

  “Oooo,” he said with a shiver, “don’t ever drink that. I’m going to throw it away.”

  “Good idea,” Mal said.

  Then … back came Spuds Diamond. Up went the shoulders, down went the voice. “Okay, time for aerobics! Line up!”

  “Jordannnn!” Vanessa complained. She and Margo were lifting weights with Marilyn and Carolyn Arnold, who had just come over.

  “Call me Coach!” Jordan corrected her. “Now, come on! Let’s start with … um, running in place.”

  “Wait here,” Mal said to Claudia. “I’ll be back.”

  The kids had only been running for a few seconds when Mal returned with a cassette recorder. She set it on the table and played a dance-pop song with a strong beat.

  This brought the kids to life. After a while Jordan switched them to jumping jacks, then push-ups, then squat thrusts (basically, he stopped whenever he couldn’t do any more).

  Well, the music acted like a magnet. Soon the yard was filled with kids from around the neighborhood. Buddy and Suzi Barrett showed up, then Haley and Matt Braddock, then Jenny Prezzioso, then the Kuhn kids.

  Pretty soon Jordan’s aerobics class was out of control. The kids split off and started practicing for their events. Their noise became almost unbearable. It was more like a Screamers’ Olympics. Even Matt Braddock, who is deaf, was signing like crazy and making loud noises to emphasize what he was trying to say.

  At this point, the sitting job was actually pretty easy for Claud and Mal. Mal was just watching, and even though Claudia felt like having fun with the kids, she didn’t want to leave Mal alone.

  So the two of them sat. And sat. And sat. Mal wasn’t very talkative.

  “Mal?” Claudia finally said. “Is everything okay?”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “The kids look like they’re having fun. Want to join them?”

  “Not right now,” Mal said.

  So they sat some more. In front of them, Jordan and Buddy were climbing into potato sacks. “We’ll start here and end up at the tree stump, okay?” Jordan said, pointing to an old brown stump that’s almost invisible in a corner of the yard.

  “Okay,” Buddy replied.

  “Ready, set, go!” Jordan called out.

  The boys were off and hopping. And then, according to Claudia, Mal began to fidget a little. After a moment, she stood up and said, “I want to try a race!”

  Claudia was surprised. “Which one?” she asked.

  “Potato-sack!” Mal grabbed two more sacks from the pile and gave one to Claud. They stepped into them at Jordan’s starting line, just as he and Buddy were coming back.

  “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 Clau
dia 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.

  “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 grown-up 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 know! 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 grown-up 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 nee
d it.”

  With that, he waved good-bye and headed for the lockers.

  “I wish he were one of the judges,” Elise said.

  “He’s probably never seen synchro swimming in his life,” I replied.

  We pulled ourselves up and trudged toward the girls’ showers. The slap-slapping of our feet echoed in the early evening air.

  “Well,” Elise said, “look at it this way: By this time tomorrow it will be over.”

  “Thank goodness,” I replied.

  In the doorway to the locker room, I looked over my shoulder. The sight of the pool gave me a dull headache. Then I thought: Today was the last day I’d be using the community pool complex to practice.

  What a relief!

  Elise and I changed out of our suits. My headache had traveled down to my stomach, which felt fluttery and nauseous. I didn’t think I’d be able to eat dinner. I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep.

  Insomnia and an empty stomach. What a great way to go into a swimming competition.

  It was hard to believe that just a few weeks earlier, I had actually asked my parents for a pool. The way I was feeling that evening, if I never saw a pool again in my life, it would be too soon.

  I didn’t want to move.

  The morning sun was streaming through the cracks in my blinds, and my radio alarm had turned on with a weather report. “Another bright, sunny, late spring day,” the announcer was saying. “The kind of day that makes you glad to be alive!”

  That was what she thought.

  I turned off the radio and pulled the covers over my head.

  It couldn’t be time yet. It couldn’t be the morning of the festival.

  I felt as if I had slept about ten minutes the whole night. I know for sure I’d woken up at least three times. I kept having this horrible dream: The festival had begun, and I was swimming in the group synchro demonstration, but with my eyes closed. When I opened my eyes, I realized the song had ended and the rest of the class had stopped — except for Elise and me. Elise was doing butterfly laps so fast she was making waves. The others were sitting at the edge of the pool, staring at us and laughing. Ms. Cox was yelling, “You look tired, Jessi! Hurry up!” And worst of all, Mme Noelle was there, scowling and shaking her head. I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t. My arms and legs kept moving and moving, but Elise’s waves were pushing me under the water. I started to sink … and that was when I’d wake up.