Going for Gold

"But Coach! I always perform on beam first!" said Lauren, as she scanned over the event list.
"Lauren, you know very well that Kimmie has a higher level beam routine, and that she can execute it beautifully."
"But Coach!" Lauren whined, her voice trailing off as Coach walked away.
"I don’t want to hear about this again," Coach called over her shoulder.
Walking away sulkily, Lauren headed off to go tell her best friend on the team Sarah about what Coach said. Sarah would understand how Lauren felt.

Over on bars, Jenna, Anna, and Kimmie were practicing their routines. The National USA Championship was coming up, and everyone on the team has to compete.
Landing her double back tuck dismount, Anna took one tiny step to the side. If there had been judges judging her, she would have had .1 of a point taken off her score. Besides that though, Anna’s routine had been flawless.
"Way to go Anna!" Jenna said from where she was sitting on the mats. "Just make sure that you point your toes on your giants."
"Thanks, Jenna. I just have to get this perfect so that I can place in the finals."

Kimmie, who was chalking up her grips, looked up, flashed Anna a smile and said, "I’m sure you will. Your routine is so amazing; you have, like, tons of high level moves. Plus, you nail them all." Since Kimmie specialized in the beam along with Lauren, her bar routine wasn’t as complicated as Anna’s.
Landing, her face split into a grin. She had done it! Her body was trembling with fatigue and excitement but she barely noticed; it was the first time she had ever finished her routine without falling off.

The other girls rushed to the bars and nearly tackled Kimmie.
"You did it!" They all shouted in unison. They made such a commotion that even Coach and Sarah came over to see what happened. Lauren watched from a distance, fuming at how Sarah had just left her.
"Kimmie, I’m really proud of you, but…" Coach looked at the beams set up in the back of the room, "but right now you ought to be working on your beam routine." Coach turned back to Kimmie, "Still," she said, "I am really happy for you; you’ve been working really hard on this."
"Yeah, good job Kimmie," said a quiet voice.

Kimmie looked at Sarah, startled at the compliment. "Hey, thanks Sarah."
After she said that though, Sarah looked behind her and saw Lauren. Lauren mouthed the words, "What are you doing? Stop talking to them." to Sarah. Sarah wished sometimes that she was brave enough to stand up against Lauren, tell her that she wanted to be friends with the others, not hate them. But she wasn’t, so Sarah looked back at Kimmie and sneered.
"Whatever, I take it back, forget that I said anything." Sarah turned sharply and headed towards Lauren, shaking her head slightly. Was being popular at school really worth not having any friends at gymnastics, other than Lauren?

Subdued just a little, Kimmie walked over to the beams and began to warm up. As she walked across the beam doing simple warm up exercises, Kimmie looked around the gym.
The beams were pushed into the corner by the windows that advertised the gym. In paint the windows that took up most of the wall read: The place to go is HERE, the time to go is NOW! Kimmie never liked that people driving past the gym could see right in. Anyone could be watching her right now, and she had no way of knowing. Shifting her gaze from the window, her eyes rested on the vault area. It was composed of a vault table, a sixty foot runway, and a foam block pit. Kimmie always loved the feeling of falling into the pit; it was exhilarating. The bars were black and shiny, the wood smooth and well used. In the middle of the gym was the spring floor. It was blue with black Velcro lines going across it in even intervals. The spring floor gave a little when a gymnast falls, so that it doesn’t hurt as much. It springs also gave a gymnast a little extra air as she jumps. All the apparatuses, bars, beam, vault, and floor were relatively new and in great condition.

A voice broke through her day dream.
"Kimmie, hold on! I’m going to watch you!" Anna was running up to the beams.
"Haha, okay." Kimmie said with a smile on her face. She still felt the excitement of getting her bar routine right and she had almost gotten over the conversation with Sarah. Sarah was a good person; she just needed to get away from Lauren.
"Hey, look Kimmie," Anna said, "Jenna’s going on bars."
Jenna did well, getting through the routine without falling off. Her routine was pretty complicated, as she was the second best on bars. If Anna were to break a bone or hurt herself badly, then Jenna would perform on bars.

When she landed, Jenna looked over at her teammates by the beams. She smiled at them.
"Great job Jenna!" they shouted, giving her air high-fives. Jenna returned the high five. "Want to come over here and watch Kimmie?" Anna asked.
"Nah, sorry. I’m going to go practice my floor routine. Good luck Kimmie."
"You too Jenna. See you later!" Replied Kimmie with a wave.

From behind the vault, Lauren and Sarah watched Kimmie practice her beam routine.
"What are you going to do?" whispered Sarah.
"I’m going to make Kimmie regret ever joining this team." Lauren smiled mischievously, "And I’ll tell you exactly I plan on doing that."
Lauren and Sarah whispered rapidly with each other, creating a plan to mess with Kimmie.

Finally it was time for the Championships. Jenna, Anna, Kimmie, Lauren and Sarah looked around as they entered the stadium.
Excitement and nerves racked their bodies as they looked at the amount of people in the audience. There were thousands of people; all different ages, races, heights and shapes. Then, on the floor of the stadium were tons of gymnasts. All of them were warming up or practicing on their routines already.

The team was sent to the floor first to warm up. Jenna led the floor warm ups, then went off to practice her own routine. After floor the team was sent to each of the other apparatuses to warm up on those. Soon, all the team had left was beam. Lauren went up last. When she thought no one was watching her, she slid an extra mat under the beam, unbalancing it slightly. What she didn’t realize though, was that Anna had seen her put the mat under the beam. Now Anna was whispering quietly to Jenna, every so often peeking at Lauren as she talked and laughed with Sarah.
Anna and Jenna looked around for Kimmie so that they could warn her; but Kimmie was nowhere to be found. They both stopped looking and turned to watch other gymnasts with concerned looks on their faces.

"And first up on beam, Kimberly Malzaltaph," the announcer exclaimed from his microphone.
Kimmie walked out of the locker room, smiled at her team, and marched up to the beam. As she waited for the judges to give her the ‘go ahead’ sign, she tried to quiet her thoughts. Her nerves were high strung from the pressure, and as she rested her hands on the beam for a second, she thought she felt it wobble.

The judges gave her the sign, she smiled and saluted them. Putting both hands down firmly on the beam, she pressed up into a handstand. She stayed there for a second, then turned her hands and slowly came down to a straddle. She swiveled her hips and twisted into a regular split. It was a move that she had come up with years ago, when she was just a kid. She swung her legs over the sides and stood up, going on with her routine.

Lauren watched astounded, as Kimmie kept her balance on such an uneven surface. The only satisfaction Lauren had was when Kimmie lost her footing on a back tuck half. She wobbled for a second, battling gravity, but she stayed on in the end.
After a near perfect routine, Kimmie walked off the mat, head held high.
"You did just amazing!" shouted Anna, Jenna, and even Sarah when Kimmie reached them. She gave them all a big hug, jumping up and down slightly.
"Thanks guys," She said laughing, "the beam was really uneven though. Oh well, at least I didn’t fall."

Sarah looked away guiltily, knowing that she’d have to apologize for what she and Lauren did. "Hey Kimmie," she started, "I have to tell you something." With a deep breath, she spilled the whole story.
Because Kimmie didn’t fall, the judges hadn’t noticed anything was wrong. Now Lauren had to perform on an unbalanced beam. Trying to put on a brave face, she walked up to the beam and got ready to salute the judges.

Lauren walked off the mat shakily. Her routine had gone terribly! She fell once and lost her balance many times. She could never seem to stay balanced.
She walked over to her team slowly, as she thought of what to say.
"Lauren, you did fine." said Anna, trying to comfort her. "I’m sure we’ll still get gold."
"Yeah, yeah," Lauren mumbled. Anna looked at Jenna and shrugged her shoulders in helplessness.

In the end, Jenna, Anna, and Sarah all did extremely well for their first major competition. Jenna received a 14.50 on floor, Anna received a 15.25 on bars, and Sarah received a great score of 16.05 on vault. Kimmie had a 15.95 on beam and Lauren had a 13.20 on beam.
Overall, the team received the silver medal, with Kimmie getting gold for beam and Sarah getting gold on vault.
After the competition back in the gym, everyone was waiting to go home. Sarah walked up to Kimmie and said, "I’m really sorry for what Lauren and I did before."

"Apology accepted…from you. I would love it if Lauren would apologize, but…" Everyone was quiet for a moment. They could all hear Coach yelling at Lauren in the office. "I think she’s getting an earful from Coach already."
"Yeah, no kidding." said Jenna.
Right then, a door slammed shut, and Jenna saw Lauren’s figure recede into the darkness of the night.
"Think she’s coming back?" Sarah asked Anna.
"I doubt it, not after what happened today." Everyone agreed and nodded their heads.
"We should celebrate winning silver." said Kimmie. "Want to come over my house? We could have a party!"
"Yeah" Everyone shouted at the same time.
Things are looking up, thought Sarah.