Prologue

A novel by Allison B. and Stephanie W.

Amanda

I hate bars. At the start, everyone is equal. When you start bars, you already have a score. A place. A standing. As defending all around state champ, I had to wait until last. I knew what I had to beat, but so did the judges. Bars is after the first nervous apprehension, but too long before floor. Floor is my favorite, ‘cause anything is possible. The requirements are nothing when you have so much space. Every other routine is custom built to please the judges. Safe. No mistakes. Totally boring. Livvy used to make me a perfect crowd pleasing floor routine. She gave up. I refuse to compromise the openness with a planned routine. The perfect floor routine conveys who you are, what you can be, and what you are capable of. You can’t plan feelings, so how does a planned routine work? People would tell me, “Amanda darling, I know you’re good at floor, but you can’t just go make it up out in front of the judges! What if you forget a requirement?” I hate requirements. They limit you, not improve you. The girls who end up winning are forced to take time from their more impressive moves to meet the requirements. Yes, that meant me. But it especially meant Layla.
Layla should be standing here. Last and all around champ. But she’s not for two reasons. First, she got pneumonia two days before last years state competition. Second, she quit the team with no warnings just ten days ago. She had missed her first practice in three years, and she wouldn’t answer our calls, even though she was home. The next day, she turned in a form. The form. After seven years of nearly flawless routines, Layla Newman quit gymnastics.
It really shook the team up. Not only was she the leader and motivator, she was the best. Highest scoring in vault, bars, and beam --everything but floor. She beat me once. I had followed a routine. It never happened again.
Now, I was the best on the team. Highest on vault, beam, and floor, though my total score is consistently a whole point behind what Layla could have scored.
To me though, the most baffling thing is why. Why didn’t Layla tell us she was going to quit? More importantly, why did she quit? Was it because I won States last year when she missed the competition? Was all this my fault? Livvy had summed it up pretty nicely; “Girls have quit before, but not determined and successful champions.”
These things kept running through my head as the girl before me got her scores. Average of 9.375. “Not bad,” I thought, “She’ll beat me, but Layla woulda scored at least two tenths better.”
I walked to the bars, suddenly furious. I suck at bars; it was common knowledge. An image of Layla filled my mind. Her only perfect 10 at bars, though it was her best event, the judges always seemed to find something wrong with her routine; bars was still usually her highest score. We all knew the routine; we learned every routine that scored 10. Livvy would kill me later, but I decided it was time to try something that wasn’t planned. I grabbed the bar more confidently than ever, knowing that for the first time ever I was going to vent my feelings on bars.



“Amanda! What were you thinking?” asked Olivia, our coach. “You know bars is your worst event, you can’t just improvise!”
“I didn’t improvise,” I said softly, I modified.”
“Modified what?! That wasn’t your routine.”
“Later!” I shushed her, “The scores!”
“But you”-- Livvy fell silent as the judges announced my scores. Average of 9.283. That was my best in over a year, before I had to bend so my toes didn’t hit the bar. It’s hard being a ninth grade 5 foot 6 gymnast. My score wasn’t great, but Livvy couldn’t complain. She shut up. Combined with my 9.118 vault, I was in 8th. That was good, as my bars score usually brings me down to 11th. If this kept up, I would definitely go to Regionals. The winner of each event plus the all around champion got to go. If one girl won two events, the next best all around gymnast would go too.
Despite Layla’s absence, we were doing okay, but not our best. Usually, we just tried to get the best all around score we could, as Layla would usually win two events, and I would win floor, allowing one girl who hadn’t won an event to go to Regionals. Now, without Layla to win two events, probably only the event-winners would go on, unless the champ also wins an event. Anyway, I would probably win floor, so I will go, and Nicole was second at bars, so she would at least practice with the team. I wouldn’t be alone. Only Viv, Nicole, and I were in the top 25, and Viv would quickly drop because of her worst events, beam and floor.
Not that I really cared this year. No one seemed to. We were doing fine, but without Layla, there seemed to be no point. We probably wouldn’t win, but who cared? Just one more thing to prove the taunts of the other gymnasts. We would fail without Layla.” But what was the point of winning without Layla? She really was the one who had gotten us this far. She was the peacemaker and the one who nagged us if we skipped practice. She should be here helping to cheer the rest of us on. It was like the only reason we had to perform is to please Layla.
I once read in a book that the one problem with miracles was that they don’t last. Watching Bethie fall off a practice beam, I realized it was true.
It had all seemed like a miracle that we were going to the State competition, but it didn’t last. Layla had quit. Our miracle ended abruptly, like a mirror being shattered with one hard punch.