Read CHAPTER 2

Gemma sat in Michael’s office, looking at her feet. She had already said she was sorry for kicking Michael in the face. Now she didn’t know what to say. Inside, she felt terrible.

Michael was writing and frowning. He wiped his nose with a tissue, which was now bloodred.

Michael put down his pen and handed Gemma a sheet of paper. “Here is some extra strength work for you,” Michael said.

Gemma looked at the paper.

“When the other girls start stretching, you do this,” Michael said, and sniffed. “OK,” Gemma said. Extra strength work? Did that mean she wasn’t being kicked off the team?

“Now go to the bars, Gemma,” Michael said, without smiling.

“OK.” Gemma smiled to herself.

She wasn’t being kicked off the team! This was great.

When Gemma came down to the bars, the rest of the team crowded around her.

“What did Michael say?” Naomi asked.

Her eyes were wide with worry through the smudge of chalk dust on her face.

Naomi was the best on the team. She was small and strong. Naomi, Anika, and Fiona had all been on the level six team last year, and Michael had kept them down. But all the girls thought Naomi should have gone up to level seven.

“I have to do extra strength training,” Gemma said. “That’s not too bad, is it?”

“Not too bad,” Kathy smiled.

The other girls nodded.

All through the bars, Gemma started feeling better. She was still on the team. Plus, she was good on bars. She loved the swinging, rolling feeling as she swung between the bars-—swing up, hip circle around, pike over the lower bar to catch the high bar. It was almost like flying.

But when it was time to do the extra strength training, Gemma started feeling bad again. The extra strength was hard work. And there was lots of it.

Gemma did so many chin-ups, her arms felt like they were on fire. Then she had to hold a handstand, followed by running and jumping while holding weights. Last of all, she had to do push-ups. Soon her arms and legs started to hurt.

Gemma looked over at the rest of the team. They were stretching their legs and talking. They looked happy. Kathy looked over at Gemma with a broad smile. Gemma smiled back, but inside she felt sad.

Gemma liked stretching. She could do the splits on both sides already. It felt good to stretch her legs after the energy of gymnastics. But now, Gemma had to do extra work on her own. Her whole body hurt.

When Gemma’s dad came to pick her up at the end of the class, Gemma felt too tired to move. She slumped in the car seat like a rag doll. She was almost too tired to put her seatbelt on.

“How’s my gym bunny?” Gemma’s dad asked.

“OK,” Gemma said quietly. What should she say? I kicked my coach in the face. It was the worst class ever.

“Are you OK, Gem?” her dad asked.

“Yup,” Gemma said. She didn’t know what else to say. She was too tired to talk.

Gemma looked out the car window at the bright lights zooming past.

Now it all started to make sense.

Gemma had kicked Michael, but he wasn’t going to kick Gemma off the team. He was going to make her pay in other ways. He had given her all that extra work to make Gemma pay for kicking him.

Gemma turned her head to the side, so her dad couldn’t see a tear spilling down her cheek.

She still felt bad for kicking Michael. But it had been an accident. She had said she was sorry. What if you do something wrong, but saying you’re sorry isn’t good enough? How do you fix things then?

Gemma loved gymnastics. She lived for gymnastics. But now it had all turned bad.