The next few days passed very quickly. Emily spent all her time out of classes practising her routine. She hardly thought about anything except for the competition. She went to sleep thinking about it and woke up thinking about it – she even skated it over and over again in her dreams! However, to her intense frustration, she seemed to be doing her routine less well now than when she had first thought it up.
It began to seem like the more she tried and the longer she practised, the worse she got. She spent so much time on the ice that she hardly did anything with her friends. The only thing that Emily did make sure she made time for was looking after the baby ice dragon.
‘I wish I was better at my routine, Charlie,’ Emily told the dragon as she took her turn to feed him at morning break on Thursday. He flapped his way out of the open box and landed on one of the shelves, where he proceeded to joyfully pull out all the papers from one of Madame Longley’s folders.
‘No, don’t do that,’ Emily said quickly.
The little dragon had got very good at getting the lid off his box and escaping. Alice had made him some dragon toys and got some pieces of bark for him to chew on, but he always seemed to be up to mischief – climbing the curtains or chewing up important papers. Emily scooped the baby dragon up and moved him back into his box. He squawked in annoyance.
‘I’m sorry,’ Emily told him as the squawk changed to a plaintive squeak. ‘I know you don’t like being left on your own, but I really have to go now and practise again. One of the others will be here later.’
Shutting the door of the cupboard behind her, she hurried quickly away.
When Emily got to the rink, Alice came over. ‘How was Charlie?’
‘Fine,’ replied Emily.
‘I’m really worried about him getting bored and being on his own,’ said Alice. ‘Madame Longley said I can introduce him to the other dragons in a week or so, but what are we going to do until then? He’s getting so naughty – and he’s so good at escaping.’
‘Mmm,’ Emily said, not really listening as she put on her skates. In her head she was already going through her routine.
‘Will you help me try and think of something?’ asked Alice.
‘Yeah,’ Emily mumbled. ‘Maybe later.’ She headed on to the ice and with a deep sigh started her routine.
She felt tense and uncomfortable inside. With every mistake she made that day, a feeling of panic started to build inside her. What would she do if she got things wrong in the competition? She watched the other girls, hoping to pick up some tips. Maybe she should copy them? Molly was so fast and Amanda so dramatic. Camilla was very elegant and Zoe so accurate…
‘Em!’ Emily looked round. Hannah was skating over. ‘Can I talk to you a minute? I’m worried about Molly.’
Emily nodded vaguely, but her thoughts were on her own bad performance. ‘Do you think I should skate faster into my double flip?’ she asked Hannah. ‘Molly and Camilla always skate really fast.’
Hannah blinked. ‘It might help,’ she said. ‘But look, about Molly. She keeps falling over all the time when she’s trying the triple jump and –’
‘Hang on. Let me just try it.’ Emily skated off. She wanted to see what would happen if she skated even faster into the double flip. She sped up, lifted into the air, spun round, tensed and…
SLAM!
She ended up on the ice. Giving an annoyed exclamation, she stood up.
‘Are you OK?’ Hannah called out.
‘Fine!’ Emily snapped. She saw Hannah’s look of surprise and felt bad. ‘Sorry, I’m just trying to get this right,’ she sighed.
Deciding to try again, Emily began to skate backwards round the rink, but as she did so, she saw Molly skating into another triple toe loop. Molly’s face was set and flushed.
Maybe Hannah’s right and we should stop her, Emily realized. She hesitated and then started to skate over. ‘Molly!’
But Molly wasn’t listening. She dug her toe pick into the ice and propelled herself upwards, but she was going too fast. She spun round and lost control. Falling out of the spin, she landed on one leg. It seemed to buckle beneath her and she thudded heavily on to the ice. Crying out in pain, she clasped her leg with both hands.
‘My ankle,’ she gasped as Emily and Hannah both raced over.
Emily knelt down beside her. Tears sprung to Molly’s eyes. ‘It really hurts!’
‘I’ll get help!’ said Hannah quickly.
Molly started to cry. Emily felt awful. She hugged her tightly. ‘It’ll be OK,’ she said. ‘Madame Letsworth will be here in a moment.’
It felt like they waited ages, but it was only really a few minutes before Hannah returned with Madame Letsworth and Monsieur Carvallio. By then, everyone else on the rink had noticed something was the matter and had skated over.
‘Now, make some space, please, girls,’ called Madame Letsworth.
Monsieur Carvallio examined Molly’s foot and then scooped her up. ‘We’d better get you to the sick bay.’
‘But what’s the matter with it? What have I done?’ Molly said through her tears.
‘We need to get the doctor to look at you,’ Monsieur Carvallio said. ‘Come on.’
Emily and Hannah exchanged worried glances and followed the teachers and Molly off the ice.