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

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

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. Naomi was the best in the team. She was small and strong. Naomi, Anika and Fiona had all been in 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,’ Gemma said. ‘That’s not too bad, is it?’

‘Not too bad,’ Kathy smiled.

The other girls nodded.

All through bars, Gemma started feeling better. She was still on the team. Plus, she was good at 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, 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 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 gym.

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 head. 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 take Gemma off the team. He was going to make her pay in other ways. He had set all that extra work to get back at her.

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 sorry. What if you do something wrong, but saying sorry isn’t good enough? How do you fix things then?

Gemma loved gymnastics. She lived for gymnastics. But now it had all gone wrong.