Maggie stood next to her mother inside the arena. Her mother’s breath puffed out like a dragon’s in the cold air. The effect gave her face a scary quality.
“Nothing has changed, Magnolia,” her mother said.
Maggie cringed at hearing her full name.
Her mother stared straight ahead, her back as straight as the ironing board she spent so much time with. “We’re going to stick with your normal routine and the classical music.”
How did she know what I was thinking? Maggie thought to herself.
She had just been day-dreaming about ice-skating. Led Zeppelin had been playing in the background in her fantasy, and she was wearing a dark purple velvet skating outfit with rhinestones. She imagined doing a double axel just like Beatrice — but looking way cooler than Beatrice while doing it.
“Okay, Mom,” Maggie said, feeling the familiar sadness whenever her mother put her foot down. Having tried many times before, Maggie knew that it was useless to argue.
Five minutes later, Maggie’s mother was up in the stands. All of the other skaters were laced up and standing on the ice, shivering a bit. Coach Stone skated toward them. He turned backward and started picking up speed. He steadied himself before swinging his right leg up, sending him flying into the air.
One, two, three and a half turns. A triple axel.
All the girls gasped and started to clap.
Maggie couldn’t believe it. That was the most amazing jump she’d ever seen in person. Butterflies floated inside of her. No other coach of hers had ever done anything like that.
As he landed and skated over to the group, Coach Stone’s grin spread across his face.
“Good morning, young skaters,” he said, planting one skate across the other and leaning onto the railing. “Before we begin,” he continued, making sure that he directed his gaze at each girl individually, “I want to repeat for our two new athletes, Maggie and Beatrice, what I told the rest of you last week.”
The girls all gave knowing smiles to the twins.
Maggie glanced up anxiously at the stands toward her mother, who was watching closely but was probably too far away to hear Coach Stone’s words.
Coach Stone pushed off the Plexiglas wall with his hands. He said, “I believe that skating should be, most of all . . .” He spun around with his limbs flying in all directions. “Fun.” He finished his move and raised his arms high above his head. He waggled his eyebrows.
Many of the girls started to laugh. Maggie fidgeted with the tips of her gloves.
“Let’s get started,” Coach Stone said. He skated over toward the stereo system and pushed a button. Pulsing music began to pump out the arena speakers, seemingly on all sides of them. “Today, I want you all to just skate. Forget about what you’re supposed to do. Move to the music.”
Maggie felt her feet come alive. They slid back and forth to the rhythm of the song. She began to tap her hands on the tops of her thighs.
The rest of the girls gawked at each other, willing someone to do something first. Under Coach Bennett, they’d always been told to practice specific skills before. They did warm-ups, then drills, then new skills. It was always the same. They weren’t quite sure what to do with their brand new freedom.
Beatrice looked completely confused. She kept glancing up at their mother. Maggie knew how much Beatrice liked to have a plan, a checklist of activities. A plus B equaled C. A logical sequence.
Finally, Zoe beamed at Maggie and started to move out onto the ice. She shot her hands into the air like she’d just been attacked by the music. She’d already spent a full week practicing with Coach Stone and was clearly more familiar with his odd techniques.
Maggie chuckled out loud and decided right then that she wasn’t even going to look in her mother’s direction. In fact, she wasn’t going to think about her at all. She was going to follow her feet, which seemed to be skating around in a circle all by themselves. She moved her hips from side to side and twirled, letting the music flow into her blood, her muscles, her limbs.
Now this I could skate to, Maggie thought as she began to fly across the ice, kicking her feet up and feeling all of her cells bounce to the music. It felt amazing. She began to skate faster, turning right at the last moment before she plowed into the wall. Then she went into her combination sit spin, crossing her arms in front of her, leaving perfect circles carved into the ice below.
Maggie stood up and skated hard, moving into an axel and then a double toe loop. It all seemed so easy as her body took over. She glided across the ice, avoiding the other skaters as they loosened up, moving and jumping and spinning to the beat. Most of the girls seemed to be having as much fun as she was.
Maggie ignored them as she leapt and shimmied and skated. Her muscles felt incredibly strong and sure. All of her hours of training seemed to click right into place. This is what Beatrice feels, she thought with amazement. This is why she’s so good at skating.
The peak of the song was coming up. Maggie skated backward, her feet crisscrossing. There was an open space on the ice, and she wanted to try another axel. Actually, she was feeling so confident that she wanted to attempt a double axel. She’d tried to pull it off before but never had done it.
Maggie sped across the ice and jumped into the air. She completed the normal axel rotation and then the full extra revolution before landing just as the music slowed down.
Maggie couldn’t believe it — she’d just landed her very first double axel. Her heart pounded to the bass line of the song, and she spun around and around with the dying notes, not wanting the feeling to end. As she slowed, she started to realize that the rest of the skaters had stopped. They were staring at her, mouths hanging open.
Beatrice glowered at Maggie. Their mother sat as still as a tombstone, pursing her lips.
Maggie wrapped her arms around herself. What just happened? she thought. Did I really just land a double axel?
* * *
As Maggie lay in her bed that night, she overheard her parents talking. Her mother used words like “unbalanced” and “outlandish” and “bizarre” to describe Coach Stone and his methods. Her father asked questions but didn’t put up much of a defense.
When Maggie finally fell asleep, she tossed and turned with strange visions. In one, Coach Stone leapt into the air, and then the snake tattoo on his arm came to life and hissed at Maggie that she would never be as good as her sister.
The next morning, Maggie felt her mother shaking her shoulder gently.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” her mother said.
She stroked Maggie’s forehead.
Maggie looked out her window and saw that the worried face of the moon was still shining into her room. The sky was still pitch black.
“What time is it?” Maggie asked. She rubbed her eyes, trying to make sense of what was happening.
“It’s early,” her mother said, “but we’re driving the hour to train with Coach Bennett from now on.” She patted Maggie’s leg and then, as if an afterthought, “If Beatrice wants to make regionals, she really needs to get back on the ice with someone more traditional.”
Even though Maggie’s brain wasn’t quite awake enough to process that information, her stomach dropped. She had known she hadn’t had much of a shot to make regionals herself, but it was crushing to hear it come directly from her mother’s mouth. Maggie noticed there was also no mention of what Maggie wanted or needed.
Her mother walked out of Maggie’s bedroom. Seconds later, she heard Beatrice staggering to the bathroom. Maggie moaned and pulled the covers up around her head. Her mother had officially lost her mind.
In the car, Maggie’s mother explained to her daughters that they would to continue to train with their ballet and jump coaches after school in their old rink, but every morning they’d go to Coach Bennett’s.
Beatrice soon fell asleep beside Maggie. She looked peaceful, knowing that she would get to train with her old coach again.
While Maggie watched her sister’s steady breathing, she felt like her own heart was breaking. Just the day before, she had experienced a passion for skating she’d never felt before. She’d gotten only the smallest dose, but now it was being taken away because her mother couldn’t handle “unusual.”
The drive to Coach Bennett’s new skating rink was an hour long one way. That meant a two-hour round trip each day. Maggie wasn’t sure what was worse: the dreariness, how tired she was, or worrying that she was going to be that tired every single morning — maybe the rest of her life.
Maggie decided that things really couldn’t be worse. Her mother had made a decision and didn’t care what anybody else thought about it.