Maggie had been working relentlessly on her brand new routine. She knew her mother wasn’t going to be thrilled with all of the details. If she pulled it off, though, her mother would finally see that different could be great, too.
Maggie was going to skate to a rock-n-roll song, and she was going to be doing some footwork and spins that she’d created herself. But she had been spending most of her time practicing her new difficult spin combination.
Her back and arms were sore and tired from falling over and over onto the hard ice, but she had never felt more alive. The puzzle pieces were finally coming together.
The night before the competition, Maggie was scooting her peas around her plate. Her knees couldn’t seem to stop bouncing up and down under the table. She hoped that she was ready, but she wasn’t entirely sure. She’d become unbalanced during the Biellman spin earlier that day, and she was scared of the same thing happening when she was in front of hundreds of people. The nerves were beginning to peck their way under her skin and make a nasty little nest.
“Are you girls excited for tomorrow?” their dad boomed suddenly, and the girls both startled.
The tension between the sisters seemed to be escalating the closer it came to the competition. Never before did it seem so much like they were competing against each other.
That night, the air felt thick enough to slice with a sword.
“Sure, Dad,” both girls muttered at the exact same time, avoiding each other’s eyes.
“Wow,” he said. “Sure sounds like it.” He caught Maggie’s eye. “I’m excited to see what you and Coach Stone have been cooking up.”
Beatrice spun her head to look at Maggie so hard she almost got whiplash. “Are you doing something new?”
“Guess you’ll have to just wait and see,” Maggie said. She got up to scrape her uneaten food into garbage. She didn’t want to talk about her routine in front of her mother who was finally being nice to her.
Her mother sat calmly, spearing her broccoli.
* * *
Maggie woke up extra early the next morning. She yawned and stretched.
She spotted a strange package sitting on top of her desk. Picking up the card that lay on top of a package wrapped in shiny gold foil paper, she read, Good Luck Maggie, in her dad’s familiar sloppy scrawl. Maggie ripped the package open, shredded paper flying, and looked inside to see the most beautiful skating outfit that ever existed. It was royal blue velvet with black leather cap sleeves and metal studs and rhinestones trailing up and down. It oozed rock-n-roll.
Maggie picked it up and crushed it to her chest, thrilled. When she did that, she heard a loud, “clunk” by her feet. Looking down, she burst out laughing when she saw a fresh bottle of blue hair dye with a note taped to it saying, Just in case, with a smiley face.
* * *
Beating drums started before the first notes of music began. Maggie tapped her skate to the tempo.
She hoped that her newly shorn and brightly colored hair looked every bit as awesome as it felt. Every move in her routine was burned into her brain, but she mentally ran through her spin combination one more time. Here at the competition, every movement would have to be perfect.
When the loud guitar riff slammed out of the speakers, Maggie flung her arms into the air and dashed across the ice in a complicated sequence of steps that she choreographed. She could feel everyone watching her. She wanted to bring the music to life.
Her first jump combination, a single axel and then a toe loop, went off without a hitch. When Maggie landed exactly on a pause in the music, she could tell that the crowd was holding its breath. Starting across the ice again, her body moved like it was lit from within. Every muscle was alive and in tune with the music.
Maggie launched into a sit-spin and stood up again to carve out a delicate arabesque, the lights pulsing all around her. Her difficult spin combination was coming up. To win, she knew she’d have to nail her final spin and her axel.
Maggie gathered speed and went into the camel spin, lifting her leg behind her as she spun in tight circles. After four rotations, she switched feet to go into the Biellman, arching back gracefully and raising her foot behind her. She was as graceful as Beatrice, as rock-n-roll as Coach Stone, and as confident as she’d ever been.
She spun faster and faster. As she orbited around feeling every fiber in her body, she made her final decision. She was going to double her last axel. She knew that it was a daring decision. She knew that there were many other double jumps in-between that were easier than the double axel. But her mind was made up.
The combination spin came to end.
The crowd cheered, knowing she’d just set the bar higher for the other competitors. Maggie charged down the ice, determined to pick up enough speed for her big jump. She surged ahead, her feet light and nimble.
Turning around, she sped backward and gained power. She took to the air. Maggie soared up and up like a winged thing, higher than she had ever gone before. The two and a half rotations of the axel were almost too easy, and she came down to earth just as the last guitar note screamed.
Maggie halted in her final position with her chest heaving and sweat trickling down her face.
When Maggie looked up, the stands erupted in a shower of cheers. She felt suspended on a cloud of happiness. Her parents whooped and hollered. Coach Stone looked on with pride. Maggie knew then that she’d probably just won the competition. But then she looked to her sister. Beatrice’s face was a stormy sea.