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  The audience began cheering wildly and the judges were stunned. Her vault had been nearly flawless and the height and distance were excellent. Ell’s score didn’t just bring the team up to a tie but actually gave them a slight lead. Her teammates were so ecstatic Ell gave in to temptation and decided to push it some on the beam too. She didn’t try to do anything special or highly difficult; she just inserted smaller “bobbles” than she usually did and stuck the landing with only a slight waver rather than her usual step. Again the crowd went wild.

  Linza, one of the Doolie gymnasts ran up to hug Ell, “that routine was great!” Linza had never personally witnessed an entire routine performed with only minor bobbles. “Ell! No sways to center, no hand waving? You made it look like the beam was two feet wide!” Ell’s routine wasn’t of great difficulty, so once again she didn’t get an extremely high score. Nonetheless, its near perfection had the judges looking at each other in wonder and her score on beam had the fewest deductions of the meet.

  The gymnastics coaches didn’t miss the significance of these events and suddenly began thinking of Ell Donsaii in a whole new light. Could she be pushed to even higher levels? Were more of these “near flawless performances” available? Could she hit “flawless” with more difficult routines?

  The answers to these questions were all yes – if the team really needed such performances in a meet. This happened at more and more meets and Ell Donsaii slowly became a “dark horse” of the American gymnastics scene. Some began to wonder if this sudden apparition from nowhere was good enough for the Olympics the next summer. Established athletes and their coaches were vehemently opposed to such an “inexperienced” and “old” gymnast even getting a trial for the Olympic squad which usually was made up of pre-college girls. If those detractors did find out that, despite being halfway through her Freshman year of college, she was actually only sixteen they were stunned.

  Back at the Academy there were complaints that she couldn’t train for the Olympics and yet keep up with her duties. Coach Mabry had long since gotten over her “peeve” and become Ell’s greatest supporter. Mabry began pushing every button she could to ensure that Ell would be allowed to try out.

  ***

  Three days later Jamal came home to find his light on again. For a moment he wondered again how the man had gotten in, but it seemed unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Jamal coded open his door and walked over to where the man sat.

  It was the same man. “Well?” was all he said.

  Jamal picked up his slate from the coffee table and opened it to the news page showing the wreck on the freeway. It had been attributed to youthful vandals who “would not have understood the terrible thing they were doing.” Jamal had been horrified to find out that a young woman had been driving the van. She and her father who sat in the seat behind her had both been killed by the concrete block. The young woman’s son in the other back seat had been unharmed, but orphaned. Realizing that he had slaughtered a mother and grandfather in front of their young son produced a Déjà vu that had sent Jamal reeling into the bathroom to throw up. The irony that killing a mother and grandfather was exactly what had been done to him was very evident to Jamal. He had skipped his classes that day and considered killing himself in atonement.

  He hadn’t had the courage.

  “Here,” he said, handing the news story to the man.

  The man peered quizzically at the slate. Jamal suddenly realized that the man’s command of written English was probably poor. “The automobile wreck there. I caused it. Two Americans were killed.”

  The man looked back down at the pictures. “Chickenshit! Couldn’t look them in the eye I suppose.”

  “I didn’t want to be caught. The investment made in me would have been wasted.”

  The man looked at Jamal like a particularly undesirable specimen of insect. “Yes, of course.” He grunted, “Well, you need more training it seems. Tickets will be delivered. You will spend the first part of the summer in a training camp. But now you must make reservations to go to Dallas at the end of the summer.”

  “What is in Dallas and when should I be there?”

  Another grunt, “The Olympic games. Arrange to be there two weeks before and for the duration of the competitions.”

  ***

  Ell’s AI notified her that she was excused from her 10 o’clock class to report to the Academy Commandant’s office. The notification didn’t say why, so she was very nervous when she knocked on the doorframe. “Cadet Donsaii reporting as ordered, sir.”

  “Come.”

  Ell stepped inside and saw Coach Mabry and the gymnastics head coach in the office with the Commandant. Her heart fluttered, wondering if maybe someone had decided that her gymnastic performances were outside the realm of possible. She came to attention and saluted.

  The commandant said, “Cadet Donsaii, your coaches here want you to be able to try out for the Olympic team. What do you think about this opportunity?”

  “Sir, it is likely that I am too old and inexperienced to succeed.”

  “But, would you like to try?”

  After a pause she said, “Yes Sir.”

  “How are you going to keep up with the curriculum while you are gallivanting off to trials, and then possibly spending time at the Olympic Team training camp and perhaps even participating in the Olympics?”

  “Sir, I believe that I can keep up.”

  Coach Mabry stepped up. “Commandant, if I may interject?”

  “Go ahead Coach.”

  “I can forward Cadet Donsaii’s transcript to your AI sir, but if you will take my word for it, the Cadet tested out of so much of the curriculum that she is approximately two years ahead of the typical freshman.”

  The commandant’s eyebrows rose. “So you’re telling me that she could miss or fail all her classes this semester and still graduate on time?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “And there is a…” the commandant looked up at his HUD, “Cadet Zabrisk, a wrestler who might also make an Olympic team?” Ell was startled, this was the first she had heard of that possibility. She would have expected Phil to be bragging about it.

  “Yes sir, I understand he is also a little ahead of the curriculum. Also, I believe that the wrestlers are not expected to show up at the Olympic team training facility very early. He can remain here at the academy until just about six weeks before the actual Olympics. We would only need to grant him an exception to a part of the summer training schedule.”

  “Hmmm,” the Commandant leaned back and stared into the distance, “well it doesn’t seem like this is going to happen very often. I suppose we can bend a few rules to let them try out. If they make the teams, maybe we’ll just have to bend a few more.”

  Ell’s heart lifted. “Thank you, sir!”

  Phil actually was having a hard time not bragging about his Olympic prospects. At first the natural reluctance of Doolies to have a spotlight shined on them, thus acting as a lightning rod for upperclassmen’s harassment inhibited him. Also he’d been admiring Ell for her humility in the face of his increasing realization of her astonishing capabilities. He could hardly brag about himself and at the same time admire her lack of hubris. So when he received word that he had been selected for the Olympic team, he actually kept it to himself! Even more to his own amazement, when word got out that he was on the team he managed to downplay it! “I just got lucky in a few meets.” This went over great with the 22nd squadron upperclassmen who, rather than harassing him as he had expected, took great pride in having an Olympian in their squadron and bragged about him to the upperclassmen in other squadrons.

  Phil was basking in that pride when Joy whispered from behind him as they waited in formation, “Phil, did you hear that Ell got in too?”

  “Got in what?”

  “The Olympics, silly.”

  Phil was nonplussed a moment. Did Joy mean that Ell was going to be going with an Academy contingent to cheer for him? He hadn’t heard of any plans to
send a contingent. Then his hairs prickled yet again. He knew she was on the gymnastics team and was supposed to be pretty good. No one had said anything to him about how good, though he knew she’d been credited with helping the team win some meets. It couldn’t be that she was actually in the Olympics could it? He grunted noncommittally.

  “Yeah,” Denson said, “pretty amazing, huh? Did you know that the last Olympic athlete from the Academy was decades ago? Not only are there two Olympic athletes coming from the Academy this one year but they’re both from the same squadron!”

  Phil felt like someone had kicked him. Damn it, everything he was good at, Ell was just as good, or worse, outshone him!

  Chapter Five

  Ell arrived at the Olympic training camp with mixed feelings. She loved the thought of being an Olympic athlete. Kristen and Gram called almost everyday, beside themselves with excitement. The Academy had decided that the PR value of her Olympic status justified sending a couple of instructors with her to training and to the Olympics. The instructors were there to “keep her up with her curriculum,” hopefully allowing her to remain far in advance of the other cadets in her year.

  Ell’s gymnastics performances so far had been labeled “uneven.” Her performances at the Olympic trials had been more than good enough to put her on the team, but Lieutenant Mabry and Olympic Head Coach Benson were very concerned about how often she followed unbelievably good routines by muffing simple moves.

  Ell’s mixed feelings resulted partially from the coaches’ obvious stress regarding her questionable capabilities but more from that fact that the other girls on the team had at least known each other, and many had been together at training facilities for several years. They were the physically tiny type that usually won Olympic medals. In fact this year all of them were still in high school. In addition, Ell knew that she had displaced a popular gymnast whom they had all expected to have on the team with them. Despite her excellent performance in the trials Ell was listed as an alternate because she’d performed poorly in a meet right before the trials where her team didn’t need her points. So, no one was sure how she’d fit into the team or whether she would perform when it counted. They would only put her on the official team if she could demonstrate consistency.

  She had convinced herself that she shouldn’t expect major problems fitting in, but troubles were waiting for her at the camp when she walked in with Head Coach Benson.

  “Girls,” the coach shouted to the room in general. The girls in the room stopped what they were doing. “This is Ell Donsaii.” The coach introduced her in a pleasant tone but the nine other gymnasts at the camp all stared at her, many with their arms folded in front of them.

  Ell realized that, while these young women knew that they wouldn’t all go to the Olympics, they’d expected to lose out to one of their own, not to a newcomer. She smiled brightly and gave a little wave, “Hi!”

  No one said anything in return, though a few waved perfunctorily. After a moment they all turned back to their equipment. Coach Benson quietly said, “They’ll get over their snit after a while. Just be friendly.” Then she led Ell over to the vault and said, “Let’s see what you can do.”

  That evening Ell found out that all the other girls were paired up with roommates.

  She had a room to herself.

  Ell had organized her room and put away all her stuff. She was about to start studying when there was a knock at her door. When she opened it one of the assistant coaches was there. “Aren’t you coming to dinner?”

  “Oh, I am hungry! But I didn’t know anything about how meals are arranged here.”

  “None of the other girls told you where to have your AI access the schedule on the Net?”

  “Um, no.” Ell was nonplussed at the thought that they would have helped her with that after ignoring her for the entire practice. “If you don’t mind showing me, that would be great.”

  “OK, but let’s do it on the walk over or you’ll miss the entire meal.”

  “Thanks, Coach Baiul.”

  When they got to the little dining hall, all the other girls were sitting at one big table and nearly done with dinner. Ell wound up sitting with her two instructors from the Academy as well as Coach Baiul and some of the other teachers.

  Days, then weeks, passed without much change in the frosty attitude of the other gymnasts. Ell tried to make friends with the other girls but could tell she was being “iced out.” The team’s vault specialist, Anna Kernova, seemed especially antagonistic. Coach Baiul asked Anna to spot for Ell once while the coach ran to the bathroom. Anna rolled her eyes and said, “She’s too big for me to spot. We’ll just have to wait.”

  While they waited Ell tried the gambit of asking Anna for advice, “Do you have any suggestions on how I could ‘stick’ my landings a little better?”

  Anna looked up at Ell with an incredulous expression, “Really?!” Then she turned back to studying the vault runway, arms crossed over her chest.

  Ell wondered what Anna had meant with the “Really?” Did she think it preposterous that I would ask for help? Or unimaginable that Anna would give any? Or pitiful that I would try to act friendly?

  It seemed likely that Anna disliked Ell because Anna’s vault specialty was where Ell performed the best and most consistently. Vault didn’t really take stamina like some of the other longer routines that could wear a little into Ell’s limited endurance. Ell had read up and thought she must have almost all fast twitch muscle that let her do the surprising things she was able to do but gave her so little endurance. Even without going in the zone, Ell could actually do the most difficult vaults perfectly, over and over, though she carefully made at least minor mistakes on every one to keep suspicions down. By the end of a floor exercise Ell became tired enough that mistakes were, perhaps not inevitable, but certainly easy to make.

  Anna called Ell, “Ms. Donsaii.” At first Ell wondered why, but then realized that Anna thought that Ell was nineteen or twenty like most rising college sophomores. Anna was fifteen and would turn 16 during the calendar year of this Olympics, the very youngest you could be and still be allowed to compete. Ell thought about telling Anna that she was only sixteen (well sixteen and a half) but she’d worked so hard to keep her young age secret. Not only as instructed but also so that she wouldn’t be treated differently at the Academy by her classmates. The fact that she’d been given a special waiver for her age made the staff at the Academy especially sensitive to helping her keep the secret.

  Ell tried to deal with it by being relentlessly cheerful and helping the other girls when she could. She clapped for them when they did well and complimented them for especially good moves. However, her friendliness made little headway. They never returned any favors unless the coaches badgered them into it. Sometimes she saw some of them, heads together in heated discussion, throwing looks her way.

  Lieutenant Mabry was one of Ell’s two instructors from the Academy and supposed to be helping her keep up with her Academy curriculum. “Donsaii! What the hell were you doing out there today?”

  “Ma’am?” Ell wondered what this was about? Mabry badgered her constantly about her gymnastics performances. She wasn’t supposed to be coaching Ell for gymnastics, they had the Olympic coaches for that, but Mabry had been in gymnastics her whole life and came to every practice, “to observe.” Daily, during Ells study time, she made “suggestions” on how Ell could have done better in this or that gymnastic routine.

  “Your vaults! They were terrible! What the hell were you thinking about? I know you can do better than that!”

  Ell knew it too. She’d fluffed those vaults on purpose so she could try asking Anna’s advice again. She’d been hoping again that it might somehow allow them to make friends. Anna had given her the cold shoulder again though. To Mabry she said, “Just had an off day Ma’am.”

  “I’ll say! You’re so inconsistent I’ll be surprised if they don’t throw you off the team! They can’t afford to have someone who’s either real
ly hot or really cold. Everyone knows you can turn in better performances than any of those girls but they don’t know if you will. What if you turn cold at the big one? You do know that they’re only taking seven out of the eleven girls from this training camp to the actual Olympics don’t you?”

  This sent a spike of fear through Ell. She hadn’t been worried about her position on the team because she knew she could always “turn it on” to produce a stunning performance if she needed to. She hadn’t considered the possibility that the coaches wouldn’t recognize that capability and might just leave her home. She resolved to stop “fluffing” any routines. It hadn’t been making her any friends anyway. She would, from here on out, perform better than almost everyone on the team every time so that she would be guaranteed a spot on the team.

  Friends or no.

  Lonely or not.

  That night as she lay awake, instead of pondering her extra dimension and quantum mechanics math, she worried about the possibility that she might be dropped from the team after all the effort she’d spent on it so far. She considered what she could do to guarantee herself a spot. She was thinking about how she could fine tune her Yurchenko two and a half twist when she had a flash of insight. The “Yurchenko” vault was named after Soviet gymnast Natalia Yurchenko, the first gymnast to perform that particular vault. The “two and a half twist” starts with a “round off” from a sprint, the hands hit the spring board, the gymnast flips end over end to then strike the vaulting table with her hands. From there she turns end over end one and a half more times with her body out straight in a “layout” position while also spinning on her longitudinal axis two and a half times. Then she lands on her feet! This was a high difficulty vault but quite easy for Ell even when she wasn’t in her “zone.” Ell realized that, as easy as many of the “high difficulty” vaults were for her, when she was in the zone, she should be able to come up with some of her own vaults that had never been performed before.