Chapter 56

"Beat it, Temple!"

Kenny tried to look innocent. "I'm just watching my sister. Can't a guy watch his little sister practice?" He and three of his friends were leaning against the door to the gym.

"Not here, and not now," I said as I walked up to him. "Get out."

"Listen, Mr. High-and-Mighty football hero. You're not the boss of our school, and you're not the boss here."

"Haven't you heard? Football's over. I'm just killing time until baseball hero season." I stepped up until I was in his face. I have to admit, I was praying that he'd do something. Self-defense wouldn't be breaking my promise to Kelly.

"I can watch if I wanna."

"I'm one of the coaches, and this is a closed practice. Now you can walk, or I can help you out."

I could almost see the wheels spinning round in his head. He was wondering if I could take him. He was wondering if his friends would back him up. I don't think he was smart enough to be thinking about the aftermath. After all, I was supposed to be here and he wasn't.

"It's not worth it," he muttered and slipped to the side, turning his back on me. "Some people need to learn," he said as he slapped the push bar on the door.

"Anytime you want to try teaching me," I told his back. His friends slunk out after him.

"Problem, Tony?" Miss Calloway asked when I walked back over to where she and Tami were talking to Gary, the gymnastics club coach.

"They just wanted to watch little girls in tight leotards," I said.

"And you don't?" Miss Calloway accused, laughingly.

I grinned. "There's a difference." I hope. Damn, hoist by my own petard. What is a petard anyway? And why would anyone want to hoist me by it?

"There sure is," Gary agreed. "I won't let him hang around the club, either."

"Anyway, Kelly looks relieved that he's gone," Tami added. We all glanced to where Kelly was working on the beam.

"So, you were about to tell us what we were doing wrong," I prompted Gary.

"Oh, I don't think you're doing anything wrong."

"We're just not doing it right," Tami said.

Gary laughed. "It's not that either. It's just a young team. Stephy's the only level seven, so she's the only one who's done an optional routine before. The others are all used to compulsories."

"What's that?" Tami wanted to know.

"Well, Kelly and Miranda are level sixes. The rest are, or were, level fives. In club competition, like we do, the levels up through six do compulsory routines. That is, they all do the same routine. When they get to seven or above, they do optionals, where every girl has her own routine. In middle school and high school competition, they all do optional routines."

"Yeah, I helped Traci with hers on beam," Tami said, showing that she understood.

"So how come Kelly, who's a level six, beat Stephy, who's a seven?" Miss Calloway asked.

"Well, Kelly's a really hard worker, and she'll be a seven this summer. But the problem is Stephy. She's really inconsistent. Some days she looks like she's headed for the Olympics, and other days..."

We all nodded.

"So is our problem the routines or the tricks in them?" I asked.

"Skills," Gary corrected. "Tricks are for magicians."

I nodded.

"Sorry, pet peeve of mine. The answer is, probably both."

"That helps," Miss Calloway sighed.

"I'll try to watch everyone do a routine today, and then I should have some suggestions about how you can tighten them up, or skills you can add to improve their difficulty."

"We appreciate it," Miss Calloway said. "As a PE teacher, I know a little about a lot of sports and not enough about this one."

"No problem. When Stephy and Kelly asked, I was glad to do it. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't stepping on anyone's toes."

Miss Calloway laughed. "I've got big toes, but feel free to step all over them."

"Well, I've got to go teach my sister to vault," I announced. "Now if someone would teach me."

Gary smiled but didn't rise to the bait. Apparently I was too subtle for him.

Vaulting is easy. You just have to throw yourself headfirst at the vaulting table. Spotting vaulting is easy. I just have to make sure they can walk away from it.

I'd already learned to spot vaults on the girls, but they already had the basics. With Traci, I'd be starting from scratch.

First I called over all of our vaulters and told them what I wanted to see. They lined up at the end of the runway, and I watched as they took turns doing handsprings, which is the most basic vault and the one I wanted to teach Traci. I'm not very analytical, but I was trying to correlate what they did with how the vault looked.

After they'd each done three handsprings, they started getting fancy. In a meet, each girl gets two vaults, and the judges take their best score of the two. They can do the same vault twice or two different ones. So all the girls did a nice safe handspring for their first vault and a more difficult one for their second. Miranda and Suzie did half-ons, where they did a half twist in the air before landing on the vault. Stephy and Kelly did half-halfs, a half twist on and another half twist off. Brianna did a half-on-full-off.

The girls vaulted for about ten minutes, then went off to other things, and I called Traci over. The first five times she jumped she got halfway up and fell back. The sixth time she went over with just a little tap on her stomach. The gym erupted with cheers. I hadn't even realized anyone was watching. Traci beamed as all the girls yelled and applauded.

I wanted to clap too, but I didn't want my favorite brat getting a swelled head. "Do you have any idea how ugly that looked?" I asked.

"I suppose you could do better?"

"A pregnant hippo could do better."