Chapter 2

"Shall we give him some space?"

Tami grinned. "We'd better. I've got delicate ears, and you're a teacher and might inhibit what he has to say." Tami kissed me on the cheek, then followed Miss Calloway and the bus driver off the bus.

I turned in my seat. Some of the new girls were standing in the aisle, but all of last year's crew were sitting quietly. "Settle!" I said sharply, standing and blocking the aisle. Nobody moved. "Now!" I said louder.

The girls took seats.

"Well, the first meet's over," I said after looking at them for several seconds. "And we lost again..."

I was going to add, 'but only by four-tenths of a point, and we were in it all the way, ' but I saw Cheyenne Morris mumble something to Marissa Ling sitting next to her.

I stopped and stared at her. "I didn't catch that."

Cheyenne blushed but returned my stare. "I said," she said after several seconds, "we could have won if you'd let me go all-around."

I nodded. "You're probably right."

She looked surprised.

"You had a great meet. But I and your other coaches decided to compete you in only two events, and that's that."

"But I am so much better than Kelly and Abbie." Three and five seats behind her I saw the two girls go red.

"Could be. But I chose Kelly to go all-around 'cause I knew I could depend on her. She always turns in a good performance." Kelly beamed. "Except maybe when she has a cold," I said to remind her of a meet last year. "And I..." I emphasized the "I " as hard as I could, "wanted to see how Abbie would do."

"And we all know how good that was," Cheyenne said sarcastically. Abbie looked ready to cry. She had not had a great meet, scoring only a thirty point four compared to Kelly's thirty-five point three.

"Traci, would you and Abbie go in and remind Miss Calloway to try and get one big table?" Traci nodded, understanding I wanted the seventh grader off the bus. She took Abbie's hand and led her past me and out the door.

I strode down the aisle until I was standing next to Cheyenne, towering over her. "If you ever trash another girl's performance like that again, don't bother coming back."

Cheyenne stared defiantly up at me.

I turned and moved back to my original spot. "And that goes for the club team too."

"You can't..."

I spun and stared at her again. "Try me." I don't know if she believed me, but her face lost most of its color.

I looked around at all the young faces staring at me. "I want you to remember something. Last year, it was easy. We usually didn't even have enough girls on each event and had to enforce a draft. That's how Traci wound up doing bars and vault. She didn't volunteer; I pushed her."

"But this year, we have extra girls on every event so we have to choose. When Tami, Stephy, Miss Calloway, and I got together last night, we were trying to put together the best team. Not just to win, which we almost did, but to help all of you develop. Sometimes we may get it right, or sometimes we'll get it wrong. But we are the coaches and it's our decision. Does anyone besides Cheyenne have a problem with that?"