Somersaults and Dreams: Going for Gold

Luckily, the rest of the session went a bit better. Bar, beam and floor with the other coaches was hard work but Ellie found working on new skills exhilarating. She received as much encouragement as critique, even if her ankle did continue to bother her throughout the session. She was by far the strongest on bars – where not even Memory could match her difficulty value – and on floor and beam her artistry was scored as highly as her power tumbles and acro sequences.

The other coaches seemed keen to help her upgrade, and it was a relief to find that not everyone thought she was a completely hopeless gymnast. But Ellie knew that if she was to get a look-in for the Euros squad – or even get a call-back for the selection weekend in six weeks’ time – she was going to have to impress Vivian – or be left out in the cold.

CHAPTER

Three

‘Vivian’s totally got it in for me,’ Ellie told Tam when they sat down for supper that night. At the heart of the National Sports Training Centre was a beautiful old honey-coloured mansion, which housed the dining hall and the dorms where the gymnasts slept during their week at camp. Surrounding this were a collection of state-of-the-art sports facilities, medical centres, and physio and rehab units. Beyond them were formal gardens and then sports pitches and training grounds for every sport under the sun.

Athletes and sportspeople from every discipline came here to train ahead of international events, but right now the centre was pretty empty; the only people there were the gymnasts who would be training there intensively for the next seven days – eating, sleeping and breathing gymnastics!

The food in the canteen was delicious, although Ellie found she had lost her appetite.

‘Maybe it’s not you she’s annoyed at,’ suggested Tam, who had definitely not lost his. He was tucking into a giant bowl of sticky toffee pudding as if he hadn’t eaten for days.

Tam had detached himself from the other Junior boys to come and join the girls from the Academy, who were all sitting together. Even the Senior squad girls Sian Edwards and Sophia Mitford had come to keep the younger girls company. Tam was the only boy from the Academy who’d qualified for GB squad this year. Olympic medallist Matt Simmons was out with an injury and Tam’s Academy squad mate Robbie had performed poorly at the British so missed out on selection. But this didn’t seem to bother Tam. He’d been coming to squad camps since he was a kid – this was his fifth time here, so he knew lots of the boys from other clubs. Ellie was glad he made time to see them during mealtimes.

‘I feel like I’ve done something to annoy Vivian,’ she said. ‘But I have no idea what!’

‘That’s not hard to work out,’ Tam went on, wiping toffee sauce off his chin with a shrug. ‘Everyone knows she and Lizzie were deadly rivals.’

‘Were they?’ said Ellie.

‘Ellie, sometimes I think you know nothing about gymnastic history at all!’ said Bella, shaking her head in disbelief.

‘You really don’t!’ Sian laughed. ‘It’s one of the most famous rivalries in gym history!’

‘Lizzie and Vivian were rivals?’ Ellie repeated. How did everyone else know this and not her?

‘Even I know this!’ said Katya, shaking her head as if reading her thoughts.

‘Oh,’ said Ellie. ‘Right.’

‘What do you actually know about Vivian Ponting?’ asked Sian gently. She might be an Olympic gold medallist, but kind Sian always had time for the younger gymnasts.

‘Not much,’ Ellie admitted.

‘OK, let’s start from the beginning,’ said Tam, grinning at Ellie. Things had been a bit weird between them earlier in the year. Robbie had teased Tam about being Ellie’s boyfriend and for a while they hadn’t really spoken. But now they were back to normal again, and Ellie was glad – she’d missed him and his sense of humour. ‘So, Vivian was known for her bubbly personality, OK?’

‘She was always chatting to the TV cameras mid-competition,’ agreed Kashvi. ‘High-fiving judges, disco dancing after a great score.’

‘Writing messages on her palm and holding them up on the podium,’ added Tam. ‘She was cool!’

Ellie tried to imagine it. Strict Vivian being funny and cool, and messing around? Wow!

‘But she was deadly serious as a competitor,’ said Sian. ‘Incredibly ambitious. She always said she wanted to get to the top, no matter what it took.’

‘There was only one thing standing in her way,’ said Kashvi. ‘And that was . . .’

‘Lizzie Trengilly!’ said Katya and Tam at exactly the same time.

‘I see,’ said Ellie. It was all starting to make sense now.

‘The reason Vivian Ponting has so many silver medals is because Lizzie beat her into second place in everything,’ explained Sian.

‘But she won Olympic gold,’ said Ellie.

‘The year Lizzie injured herself and had to pull out,’ Bella finished for her.

Ellie was silent for a moment, taking it all in. She’d spent hours, poring over pictures of Aunt Lizzie, but she’d never paid much attention to her competitors. But of course that’s why Vivian had looked familiar – she’d seen her dozens of times, standing on podiums next to Lizzie. Always on her left, the silver medal spot.

‘Vivian was a huge talent. In any other era she’d have been the greatest gymnast in the world,’ said Sian. ‘But because of Lizzie she was always the runner-up.’

Ellie glanced over to where Vivian was sitting with Barbara Steele and the boys’ coaches. She wondered how that had felt – always finding herself in second place. Never quite good enough to win the gold. Was she still mad about it? Was that why she disliked Ellie?

‘After Lizzie retired, Vivian kept competing for a bit, but she was never as good,’ said Sian, ruefully. ‘It was almost like . . . like she lost her edge when she stopped chasing Lizzie.’

‘I don’t think she ever won a major gold medal after that, did she?’ said Tam.

Sian shook her head. ‘She’s quite a lot older than your aunt,’ she said. ‘Lizzie was only eighteen when she retired, but Vivian was at least twenty-five by then. Other younger gymnasts came along and Vivian dropped down the ranks.’

‘She retired a couple of years after Lizzie’s injury,’ Bella added.

‘Vivian doesn’t like me because of my aunt!’ Ellie said with despair. What could she do to change that?

‘At least it makes a change from you getting the star treatment all the time,’ said Scarlett who was walking past arm in arm with the sweet, fluffy-haired Welsh girl, Phoebe. ‘If you live by the sword you die by the sword, I say!’

‘Which means what, exactly?’ demanded Tam.

‘Just that Ellie gets all the perks of the Trengilly name,’ said Scarlett. ‘So it’s only fair she should cope with the downsides too!’

‘Scarlett, Ellie’s got this far on her own talent,’ said Sian firmly. ‘Nothing to do with Lizzie. We all know that.’

‘Do we?’ said Scarlett sulkily. She looked as if she wanted to say more, but even she didn’t dare when Sian was there.

‘Yes, we do,’ said Sian firmly. ‘And I’m also sure that Vivian is far too professional to punish Ellie for her family connection.’

Kashvi looked doubtful. ‘She is being super mean to Ellie though.’

‘I expect she just wants to push you,’ said Sian, although even she didn’t sound completely convinced. ‘She does it to everyone.’

‘Well, I’m just saying I wouldn’t want to be training a relative of my deadly enemy,’ said Scarlett.

‘Lucky that most human beings are lot nicer than you then, isn’t it!’ muttered Tam as Scarlett turned away with a flick of her blonde mane, dragging a rather reluctant Phoebe along with her.

‘There’s nothing I can do about it,’ said Ellie. ‘It’s not like I can stop being Lizzie’s niece, can I?’

‘Just keep working on your own programme,’ said Sian. ‘She’ll see how great you are.’

Ellie sighed. At least now she knew the reason why Vivian seemed to have it in for her. She just didn’t know how to fix it!

CHAPTER

Four

Ellie sat on the edge of the bath with an ice pack pressed against her ankle, her eyes squeezed shut. The pain in her ankle seemed to have got worse as the day went on and as she glanced down at it she saw it was red and swollen. She hadn’t told anyone it was bothering her. There was no point, she told herself. It would be better by tomorrow.

‘Ellie, come on!’ she heard Tam call. ‘Nancy and Lucy want to talk to you.’

‘Coming!’ said Ellie, hastily stuffing the ice pack in her wash bag and strapping up her foot to hide the bruising. She didn’t want the others to make a fuss.

‘Seriously, how long do you girls take in the bathroom?’ said Tam when she emerged a few minutes later. He was lounging in a chair in the neat little double room that Katya and Ellie were sharing for the week.

‘How did you even get in here?’ she asked, trying to change the subject. ‘I thought boys weren’t allowed in the girls’ dorms.’

‘Oh, I just told the coaches you were Skyping my sister and they said it was cool.’ Tam grinned. ‘And now I’ve discovered that you girls have a secret stash of cake I’ll be over every day to help you eat it!’ He waved a slice of home-made flapjack in the air.

‘Um, what happened to the food Mandy packed for you?’ asked Ellie. Mandy was the housemother who looked after the Academy gymnasts back in Head-Over-Heels House, their boarding house in London. She was also Tam and Nancy’s mum – and an amazing cook.

‘Oh, I got peckish on the journey up!’ said Tam, his mouth full of syrup and oats. ‘What took you so long in there anyway?’

‘I was just – doing a . . . face pack,’ Ellie lied, unconvincingly. Tam raised his eyebrow, but fortunately just then Katya yelped and pointed at the laptop propped up on her bed. Nancy and Lucy were waving at them on the screen from the bedroom they shared in Trengilly Cottage.

Since Nancy had given up gym for good less than a year ago, she lived in Cornwall with Ellie’s family and shared a bedroom with Ellie’s gym-mad little sister, Lucy. Nancy was crazy about anything to do with boats and now that she had swapped somersaults for rowing, she seemed happier than she’d ever been.

‘Vivian Ponting – you’re kidding. She was a real laugh as a competitor, wasn’t she?’ asked Nancy, when Tam had filled her in on the day’s events.

‘Not these days she isn’t,’ said Ellie, curling up on the bed next to Katya, tucking her strapped ankle out of sight. ‘The only jokes she cracks are about how bad everything I do is! Trust me, you’re missing nothing.’

‘Oh – I’m not missing gymnastics at all,’ said Nancy cheerfully. ‘I’m so totally over all that. It’s all about the pilot gig championships. That’s where it’s happening. Trust me!’

‘Pilot gig?’ asked Tam, pulling a face.

‘Bro, you never listen to anything I tell you!’ said Nancy. ‘Pilot gigs are six-man rowing boats. They were originally designed to ferry pilots out to sailing ships to help them navigate around the Cornish coastline.’

‘Sometimes they were used as lifeboats too,’ added Lucy, helpfully. Ellie’s little sister was like a smaller, red-haired version of Ellie herself. Ellie had missed her like mad when she first went to the Academy – she still did, although she was happier leaving Lucy now that Nancy was there, like a second big sister.

‘Yup, but now they just race for fun,’ Nancy went on. ‘There are loads of events coming up.’

‘I wonder if we’ll get to come and watch you,’ said Ellie. She hadn’t been back to Cornwall since Christmas and she was more homesick than she could admit.

‘Ooh, yes – this will be good!’ said Katya. She had struck up a firm friendship with Lucy last time they’d all been to stay, over Christmas. Her own family were far away in the Russian circus, so she’d been half-adopted by Ellie’s family too.

‘Ok, so after you guys win your golds at Euros you can chill by the seaside and watch me do the same,’ said Nancy.

‘Sounds perfect!’ said Ellie, with a sigh. ‘Only I’m not sure I’ll be making it to Euros if Vivian has any say in the matter.’

CHAPTER

Five

The next morning’s warm-up went a lot like the previous one, with Vivian finding fault with almost everything Ellie did.

‘Your arms are too wide, Trengilly . . . tuck your bum under – you look like a duck there . . . lift your feet up – are you wearing a pair of welly boots, Trengilly?’

Ellie found it hard to concentrate. She was constantly being reminded what she was getting wrong. It didn’t help that her foot was in more pain than ever this morning. Even walking on it made her wince, but she still hadn’t mentioned it to anyone.

Luckily, the others were all too immersed in their own training to notice. Only Scarlett picked up on the strained look on Ellie’s face. ‘Can’t take the pace?’ she enquired nastily.

‘No, I’m fine,’ said Ellie. ‘Never been better!’

‘A week at National squad camp is a test of endurance,’ said Scarlett with a silky smile. ‘Only the fittest survive!’

‘Bring it on!’ said Ellie. She tried to sound brave, but Scarlett had a curious expression on her face as she turned away.

After warm-up, Ellie was on tumble track, working on new tumble combinations. Even the thought of landing hard on her ankle made her feel sick, but when Barbara Steele wandered over to where the Juniors were working, Ellie pushed the pain to the back of her mind, determined to impress the head national coach.

She delivered a round-off double back straight, landing easily on the safety mat, ignoring the screaming pain that shot through her ankle on impact.

‘What else are you working on?’

Ellie turned and saw that Barbara Steele was talking to her.

‘Oh – um – I’m trying to master a double back straight into front punch,’ said Ellie, hoping her eyes did not betray the pain that was still making it hard to think straight. ‘I’m nearly there.’

‘Let’s see it, then.’

Ellie took a deep breath and tried not to hobble as she made her way back to the far end of the tumble track. Vivian had come to join Barbara and was saying something to the head coach. She waited for the signal to go, rotating her ankle to try and shake off the throbbing pain.

‘Is that foot bothering you, Trengilly?’ asked Vivian, looking up sharply.

‘No . . . it’s just . . . I bashed it earlier. On the bars.’

‘You need it checked out in the medical centre?’

‘It’s fine. I just need an ice pack.’

‘After you finish here you get it looked at, OK?’ said Vivian curtly. ‘Now, show us what you’ve got.’

Ellie powered into the tumble – more self-conscious now that Vivian was watching. She rotated neatly through the air and landed it with only a slight stumble, feeling her ankle jar agonisingly but planting it firmly and refusing to wobble.

‘Good effort,’ said Barbara with a nod.

‘Your arms are still too wide on take-off,’ said Vivian. ‘And I’d still like to see more directional change. Here.’

She walked over to Ellie, who was still reeling slightly from the pain, stood behind her and lifted her arms up in the air. ‘Like this.’ Vivian slowly rotated Ellie’s body, mimicking the position she needed to achieve in the air. ‘Pull your shoulders right back and lift your chest up – it’ll help you power through.’

Ellie nodded. What Vivian said made sense, but she was feeling slightly dizzy, and she was unable to relax in Vivian’s presence after all she’d learned about her past the previous day.

‘Try again,’ said Vivian sharply, glancing at Ellie’s bound foot as she walked back to the start of the track, doing her very best not to limp.

This time Ellie took the tumble recalling all that Vivian had said, and she landed it tightly, ignoring the shot of pain on landing.

‘Not bad, I suppose,’ was all Vivian had to say. ‘Now go see the doc about that ankle, Trengilly.’ Then she turned and walked away.

Ellie made her way over to the medical centre, feeling weirdly tearful. Vivian’s eye for detail was incredible. Ellie knew she could learn so much from her – if only Vivian was willing to teach her!

The doctor, Sam, was a tall guy with dreadlocks and a Cockney accent.

‘So, what’s bothering you, missus?’ he asked, with a white toothy grin.

‘Nothing much,’ said Ellie. The pain had receded a little and the lie came easily. ‘I just bashed my ankle this morning on the bar. I guess I need a bag of ice to hold against it or something.’

‘Can I take a look?’

Ellie reluctantly hopped up on the table and allowed Sam to examine her ankle. He rotated it this way and that and asked her to point and stretch her toes several times.

‘You sure you just bashed it?’ he asked, looking up at her with a serious expression in his eyes. ‘Nothing more than that?’

‘Nope,’ Ellie shook her head, although she could feel herself blushing.

‘It’s important that you’re completely honest,’ said Sam. ‘Something that starts out as a niggle can turn into a progressive injury if left untreated.’

‘I know,’ said Ellie, forcing herself to meet his eye. ‘But it’s nothing. I just caught it – that’s all.’

Sam finally gave a shrug. ‘OK – I can’t feel anything wrong. I’m going to give you an ice pack, and I want to keep an eye on it so I’ll need you back here tomorrow, OK?’

Ellie nodded.

‘If it doesn’t get better you need to rest it,’ Sam went on. ‘Give it time to recover. Your body is like a machine, you have to look after it or it will malfunction.’

‘I know,’ said Ellie, her face flushing again. The knot of anxiety in her stomach suddenly hurt as much as her foot. Keeping the pain secret was agony too, and part of her wanted to blurt out the whole story to someone. But she had no choice. If she told Sam how much it hurt, he’d say she had to stop training, and that just wasn’t an option right now.

‘There’s really nothing wrong with me,’ she insisted, biting her lip hard to keep back the tears. ‘I promise.’

CHAPTER

Six

‘We figured it out,’ said Lucy when Ellie Skyped them again that evening. Lucy, who was crazy about gymnastics, had made Ellie and Katya promise to give her daily National squad camp updates. Ellie didn’t mind – she always loved hearing what was going on back home in Cornwall in exchange.

‘Yup, we know why Vivian’s being so mean to you!’ said Nancy. Her freckled face was looking brown as a nut and she was grinning happily out of the screen, like she’d just solved a big mystery.

‘We know!’ said Ellie. ‘She didn’t like Aunt Lizzie!’

‘No, it’s more than that,’ said Lucy. ‘She’s stopping you trying the hard stuff, right?’

‘Yes,’ Ellie admitted. ‘I don’t even care about her being harsh but I just feel like she’s deliberately holding me back – especially on vault.’

‘And that completely makes sense,’ said Nancy, triumphantly.

‘Um – why?’ said Ellie. ‘Explain.’

‘So we’ve been reading all about her in this biography,’ Lucy held up a copy of a book. It was called Silver Linings – an Unauthorised Biography of Vivian Ponting, and it had a picture of a young Vivian on the front, her face screwed up in concentration as she sailed over the vault.

‘Wow!’ said Katya, who was sitting in the splits on the floor as if it was the most natural position in the world. ‘Lucy, you are doing detective work!’ she squeaked, grinning at her pal who smiled back happily.

‘Lizzie was beating Vivian in every competition,’ said Lucy. ‘So when it came to World Champs, Vivian decided she needed to do something drastic to beat her.’

‘What did she do?’ asked Katya, who had levered herself up into an elephant lift and was talking to the screen from her upside-down position.

‘That’s when she decided to attempt the Produnova vault,’ said Nancy.

‘Whoa!’ said Tam. He appeared in the doorway and flung himself down on the bed. He was now a regular feature in the girls’ dorms, which he had announced were far more comfortable – and less smelly – than the boys’. Some of the Junior squad boys had started calling him a ladies’ man, but Ellie figured his visits had more to do with their cake! ‘Sorry I’m late – what did I miss?’

‘Just shut up and listen!’ said Nancy, although Ellie saw her grin, and knew she was pleased to see him really.

‘Love you too, big sis!’ said Tam, blowing her a mock kiss.

‘Yuk,’ said Nancy, pretending to wipe it off her chin. ‘Now where was I?’

‘The Produnova.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Nancy. She boomed out in a dramatic voice over. ‘Everyone knows that the Produnova is the most difficult vault there is!’

‘And fiendishly dangerous!’ Lucy chipped in, not quite getting her voice right and giggling. ‘But Vivian knew it would give her such a high difficulty value that Lizzie would struggle to beat it – if she could nail it.’

‘I think I remember reading something about this,’ said Tam, who was now munching on a stash of muffins he’d found in Ellie’s suitcase. The fact that they’d eaten a giant meal less than half an hour earlier didn’t seem to make any difference to him; as usual, he was already starving. ‘It was a massive controversy in the end – right?’

‘What happened?’ asked Ellie. She knew her aunt had won gold at World Champs.

‘Well, Vivian did the Produnova,’ said Lucy. ‘But she stumbled in her landing, so she lost execution points.’

‘Which meant that she and Lizzie ended up with exactly the same all-around score,’ said Nancy.

‘Exactly the same?’ said Ellie.

‘That is very unusual,’ said Katya, who was now the right way up again.

‘Completely!’ said Nancy. ‘It hardly ever happens, and it was a massive deal – it meant a tie for gold medal at World Champs.’

‘So they shared gold medal?’ asked Katya.

‘Nope!’ said Nancy. ‘Lizzie got it.’

‘Of course,’ said Tam. ‘Lizzie won, because execution score trumps difficulty value score, right?’

‘Right,’ said Nancy. ‘Even though their total was the same, the judges awarded the gold to Lizzie.’

‘So the difficulty of Vivian’s Produnova vault didn’t help?’ said Ellie, trying to figure out exactly what this meant. ‘She still came second.’

‘And that’s why she won’t let you try difficult vaults!’ said Lucy.

‘She’s punishing you for what Lizzie did to her all those years ago,’ added Nancy.

Ellie felt dismayed. She recalled Vivian’s refusal to let Ellie even try another vault, her constant nit-picking of Ellie’s technique.

‘You two are like Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, aren’t you?’ said Tam, who had just polished off his third muffin. ‘Super gym-sleuths in search of the truth!’

‘We had to work out what Vivian is doing. We can’t let her ruin Ellie’s chances cos of some ancient grudge against Lizzie!’ said Nancy.

‘So, what can I do?’ said Ellie.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Tam.

CHAPTER

Seven

‘OK, this is top secret, right?’ said Tam, as he and Ellie made their way across the darkened lawns the following evening. ‘Cos we’re not the only ones who’ll get in trouble if we’re found out.’

‘I understand,’ Ellie whispered, glancing around nervously. She’d noticed the rehabilitation centre when she’d arrived at the National Sports Training Centre. It was a modern building on the other side of the campus which housed state-of-the-art physiotherapy facilities for injured soldiers.