Free Confessions of a So-called Middle Child by Maria T. Lennon

slippers.
    I couldn’t take my eyes off her. “Who the heck is that?”
    â€œLillian. Team captain.” Marta nodded, unimpressed. “Snap out of it, Coop. She’s in our class; you see her every day.”
    But the transformation! I wanted to hate her—who wouldn’t? She looked amazing, the attention to coordinating diamond and silver, the sparkly bits in her lip gloss, the all-matching silver accessories. We’re talking five stars all the way. I watched her as she ran toward the mat and did flips in the air. “She’s incredible.”
    Marta watched too, though she pretended not to. “Not as good as me.”
    I laughed; the more I got to know her, the more I knew that Marta could be pretty dang funny. She had this dry humor with a razor-sharp edge. We watched the rest of the team line up. They were impossibly long and lean; they didn’t seem to walk on the ground. Lillian and her crew floated through the sky like shiny silver birds. But after ten minutes or so, Marta suddenly got up to leave. “The coach isn’t even here. I need to see the coach.” She stormed out with seriously unbirdlike steps.
    I followed her, of course. “What do you want with the coach?”
    â€œNone of your beeswax,” she said in a not-too-nice way, and left. I tried to catch Lillian and her gang of perfect people. Every school has them. At my last school they all looked like baby Sports Illustrated models: tanned, ocean-tossed blond locks, perfect bathing-suit bodies. Here, clearly they took the whole gymnastics thing way too seriously.
    The door opened, and Trixie and Babs came in, hanging on to Lillian and company like those fish hanging off great white sharks. I leaned back in the darkened corner of the auditorium. There is nothing more satisfying than witnessing the girls you have to work so hard to get working so hard to get someone else.
    And then something happened. Raised voices? A fight? I poked my head out for a better look and saw Trixie coming right at me. Her face was all red and her fists were tight little balls of anger. “Man, do I hate her,” she hissed. “She’s so full of it!”
    â€œWho? What?”
    Trix paced. “Lillian promised me.” She was all steamed up. “No, she swore to me that she’d talk to Coach and get me a spot on the team this year for the uneven bars.”
    I immediately thought of Marta. “How many spots are there?”
    â€œOne or two, tops.” She paced. “You have no idea how hard it is. Coach wants to take it to the Nationals this year to show the people who fired him what idiots they are.”
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    TRUE FACT: Coaches with axes to grind are often fat, and red, and smell a lot like nail-polish remover. Just saying.
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    I was getting interested, ’cause, you see, I like a good backstory. “What’s up with him?”
    Trixie did a random handstand against the wall, just like that. “They totally kicked Coach off the Elite training team. They said he had no morals, whatever that’s supposed to mean.”
    I bent over her. “You’re turning a really ugly color, you know?”
    â€œBlood to the brain is good.” She flipped back down. “Anyway, now everyone wants on the team. He’ll do whatever it takes to get us to the Nationals and then the Olympics.” She clapped her hands together, looked up at the sky like an angel. “My face on cereal boxes! Me, Trixie Chalice, here I come.”
    Babs rubbed her shoulders. “Trix, you’ll totally get the spot; you’re awesome. You’ve been training all summer.”
    Trixie shook her head, full of doubt. “So have they.”
    Honestly, I found gymnastics to be so weird, especially the guys with those all-white bodysuits and bulging muscles. They were seriously uncomfortable to look at, if you know what I mean.
    I looked at Babs, at Trixie, and said what Pen would say.