Friendships and Backflips by Jane Lawes

Author:Jane Lawes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Usborne Publishing Ltd
Published: 2016-05-07T04:00:00+00:00

“So I guess you’re too busy to do anything tomorrow?” Kate asked later, while Tara was tying the laces on her pink Converse trainers. Mum was chatting to Kate’s parents in the kitchen. Emily’s dad had picked her up ten minutes ago.

“Yeah,” said Tara. “Sorry.”

Kate sighed. “It’s alright.” She shrugged. “The competition’s important to you. I know that.”

But Tara knew Kate as well as she knew her own family. She could tell it wasn’t alright really. She hugged Kate tightly when she left, trying to show her that they were still best friends. It was the only way she could think of.

On the way home in the car with Mum, she stared silently out of the window.

“Have you and Kate fallen out?” Mum asked, as if she could read Tara’s mind.

“She’s upset that I’m spending so much time doing gym,” said Tara. “She thinks I don’t want to be her friend any more.” Her voice wobbled as she spoke and she felt like she was going to cry again. “Mum, what should I do? I miss Kate and Em, and I feel like I hardly ever see them now, but Clare said we had to be one hundred per cent committed to the competition.”

“I don’t know,” said Mum. “What do you think Clare meant by that?”

“Well, she meant that we have to go to every training session and work hard, and that we should put the competition first… And I thought that meant we should practise by ourselves as well as at Silverdale, but now I’m not sure. Perhaps I’m doing too much… I just don’t know.”

She’d thought of another way to show Kate and Emily that she still cared about them, but she wasn’t sure if she was prepared to do it. Cutting back on gymnastics training would definitely save her friendships…but it might also mean giving up her shot at a gold medal, her chance to prove Sam wrong, and her first opportunity to show everyone at Silverdale that she was going to go far. Hard work was going to get her into the advanced group one day.

“I don’t know what to do!” she said, looking desperately at Mum for an answer. “If I stop doing all the extra practice with Lindsay, will I be throwing away my chance of getting to Nationals? And if I don’t stop, will I lose my friends?”

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