Aarae 1120

The door slams shut in my face.

I turn and walk away, through city I’ve lived in since I was born. The houses, with their red-tiled roofs and shiny metal gutters, line the white sea walls that keep more than just the ocean back. Fir trees and ornamentals dot the narrow yards. The brick streets are bowed with age.

I hate it when my parents argue like this. I wish they’d stop. Karina-at-school’s parents don’t live together; why must mine if they hate each other so?

It is the Rhetian Year 1120. Eleven-hundred-and-twenty years since some volcano blew its top. Not the volcano on my island. It’s been a caldera for long enough that the ocean connects to the lake during the wet season. But I don’t live near the caldera; no, I live in Tevocae on the northwestern peninsula. Yes “Cae” means “Port” in our language, but they’re pronounced differently. My family name has an “ee” at the end. Kay-ee. I don’t know why, but there’s probably a reason.

My feet take me to the gym, even though today is my day off practice. I feel safe here, sitting outside. I’m eighteen, old enough to do things like walk around my city without anyone caring. I ignore the surfer guys smoking across the street. Why they’re still wearing their wetsuits when we’re several blocks from the ocean is beyond me, but it probably has something to do with the gym being in one of many warehouses. Tevocae makes its wealth from fishing.

“Hey girl,” one of the guys in a wetsuit calls. I wrinkle my nose. Even though I have no idea what I’m doing next, other than “not university,” because who has the money for that? Even the universities in Lilia Island and Isvartoi Island are expensive, especially for someone with my grades. I applied to a two-year program in Ornod Island, but I doubt I’ll get in, even though that’s where Dad went. He owns one of the canning factories. My brother will inherit the business, not me. Maybe I’ll be a surfer, too, after Worlds, with nothing to do. That’s where people like me, who have nothing to do after secondary school, go. My parents would be ashamed of me if I worked in the cannery or on a fishing boat. I’m much too bad at Modern Versa, the common world language, to work in a tourist shop. I passed the mandatory two years of Modern Versa and that’s it. My brother took four years and is taking two more years at university. He’ll be very fluent by the time he graduates from Lilseoe University. My parents are very proud that he won a scholarship.

I walk down to the wharf. I’m not supposed to go there along, but where else am I to go? Home won’t be safe to go to until this evening, and maybe not even then. I’ve snuck in through the window before, and up to the bedroom I share with my little sister Alora. Alora is probably at a friend’s house. Sameena-who-lives-next-door is her age.

There are gates next to the wharf. The gates are how I know the sea wall isn’t for the ocean, not really, because the gates are cast iron and the waves could get through them. Maybe, if my schoolmates were right, I could sneak through them, too. I’ve never tried. The guards on either side have guns. I don’t get it. Yes, the military base is nearby, but surely they have their own guards. Actually, the whole island is a military base, pretty much. What else are you going to do with a desert that has an undrinkable giant salt lake right in the middle of it?

I watch the waves roll in and out. The seagulls fly overhead, hoping to grab a fry from a tourist or a fish from a boat coming in. Kry Island is near the Little Islands, so-called since they’re barely more than rocks. They’re great fishing territory. In times past, people migrated from island to island seasonally. The sky is blue, so blue, with only a couple wispy clouds in sight.

“Cena, what are you doing here?”

I turn to look. It’s Tarlina Ta-Noor, one of my former teammates. She’s also seventeen, but she stopped training last year after not qualifying to the World Championships like I did. I don’t blame her. Gymnastics takes away from school, but it’s so fun. Tarlina is walking next to a boy. I don’t think he’s her brother.

“Aren’t you not supposed to be at the wharf?”

I shrug. Yes, girls shouldn’t be here alone, not with all the stories about bad things happening to teenage girls like myself, but it’s a beautiful day. No one is going to kidnap me or hurt me on a bright, sunny day. Right?

“Come get ice cream with us,” Tarlina suggests.

I stand up. “You’re so much taller now!” She was always taller than me, but now she towers over me. She has red highlights in her brown hair, which is all the rage right now. I don’t bother because the chalk probably isn’t good for the dye. I don’t have time for my appearance, anyways.

Tarlina just laughs and leads the way to the nearest stand. The wharf is full of little stores. Tarlina even practices her Modern Versa with the shopkeepers.

“I’ll be working in a flower store this summer,” she tells me. “Maybe even part-time over next school year.”

“Are you continuing?” I ask her.

“Why not?” she asks. “Elfin is. Might as well get the secondary school certificate.”

I’m really not sure what it would do for me. We can leave school at seventeen, though most people who don’t get into university or a two-year vocational program usually finish up with one last year for the certificate. I tell her that.

“You never know,” Elfin says. “Having a certificate of graduation is becoming more and more important to jobs. You can be a secretary or something.”

“My dad owns one of the canning factories,” I find myself telling him.

“Her mom is a cousin or something of the mayor,” Tarlina also tells her boyfriend.

“Niece.” I add politely, “Elfin, what do you do?”

“I work in one of the canning factories. Perhaps it’s your father’s? Renae’s.”

I shake my head. “Retoi’s.” That was my grandfather’s last name. Children follow their mother’s last name, which is why mine is Cae. My dad’s was Lenae.

“Are you working this summer?” Elfin asks politely. “Ought to get some canning experience, so you can empathize with us common folk once you’re a manager.”

Tarlina giggles. I do, too, before answering, “No. I made it to the World Championships.”

“In what?” Elfin asks. “Sewing? Whatever does an upper-class girl like you do?”

I look at him. He’s Lilacan, through and through. His long, dark brown hair glitters in the sunlight, sometimes giving off a red or even blond sheen, just like Alora’s does. He’s tan, but still lighter-skinned than most Northern Islanders, who live slightly closer to the equator. Elfin’s hair is gathered into a loose ponytail, same as a surfer, but his muscles and scars betray that he belongs to a lower class. He’s barely Tarlina’s height, but he’s still taller than me.

“I do gymnastics, same as Tarlina did,” I say.

Elfin juts out his lower lip and nods. My face grows hot. I know that the lower-class people, like Elfin, live in the shanty town outside the walls and are only allowed in to work. I know he thinks people like my family are wealthy, but really, we’re not. I’ve been to Lilseae, the capital city, for competitions. No one here has that much money, not even Saela-from-school, who’s part of the Renae family. The one who owns the biggest canning factory.

I’m glad we’re at the ice cream place. I order a smoothie. Less sugar than a sundae. Elfin asks me other questions about gymnastics and the World Championships.

“It’s a big sports competition. There’s track and field, swimming, you name it.”

“Track and field?”

“Running,” Tarlina explains.

“So, athletes from all over the world compete at this thing?”

“That’s the idea,” I say. I haven’t really thought about it. I came in twenty-fifth at the Continental Championships last year. That was too low to make it to the finals, since only twenty-four make it, but enough of the gymnasts ahead of me belonged to teams that qualified a whole team to Worlds, that I qualified. My teammate Erena did a bit better.

“Did you compete at it every year?”

“No. It’s not held every year. I was too young for the last one.”

“How old do you have to be?”

“Fifteen.”

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen. Tarlina and I are in the same grade at school. We mostly took different classes, though.” I took whatever was easiest, to leave more time for training.

Tarlina looks up from her ice cream sundae. “Cena, did you hear the news?”

“What news?”

“You know how I’ve been coaching rec sometimes?”

I shrug. I don’t pay attention to the recreational gymnasts. They’re mostly young kids trying to learn handstands and flips. Sometimes, they’ll clap or cheer when I do a difficult skill, but outside of that, I don’t care for them. I just don’t want them to get in my way. I’m not Alora, who gives them high fives or watches them perform their new skills after they ring the bell.

“This is secret, so you have to pretend to be surprised, but Eleasea lya Azon is coming over tomorrow,” Tarlina grins.

“Eleasea lya Azon?”

“World Champion sixteen years ago. She’s coming to help Coach Narita train you and Erena.” Tarlina is still grinning, like this is something awesome.

“Coach Narita is doing a great job.”

“Oh, Coach Narita invited her. The school schedule is a bit different where Coach Eleasea lives, so she is just coming now. She has a daughter who she’s raising up to compete for Rhetia.”

“Where does this Coach Eleasea live?”

“Omliownio. But she competed for Rhetia, of course. She lives in the Settlement.”

“Exiles go there,” I remind Tarlina. I don’t want to be coached by an exile.

“Coach Eleasea isn’t an exile. I think she is half-foreign and just lives in the Settlement,” Tarlina says. “She doesn’t look Rhetian in the video I saw. Her skin is too light and her face isn’t the right shape.”

“And Elfin thinks my family is rich,” I mutter, though I know I’m being unfair. Tarlina’s parents own the local grocery store, not a cannery. Tarlina probably saw the video on a color television at someone else’s house. Or, maybe, without having to pay for gymnastics lessons, her parents can afford a color television now.

“What did you say?” Tarlina asks me. “Come now, you know as well as me that the gymnasts from the other countries perform much better. Perhaps Coach Eleasea can teach you some things. She’s studied under some great coaches.”

Elfin chimes in supportively. “Perhaps you’ll even win this World Championships thing!”

I laugh. I know that won’t happen.

Practice starts just like normal. We run around the floor and up some stairs, stretch, and do basics. I make it across the floor on my hands without having to come down. Erena makes it down and back. She always looks so comfortable in a handstand! She’s a year younger than me, but behind in school. Erena is an orphan who was found at age six or seven clinging to some rocks in the middle of the sea. She’s clearly not Lilacan—her jet-black hair and face structure show that, even if her skin hadn’t been slightly darker. My own hair is mouse-brown, the lightest hair of everyone at the gym, including Alora’s. Alora is also a gymnast, though she’s in the same level as Coach Narita’s daughter Srena. Alora and Srena are both fourteen. Erena is sixteen.

“Get your grips if you wear them. We’re going to bars first,” Coach Narita says. She’s a tall woman, though not quite as tall as Tarlina is now. Her hair is as light as mine. She’s in her mid-thirties or so, a bit younger than my mother.

I follow Coach Narita’s instructions as always. That’s how I got here, on the elite-track instead of rec, so many years ago. Girls who listen and do as they’re told do better. And I wanted to do better, to learn all the cool, difficult skills. The girls who goof off or don’t follow instructions don’t get to learn those skills.

Coach Narita has me focus on my single bar releases. This is when I swing, let go of the bar, and re-grab the bar after a flip or a twist. It’s easy to fall on these, though falls aren’t the only major mistakes a gymnast can make on bars. Missing a handstand or a connection could also be disastrous.

Erena is working on her pirouettes. Since she’s a bit taller, she finds some of the more difficult release moves too hard. Pirouettes are easier for her, so she’s included some difficult ones in her routine, but she still struggles to remain in a handstand sometimes. Or, she’ll finish off-balance and either come down off the bar or try to add another half-pirouette to keep going.

Alora and Srena are both trying to learn new skills. We all have the National Championships in a few weeks, but typically what we do is take some of the most difficult skills we can do and connect them into a routine.

I struggle yet again with my release connection. It’s one that Coach Narita really wants me to have in my routine. I take an extra swing yet again.

I sigh as I walk over to the chalk bowl. “Hey, look,” Srena says, disrupting my thoughts.

A tall woman, and I mean truly tall, is giving Coach Narita a hug. Her skin looks so light, I wonder if she goes outside. The woman is definitely Rhetian, especially once she takes her sunglasses off. Her long, almost-blond hair hangs down her back in a braid. She’s wearing a pink and blue dress in a Northern Islander cut, which means plain, but no sash like most Northern Islanders wear. This must be that Coach Eleasea.

She is. Coach Narita introduces her quickly. “Eleasea was my teammate at the national team training center many years ago. She’s here all the way from Omliownio to help coach leading up to Worlds.”

The national team training center doesn’t exist anymore. Rhetians haven’t competed on the international stage much while I can remember.

A thin little girl with reddish streaks in her hair like Tarlina walks up to the chalk bowl. “What’s your name?” Alora asks.

“Reana. I’m Coach Eleasea’s daughter.” Her Rhetian is very precise and slow.

“How old are you?” Alora’s face is the same as one might have while petting a kitten. I don’t agree with her—we don’t need some random coach’s daughter taking away training time from Erena and me.

“Are you a junior?” Erena asks her.

Reana shakes her head. “No, I’m only in Open. I’m ten.”

“Why aren’t you training with the Open gymnasts?” I ask her.

“Maybe I will!” Reana goes up to the bar. It’s not her turn. It’s mine. I shake my head. I certainly knew about taking turns when I was ten.

“Do your regular warmup and get a feel for these bars,” Coach Eleasea tells her daughter.

Reana does a kip cast handstand, then another. I have to admit, I couldn’t cast to such a perfect handstand at age ten. She jumps to the high bar and does a few giants with perfect form. She is definitely better than any Open gymnast here, and frankly, better than Alora.

I mount the bars next, jumping up to the high bar to do my releases. I fail the connection yet again.

Coach Eleasea summons me over. “Cena?” I nod. “Do you know that it’s a deduction if you take the extra empty swing?” I nod again. “That’s good. But then, the question is, why are you taking the extra swing?”

“I don’t have enough swing for the straddle Pak.”

“But you have enough swing. Narita, she just thinks she doesn’t. This is an easy fix.”

As I chalk up again, I feel my face growing hot. I don’t like being talked to like I’m some child.

Reana skips the line again, this time doing a circles sequence. Ten and can do a stalder circle! And it’s straight up to handstand. I wonder why she’s not in juniors yet.

When it’s my turn again, Coach Eleasea comes in between the bars. “Okay. Geinger stalder Pak. Let’s see it, Cena.”

I don’t like the idea of her standing there. “What if I kick you?”

Coach Eleasea smiles. Patronizingly, I think. “I can move. Now, get up on the bar or someone else will go.”

I do as I’m told, but I don’t like it. I miss my Geinger, a release with a flip and a half turn.

“Back on,” Coach Eleasea says.

“I need chalk.”

“How do you do a whole routine? Get back up. I will spot the Geinger, too. We have a lot of work to do for that to be your combination.”

“I always make it in meets,” I grumble.

Coach Narita interrupts. “Cena, if you keep arguing with Eleasea, you’re going to have to sit out the rest of bars.”

That sounds tempting, but I feel far too embarrassed to take up Coach Narita’s offer. Already, I’m ashamed that some younger gymnasts in the other groups are staring at me. I get back up.

As I do the first release, I feel Coach Eleasea’s hands on my back. I grab the bar and swing forward. Like before, I don’t have the swing to make the second release. I swing backwards, or at least I start to. Coach Eleasea is grabbing me and continuing to pull me forward, to have me flip over. I let go, but I have no swing, and Coach Eleasea can’t get me to the low bar. She gently lets me down onto my hands on the mat.

“She should sit out,” Coach Eleasea says to Coach Narita. “This is too dangerous for her to be doing. I cannot have gymnasts who change their mind in the middle of a skill.”

“We only have ten weeks to Worlds. Let’s switch her to something else. Cena, I want to see your stalder circle to toe shoot catch on high bar.”

I can’t do that one right, either, at least not in Coach Eleasea’s eyes. My stalder circle isn’t to enough of a handstand.

“Anything not in a perfect handstand will get a deduction,” Coach Eleasea says. But when I get to a handstand, my timing is off on the toe shoot and I can’t make the skill.

Erena isn’t faring much better, but she doesn’t seem frustrated. She keeps doing giants to handstand holds over and over again, as a drill for pirouettes. Reana is doing this, too, and Erena even makes a game of it with her.

“I ripped,” Erena tells me as we head to the lockers to put our grips away.

“Do you like Coach Eleasea?” I ask.

“I just wish she’d started coaching us earlier. She really has an eye for form and skills. No wonder she’s World Champion! Can you imagine, being like that?”

I guess I thought the World Championships would be the crowning achievement of my gymnastics career. I didn’t really care how I did there. I made the beam final at Continentals last year, and that was kind of fun, but it’s not like I’d ever be the one to medal! The gymnasts who won events were much more serious than me. It was obvious during podium training. They had a much different approach than Erena or I did. But wasn’t ours better? Why, some of those girls didn’t even go to school!

We head to beam next. Again, Coach Eleasea is constantly correcting Erena and me, with the occasional correction yelled at her daughter. Reana is good on beam, too. She’s mostly prepping for a routine. So am I by the end, but Coach Eleasea has corrections even for my choreography. I can’t believe that Coach Narita doesn’t care more! Coach Narita worked so hard with me to come up with solid choreography. I competed this same routine at the Continental finals last year, so surely it must be good. But Coach Narita just smiles and nods. She seems to genuinely like Coach Eleasea completely changing all her choreography.

Floor is no different. Coach Eleasea even says she’ll be getting us different music. Well, me. Not Erena, though Erena will have new choreography.

I feel so tired, I fall right asleep as soon as I get home, even though my parents are yelling at each other again.

I guess I get used to Coach Eleasea eventually. We work so hard every day. We’re practicing twice a day now. It’s not like our conditioning and strength have gotten more difficult. It’s the skills themselves. Coach Eleasea is constantly adjusting our arms, legs, and even our stomachs. She especially yells at Erena to not stick her stomach out in her finishes after skills. “Tight abs. It looks better that way. And you’ll stay in more control.”

This is not how I expected to spend my last summer before either leaving school or moving away. It’s time to leave for Nationals, and I haven’t done much of anything fun. No swimming or body surfing with Alora, though I know she’s gone with her friends. I’ve only gotten the ice cream the one time. Coach Eleasea told us not to eat sweet things, because they’re unnecessary, and we need good food only in order to fuel our bodies.

I wish the Ornod school would get back to me, even if to tell me that I was rejected. I’ve gotten a letter saying that I’m on a waitlist. I might not hear back until it’s almost time for school to start.

Both coaches take the four of us, plus Reana, to Nationals. One of the other coaches is bringing the Open gymnasts. I don’t really care. Alora still thinks Reana is adorable. I’m annoyed by her. Admittedly, some of it is jealousy. She has such perfect form and high-level skills for a ten-year-old. I never really thought of gymnastics as something I could be, or wanted to be, the best at. Erena has won Nationals since the first one three years ago. Usually, I’ll get some medals for bars or beam. Maybe for all-around, too. This year, there is only one other gymnast in the elite division, from one of the Lilia Island gyms.

We have two days of competition. The first is with the Open gymnasts, including Reana. She starts on the same even as the Kry Gymnastics team. It is just her. I wonder if she trains alone, or if her teammates couldn’t afford the trip from Omliownio.

I have to admit, my routines are much better than before Coach Eleasea came. We start on floor. Even though I’ve had to spend a lot of time learning my new floor routine, I do like it. My score is higher than anything I’ve ever gotten. Coach Eleasea gave me a lot more leaps and turns, so I could create my start value that way since my tumbling is not so strong.

My vault is a Yurchenko layout with a half twist. I hop on the landing.

“We’re going to work on that next,” Coach Eleasea says.

I feel a shiver run through me. It sounds like a threat when she says that.

Erena does a Yurchenko with a full twist, a more difficult vault. She sticks it.

We move onto bars next. I’ve been having much more success with my connections, though my handstands still aren’t where Coach Eleasea wants them. She also wants me to add a Weiler kip, since I can do it, but it’s not quite ready for a routine.

I get through my routine but fall on the double front dismount. Erena’s routine is perfect, her handstands crisp and clean. Her score is much higher than mine here, too. She also beats me on beam, though I don’t have any falls. Just some wobbles.

At the end of the night, I’m in second behind Erena. Reana wins her age division in Open. I don’t really care about their awards, though Erena congratulates some of our Open gymnasts.

The next night, we compete again, but this time with the Juniors. We start on vault instead. I try to stick my vault, so Coach Eleasea will see that I can, but I end up nearly falling. I stick my double front off bars, though. And, on beam, I have fewer wobbles. Erena actually falls. So does Alora, who I comfort briefly. I don’t have any problems on floor.

The announcer tells us the winning tickets for the raffle. I don’t know why awards always take so long to calculate, especially now that there are only three of us. Tarlina wasn’t the only gymnast who quit after not making Worlds last year.

Then, the announcer goes through the Juniors events first, ending in, “Third place in the all-around, representing Lousat National Gymnastics, Sunlissia.” That’s a little girl with hair the color of hay in a bright pink leotard. “Second place, representing Isvartoi Gymnastics, Tara Tlaer.” She’s all Northern Islander, with straight dark brown hair that curls around her ears. “First place, and National Juniors Champion, representing Island National Gymnastics, Airi Tana.” My sister won a ribbon on vault or somewhere, but no medal in the all-around.

I win beam, but come in second in everything else but vault, where even the Lousat gymnast beats me. After the all-around medals are given out, the announcer says, “And, of course, representing the Kingdom of the Rhetian Islands at the World Championships this year will be Erena Nato and Cena Cae!” The crowd cheers, and the anthem plays.

“All Hail Queen Januae!” I shout, like the rest. That’s it. That’s my final competition in Rhetia.

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