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Worlds are just over a week away. We’re flying to Tuvaria in two days.

“Are your parents planning to come watch?” Coach Eleasea asks me.

I shrug. They’ve been fighting even more. I’m thankful for gymnastics keeping me out of the house. If I could, I would sleep in the gym. Anything to keep from having to be there.

“If they need funds, let me know. Though I suppose tickets for finals are sold out, they aren’t yet for your subdivision. Erena’s adoptive father is going to be watching.”

I nod, not grasping until I’m walking home that Coach Eleasea actually offered to pay for my parents to come. I should have thanked her. I don’t like how harsh she’s been, but I guess Worlds are a pretty big deal. There are hundreds of sports, and athletes from one hundred and twenty countries compete. That’s nearly all the countries in the world!

I pack all my leotards for Worlds. My Rhetian team warmups, which are green and purple-blue, also go in my bags. I don’t bring much other clothing. From what I’ve heard, we’ll be doing a lot of training. I haven’t usually brought a lot of normal clothes, dresses and the like, to Continentals.

At last, we take the boat to Ornod Island. We’ll be flying out of the airport there. Rhetia has only two airports, the one on Ornod and a second on Lilia Island.

To my surprise, the Queen shows up at the airport to wish us luck. She actually shakes our hands! Erena, the coaches, and I are joined now by the other Rhetians going to the World Championships. I end up sitting next to Rorin, a tall, muscular Northern Islander, on the plane to Tuvaria.

“How old are you?” He asks.

“Seventeen.”

“You must be the youngest here. I’m twenty-two and one of the youngest athletes here.”

“Where are you from?” I ask.

“Yahvsiin Tevoe, Isvartoi. You?”

“Kry Island.”

“What city?”

“There’s only the one. Tevocae.”

“Are you named for it?”

I roll my eyes. “No. My last name is Kay-ee, not Kay.”

“Better get it spelled phonetically on your entry forms. These foreign announcers are really good at mispronouncing your names. How you get ‘Anok’ wrong, I don’t know.”

I giggle. Anok is a very common northern islander name. “How did they pronounce it?”

“Like it had a ‘u’. Anyways, what sport do you compete?”

“Gymnastics. And you?” We’ve taken off by now.

“Swimming. What is gymnastics? Is that the one like dancing?”

“We do flips, too.” Swimming explains his arm muscles. “We have four events, vault, bars, beam, and floor. We have different requirements on each.”

“Sounds difficult,” Rorin says. “Good luck.”

Hours later, the plane lands in Tuvaria. The air greets us with a humidity I’ve never felt before. The part of Tuvaria we’re in is technically in the Northern Hemisphere, but it’s so close to the equator, it doesn’t matter too much. The rare Worlds held fully in the Northern Hemisphere, like the one twenty years ago in New Tiise, is held later in the year (this I’ve learned from Eleasea, who competed at the New Tiise Worlds as well as the one where she won the all-around).

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