Little Girls Dream Big

By Nicole Angeleen

Olympic gymnast Trixie Dalca’s world is destroyed the day her sister Ileana falls during training, slips into a coma, and dies. To cope with the loss, Trixie turns to her best friend, American gymnast Shaye Sylvester. Together with Shaye and amateur documentary filmmaker Abby Vicari, the three unlikely investigators question whether Ileana’s death was merely a tragic accident or murder.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melange Books, LLC
• Release date: Jan 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781612357799

Nicole Angeleen

Nicole grew up in Shawnee, Kansas, where she spent most of her time scouring the tomes of such timeless literature as The Baby-Sitters Club, Goosebumps, and anything written by Judy Blume. In fourth grade, her mother said she would only take her to see Jurassic Park if she read the book first. Worried that all “grown-up” books would contain blocks of pages with indecipherable math equations, she began reading voraciously across all genres, just to make sure she wouldn’t have to get a Ph.D. in algorithms if she wanted to be a successful author. After high school, Nicole convinced her parents to allow her to move to Myrtle Beach on the promise that she would become a marine biologist. Halfway through her first semester at Coastal Carolina University, she changed her major to English. During that time, she was a freelance arts and entertainment reporter for the local Sun newspaper. She also forged a successful career as a serving wench at Medieval Times. In her four years in South Carolina, she wrote about fifteen novels, none of which will ever see the light of day. Those were mulligans. Nicole returned to Kansas City to get her masters degree in social work from the University of Kansas. Those classes and working in the field provided invaluable insight into the peculiar workings of the human psyche, and she began writing books worth reading. Then a better-paying, more secure, less stressful job in insurance came along, so she quickly abandoned her ideals and switched careers yet again. The writing continued. Nicole currently lives in Myrtle Beach, SC with her two cats in a haunted townhouse. Nicole doesn’t believe in ghosts, so it’s not scary, but stuff turns on by itself all the time there. She spends a lot of time on the beach, reacquainting herself with the customs of the South (like saying “ambalance” instead of “ambulance” and caring about high school football), and trying to grow plants. Seriously, with the climate on the beach, she really ought to be able to grow something. She enjoys reading, being rabidly fanatic about Kansas City sports teams and constantly complaining about how terrible they are, traveling, joining rewards clubs, and yo-yo dieting. She has never been to North Dakota.

Book preview

Olympic gymnast Trixie Dalca’s world is destroyed the day her sister Ileana falls during training, slips into a coma, and dies. To cope with the loss, Trixie turns to her best friend, American gymnast Shaye Sylvester. Together with Shaye and amateur documentary filmmaker Abby Vicari, the three unlikely investigators question whether Ileana’s death was merely a tragic accident or murder.

Table of Contents

Little Girl's Dream Big

PART ONE: FAMILY

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

PART TWO: FRIENDS

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

PART THREE: NATION

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

About the Author

Previews

Part One

Family

Chapter One

Trixie Dalca should not have been the first to receive the terrible news. The original attempts to reach the family went to the restaurant her parents owned. Unfortunately, the desperate endeavors to contact them were unsuccessful because the accident occurred during the lunch rush with no one available to answer. Messages were taken electronically, but to no avail. Magda and Tavian, her parents, wouldn’t be available to speak with anyone for another two hours.

The people coaching her sister knew where Trixie was. Everyone in the country knew where the most popular and successful Romanian gymnast since Nadia Comăneci trained. So they called her gym in Constanţa, a bustling Black Sea port city on the southeastern tip of Romania, and spoke with her coach.

Trixie was doing pull-ups on the high bar but stopped short of the required fifty as soon as she caught sight of her coach and two other trainers walking toward her with grave expressions. She dropped lightly to the mat and put her hands on her hips.

Before speaking, her coach placed a hand gently on her shoulder, leaning close to her face. There was an accident in Deva.

Deva was the small town in central Romania where her younger sister was currently training for the junior international circuit at a gym called the Deva Fortress, one of the two premier gymnastics clubs in the country. Trixie felt sick at the news, nearly physically ill. Her knees went to water, and the only thing keeping her from falling to the ground was the hope that this was a huge misunderstanding. Ileana?

Apparently something went wrong on her beam dismount. Somehow she slammed her head. Hard.

Her neck? Trixie asked heart in her throat. It was every gymnast’s nightmare.

Surprisingly, the coach shook her head. No, darling. It’s worse.

What could be worse?

They took her to the hospital, but she is not waking up.

Why isn’t she waking up?

That’s what they’re trying to figure out.

Trixie clasped her chest and squatted down, dropping her head between her knees. I need to get to Deva, she said without looking up. I need to find my parents and get to Deva.

The gym where she trained was two miles away from the family restaurant. The midday traffic in the port of Constanţa was heavy and plodding. Ships were arriving, unloading, refueling, and because of this activity, the streets were jammed with sailors, dockworkers, machinery operators, tourists, warehouse stockers, and locals running lunch break errands. It would take at least fifteen minutes, maybe even twenty, to drive all the way to the restaurant. So Trixie grabbed her tennis shoes without bothering to cover up her leotard and biker shorts on the way out and hit the streets at a dead run. Paying little attention to traffic and mowing down pedestrians, the world class athlete, though just over five feet tall, made it to the restaurant in less than ten minutes.

Arriving at the building by way of an alley, she burst through the back door into the kitchen. Suddenly assaulted by cooking scents and an intense wave of odors and noise, she felt like her lungs might explode. The momentary lightheadedness caused her to crumple against a large cooler, and her vision swam the ceiling and floor whirling together. The world seemed to be crushing against her chest, and she could no longer fight it. The muscles in her thighs gave way, and she began tumbling toward the enveloping darkness.

Trixie never hit the floor. One arm went around her waist, the other looping beneath her right armpit, holding her up. After four deep breaths, her legs and brain began working in tandem once again. She looked up and saw her father’s face staring back at her. Looking into his eyes was usually akin to looking into a mirror, but today his expression held confusion and concern.

Hers, she knew, was pure panic.

What are you doing here, Beatrix? What’s wrong?

There was an accident in Deva.

The sturdy arms holding her up, the ones that had always been so strong began to shake. Tavian turned his older daughter around to face him, large palms on thin shoulders. Is she okay?

She hit her head on the balance beam. She didn’t break her neck, they don’t think, but the injury is severe.

What does that mean?

They can’t wake her up.

Behind Trixie, a plate crashed to the floor, and the sound of glass shattering temporarily halted all activity in the bustling kitchen. Trixie turned her head to see her mother standing there, her hands over her gaping mouth. Magda was shaking her head in disbelief, muttering no as tears began to stream down her cheeks.

Tavian retreated to the manager’s office at the back of the kitchen, followed by his wife and daughter, and phoned the training center in Deva. Ileana wanted Olympic gold, she’d told everyone as much close to her entire life. That dream was alive this morning. Now she might be dying, and her family was nearly six hundred kilometers away.

The phone conversation with a trainer at the club in Deva was short. Clearly, she did not have any further information. From two feet away, Trixie could hear the woman repeat through the receiver, over and over again, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. As if that was supposed to mean something.

As soon as Tavian hung up the phone, he said, They took her to the hospital in Timişoara. From Constanţa, it was well over seven hundred kilometers, near the Yugoslavian border.

An eleven-year-old girl on the other side of the country was lying unconscious in a hospital bed. She wouldn’t wake up. No one could give the family any more information.

I’ll tell Belu to watch the restaurant, Tavian said. We need to go home, pack our bags, and get to the airport.

Trixie knew she was moving because the world moved around her, but she felt unconscious. The creeping numbness stopped her from feeling the cold air outside. Even in just her workout clothes, there were no goosebumps. Adrenaline continued to surge through her system, making her ears buzz. Everything was very bright, and though she knew she was moving fast, too fast, without thinking, it felt insufferably slow.

CarpatAir had a plane leaving for Timişoara in a half-hour. The flight was full, but the desk clerk explained the situation to a group of seven passengers, all businesspeople on their way home from a day trip, and three volunteered to take the next plane.

The trip was brutal. They were out of contact with the coaches in Deva and the hospital in Timişoara. Trixie spent the entire flight hooked into her iPod, her legs continuously bouncing up and down, a nervous tic. It was how she passed the time at every gymnastics competition, and she couldn’t stop it now.

An hour and a half later, the plane touched down, and the Dalcas were the first ones off. CarpatAir volunteered to drive them to the hospital so they did not have to search for a taxi or catch the bus.

As unbearable as the plane trip had been, the last leg of the journey was excruciating. Trixie felt like she was going to jump out of her skin. She needed to see her sister, needed to hold her, needed to whisper in her ear that she was loved. Trixie wanted to turn back the clock five years, to when they were two little girls giggling in her bedroom, under a tent of covers. Whenever Ileana would cry, it wasn’t Mommy or Daddy she turned to for comfort. It was always big sister. She would hold Ileana close, running her hand through silky thin hair, and say, I know why you’re crying. It must be hard being so beautiful.

Trixie did not bother to stop and ask about her precious sister at the front desk of the hospital. She followed the signs to the Intensive Care Unit, sprinting down hallways, darting around corners, knocking into doctors and nurses without taking a spare breath to apologize. She guessed from the commotion it was time for midday rounds, but she ignored the warning not to enter the unit. There were seven rooms in the ICU, but only one held a person whose legs reached barely halfway down the bed.

A sob choked her but did not escape her throat. She dropped the duffel bag and leaned over her sister. The hissing sound of the ventilator breathing for Ileana combined with the incessant beeping of an alarm signaling one of the bags of medicine was empty consumed the vacuous space. Half of Ileana’s head was shaved and covered with a cloth bandage. On the other side, her brown hair was tangled and matted by blood, with crusted blood on her hairline, jaw, and shoulder. Though it was clear she was comatose, Ileana’s eyes were not completely closed. Her irises were milky and distant, and the drops administered by the nurses caused vacant tears to cut rivers across her pale cheeks. The face Trixie knew so well was puffy and swollen, and her sister was unrecognizable.

Trixie let out a devastated whimper but did not give in to the urge to wail. She believed her sister could hear her, and Ileana would be worried if her stoic big sister was crying. She leaned over the bed and kissed her softly on the forehead. Hey, gorgeous. I’m so sorry I wasn’t at the gym with you. Once this mess is done with, I’ll teach you how to jump off a balance beam without banging your head.

Trixie.

She turned around to see Evgeny Popescu standing in the doorway. He’d been Ileana’s coach for the past eight months, since injury caused him to retire from his own gymnastics career.

She stood up and turned away from the bed. What happened?

She was practicing her double salto pike position—

She’s never been able to land that dismount cleanly, Trixie interrupted. Why wasn’t she training over a pit?

Trixie, she was ready. She landed it only a little short. Instead of falling to her knees, she went forward and slammed her head into the metal support of the beam. It was an accident.

Mistakes like this happened all the time in gymnastics. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the athlete walked away with a bruise and a lesson for the next time the stunt was attempted. Sometimes a muscle was pulled, a bone broken, but though they all knew the stories of gymnasts who were seriously injured or even killed in training, no one believed it would happen to them.

Only then did Tavian and Magda arrive in the room. The sight of Ileana stunned her father mid-step, and her mother collapsed against the wall. Weeping, she crawled across the floor and took her youngest daughter’s right hand in both of hers. She kissed it excessively and began to pray.

Ten minutes later, the doctor entered the room and told the family that trauma to the head had caused Ileana’s brain to swell immediately and

dramatically. There was no neurosurgeon in Deva, so the surgery occurred in Timişoara, nearly two hours after what would have been ideal. Because of the postponement, choked blood vessels formed a clot. This was removed primarily, along with excess blood and fluid. The necessary delay in treatment resulted in post-operative swelling, which the doctor said —diminished Ileana’s respiratory drive— and Trixie shot him a threatening glare as he said this, fraught with confusion and dread, and the simpler explanation was Ileana was no longer breathing on her own. They had done what they could surgically, and now it was up to medications to reduce the brain swelling. Unfortunately, significant damage had already been done. There was no way to gauge what

kind of higher level functioning she would have when she woke up.

If she woke up.

When the doctor finished speaking, Trixie took a deep breath to keep herself from vomiting. She whispered, So her brain is swelling uncontrollably, the blood flow was cut off for so long there’s no way to tell how much damage was done, now blood and fluid are putting pressure on her brain, and . . .

Yes? the doctor said.

She might never wake up.

Don’t give up hope, the doctor said firmly. We’re doing everything we can, and Ileana is strong.

They called it a ‘traumatic brain injury’. Magda had fainted when she heard the diagnosis, but later she insisted defiantly, She’ll wake up. She remained by her daughter’s bed, stroking her hand.

They won’t know for sure for a couple more hours, but she’s in a coma, Trixie said softly. I overheard the nurses talking about it at their station. No eye opening, no response to pain. No motor response, no verbal response.

What are you saying to me?

I’m only repeating what I heard. The measures they’re going to have to take to save her life...they might not work.

Magda’s hand went backwards, and before Trixie could react, her mother’s open palm connected with her face. The smack was louder than the equipment in the room. She smacked her again, and the second one echoed through the entire wing. Ileana will be fine. The medication will take care of the swelling, the bleeding will stop, and she’ll be fine. Don’t you believe that?

I do. I’m only telling you what’s happening now.

Magda said she did not want to leave Ileana for a moment. She spent the night bedside, but in the morning, the doctors and nurses forced her out of the room when they realized the eleven-year-old was experiencing kidney failure. Through the window, the family watched as they attempted to stabilize the girl, adding more tubes and machines, more medicine, all the while tears ran senselessly down Ileana’s cheeks, though this was nothing more than a result of eye drops and involuntary response. The tears of Tavian, Magda, and Trixie were much more purposeful.

There was a beautiful synagogue in Timişoara, but none of them could bear to leave the hospital. When Ileana was unable to regulate her blood sugar, and an hour later, her heart stopped beating, Trixie ran out of the Intensive Care Unit. She had simply wanted to flee into the fresh air, to escape, to find a moment alone, but she saw a sign for the chapel and made a detour. Beneath Jesus crucified, though she was Jewish, Trixie prayed for her little sister. Most people thought Trixie lived for gymnastics, that her greatest love was the sport, her greatest goal Olympic gold. The truth was her greatest love was her sister, her goal to be a role model. Without Ileana, she was lost, and she couldn’t imagine a world without her. Just the thought of it made her ache, and for the first time since hearing of the accident, she allowed herself to succumb to the sorrow in her heart. The hope she’d been harboring like a light in complete darkness was fading. Her sister’s organs were failing, the swelling of her brain was not decreasing, and she’d yet to show any sign she had even minimal awareness of her surroundings.

Fifteen minutes later, Trixie’s father joined her in the otherwise empty chapel. Together they begged, "El na refa na lah." Please God, bring healing.

Parents should not outlive their children, but death was not picky.

The Dalcas prayed for twenty-four hours straight. They implored death to leave one little girl behind. They refused to believe it could all end this way. They did not allow themselves to think the unthinkable, and they put all their hopes in the conviction that even death could not be this cruel.

None of it mattered.

She died anyway.

Chapter Two

The day Ileana Dalca sustained her traumatic head injury, on the east coast of the United States, Abby Vicari was breaking into her own house.

At five o’clock in the morning, she knew her father would be awake in a half hour, and she needed to be in bed before he knew she was gone. She was tired and probably looked awful, so hopefully she would be able to convince her parents she was sick so she would be able to skip school for the day.

She punched in the security code at the gate and drove her new Ford Mustang, a present for her eighteenth birthday, up the winding driveway. Before the Mustang, she’d had a perfectly serviceable Buick Verano. It wasn’t the most youthful or stylish car in the world, but Abby liked having a different vehicle from all the other kids at the private school she attended. However, her parents were excited about giving her something they thought she wanted, and she didn’t want to seem ungrateful. So Ford Mustang it was.

The garage opened silently, but even if it hadn’t, her parents’ bedroom was on the other side of the embarrassingly large estate, so they wouldn’t be able to hear it regardless. The keypad to turn off the home alarm was sunk into the kitchen wall. With a yawn, Abby punched in the six-digit code.

The light kept blinking.

Frowning, she tapped it again. The light blinked more insistently. Then the phone rang.

No, no, no, she muttered, picking it up on the second ring, praying her parents were too deeply asleep for the phone beside their bed to disturb them. Fat chance. Her father was a notoriously light sleeper.

Failsafe Securities.

Hi, sorry, this is Abby Vicari. I think I forgot my security code. Or it was changed or something.

What’s your password?

"Putrii." It was the Hindi word for daughter.

I’m sorry, ma’am, that’s not what I have. Is there an intruder?

No. This must be some kind of mistake. I’m Abby. Do you need my social security number or something?

I can ask you a series of security questions.

Okay, fine, just please don’t let the alarm go off.

What kind of car do you drive?

A Ford Mustang.

Abby could practically feel the woman’s brow furrow. She was probably nearing the end of her shift and in no mood for these shenanigans. That’s not what I have.

The damn Mustang.

I’m sending the police.

No, please, wa—

The phone was snatched out of her hand, and her father said gruffly, This is Naresh Vicari. Hold on a moment, I’ll enter the code. She watched his fingers, and though they moved quickly, she could tell the alarm deactivation code was completely different from when she left the night before. He answered three quick questions, thanked the operator, and hung up the phone.

You changed the security code?

You’ve been out all night long, you’re sneaking into the house, and you dare to get belligerent because I caught you? he demanded.

Abby put her hands on her hips. It’s a little rude, is all I’m saying.

He wasn’t distracted. Where were you?

What difference does it make? I’m home now.

If you were out with that boy, I swear I’ll ship you off to an all girls’ school in Canada.

To finish out the last two months of my high school career?

Don’t mistake this for a bluff.

She threw her hands in the air. What would it help anyway, Dad? That boy you’re talking about doesn’t even go to my school. I’m sure I can find someone you’d disapprove of even more in Canada.

Like a Canadian.

Exactly. Have a good day. I’m going to bed. She tried to scurry out of the kitchen, but two fingers hooked into the collar of her coat, pulling her back. He squeezed her just a little too tightly.

The truth, Abhita. Were you out with that boy?

I do have other interests besides some kid I may or may not be dating.

Naresh was an imposing figure. Almost a foot taller than his daughter, he spun her around easily so she had to face him. He wasn’t smiling when he said, I’m going to check your odometer to see how far you went tonight. Then I’ll scrape dirt from your tires to narrow down the neighborhood. I’ll search your pockets and the entire vehicle for receipts or notes, I’ll also check your GPS to see if you needed directions, and finally-

All right, all right. I went to the city. Happy?

You were in D.C. all night alone? he asked, his jaw clenched.

I know people there. That was a half-lie—she’d met people there and

went for coffee with them after the movies—but she told it with conviction. Her father could sense untruths a mile away, but she was in deep trouble already, and admitting to gallivanting through the dangerous streets of the nation’s capital after dark was enough to earn her a one way ticket to Canada.

What were you doing?

There was a movie marathon showing the works of Sam Green, then I went to a diner with some people afterwards to discuss what we watched.

Who’s Sam Green?

My secret boyfriend.

If Naresh found her joke funny, he hid it incredibly well. Listen to me, and pay attention. This movie nonsense has got to stop. We didn’t send you to the best schools in the country and give you every opportunity we could so you could squander it doing something so frivolous. Am I making myself clear?

Abby was fuming, but she knew this was not the time to pick a fight. She hated how he dismissed her passions as trivial and pointless so easily, but she was caught red-handed and didn’t want to give him more ammunition to punish her. I get it.

He was already in a suit and tie, and he grabbed his keys and briefcase. As he opened the door to the garage, he turned casually and said, You’re going to school today. And except for school, you’re grounded.

I’m an adult, you can’t just ground me.

Funny, because I just did.

Not that you bothered to follow-up, but Sam Green is a documentary filmmaker.

I don’t care if he’s the heir of Slytherin, you shouldn’t have been out all night in the city. Believe me, there will be more discussion about this at a later time. He left before she could say another word.

To the empty room, she shouted, Was that a Harry Potter joke, Dad? I’d hate to think you’re wasting your time on something so frivolous! Deflated, she went to bed because she figured two hours of sleep was better than none. Despite her ire toward her father, she was asleep the second her head hit the pillow. After what seemed like five minutes, the alarm on her phone was blaring. The urge to stay in bed was strong, but her father would check to see if she was in class, and if she wasn’t, the ramifications would be disastrous.

Luckily, she didn’t have to worry about what to wear. Her school had a strict uniform code that took the guesswork out of wardrobe choices. She pulled on a fresh pair of sharply creased gray slacks, a white button down shirt with a plaid blue tie, and a navy blue blazer. Her dress shoes were in her car, so she padded downstairs in her tartan socks.

It was her day to present a current event in political science class, and she decided to choose a sports story this week. The reason why they did current events every day was because most of the kids in her school were the children of politicians who were studying to be the future lawyers and lawmakers of America. She purposefully tried to find stories no one else in her class would find relevant, and even though she wasn’t particularly athletic, she enjoyed sports. The strategy and statistics that comprised the majority of sports now were constantly evolving, and since she’d started dating Calixto Cruz, she found sports even more fascinating because he was an athlete. She found an appropriate story after a quick web search and headed to school.

It took three 5 Hour Energy drinks and a double dose of No-Doz, but she managed to make it through the morning. Her sports presentation was for political science, her second to last class of the day, but thankfully it didn’t take a lot of brainpower.

Abby, do you have a current event to present?

Sure. She pulled out the iPad every student was issued and brought up the article. An eleven-year-old Romanian gymnast was critically injured yesterday in a training accident.

Alert the Pentagon. Bryce Tucker was the son of a senator who was also the son of a senator, and unimaginatively, his aspiration was to be a senator. His favorite hobby was tormenting Abby. He was an all-American in every way: sandy blond hair, blue eyes, square jaw, and a perfectly symmetrical face. He even played football, though he wasn’t the quarterback. That would have been too much for any of them to bear.

Their teacher ignored Bryce. This close to graduation, Mrs. Buell was done trying to reform him. Why did you choose this article?

She’s asking because no one cares about gymnastics, Bryce interjected, and his buddies began to chuckle.

The desks in this room were arranged in a circle, and she turned slightly to her left to face him. People do care about gymnastics. The Olympics are in a few months, and gymnastics is the marquee event.

Okay, no one with any actual awareness of the world cares about gymnastics.

Abby rolled her eyes. There are whole countries on this planet where gymnastics is the most popular sport, but I guess someone as world-wise as you would already know that.

Not any countries with a GNP higher than the cost of my watch, he said with a snicker.

Wow, and it’s a wonder why your father is labeled an elitist.

Kids, stop it, Mrs. Buell said.

Bryce leaned forward in his seat, his hands gripping the front of his desk. Better an elitist than a curry-munching desert donkey terrorist.

Bryce! the teacher barked.

It was so absurd, Abby actually laughed. Bryce, even you’re not so stupid you think that makes any sense at all.

"I know you’re a sorry-ass chee chee who better keep her head down and her sari up if you don’t want your daddy to take away the little bit of freedom you think you have."

The air in the room went still, and Abby was so shocked she wasn’t sure what to say. Maybe he wasn’t as dumb as he acted. A chee chee was a slur for a lower caste Hindu, it literally translated to dirty, and the jab about her father was a low blow. She was actually kind of impressed that he knew the racial epithet and a little perturbed when she wondered how long he’d been keeping that insult in his back pocket for just the right occasion.

Quickly, she decided making a big deal out of his small-minded, pointed racism was not the way to go. She leaned back and waved her hand dismissively. This little girl was in a serious training accident, and it wasn’t so long ago that the entire Eastern bloc was under scrutiny for unsafe and abusive training practices with their young athletes.

Adam, one of Bryce’s buddies, piped in. So you’re a conspiracy theorist now?

I’m not theorizing anything. I’m just saying this little girl is possibly dying in some shabby Romanian hospital, and the only reason this was reported at all is because her older sister is Trixie Dalca, who I’ve been a fan of since she won the world championships. So maybe it’s not the first time something like this has happened. Maybe it won’t be the last.

Adam was spurred on by his friend’s boldness. Again, why should we care?

Because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. She said it simultaneously with Bryce and was shocked to hear the words come out of his mouth, both because he actually knew the quote and had the sense to understand her point of view in presenting this story as her current event.

Mrs. Buell put her hand over her heart. You’ve been paying attention. I feel like a proud mama. Everyone in the class laughed, and the tension was eased. Thank you, Abby. Lauren, you’re up.

The next day, with a good night’s sleep under her belt, she checked ESPN first thing in the morning. Buried deep in the website she found an update on Ileana Dalca. It was hard to explain why, but she felt an incredible sense of unease when she learned Ileana Dalca was dead.

Chapter Three

Landing directly on her chest from twelve feet in the air with only her elbows and a mat that might as well have been made from cement as padding, Shaye felt like her internal organs had collapsed on impact. White chalk dust puffed and drifted lazily around her, angels beckoning her to heaven. For a moment, she considered answering the call. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. There was no sound other than a roaring in her ears, the gush of her panicked heart sending blood through her body at an alarming rate. The chalk dust floated into her nose, but she was long since immune to its effects. She had no desire to sneeze. Even if she did, there was not enough air in her lungs to do so.

Shaye shook her head once. Twice. Again. Her black hair fell across her eyes, and finally, the fog began to clear. She could hear her coach’s voice from across the gym, calling her name. Then the slap-patter of footsteps on the worn wooden floor and plastic mats. Soon shadows blocked the buzzing florescent lights suspended from the high ceiling, and she found herself surrounded by fellow gymrats and coaches.

Five seconds, ten tops. She couldn’t have been down for longer, but it felt like ages. An eternity.

It wasn’t the first fall of Shaye’s career. It wasn’t the worst, and it was far from the most public. This one kept her down because the force of sheer frustration seemed to be pressing her shoulders, weighing on her eighty-seven pound frame until it finally pushed so hard she could no longer fight. She clasped her hands together, rested her forehead on her thumbs, and mouthed a silent expletive, unvoiced only because there were so many little girls over whom she had great influence crowded around her.

Her coach crouched beside her, and she turned her head. He knew better than to overreact to her mistakes and tumbles, but concern was clearly etched in his gray eyes. She had to give him credit for how calm he seemed when he asked, You okay, Shaye?

She managed a smile. Never better, she wheezed.

You tried the release without a spot.

You refused to spot me.

I didn’t think you were ready.

I’m ready, she said confidently even though the fact that she was sprawled out on the floor was a fairly strong argument against her.

Your head’s so hard. I’ll never have to worry about a concussion with you, he said affectionately.

I want to learn this move. I want it to be great. She spoke with passion and earnestness because she knew she could do it. And she was determined to be the first woman in the world who could.

Why don’t you take a break? he suggested, not telling her no but subtly changing the subject. Just for a while.

Shaye pushed herself to her knees, held her arms at ninety degree angles parallel to the ground, and twisted her body to pop the kinks out of her back. Then she looked her coach squarely in the eye and said, I’m going to keep trying whether or not you spot me.

Galya Prokhor clearly knew when he was licked. He leaned back on his heels and held out his hand, clasped hers, and pulled her to a stand. While she dipped her hands in the chalk, he jumped to the high bar and added chalk there as well, just in case the sweat from her hands had made it slippery.

Why didn’t you use the pit? he asked, referring to a deep hole filled with bouncy foam that would break any fall without injury.

It takes too long to get back up, and it’s extra motivation to catch the bar.

Shaye Sylvester was a few centimeters short of five-feet tall, and every last ounce of her was pure grit. Shaye was a power gymnast. Her leaps and flips were high and fast, her vaults vicious attacks on the pommel horse, and her bar work would have been difficult for most men. She pushed herself in every way imaginable, and though her personality smacked of cool indifference, things are not always as they seem. She was anything but apathetic.

She felt Galya watch as she circled her arms and rolled the tension out of her shoulders and studied the bars, scrutinizing them as a mathematician attempts to visualize the solution to a problem. No woman had ever attempted what she had already tried once, without a spot, failing