Dive Right In

by Matt Christopher

  Traci sighed. Margo was back and so was the harsh attitude. Under Margo’s critical eye, she repeated the roll-off over and over, until Margo ran out of faults to find. As Traci climbed out of the pool, tired and chilled, Margo gave the stiff nod that was as close as she ever came to praise. She told Traci she’d see her next session and walked away.

  “You did well, Trace,” Sophia said.

  “I’m glad someone thinks so,” muttered Traci as she dried herself with her chamois.

  “Margo thinks so, too,” Sophia insisted. “You’ll learn to appreciate her style someday.”

  Traci doubted that, but didn’t contradict Sophia. She just wanted to change into dry clothes and get out of there.

  As she was leaving the building, Traci ran into a group of girls her own age carrying gym bags.

  “Hi,” she said as the girls reached her. “Do you work with Margo?”

  “We’re her intermediate diving class,” said one of them. “What about you?”

  Traci introduced herself and explained how she’d come late to diving.

  “You’re a gymnast?” asked the girl who had spoken first. “You do that balance beam stuff? That’s really awesome!”

  Traci laughed. “That’s funny, I think diving off those high platforms is awesome!”

  The group laughed, too, and another girl said, “We’re going to this ice cream shop where we hang out sometimes. Want to come?”

  “Sure!” said Traci, happy to have found girls her own age to spend time with.

  “How are you doing with diving?” asked the first girl.

  “I haven’t actually dived yet,” Traci said, “unless you count sliding off a mat as diving. But someday soon, I hope. I’ve been working mostly with Sophia.”

  “Sophia’s really neat!” said the girl.

  “I like her a lot,” Traci agreed. “But I guess I’d like anyone after spending some time with Margo. She’s really hard to take.”

  The other girls stared at Traci, who suddenly realized that she might have made a mistake. These girls didn’t seem to. share her opinion of the coach.

  “There’s nothing wrong with Margo,” said the second girl. “She’s a great coach. I wouldn’t work with anyone else.”

  “Me neither,” said the first girl. The rest of the group nodded, and their looks at Traci were not friendly anymore.

  “Since you haven’t even dived yet,” the first girl went on, “you don’t know enough to say something like that about Margo.”

  “Well, I guess not,” Traci admitted. “I was only—”

  “Until you’ve been around a little, you should stop bad-mouthing Margo and learn to be a diver.”

  “Right,” said another girl. “Maybe then you’ll have a clue what you’re talking about.”

  The group walked away, and Traci knew that she was no longer welcome to go with them. She watched them go, feeling embarrassed and wishing she’d kept her mouth shut. She also began to wonder. All these girls were willing to defend Margo and didn’t want to hear anything bad said of her. Apparently there was more to Margo than Traci realized.

  7

  After dinner, Traci was still feeling upset. She decided to call Valerie and get some much-needed sympathy. When Valerie answered, Traci ran through what had happened that day and then waited for Valerie to offer comfort and support.

  Valerie seemed excited that Traci had called. “I’ve got something to tell you,” she said. “But first, tell me how things have been going with you.”

  Traci spelled it all out for Valerie, then waited for her friend’s sympathy. She didn’t get what she had hoped for. Instead, Valerie said, “It sounds to me like you spoke out of turn. I mean, how long have you been in these classes? Three sessions? Four?”

  “I know I’m not an expert diver,” Traci admitted, “but that doesn’t mean I was wrong about Margo. She’s not—”

  “Trace, you have to earn the right to an opinion,” Valerie interrupted. “Until you’ve earned that right, you’d better be careful what you say, or you’re not going to make any friends. Sounds to me like those other girls think Margo’s great. Instead of complaining about her, you should think about whether you’re right or wrong in your attitude. If Margo’s just a bully, how come she gets such great athletes to work with her?”

  “I didn’t say she was just a bully,” Traci said, feeling that Valerie wasn’t being fair. “All I said was that she—”

  “You don’t get it,” Valerie cut in. “What I’m telling you is that you shouldn’t have said anything. You’re a newcomer. Don’t make waves yet. And I still say you’re really lucky to be working with someone like Margo. Learn to live with it. That’s my advice.”

  Traci felt like she’d been ambushed. “I have been living with it! I’ve done everything Margo told me to do. I’ve been doing my homework. I haven’t given her any grief. … Well, maybe a little.”

  There was a moment of awkward silence. Then Traci remembered that Valerie had something she wanted to tell her.

  “So, what’s your news?”

  All the excitement returned to Valerie’s voice. “I’m changing coaches! This new guy sounds perfect. He worked with the U.S. Olympic team a few years ago, and he wants me for a student! I gave Jeff the bad news today.”

  “That’s great,” Traci said, their disagreement forgotten for the moment. “When do you start?”

  “In a few days. I’ll let you know how it goes, but I’m really pumped! And Trace?”

  “Yeah?”

  “When I do start, I’m going to keep a really low profile at first. I mean, until I get a sense of how things work there, I won’t say anything bad about anyone—especially the guy in charge. It’s just common sense.”

  “Yeah, well,” Traci muttered, her sense of betrayal returning. “You’re better than me at getting along. Well, see you, and good luck.”

  Valerie seemed to realize that Traci wasn’t happy that she hadn’t simply gone along with her complaints. “Trace, don’t be angry at me. I know that after working with Jeff, Margo is hard to take. But just take it easy with the bad-mouthing, all right? Or you’ll only have more hassles than you already do.”

  They hung up a few moments later. Deep inside, Traci knew Valerie was right. Valerie was unusually realistic about the world of high-level competitive athletics, and her slant on things was good to get. Traci vowed she’d take her friend’s advice.

  During her next session with Sophia, Traci continued to do floor and trampoline work with the younger girls. She also spent more time using the mat and working on backward dive entries. She realized that she was improving in several ways. For one thing, her forward dive approach became almost automatic. She could do it without looking at her feet, and at the right speed, and her steps were the right length. Margo had almost no corrections to make, except for the way she swung her arms—she didn’t swing them enough—and the way she held her head—she tended to hold it too high.

  Traci continued to struggle a little bit with the tuck position on the mat. She found it difficult to coordinate her movement so that she extended her body into a straight line, with her arms fully stretched out, just before her hands hit the water. It was especially hard, she found, when she worked from a sitting position. Sophia was very patient, and Margo was very demanding. It was frustrating, but Traci held her temper and kept working at it.

  She ran into the older girls afterward, and they nodded to her. Traci decided to stay away from them for now. Eventually, she wanted to make her peace with them and have friends her own age among the divers. The eight- and nine-year-olds were nice enough, but she didn’t have much in common with them.

  During the next session, Margo watched Traci do her floor work and her backward “dives” from the mat on the diving board, all without saying a word. Sophia had almost nothing to say, either. As Traci was putting the mat aside, she saw the two coaches talking. At one point, Margo looked over at Traci, who quickly looked away. Traci didn’t want Margo to
think that she was spying on her.

  Finally, Margo called to Traci.

  “Today, you will do forward dives from a one-meter board,” Margo said. Sophia gave Traci a thumbs-up signal.

  Traci discovered that her heart was racing. She’d been eagerly awaiting this chance, and now she was nervous. What if she was awful? Would Margo give her a chance to work through her jitters? Would she be patient? Traci didn’t want to admit to being nervous. She simply nodded and said, “Okay.”

  “We’ll keep it simple today,” Sophia said. “You’ll try forward dives from tuck, pike, and straight positions, and maybe we’ll get to some backward dives, too. You ready for this?”

  Traci’s throat felt dry. She swallowed and said, “I think so, yeah.”

  Margo nodded and said, “Sophia will work with you now. I’ll be back later to look.”

  Margo left the pool area. Sophia turned to Traci. “Let’s begin with the forward dive from the tuck position. You’ve got the approach and hurdle down, but now you’ll do it on a springboard—and that feels very different. When you come down with both feet on the board from the hurdle, the board will flex under your weight and spring up, giving you some lift. That will take getting used to.”

  As they walked to the board, Sophia continued, “For the tuck, you have to time it so that you pull your thighs into your chest and grab your shins just before you’re at the peak of the dive. Then you open up so that your arms stretch your body into a straight line just before your hands hit the surface. Think about the tucks you did on the trampoline. Clear so far?”

  Traci nodded, but suddenly nothing seemed clear.

  “Unless you have questions, let’s see you try one.” Sophia gestured to the one-meter board. Traci slowly walked out on it. It was scary out there—the water seemed to be very far beneath her feet. She stood like a statue for what felt like several minutes, but probably was only a few seconds.

  “Trace? You all right?” asked Sophia.

  Traci nodded, unable to speak or move. She didn’t want to admit how scared she suddenly felt. Surely, no halfway decent diver felt frightened on a one-meter board!

  Sophia walked closer to Traci and began speaking quietly. “I’m going to let you in on a little secret. A lot of divers are scared when they first get on a board or a platform. Even on a one-meter board. Some divers never get over being scared—even champion divers. That’s the truth. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Really.”

  Traci didn’t feel a lot better. She liked Sophia, but found it hard to believe that the coach was telling her the truth. It seemed more likely to her that Sophia was only trying to give Traci a boost in morale.

  “Here’s a good way to deal with the fear. It worked for me, anyway. Stand there for a few seconds with your eyes closed and visualize your dive. Go through it from beginning to end in your mind, everything you’ll do. Then open your eyes, take a couple of slow, deep breaths—and do it. Just like that. What’s the worst that can happen? Maybe you’ll be embarrassed, but it won’t kill you.”

  Traci noticed that a few of her young classmates were watching nearby. She suddenly felt angry with herself. She’d done much harder things as a gymnast—and more dangerous things, too.

  She closed her eyes, imagined a slow-motion version of the dive, opened her eyes… and went into her approach.

  It was awful. She didn’t get the lift off the board she had expected, didn’t straighten out from the tuck soon enough, and hit the water with her stomach. It stung, and there was a really big splash. As she slowly climbed out of the pool, she heard a few younger girls giggling.

  Sophia stopped the giggling and came back to Traci. “The next time you’ll do better. I’m adjusting the fulcrum of the board to give you more lift. That was part of the problem.”

  The fulcrum—the point that separated the “springy” part of the board from the fixed part, like the pivot of a seesaw—was adjustable by turning a wheel and sliding a bar forward or back to make the springy section longer or shorter. Sophia shortened it.

  “Now you’ll get more elevation and have more time to straighten out. Ready?”

  “I guess,” said Traci. It had to be better this time than the first time. It had to. She wouldn’t give those little girls anything more to laugh at if she could possibly avoid it.

  Sure enough, on her second attempt Traci got higher coming out of the hurdle and was able to straighten out her body, but she was a little too quick. Her legs went past the vertical and her entry was not perpendicular to the surface. But it was better, and didn’t hurt at all.

  “Good!” Sophia exclaimed. “This time, try to hold your entry position, and as your hands hit the water, flex your fingers back. And keep your ankles together.”

  The next several dives were not as horrible as the first one had been, but none of them were all that good, either. Traci kept forgetting one thing or another; either her feet weren’t together, or her hands weren’t right, or she never hit the tuck because her hands slipped off her shins. It looked like there was no end to the different kinds of mistakes you could make. Traci was sure she had made most of them.

  Sophia remained cheerful and positive. When Traci tried a forward dive in the pike position—bending at the waist but keeping her legs straight—she did another belly-whopper. At least there were no giggles this time.

  “You have to put more energy into the flex when you bend at the waist so you get more forward momentum,” Sophia said. “That way, you’re more likely to hit the water vertically, not on your belly. Also, focus your eyes on the far end of the pool until you do the hurdle. When you leave the board after the hurdle, focus on the point where you’ll enter the water. And try to touch your toes with your hands—that’s the sign of a good pike.”

  Traci did several repetitions. She got better, though she didn’t think she was ever really good. It was discouraging. Sophia continued to say nice things, but Traci suspected that she was only being kind.

  Traci then dived in the straight position—without bending. At Sophia’s suggestion, Traci leaned forward more when coming out of the hurdle. Sophia also told her to spread her arms to the side as she went up and bring them together overhead as she neared the water.

  Here, too, Traci was frustrated again and again. She hit the water too soon, before she was straight up-and-down, or too late, splashing hard with the backs of her legs. She lost her balance a couple of times and didn’t hit the board with both feet after the hurdle. Once, she leaned too far forward coming off the board and just avoided hitting the water stomach-first.

  Her first experience of diving left Traci feeling very discouraged. Maybe this wasn’t her sport, after all. Maybe Margo had been wrong.

  After Traci’s last messed-up dive in the straight position, Sophia said that she was going to get Margo. Traci tried not to wince. She imagined Margo kicking her out in disgrace.

  Sophia returned with Margo. Before Traci got on the board, Sophia took her aside. “Don’t worry, you’re doing well,” she said. “Just visualize your dives, relax, and do them. Don’t expect to be perfect. This is only your first day.”

  On the board, Traci closed her eyes and visualized the dive: hands around shins at the top of the dive, then straightening smoothly into the water, arms extended.

  This time, her tuck was tight. She straightened out… and hit the water before she had straightened all the way. Splat. Not good.

  When she went for the pike position, she knew before she hit the water that she had come out of the pike too soon, and that her back was arched too much. But she didn’t make a huge splash. Better—a little.

  The straight dive was pretty bad, Traci thought. In her nervousness, she forgot to stretch her arms to the side before reaching over her head. Also, she didn’t lean forward enough, so her entry was short of the ideal straight up-and-down. Sighing, Traci climbed out of the pool and dried herself with her chamois, waiting for Margo to jump all over her.

  But, surprisingly, Margo didn’t
say much. She simply pointed out that Traci had a lot of work to do. She made no specific criticisms at all and told Traci she’d see her at the next session.

  Traci was relieved to have been spared a harsh scolding, but she still felt depressed as she changed. She walked by the older girls and barely noticed them, lost in a cloud of gloom.

  As she plodded home, Traci found it impossible to imagine that she could ever be a decent diver, let alone a great one.

  8

  Since Traci had the next day off from diving, she agreed to go shopping with Valerie. Traci biked to Valerie’s house and they rode to the mall together. When they sat down at a snack shop in the food court, Valerie’s excitement was clear.

  “I met my new coach and he’s awesome! What a difference from Jeff! This guy pumps you up when he just talks to you! He thinks I’ve got major potential, but says I’d better be ready for the hardest work I’ve ever done. And I’m like, ‘Sure! That’s what I want!’ And he smiles and goes, ‘I think you’ll do fine.’ I can’t believe it, it’s too good to be true.”

  Traci felt happy for her friend and tried to show it, but her spirits were so low that Valerie couldn’t help noticing.

  “You don’t look so great,” she said. “That coach still giving you a hard time?”

  Traci shook her head. “It isn’t Margo. I don’t know. This may be a mistake.”

  “What may be a mistake?” asked Valerie. “Working with Margo? I still think she’s—”

  “I told you, it isn’t Margo. It’s me. I got my first chance to dive yesterday. Really dive, off a springboard. And I was awful.”

  Valerie stared at her friend. “Trace, it was your first day. Hello? What did you think, that you’d ace it like a gold-medal winner the first time? I don’t believe you were awful. I think you were inexperienced. And it showed.”

  Traci waved off Valerie’s explanation. “It wasn’t just that I didn’t dive well. When I got on that board, I was scared. I could barely get myself to move at all!”

  “But you did dive, right?” Valerie asked.