"Thirty second speed..."
I'm on full alert as the competition soundtrack starts, my rope and feet ready to fly at the sound of the buzzer.
"Judges ready, jumpers ready, set...GO!"
At the buzzer, my feet take off, pounding against the gym floor as my rope skims it lightly. I'm starting off at a great pace! I just hope I can keep it up.
Today is probably the most important jump rope practice of the entire year: the practice competition. We run through all the events like it's a real competition. The regional competition is coming up in just a few weeks, so we should have our routines down by now, and we're just trying to get them with no mistakes. I'm pretty confident about my single rope routine this year. I'm sure I can win-that is, if I have no misses and manage to keep a fake smile plastered on my face the whole time. I hope I do better than last practice!!! Otherwise, Kylie might come ahead of me, and that would be terrible. Every single year, I've placed higher than her. To have that order upended would be a huge shock for me.
I'm the one who actually cares about winning. Kylie's more of the easygoing type. She always does her best, but is really happy for me whenever I win (which is always). We work really well together though, her personality and my determination balance each other out perfectly so our pairs routine is the best. Without Kylie on the team, I'd probably be stuck with Claire White as a pairs partner. Claire's nice, but we have really different strengths and jumping styles, so I don't think our routine would be that great. But having a twin sister means having an automatic pairs partner.
Sometimes it's hard spending so much time with Kylie, though. She's really nice to everyone, and always does the "right" thing. This can be kind of annoying sometimes, like when I want to do something really fun, but against the rules. She'll always prevent me from doing it. But she's my sister, so...I'm kind of stuck with her.
But don't get me wrong. I mean, I do love my sister. Most of the time, she's great! Plus, we're twins, so that's a built in best friend. When you have someone your exact age who lives with you, you tend to share everything with them. And I mean everything. So Kylie and I are really close. It's just my competitive streak that gets between us sometimes.
Although, that's sometimes a good thing. Beating Kylie is my motivation to practice harder. That's why I spent so many hours this year working on making my single rope routine better and better.
But now isn't the time for freestyle. Right now, we're running speed events, which I absolutely hate. I have terrible endurance, so going as fast as I can for long periods of time is not fun. Thirty second speed, which we're doing right now, isn't so bad, but once you get up to three minute speed...Ugh. Even thinking about it makes me feel like collapsing.
"Ten seconds..." The timer soundtrack calls out.
I turn in circles when I jump speed (something about one of my arms being at a lower angle than the other), and so I soon have turned all the way around so I'm facing Kylie, who's jumping in the same heat as I am. I focus in on her feet hitting the wood floor, and receive a nasty shock: she's jumping almost twice as fast as I am!
My mind reels. When did Kylie get this fast? Last practice she was only a little faster than me! But then I think back. Where was Kylie when I had that sleepover with Faith? Where was she when I was at the pool or going out for pizza with Kate? Guess I'm not the only one getting some extra practice in. Seems like I need to do some serious speed training.
But no time for that now, in the middle of my heat. Right now I've got to step up the pace so I can beat Kylie! I try to quicken my feet but I end up stepping on the rope. Shoot!
I get back into the rhythm of the jumping, but then I miss again when I try to go faster. Then, trying to catch up, I drop my handle.
"Twenty seconds..." The timer calls out.
I start to panic. I only have ten seconds left to catch up! What am I gonna do?
I try to go even faster, but this results in two more misses. By the time the ending buzzer goes off, I'm almost in tears.
I walk over to the parent volunteer who was counting me, and ask for my score.
"Fourty-seven," she responds, a sympathetic look on her face. I suck in a breath to keep from crying. Fourty-seven?! I got that score two years ago! I should be getting sixty or seventy!
The volunteer sees my face, and trying to comfort me, says, "It's okay, Kylie. You'll do better next time."
Kylie? Oh, well. We are identical. I don't bother to correct her, though. I feel a little guilty, but it's an easy way to escape my shame. I nod and say thank you to the parent, who smiles at me, and then I walk out of my station to the edge of the floor.
Kylie is waiting for me. "What did you get?" I ask her.
"Seventy-five," she replies dully, "what about you?"
"Seventy-one," I lie. But I look at her strangely. This isn't like Kylie, not to be really excited at her score. Seventy-five is a new record for her, but she doesn't look happy at all. I wonder what's up.

* * *

"Madelyn! Time for dinner!"
"Okay, Mom!" I yell back, and clamber down the stairs, Kylie right behind me. "What are we eating?"
"Chicken!"
I sigh. We always have chicken. But that's okay, because my mom is a fantastic cook, so she always manages to prepare it in some new exotic way each night. I guess she can't help that her brother lives on a farm. He keeps sending us chicken and vegetables and fruit, and won't take no for an answer. Even though Kylie and I have told him many times (diplomatically, of course) that we absolutely hate chicken. (We actually don't, we just hate too much of it.) He just keeps the chicken coming every time he visits us (which is about once a month), and Mom says that she can't stand wasted food, so every night we're stuck with chicken. Roasted chicken, parmesan chicken, barbecued chicken, chicken salad, rosemary garlic chicken, chicken soup, even chicken tikka masala, which is some sort of Indian chicken dish. Or it could be Persian. I'm not sure.
I'm thinking of becoming a vegetarian.
I sit down at the table and Kylie plops down in the chair next to me. "What kind of chicken?" She asks, twisting her hands.
"Chicken pot pie," My mom replies, "I thought I'd use the potatoes your uncle sent over."
I stick out my tongue. Why, Uncle, why?! One of these days I am going to sit him down and we will talk. I turn to Kylie.
"We should so tell Uncle that-Kylie?" I break off my sentence, seeing her nervously running her hands through her hair. "Kylie, are you okay?" My sister doesn't usually act like this.
Swallowing hard, she turns towards me. "Okay, so I don't know how to tell you this, but I think I might want to quit jump rope."
My mind goes blank. Kylie quit jump rope?

By: Lilahgirl337