Synchro

Sync Ch. 3

Mitchell banging on my door interrupted my peaceful nights sleep. “Synchro called late last night! They want to practice this morning. Mom can drive ya if you want, but you have thirty minutes to get ready and get there.” He yelled, refusing to open the door.

Throwing my pillow at the door, I moan. “I’ll be done in ten minutes.”

I climb off my bed, looking at the clock; it was four in the morning. Why would they want us to do a morning rehearsal? They only do those when we’re learning our routines early in the summer months. I stuff all four of my suits into my gym bag, throwing on a few clothes I knew were clean from my messy room.

The car was silent as my brothers slept in the backseat, and my mom drove groggily from beside me. Sights from the normal drive were clouded as my eyes kept drooping from my lack of sleep.

Once we got to the YMCA were practicing at, I waved once to my mom before yawning as I walked into the building. That’s when they attacked.

“Oh my gosh! Someone was asked to join the Santa Clara Aquamaids!” Abbey ran me over as I walked through the door. I looked confused for a moment until Lindsay, Paige, and Wyatt surrounded me and confirmed it.

“Seriously? Who?” I yelled, waking up immediately.

The Santa Clara Aquamaids were a very elite group in the California area where almost all Olympic synchronized swimming athletes train to become world-class. We’ve never had an offer come from them, and that meant that one of us was leaving, cause none of us was turning that down.

The little girls were all sitting in a circle, stretching their half-asleep bodies. They looked confused with all this special squad stuff. We don’t normally talk about the Aquamaids since they’ve beat us in every competition we’ve had with them, and there was little to no chance of any of us getting in.

“Mary-Kay won’t tell us until after Nationals!” They moan, turning to look at her. That wasn’t for another couple weeks! We still had state to win, and there was a slim chance in that. My solo still wasn’t good enough for state yet, and I had worked my booty off for it.

“Cardin! Good to see you this morning! Girls tell you the news?” She wrapped an arm around my shoulders in a quick hug.

“Yeah! I can’t believe it! I would’ve never guessed they would want one of us.”

“Well, it’s not official; they want to see how this person does at nationals. If she can get in the placing as fourth or higher, then she’s set. However, if she doesn’t make it to nationals or she places below fourth, they won’t follow through on their offer,” Mary-Kay had a sad tone to her voice.

“So it’s a soloist?” Paige asked. That narrowed it down to three of the girls. Lindsey, Paige, and myself.

“No, duets count too. They like to see how people work together,” Well that brings the other two in again. Wyatt and I had a duet as the Super Hannahs, and Lindsey and Abbey had a duet to The Mask Of Zorro. They were both simple routines, mostly focusing on speed and synchronization skills. “Plus, they’d like to see our team and combination routine, which means all of your swims should be as heartfelt and as good as they can be. Go hit the locker rooms and get dressed. We’re running through all of them.”

For team routine, we had to pull three of the oldest “younger” girls to swim with us, since we needed eight people. They were thrown into some pretty difficult moves, but they handled lifts and long figures really well. We had to take some time to teach them how to thrust high enough to make it look like they were as tall as the tallest person on the team, but it made them better synchro stars that have very bright futures now that they can stay tall and lean out of the water to better match their partner or partners.