losing kale (watty awards 2012 please read)

Losing Kale

   “Try again Kale and remember, tuck in your arms.”

   I smiled at Kale from the benches as her coach, Miss Toner, showed her a proper axel.

   Kale was my best friend. The way people say opposites attract is definitely applies in our friendship. We are exact opposites. She loved figure skating, but ballet was my favourite.

   I watched Kale do a perfect axel. I clapped with all the other people in the stands.  She was going to win the competition. I just knew it.

   In two weeks Kale would be participating in a competition for city title. That’s another thing about us. Kale competed, but I just did ballet for the fun of it.

   As Kale got off the ice, I rushed over to her.

   “You’re going to win that competition now that you have your axel down!” I exclaimed.

   “You think so?” she asked nervously. “I don’t know Marcy I only got it that one time, and-.”

   “Calm down Kale, you’ll get it by weeks end.” I assured her.

   Sure enough, she had the axel down by the next week. As I took my seat at the competition, I watched Kale practice her axel. The practice period lasted only half an hour, so anyone who was in the competition was practicing. Although the rink was huge, it was still

pretty crowded.

   Kale looked dizzy from all the spinning. She started her stroking. She turned backwards and leaped into a toeloop. As she was spinning in the air, a pair’s couple collided with her. The woman’s blade sliced down Kales back. The man collapsed on her.

   I saw it all in slow motion. His toe pick went into her leg as she fell on her head. To make matters worse, he landed on her where she had been cut with great force.

   Kale lied across the ice motionless. Skaters rushed off the ice as paramedics scurried across trying not to slip. Carefully they lifted her onto a stretcher and carried her off the ice.

   Five minutes later Kales mother came up to me. “Come with me!” she yelled. “Quick!” she lead me two sets of stairs and down a long hallway. She stopped at a door labeled First Aid.

   Inside Kale lied on a medical table on her side. Her red hair was falling out of her tight bun. Half of her skirt was torn and blood was seeping through her tights and dress. Strangely, her skates were still laced tightly on her feet.

   “That was an awful fall she took,” a paramedic explained. “She has a concussion and two deep cuts. We’ve checked for internal bleeding but found none. To stay safe we’ve called an ambulance.”

   His voice was calm. I tried to stay calm, but seeing Kale like that was too much.

   I gasped slightly when I heard sirens. The paramedics had finished stitching her back and leg. When they got Kale into the ambulance, I followed her mother in.

   “Excuse me, but who are you?” a man said in a stern tone.

   “She’s Kale’s sister.” Kale’s mother told him and pulled me onto the seat next to her. The man shrugged and walked in the arena.

   “Why did you lie for me, I’m not Kale's sister.” I asked.

   “That’s not important right now, what’s important is that you’re there for,” she stuttered over Kale's name. We both looked at Kale and burst out crying.

   Before long we were at the hospital, waiting for Kale to come out of the examination room. “You should call your mother and tell her what’s happened, okay?” Kale's mother told me.