Page 127 of Oh, Flutz!

I don’t know what to do, Dedushka.

Yes, you do. You always do.

I walk down the row of offices towards the biggest one, the one that I used to sit and eat lunch in alone whenever Polina and Liza decided that they didn’t want to sit with me and forced Anna to ignore me, too; before the Skorniakovs arrived and Vanya would make sure I could never get rid of him even if I wanted to.

I’d sit on the floor in silence while Tatyana worked, eating my food, listening to my program music or doing catch-up schoolwork. Standing in front of the door, it feels like I’m thirteen all over. Back again, ashamed to ask for nothing at all.

I knock. “Vkhodit',” her unimpressed voice calls from within.

I push the door open slowly. Tatyana doesn’t look up from her computer, her long nails clacking at the keyboard.

“I don’t have all day, Ekaterina, quit lurking in my doorway. What is it?”

Not asking about my health, I see.I don’t bother being offended. “I had a lot of time to think when I was in the hospital.”

So I finally ask the question. “Why did I get fifth that day?”

Tatyana stops with the papers, looking up at me in annoyance. “What?”

I don’t know where I’m getting the courage. “Last year. At the Final. It was bad, but it wasn’tthatbad. The rest of that performance should’ve been enough to bring me up to third, not knock me down another place. And—” I hesitate to bring this up, but I don’t really have a choice now. “You know the judges like us—”

“Careful,” Tatyana says, voice crisp and icy. “Be extremely careful with what you say next.”

I don’t have to say it, is what I want to say, but I shut my mouth. It’s probably the worst kept secret in figure skating that judges aren’t quite the impartial beings they’re supposed to be, especially when it comes to our particular camp of skaters. Either they love us or they hate us, and even the haters can see we’re the best in the game. I take a deep breath, trying to silence the alarm bells in the back of my mind. “You know what I mean. I should’ve made it on the podium. Do you know—” I have to know. Ihaveto know. “Do you know why?”

“You did horribly, Ekaterina, I don’t know what else to tell you. You’d been doing horribly for a while.”

“I…don’t understand. I took silver almost every competition, how is that—”

“Don’t question me,” Tatyana snaps. “You know just as well as I do that, as soon as the others corrected the little things, or got old enough to meet the age requirement, you’d be blasted back to novice levels. All the juniors had bigger, better jumps than you. It was only a matter of time. I merely…” She shrugs. “Expedited things.”

My heart stops.

No. “How?” I almost can’t get the question out, my voice cracking into silence. My throat is closing in on itself.

“Ostav’ menya, Katya, I have work to do—”

“No,” I say suddenly, the loudness of my voice making me cringe. Tatyana whips back to me, but before she can say anything I cut her off. “Tell me.”

“You need to get back on the ice.”

“Now!”I’m shaking, breath coming in hiccups, vision blurring dangerously.

She didn’t do it. I know she didn’t, she would never do this to me. I was different. I was like her daughter. She always liked me better. Iknowshe didn’t do it.

Tatyana’s eyes narrow, lips pinched. “Alright. You want the truth? Fine. There was an agreement. We needed room for Liza, for the new seniors, and you just weren’t cutting it. I’m sorry, but this is business. It had to be done.”

No.

I can’t breathe. I have to grab the door handle to steady myself. “No,” I mumble. This isn’t happening. I heard her wrong. They were right. They were all right.

I try not to cry. I really do. “Itrustedyou!”

It sounds like a little girl’s comment, and maybe it is. Which is why I’m not entirely surprised when Tatyana says, “Trust is for children. You were never a child.”

“But—but I was.” I’m stuttering over my words. “We all were.”

“Please. You were meant for bigger things than playgrounds, Ekaterina.” Tatyana shuffles some papers, raising her eyebrows at me. “Well. Now that you got what you wanted, get back on the ice. You still have to prove to me I didn’t make a mistake in letting you back here, especially after the other day. I’m already getting calls. You won’t fail me again, will you?”

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