Karen's Figure Eight

  The author gratefully acknowledges

  Helen Perelman

  for her help

  with this book.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1 Mail for Me!

  2 My Family

  3 Lesson One

  4 Keeping a Secret

  5 Hot-Chocolate Break

  6 Skating Star

  7 My New Friend

  8 Gold Medal Dreams

  9 A Big Break

  10 Skating Show

  11 Flowers and Teddy Bears

  12 Hard Work

  13 Practice Makes Perfect

  14 Keep Trying

  15 Silent Partner

  16 Good Advice

  17 The Secret

  18 A Couple of Stars

  19 Push and Glide

  20 Festival on Ice

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Copyright

  Mail for Me!

  I love getting mail. And I especially love getting mail in February. That is when I get lots of valentines. And I, Karen Brewer, love Valentine’s Day too.

  When I got home from school I ran to our front hall to look at the mail. I saw lots of envelopes. And I spotted a red envelope with my name on it! I looked at the return address. It was from Granny in Nebraska. Granny is my grandmother.

  Granny’s card was a valentine. On the front of it was a picture of a bunch of grapes with smiling faces. I read the inside of the card out loud. (I am a very good reader.)

  You are the sweetest one in the bunch

  Happy Valentine’s Day

  Then Andrew came into the hall. (Andrew is my little brother. He is four going on five.) Granny sent Andrew a card too. Andrew’s card was in the shape of a racing car. It said:

  You always come in first place with me.

  Happy Valentine’s Day!

  Andrew and I were about to show Mommy our valentines when I saw another red envelope. My name was printed on the label, but it did not look like a valentine. I opened it anyway, just in case. Inside was a shiny brochure from the Stoneybrook Ice Arena. Blue letters across the top said ICE SKATING LESSONS FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY! A few skaters were pictured doing spins on the ice. Andrew did not seem interested. But I wanted to spin just like them.

  “Mommy, Mommy! Look at this!” I shouted.

  Mommy looked up from stringing beads. She was working on a new necklace. “Karen, please use your indoor voice.”

  (Sometimes I forget to use my indoor voice. Ms. Colman, my teacher, is always reminding me to use it too.)

  I handed the brochure to Mommy. “Look! I want to do that,” I said more quietly. “I want to take skating lessons at the Stoneybrook Ice Arena.”

  As Mommy read the brochure, I took off my shoes so I could slide around the living room floor as if I were skating on the ice. Andrew started to laugh and joined me. (He likes to do things that I do.) Then I remembered a song that Granny taught me about ice skating.

  “Ice skating is nice skating,

  But there is one thing about ice skating —

  Never skate where the ice is thin.

  Thin ice will crack

  And you will fall right in

  And come up with icicles under your chin

  If you skate where the ice is thin!”

  “Oh, Mommy,” I said as I twirled on my socks. “I would love to take lessons.”

  “Karen,” Mommy said. “The lessons are Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday afternoons. That is a lot of time. Do you really want to take lessons?” Mommy asked.

  “Yes!” I said. “And I can use the new ice skates that Granny gave me for Christmas.”

  Mommy asked Andrew if he wanted to take lessons, but he was not interested.

  “All right,” Mommy said. “I will call now and see if we can get you started soon.”

  “That is great!” I said. “Maybe the Musketeers would like to take lessons too.”

  The Three Musketeers are my two best friends, Nancy Dawes and Hannie Papadakis, and I. I will tell you more about them later.

  I called my friends right away. But Nancy had dance class on Wednesdays, and Hannie had piano lessons on Fridays. Boo and bullfrogs. The Three Musketeers could not skate together.

  I could not stop thinking about my lessons. Maybe I would get to be in an ice-skating show. I would be gigundoly excited about skating for an audience. But I would need lots of tickets if my whole family wanted to come. That is because my family is really two families. Hold on a minute and I will explain.

  My Family

  I have two families because my mommy and daddy divorced when I was little. Even though they loved Andrew and me, they did not love each other anymore. The four of us used to live in the house that Daddy grew up in. After the divorce, Mommy, Andrew, and I moved to another house in Stoneybrook. Andrew and I call it the little house because it is smaller than Daddy’s big house.

  The three of us were living in the little house when Mommy met a man named Seth Engle. He is a carpenter and he is really nice. He loves animals. He has a dog named Midgie and a cat named Rocky. When Mommy and Seth married, Seth and his pets moved into the little house with us.

  Then my daddy got married again too. Elizabeth, my stepmother, is super-nice. She has four kids. Charlie and Sam are so old they are in high school. Kristy (the world’s best baby-sitter and big sister) is in eighth grade. And David Michael is seven just like me. (But he goes to a different school than I do.) Then Elizabeth and Daddy adopted Emily Michelle from Vietnam. She is two and a half and very cute. I even named my pet rat after her. I think Emily Michelle looks up to me.

  Nannie also lives in the big house. (She is Elizabeth’s mommy.) She came to stay once Emily Michelle arrived. She is a great cook and even started her own chocolate business. She makes the best candy! The big room attached to the kitchen is where she does all her baking. It always smells good in there.

  There are lots of pets at the big house too. David Michael has a Bernese mountain dog puppy named Shannon. We also have a black kitten, Pumpkin. Andrew has a goldfish he calls Goldfishie. My goldfish is named Crystal Light the Second. David Michael takes care of our fish when Andrew and I go to the little house.

  Andrew and I switch houses every other month. He takes his hermit crab, Bob, and I take my rat, Emily, back and forth between the big house and the little house. But that’s about all we need to take. You see, we have two of everything! Two mommies and two daddies, two houses, two cats, two dogs. One of each at the big house, and one of each at the little house. That’s why I call my brother and me Andrew Two-Two and Karen Two-Two. (I thought up those names after Ms. Colman read a book to our class called Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang.) I have two sets of toys, two bicycles, two pairs of glasses (blue ones for reading and pink ones for the rest of the time), and best of all — two best friends!

  Hannie and Nancy and I call ourselves the Three Musketeers because we do everything together. Hannie lives near the big house and Nancy lives next door to the little house. No matter which house I am in, I am near a Musketeer!

  I could not wait to tell my friends and my whole family all about my ice skating lessons.

  Lesson One

  “Karen, let’s get going!” Seth called. It was Saturday afternoon and I was almost ready for my first skating lesson.

  I put an extra pair of socks in my skate bag and raced downstairs. I could not wait to get to the rink.

  The Stoneybrook Ice Arena is near my little house. From the outside it looks like a huge white bubble. Andrew said it looks like a spaceship. Seth and Andrew came inside with me to help me find my class. A man behind a desk said I should put on my skates. My teacher would gather my class in a minute. I tol
d Seth I would be okay by myself. So he and Andrew left the rink. I waved good-bye. I was ready to start my lessons.

  Lots of students were in the arena already. But I did not know any of them. I looked around. To the left, I saw a large snack bar with tables and chairs. A few kids were laughing and talking. They looked as if they were having fun. I wished that Hannie and Nancy were taking lessons with me. Then the Three Musketeers would be sitting at the snack bar drinking hot chocolate. But my friends were not here. Several benches surrounded the oval rink, and lots of kids were lacing up their skates. I sat down on a bench by myself and tried to look like a real skater. I decided to put on my skates with the new neon-pink blade guards.

  “Karen?”

  I looked up and saw Ian Johnson. He is in Ms. Colman’s class. Boy, I was happy to see him! I was so glad to have a friend at the arena with me.

  “Are you taking skating lessons here too?” I asked Ian.

  Ian looked around. He leaned in close to me and whispered, “Yes.” Then he looked over his shoulder.

  I was about to ask Ian why he was acting as if he were a spy on a secret mission when a woman with a clipboard in her hand walked over to us.

  “Hello, I am Mrs. Harris,” she said. “Welcome to the Stoneybrook Ice Arena. What are your names?”

  Ian and I gave our names to Mrs. Harris, and she looked for them on her clipboard. She smiled and said, “Well, you are both in my class. Please stand by the entrance to the ice over there.” I could see a few other kids already standing where she was pointing.

  I slipped on my guards. Ian and I walked to the rink.

  Mrs. Harris welcomed everyone. Including Ian and me, there were six kids in our group.

  “This is the blade of your skate, and this is the toe pick.” Mrs. Harris pointed to her skate.

  I rolled my eyes at Ian. Well, of course we knew that.

  Mrs. Harris told us that the first part of the lesson was called the warm-up skate. “Skaters need to get used to the ice by skating a few laps,” she said. “Whenever you arrive at the rink, you should get on the ice and warm up.” Then she told us that at the end of the lesson, we would have a free skate to practice what we had learned.

  Next Mrs. Harris asked us all to get on the ice. Our class was in the far right corner of the rink. Mrs. Harris explained that she was going to show us the proper way to fall. “Every skater falls,” she said. “It is important to learn the right way to fall, so you don’t hurt yourself.”

  “This is baby stuff,” I whispered to Ian as we skated to our section of the ice.

  I noticed two girls from our class giggling and holding on to the side of the rink. They were already falling. And I did not think it was the right way. Ian and I seemed to be ahead of the rest of our class.

  I wanted to spin like the skaters in the brochure. I was ready to twirl on the ice and make perfect jumps in the air. I did not want to learn how to fall down.

  Maybe I was in the wrong class.

  Keeping a Secret

  “Very good, class,” Mrs. Harris said. (She looked at Ian and me when she said it.)

  The class was almost over. I liked the idea of the free skate at the end of our lesson. Then we did not have to stay with our class and we could skate around the whole rink.

  Ian and I skated together. Ian was still acting strangely. He kept looking around. When we started our second lap around the rink, I finally asked him what was the matter.

  “I am just checking to see if I know anyone here,” Ian said. “I don’t want anyone at school to know that I’m taking skating lessons.” Ian turned and looked at me. “Karen, do you promise not to tell anyone about this? Especially no one in our class?”

  “Why?” I asked. I could not wait to tell the kids in our class about our skating lessons.

  “I do not want anyone to make fun of me,” Ian whispered. He looked worried. “Not many boys take skating lessons.”

  “I promise,” I said.

  As we glided around the corner, I realized that Ian was right. There were not many boys at the rink. I also noticed that Ian was a very good skater. He was almost as good as me.

  “Ian,” I said, “lots of boys skate. Some even win gold medals. Maybe you could win one too!”

  Ian smiled. I smiled back at him. “You are a good skater,” I told him.

  “Thanks, Karen,” Ian said. “You are too.”

  “I cannot wait until we learn how to do spins and jumps. I think that we are the best skaters in our class,” I said. “Did you see those two girls, Kelly and Alyse?”

  Ian laughed. “Yeah, they did not let go of the railing during the whole class!”

  “We should be in a more advanced class,” I said. “I want to do things like that girl over there.” I pointed to an area behind red cones at the far end of the rink.

  Ian told me that area was reserved for Coach Brown’s students. Coach Brown was famous for coaching Olympic champions. He even coached a gold medalist named Michael Phaneuf. We both stopped and watched his student, a girl with a brown ponytail, spin like a top.

  “Wow, she is really good,” I said. I had only seen spins like that on television. And she did the spin perfectly.

  “That is Jillian Earhart,” Ian said. “Coach Brown is training her here. My cousin Jessica told me. She took lessons here last year.”

  Ian and I stopped skating and hung out on the side of the rink to watch Jillian skate. Coach Brown fixed her arms as she came out of her spin and motioned for her to do the move again.

  “Some people think Jillian is going to the next Olympics,” Ian added.

  I could not believe it. Jillian was a real Olympic skater!

  “Cool,” I said. I wanted to learn to skate just like her.

  “She is thirteen years old and she could win the gold,” Ian said.

  I was so happy. I was in the same rink as an Olympic hopeful.

  And if my lessons got any better, maybe someday I would be one too!

  Hot-Chocolate Break

  “It is time to go!” Andrew called upstairs to me.

  I was rushing to get ready for skating class after school on Wednesday. Our nanny, Merry, was waiting for me. She had to take Andrew to a birthday party across town, so I had to go to the rink a little early. I did not mind. I would get to see Jillian skate again. If I watched her closely, maybe I could learn a thing or two.

  In the car, Andrew talked about his friend’s party at the Swinging Monkey’s Gym. But all I could think about was skating. When we reached the arena, Merry turned to me in the backseat. “We will see you later, Karen,” she said. “Have fun!”

  I grabbed my skating bag and hopped out of the car. “ ‘Bye!” I called. “Have fun at the party, Andrew.”

  Inside the arena, students were already on the ice warming up. From the benches I could see Jillian and Coach Brown. Today Jillian was wearing black stretch pants and a pink fuzzy sweater. I love fuzzy pink sweaters. I watched Jillian land two double axels. Her jumps were perfect. I wished that I could do that.

  I laced up my skates and stepped out onto the ice. As I skated around the rink, I saw Kelly and Alyse, still holding on to the wall.

  “Hi, Karen,” Kelly said.

  “Hi,” I replied.

  “She is so great,” Alyse said, pointing at Jillian.

  The three of us watched as Jillian landed two more double axels. “I wish that I could skate like her,” Kelly said.

  “I wish that I could meet her,” Alyse added. “She is going to be a star at the Olympics.”

  “Great job, Jillian,” Coach Brown said. “Let’s take a quick break and we will try out the new combination.”

  Jillian skated to the wall and stepped off the ice. Suddenly I had a gigundoly great idea! I looked up at the large clock in the center of the rink. I had lots of time before my lesson started. Perfect!

  I said good-bye to Kelly and Alyse and skated off the ice. Inside my bag, I found some money. I slipped my skating guards on my blades and headed
to the snack counter. Across the rink, I watched Jillian stretch and sit down on a bench. My plan was going to work just fine.

  I ordered two cups of hot chocolate and walked around the rink to where Jillian was sitting.

  “Hi,” I said. “My name is Karen Brewer. Would you like some hot chocolate?”

  Jillian looked surprised to see me standing there with hot chocolate. I do not think many people went to that side of the rink. Or maybe she was not used to getting treats from her fans.

  “Thank you,” Jillian said. She had a great smile.

  “You are really good. I am a huge fan of yours,” I said.

  “Thank you. Are you taking lessons here?”

  I told her that I was in Mrs. Harris’s class.

  “Mrs. Harris was my first teacher here at the rink.” Jillian said. “She is really nice and she is a very good teacher.”

  “Really? I think the class is too easy.”

  Jillian smiled. “You will learn the basics. That is important for all skaters.”

  “When did you start skating?” I asked.

  “When I was seven.”

  “I am seven!” I said, smiling. We had so much in common already.

  Jillian took a sip of her hot chocolate. She told me that she had been training with Coach Brown for the last four years. “Once he showed me how to do my patchwork, I knew I wanted to be a skater.”

  “What is patchwork?” I asked.

  “It is all the required moves that a skater must do for competitions,” she explained. “You know, like a figure eight.”

  I was not sure what Jillian meant, so she put down her cup and stepped onto the ice. On one foot she traced out the bottom loop of an eight. Then she switched feet and looped the top. She was very graceful.

  “That is so cool!” I said.

  “That is what I thought when Coach Brown did it too,” Jillian said as she skated back to the wall. “After he showed me all those moves, I knew that I wanted to be a skater.”

  Well, I already knew that. And I was on my way to learning how to be a perfect one!