Chapter 103

I never knew there was this many people at the resort. There’s literally about 1000 people crowded around the halfpipe. It’s pretty dark out here so dim lights light up the halfpipe, and different strobe lights flash around the area.

I’ve practised all day for this competition and me falling down the hill hasn’t had any effect on me whatsoever. We’re actually going with the name ‘Cunning Stunts’ because we had to think of one to put on the form we have to give in before the competition. We had literally 5 minutes to fill it in so Conor quickly scribbled it out for us.

We’re now stood at the top of the halfpipe just staring down at all the crowd talking amongst themselves. I see the judges setting up the scoring system and also see a man in a suit come out with a microphone. Speakers have been set up around the halfpipe and even little fireworks have been set up at the top of the halfpipe for the winning team.

I am shitting it.

It’s crazy to think that they set all this up every Saturday for every competition. Although this resort is only open in the winter.

“El, I’m terrified” I panic.

“Same” she stares at me in horror.

“Lucy!” Lily comes running over to us. She hasn’t seen us all day because she’s been helping set up the competition. We’ve had to practise on our own.

“Hey” I smile.

“I didn’t think you were doing the competition anymore! Are you alright?” she stares at me in shock.

“Yeah, I just passed out as I fell down the hill. I’m good now though” I shout over the blasting music. I see another team come and stand at the top of the halfpipe next to us and I relax a little bit when I see they look just as nervous as we do.

“That’s great! Are you sure this is a good idea?” she frowns.

“Positive” I giggle.

“Oh good. Look, I’m really sorry about Conor and I. I didn’t realise you felt that way” she apologises.

“Lily, it’s fine” I assure her. “I overreacted”

“I felt so bad when Jack told me. I would’ve spoken to you there and then but you were back in your cabin and I was still training Conor” she sighs. She looks so panicked.

“Honestly, it’s fine” I reassure her and she smiles.

“Good, don’t panic about this now though. You will be scared but once you get going, you’ll be loving life” she giggles and I smile brightly. “There’s something I haven’t told you though”

“What?” I frown. I’m really scared now.

“The reason why I wanted you to enter so much is because there’s a team that come here every year for the whole Christmas holiday and they drive me insane. They’re really good at snowboarding and win all the time. I wanted you to compete so you can beat them” she explains way too quickly and looks to the floor.

There is no way I can do this competition.

“Lily, what the hell!? You said there were no professionals!” I gasp. “You could’ve told me after the competition”

“I wanted to let you know now so you stay motivated. They’re not professionals either. They’re just stuck up, snobby, jerks”

“I can’t do this” I shake my head.

“Lucy, you’re amazing. Don’t worry about it” she assures me. “Here they come” she nods to the side of us. I see a group of 4 people dressed in the exact same outfits walk with confident towards us. They take their place beside us and talk amongst themselves.

“They look like right dicks” I mutter and Lily bursts out laughing.

“Yeah, they take a resort competition pretty seriously” she frowns. “But don’t worry. With Conor’s trick, you’re guaranteed to win”

“How do you know?” I sigh. I wish she didn’t tell me about this other team being so good. I was coping before she said that... Just about.

“All your tricks together are better than anything they can pull. That’s why I set your standards so high. I believe in you all. I was so shocked when you first came here and went straight to the highest slope. That takes some courage. I just knew you’d be good at this competition” she smiles. “Do me proud Lucy”

“Not to put any pressure on me or anything” I say sarcastically.

“Look, you’re going to do great. Just think you’re back doing practice with me. Don’t concentrate on the crowd, the speakers, the judges, the cameras. It’s only a resort competition. You’re hardly on the Olympics” she teases and I start laughing.

“Lily, we need you back at the resort” a member of staff interrupts our conversation.

“I’ll be down there supporting you the whole competition” she points to the bottom of the slope. “I believe in you Lucy! Don’t let me down” she smiles, running off and catching up with the member of staff that came to get her.

“You alright?” Conor asks me for probably the fifth time in the last hour.

“Conor, I’m fine” I giggle. “Shitting it though”

“Same” he pulls a face.

“Conor Maynard, scared?” I gasp sarcastically.

“Fuck off” he laughs.

Fireworks exploding signal the start of the competition. The crowd start to cheer and all the strobe lights start to go wild, as a small spotlight hovers around the area.

“Welcome to the first snowboarding competition on the resort of the year. I’m Nick Woods and I’ll be the host of tonight’s show” the ‘presenter’ introduces. I feel like they’re taking this whole thing a bit too seriously considering it’s only a resort competition but hey, I’m not complaining. I feel famous.

“What the fuck is happening?” Conor mumbles as Nick Woods goes on about the competition rules and stuff.

“I have no idea” I shake my head.

The competition eventually gets going and guess who has to go first out of our group? ME!

I’m shaking so badly.

There are 3 groups and the person with the simplest trick out of the group has to go first. I won’t be judged on what my trick is, I’m being judged on how well I do it so that’s kind of made me feel better about the situation. If I do really well, I might get a 10...

Keep dreaming Lucy.

“The first snowboarder boarding tonight will be Lucy Stratford from team Cunning Stunts” Nick announces and I literally have to hold in my laugh at how stupid that sounds. The crowd cheer for support and I look over to our team and see them all pull a weird face. Thanks for the support guys!

“GO ON LUCY!” I hear Matt shout from the audience. I burst out laughing and wave at him and Dad stood at the end of the slope. I see Lily down there too and she gives me a big thumbs up.

I keep in mind that this is the only time I’m going to be able to perform this stunt I’ve worked on for what feels like ages, in front of an audience. This is the only time I’m going to be able to do something like this so I may as well make the most of it.

I hover over the edge of the halfpipe and take a deep breath. I forget about the audience being there and just imagine that I’m at practice with Lily stood next to me giving me a brief explanation of what to do, while Conor, Jack and Eleanor are all stood at the top of the halfpipe chanting rude stuff at me to try and put me off. I shouldn’t be thinking of them putting me off but it’s actually pretty supportive... If that makes sense.

I gently slide down the halfpipe entry and make my way to one side of the halfpipe. I slide up one side, slide back down and slide up the other side, and once I have enough force, I push myself into the air, hold my board and do my little ‘High School Musical’ jump whilst spinning slightly, and sliding back down the halfpipe. I finish by steering my board to the end of the halfpipe and receiving loud cheers from the audience.

I did stumble a bit on my landing but I think I did pretty well considering there’s about 1000 people watching me.

I completely blank out of the bit where the presenter guy explains my stunt and just concentrate on what actually just happened. I felt like everything was in slow motion and I’d literally do anything to do it again. It was so fun.

“Now let’s see what the judges say” Nick says into the microphone. Music continues to ring through the resort as the judges hold up their score out of 10. I get a 7, 8, 8 and a 7, and to be honest, I’m thrilled. Considering it was such a simple trick, I’ve got an amazing score for it. 30/40, not bad.

We do get a fifth score though after the whole team have competed which is scored on the trick itself and I’m kind of worried that mine will get a 2/10. I’m just praying that Conor’s trick pays up for it.

Jack and Eleanor both do their tricks when it’s their turn and do absolutely amazing on it. Eleanor got 34/40 and Jack got 37/40. They both did it perfectly in my opinion but now we just have to pray that Conor does well.

“Good luck!” I flash him an encouraging smile as him name gets called out. I’m trying not to take this too seriously because it’s just resort entertainment but I have that sickening feeling in my stomach. I guess it is pretty serious though, we get £500 out of it if we win... This shit is serious.

“Think of the money” Jack gives Conor a glare making Conor’s face go deadly serious. He confidently walks over to the halfpipe entrance and hovers over the edge. The crowd are cheering as they know that this is the last stunt from the team, therefore, it’s the trickiest.

The whole resort goes silent as we wait patiently for Conor to perform his stunt.

“GO ON CONOR!” Eleanor screams at the top of her lungs, interrupting the resorts silence. The whole crowd burst out laughing and Conor just turns to us and sticks up his middle finger.

Suddenly, he slides down the ramp and pushes himself up one side of the halfpipe. He slides back down and goes up the other side to pick up speed. The next side he goes up is the side where he performs his trick. I’m literally shaking so badly. The resort being silent doesn’t help either, it’s just intimidating.

He slides up the next halfpipe side and goes flying into the air where he easily goes into two flips. As he comes down, he does his side flip and finishes with a spin before landing perfectly down the halfpipe and finishing at the end.

I scream and start jumping around as soon as the cheesy pop music starts to play.

“He fucking did it” Eleanor gawps. “I betted twenty pounds on him that he wouldn’t do it”

“Who with?” Jack frowns.

“Conor” she sighs. I continue to jump around like an idiot, shaking Jack and Eleanor in the process when I see that Conor got 40/40.

We tiredly watch the other two groups perform their stunt before all the teams have to snowboard to the end of the halfpipe, in front of the judges table.

“In third place, team Ice with one hundred and forty three out of one hundred and seventy” the presenter announces. “Well done” he smiles enthusiastically as he hands them a certificate and a bronze medal each, and they leave the halfpipe.

Basically, each judge gave a score out of 10 to each person which means in total, each person gets a score out of 40 because there are 4 judges. So in our team, because there are four of us, we get a score out of 160. But the whole team also got a score out of 10 for the variety of tricks used and basically a summary of all our stunts. So that means each team get a score out of 170.

Yeah, I wouldn’t understand it myself if Lily didn’t explain it all thoroughly (about 5 times) to us on Thursday.

“In second place” he pauses as he reads his sheet. My heart is pounding out of my chest and surprisingly, Conor’s arm around me doesn’t calm me in the slightest. This is way too intense. “Team Boost with one hundred and forty six out of one hundred and seventy. Which means the winning team are Cunning Stunts with one hundred and fifty out of one hundred and seventy”

By this point, me and Eleanor are already screaming and bouncing about while the whole crowd cheer and Conor and Jack just high five each other.

Team ‘Boost’ get a certificate and a silver medal and storm off in a sulk. This was the team that Lily said we need to beat. She should be proud of us. I’m kind of happy to see them become second seeing as Lily said they take this thing too seriously and win all the time. I can’t really call anyone for taking this too seriously though. I feel like we’ve won the Olympics.

The crowd continue to cheer as we get rewarded with certificates and get a gold medal. I’m praying it’s real gold but deep down, I know it’s just some fake metal or something. We also get handed a mini trophy, no bigger than a drinking glass, with a check attached to the side by a resort badge.

The fireworks I’ve been waiting to see explode the whole way through the competition finally explode. They’re not giant things that shoot up in the air. They’re just little explosions that pop out of the side of the halfpipe that seem to entertain me greatly.

We have to get our picture taken which Conor’s pretty pissed about. Eleanor and I are loving it though.

“You’re welcome” Conor says to us all.

“What?” Eleanor frowns.

“Well let’s be serious, if it wasn’t for my trick, we wouldn’t have won” he shrugs.

“Oh here we go” I roll my eyes.

“Oh and Eleanor?” he smirks.

“Yes, I owe you twenty pounds. I know” she mumbles, walking over to Dad and Matt once we’ve finished with the whole pictures thing.

“That was amazing!” Matt gawps. “I didn’t think you’d be that good”

We all laugh as a response and Dad starts to praise us the same way. He said he doesn’t regret letting me do the competition like he thought he would and told me that he got it all on tape.

“Who came up with the team name?” Matt frowns.

“Take a wild guess” I roll my eyes and we all turn to Conor.

“Pretty clever, I know” Conor smirks. Oh lord.

“ELEANOR!” I hear Lily shout. I turn around and see Lily running over to us. “THAT WAS AMAZING!” she screams.

“I know!” Eleanor squeals.

“I’m so proud of you. You whipped everyone’s ass” she smiles widely. I start laughing and she turns to look at me. “Lucy, I’m so proud of you. I didn’t think it was a good idea you doing this competition, but I’m so glad you chose to do it”

“Thank you. I’m glad too” I laugh.

“And Conor, that was amazing!” she gasps making him smile. Jack coughs awkwardly. “Jack, yours was perfect as always. I knew you could do it”

“Well” Jack smirks, proud of himself. Him and Conor are too alike.

“You were all just absolutely amazing. It was perfect!” she squeals, giving us all hugs.