Leap of Faith Page 7

  A thick beat blast through the speaker system as a fast-paced song began. I moved Honey’s rein gently to the right and led the other riders around the ring. The crowd clapped along to the music.

  A surge of joy filled my chest as I rode around the ring, the sun shining down onto Honey’s rich caramel neck. I breathed in deeply and smiled. I’d beaten Sasha and more importantly, I’d beaten the wall. Turns out all I’d needed to do was have a little faith. And leap.

  Name: Chloe Humphries

  Hair colour: Dark brown

  Eye colour: Dark brown

  Bestie: Jenna. Jenna is the loudest, most energetic person I have ever met. She makes me laugh every day. And Anwen – she’s in most of my classes. She’s a gymnast and is heaps like me.

  Likes: Horses! And horses … and horses. And horseriding. And horses. I like horses, okay? I also love reading and writing. If I’m not on my horse, I’m tucked away with a book.

  Dislikes: Public speaking; standing up in front of everyone in class; being called on by the teacher. And Sasha’s mum (that woman is SCARY!)

  If I couldn’t be a famous athlete, I would be … a writer. I love words, and horses. So, maybe an author of books about horses!

  If I was at a party, I would be … probably sitting on the couch, laughing at Jenna.

  READ ALL THE BOOKS IN

  The Royal Academy of Sport for Girls series.

  HIGH FLYERS

  Can rising gymnastics star Abby make her dreams a reality at the Academy?

  Being accepted into the Royal Academy of Sport for Girls was all Abigail Rogers had ever wished for. But before her feet can touch the ground, the gymnasts are thrown into their first competition of the year to determine who will make up the Academy team for the upcoming State Prelims. The pressure is on! Training harder than ever, and with rivalry growing among the students, Abby begins to doubt if she is, in fact, Academy material.

  Can Abby up the level of difficulty in her routine and secure a place in the Academy gymnastics squad? Or will she be persuaded to win with dirty tactics?

  Can swim queen Delphie keep her winning edge as rivalries and unexpected scandals surface at the Academy?

  Having been at the Royal Academy of Sport for Girls for six months, Delphie Atkinson is living her dream. While attending a state training camp, Delphie and the Year 7 Academy swim squad, come face-to-face with their biggest rival, the National Swim School. Tensions are soon running high in and out of the water as the rival schools are forced to train together. But Delphie sees this as an opportunity to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of the Swim School’s best swimmers, the unbeatable Ogilvy twins. Surprisingly, Delphie forms a close friendship with one of the sisters, however, in doing so, she uncovers a shocking secret.

  Faced with a host of challenges she never thought she would have to encounter, can Delphie make the right choice and retain her all-important swimming crown?

  Can hurdling champion Josie find a way to improve her grades as well as follow her gold medal dreams at the Academy?

  With the Royal Academy of Sport for Girls end-of-year Athletics State Finals fast approaching, golden girl of the track, Josie Ingram, and her teammates are training hard. It seems like nothing can stop them from reaching their dreams. However, when Josie finds out she is falling behind in her schoolwork, her world is turned upside down. If she doesn’t improve her grades in the upcoming exams, she won’t be allowed to compete at the State Finals! Forced to concentrate on her studies and banned from any track practice sessions, Josie feels like giving up. Everything she has trained for will mean nothing if she can’t compete.

  Can Josie commit to her schoolwork and hold onto her chances of a podium finish? Or will she accept an easy offer that spells trouble?

  Read on for an extract from

  The Royal Academy of Sport for Girls: In Too Deep

  According to Greek mythology, Delphin was the god of the dolphins. He served the sea-god Poseidon and was sent on special missions for him. He was fast, sleek and beautiful. He was a creature of the water – the sea was his domain. His shining body would glide through the misty depths of the ocean, seeking out whatever Poseidon had sent him to find.

  It was a story that ran through my head often. My mum had told it to me over and over as I went to sleep at night. You see, my name is Delphine and, like my namesake Delphin, I too am a creature of the water.

  It was obvious from a young age that I was special when it came to the water. I was able to swim by the time I was two years old and by five I was swimming laps with kids twice my age. I was discovered by a coach from a renowned local swim school and he put me in their elite development squad when I was eight. I was training five mornings a week in every season of the year. But it was never a chore. Before the sun had even kissed the horizon, I would be awake in the darkness of my room, packing my swimming bag, ready for training. My poor parents were dragged out of bed at five o’clock in the morning to take me to my squads. But I think it was all worth it for them, as they huddled on the sideline with a rug and a steaming thermos of coffee, to see the glee on my face as I finished another lap. I’d wave to them on the viewing platform, giving them a big thumbs up. They would wave back and smile.

  As time went on, juggling school and swimming training became difficult. Training became earlier and earlier in the morning so we could fit in enough sessions alongside school. I loved school, but every afternoon my eyes would be fixated on the classroom clock, willing the little hands to move faster towards home time so I could hit the pool or the beach.

  If I wasn’t at training, I’d be at the beach with my dad and my three older siblings. My dad is a keen surfer – he once represented Australia in surfing – and all my siblings have been water babies. My two brothers surf competitively and my older sister plays water polo for the state. We live right by the beach and we only feel complete if we have sand between our toes and crunchy sea-salt hair.

  I remember my dad driving me to early-morning training one day when I was in Year 5. He said that he and Mum were exhausted by my training schedule as well as looking after the other three kids who had their own gruelling timetables. My heart was in my throat – where was he going with this conversation? In my mind that day, I decided that if he was going to make me quit swimming, I would run away to the ocean and become a mermaid and live in an underwater kingdom for the rest of my days.

  Luckily, he wasn’t asking me to quit swimming at all, which was fortunate as I wasn’t exactly sure how to find this underwater kingdom. Instead, he told me about a school in the city that was the best sporting academy for girls in the country – a school where you did your schoolwork but they made time every single day to devote to your chosen sport. Girls from this school went on to the Olympics and other sporting halls of fame. It was called the Royal Academy of Sport for Girls and it sounded like a dream come true.

  The Academy was about a forty minute bus ride from our house. It was also a boarding school, but I wouldn’t need to stay there as I lived close enough to just ride the bus each day. This was a huge relief for me, as a life lived far from the beach seemed like no life at all.

  Getting into the Academy was tough. I spent the rest of that year training the hardest I’d ever trained in my life. Every other swimming meet seemed irrelevant – the only thing I wanted was to get into this school.

  Finally, after swimming meets, interviews and some academic testing, the results were in. They came in the form of a crisp, white envelope with the Academy logo on the top left-hand corner. I remember gazing at the school crest with its four quadrants. I ran my fingers over the images inside the crest – a lion, an eagle, a plume of feathers and the laurel leaves. Underneath were some Latin words which I couldn’t read. I clearly remember my dad opening the letter for me – I couldn’t look. I scanned his face eagerly, looking for a hint of disappointment or glee.

  That was last year.

  Which brings me up to this moment.

  A special
thank you to Wendy Cohen for sharing your love and knowledge of all things horses.

  And to Penguin Random House, for taking your own ‘Leap of Faith’ with this series. I am forever grateful.

  Ever since she learnt to hold a pen, Laura Sieveking has loved creating stories. She remembers hiding in her room as a six-year-old, writing a series of books about an unlikely friendship between a princess and a bear.

  As an adult, Laura has spent the vast majority of her career working in publishing as an editor. After several years, she decided to put down her red pen and open up her laptop to create a series of her own.

  The Academy series is a combination of Laura’s favourite things – writing, friendship and sport, all of which take her back to her happy childhood memories of gymnastics training and competitions.

  Laura lives in Sydney with her husband and two children.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Penguin Random House Australia. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Version 1.0

  The Royal Academy of Sport for Girls: Leap of Faith

  ePub ISBN – 9781925324617

  First published by Random House Australia in 2017

  Copyright © Laura Sieveking, 2017

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  A Random House book

  Published by Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd

  Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060

  www.penguin.com.au

  Addresses for the Penguin Random House group of companies can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com/offices.

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

  Creator: Sieveking, Laura

  Title: Leap of faith

  ISBN: 9781925324617 (ebook)

  Series: Royal Academy of Sport for Girls; 2

  Target Audience: For primary school age

  Subjects: Show jumping – Juvenile fiction

  Horse-shows – Performance classes – Juvenile fiction

  Show jumpers (Persons) – Juvenile fiction

  Children’s stories

  Top cover image by Spiderplay/Getty Images

  Bottom cover image by Sergii Kumer/Alamy Stock Photo

  Cover design by Kirby Armstrong

  Ebook by Firstsource