Chapter 1
For as long as Maria Montez could remember her daughter Gabriella, loved figure skating. When she was a baby and she was fussy, she would put Gabriella in her exersaucer in front of the television and skating would be on and Gabriella would be calm. Her mom decided to enrol her in lessons when she was five in the only skating rink in town. The Town of Green Lake was small town, where everybody knew everybody. The closest town was Albuquerque, which was about an hour away. So once she turned seven years old, the family packed up and moved to Albuquerque so she could go to the bigger rink and also go to a better school that had more than just six people in her class.
Lucille Bolton rolled her eyes as her son goofed off on the ice. She was preparing for skating lessons for kids 7-9 years old that she taught. Her son, Troy, whined and complained the entire week leading up to the first day of lessons. He tried to convince his mom to let him join hockey like all the other nine year old boys in his class. Lucille insisted that he join figure skating first to learn the basis of skating, plus he was kind of a smaller boy for his age, so she was afraid to let him join hockey. Though the latter she wasn't going to tell him that. Lucille and her sister, Anne, grew up taking skating lessons and both had a chance to move forward in their skating careers, but choose to get married and start a family instead. Lucille had married Jack Bolton and had their son Troy and moved into a suburb of Albuquerque. Her sister, Anne, had married Mark Graham and had two daughters, Allie, who is six, and Melissa, who is ten years old.
Lucille chuckled as she saw Troy chase Allie and Melissa across the ice, in a game of tag. Allie caught her toe pick and went sprawling across the ice. Troy went to Allie to tag her, but pretended to trip so she could get back up and skate away. Anne smiled at her nephew; she believed her sister had done well with Troy. Unlike some boys his age, he was kind and thoughtful, not to say he didn't have immature moments. All in all he was a good kid.
"All right girls, time to go, Dad's waiting outside," Anne yelled out into the rink. The two girls came off the ice and quickly took off their skates, gave their mom a kiss and ran to meet their dad. As the two girls left, a couple of girls came through the door, ready for class.
Gabriella's eyes got big as her mom pulled up to the Albuquerque Multiplex. It was way bigger than the tiny Green Lake Ice Rink. Her mom popped the trunk and pulled out Gabriella's purple figure skating bag and laughed at Gabriella's face.
"It's a lot bigger than Green Lake huh, sweetie," Maria smiled. Gabriella merely continued to stare at the large building. The two of them made their way through the door. The first thing they came across was a massive revolving sculpture. The sculpture had different athletes, sports such as dance, hockey, figure skating, basketball, etc. Below the sculpture, there was pond like spot, full of people's wishes. Maria grabbed her purse and took out a penny, "Do you want to make a wish?" She asked her daughter. The little brunette girl nodded her head quickly. She took the penny in the palm of her hand and shut her eyes tight. The bronze coin flew out of her hand and into the water. "What did you wish for?" her mother asked. "Mommy if I tell you it won't come true," Gabriella explained. "Oh, ok," Maria laughed.
They made their way to the rink and opened the door to reveal the large sheet of ice. There were many little boys and girls skating across the ice. Maria looked down to see her daughter beaming, "let's go put on your skates," she said. Maria tightened up the pristine white skates on Gabriella's feet. "Ok, sweetheart, have fun!" she wished her daughter as she stepped out onto the ice.
A few weeks later Anne and Lucille decided to train in ice dancing. They started to pair the kids to see how well they worked together. The put Troy with Ashley, the little girl with tight blonde ringlet curls. Lucille and Anne watched as the two attempted to skate across the ice. "ARG! Mrs Bolton, Mrs. Graham he keeps screwing up the moves," The nine year old girl complained. Lucille sighed and looked around the rink for another girl to try skating with her son. "What about Emily?" Lucille suggested to her sister. "We could give it a try," Anna replied. Emily and Troy skated around the rink, they were ok, but something was missing. Every time Troy would mess up, Emily would get frustrated with him "That's not working out," Anna said. Lucille nodded her head in agreement.
Lucille watched as her son goofed around with some of the other boys in the class and sighed. Her son didn't have the attention span long enough to pay attention to the steps. Her son had always been the class clown, not taking much seriously. She searched through the number of girls in the class that could match his outgoing personality.
"What about her?" Anne asked. Lucille looked to where she was pointing to, only to see Gabriella Montez. Gabriella was the quietest girl in the whole class. She was shy, reserved, and polite, she didn't really talk much, but she had a lot of heart and passion for skating.
"Are you sure," she asked, doubtful.
"I just have this feeling," Anne said.
"Ok, we can try it," Lucille replied.
They called over the two kids and asked them to skate together. For the first time in Lucille and Anne's lives, they saw, or rather heard Troy go quiet. The two of them held hands and skated in silence around the rink. There wasn't something overly special about them, but they had some sort of magic between them. They balanced each other out like yin and yang. Gabriella, the shy and quiet one, and Troy, the loud and kind one.
"What do you think?" Anne asked.
"I think they are perfect," Lucille smiled.
