Jessi is honored — and surprised — when she's asked to participate in a synchronized swimming competition. Sure Jessi knows ballet. But water ballet is a different story. All that swimming is hard work!
Jessi and her partner practice their routines over and over again. Everyone — especially the Baby-sitters — is expecting them to win the gold. But Jessi's not so sure....
Can she do it?
Summary
Jessi joins synchronized swimming, and is paired up with a girl called Elise. They are training for a gold medal at the Stoneybrook Middle School Festival. Meanwhile, Kristy challenges Alan Grey for the obstacle race. The bet was the loser gets to be the servant of the winner. Kristy wins and Alan becomes her servant.
Stacey is doing the butterfly in swimming, Dawn does some sort of throwing thing and Claudia does the backwards race. Mallory pretends to injure herself, which turned out that she DID injure herself accidentally, so that she can not participate in the sports carnival.
Mary Anne does nothing. When she was babysitting for Charlotte, Charlotte suggested her to get involved. So Mary Anne ended up selling hotdogs and drinks.
Also, Jessi has a brilliant idea of an Olympic Game hosted by the BSC for the little kids. It was a great success.
Ann M. Martin's Dear Reader Letter
Dear Reader,
In Jessi’s Gold Medal, Jessi finds that everyone expects she’ll do well on the synchronized swim team simply because she is a talented dancer. Over the years, I have found that many people expect that I will be a good speaker simply because I am a writer. The truth is, many writers are good speakers — but not all of them. However, even though I knew that I did not like public speaking, I felt that because I was expected to be a speaker, I should be one. For years I spoke at schools and at conferences. I thought that I would get better at it, or at least that I would learn to enjoy it. But neither one happened. Finally I realized that I truly am not a good speaker, so I stopped doing any kind of public speaking. It wasn’t worth the anxiety it caused. Since then, I’ve become very careful about people’s expectations. And I did learn something about speaking — to speak up when I’m not comfortable with something. That’s a lesson everyone should learn!