Learning to Fly (TNT Force Cheer #1)

by Dana Burkey

  “No, not really,” I said with a shake of my head. “I used to have a trampoline at my old house so I can do flips a little, and I’ve been trying them again on my new diving board but that’s about it.”

  As Halley slipped on her shoes, I could feel her mom still looking me over. It was in that moment that I remembered again how different I looked compared to both Lexi and Halley. Their clothing was tight and covered in sparkles, whereas my clothing was all loose and leftovers from basketball practice. Even my face and hair were different. I looked sloppy and like I had been at a trampoline park playing hard all day, while the two girls next to me managed to leave looking what anyone would likely call “cute.” Looking nice or cute was not really a way people would describe me, especially when I was running around and playing with boys like Peter and Kyle.

  “How old are you Max?” Halley’s mom asked me, as she finally took her eyes off of me long enough to start digging in her purse.

  “I’m 12. But I’ll be 13 in January.” I don’t know why I felt the need to tell her I was about to be 13. Maybe because no one ever believed I was my age considering I was one of the shortest and thinnest kids in my class. But, to my surprise, the news of my age had Halley’s mom looking at me with a smile.

  “Here Max,” she said pulling out a half sheet of paper from her purse and handing it to me. “If you’re free Saturday it would be great to see you at the gym.”

  I glanced at the paper quickly, trying to take in the bright colors and bold letters. It wasn’t until Halley and her mom said goodbye and left the gym that I really got a look at it. ‘OPEN GYM’ the bold red letters said along the top of the page. Below it listed a location and time, all written in flashy colors and fonts to catch your eye. I turned to Lexi, not sure what I was holding even after reading everything on the page.

  “It’s for our cheer gym,” Lexi explained. “They do a public open gym once a month so new people can check out the gym and so we can fill in spots on the teams. Someone always ends up moving away or getting hurt over the summer and we need to find new people before competition season begins.”

  I stared at her in confusion a second before she tried again.

  “Halley and I are both cheerleaders for an all-star gym. It’s not really pom poms or anything, but more like gymnastics and dance. Like the full and tumbling. A lot of that.”

  “So Halley’s mom thinks I should come to the gym and do the tricks and stuff?” I asked, still trying to make sense of it all.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Lexi nodded. “Halley’s mom has been helping out in the gym office for basically forever and gets to see all the kids from youth level 2 all the way to our senior level 5. I guess she saw what you were doing today and thinks you have real potential. If you come to the open gym and the coaches think so too, they might ask you to join a team.”

  “Wait, they would ask me to join a team and be a cheerleader?”

  “Yes, but not a regular cheerleader,” she quickly reminded me. “All-star cheerleading. With all the tricks we were doing. Although some of those are level 4 and 5 skills. Halley and I are still only on a junior level 3 squad this year. But I’m super determined to make a higher squad next season.”

  I nodded, my mind feeling really overloaded. I folded the paper and slipped it into my pocket hoping that not being able to see it would help to clear my head. Part of me wanted to find a trash can for the paper right away, but I had a feeling Lexi might not be too happy about that. Cheerleading was clearly important to her, but it was the complete opposite of how I wanted to spend the final weeks of my summer vacation.

  “I should go find my friends,” I said then, not sure I wanted to keep learning any of the tricks with Lexi.

  “Are you sure?” she said, then let out a sigh as she glanced towards the doors. “My brother’s here. I guess I’m leaving now anyways. You’re coming to the open gym though right?”

  “I’ll ask my dad,” I said with a shrug, glad Lexi was putting her shoes on and couldn’t see the look on my face.

  “Great,” she grinned as she stood up. “Well, see you later Max.”

  And with that, she was gone. She took off towards a boy who appeared to be a few years older than Peter. He was tall and muscular, but had the same white-blonde hair as Lexi making it clear they were related. Lexi gave me a final wave, then left the building. As soon as she was gone I breathed a sigh of relief. Turning to go find Peter and Kyle, I was suddenly in need of throwing some dodgeballs around to make up for all the talk about cheerleading.

  “Max, come in here please!”

  My brain started flipping through the day as soon as I heard the tone in my dad’s voice. Did I leave something a mess? Did I forget to do something I told my dad I would? I walked slowly from my room, trying to decide whether or not I should prepare to apologize as soon as I made it into the living room. Coming up empty, I tried to stay calm as I plopped down onto the couch next to where my dad was sitting in his favorite arm chair.

  “Yeah?” I asked simply, knowing it was the safe reply.

  “What is this?” he asked with an odd expression on his face. Reaching out to take what he was handing me, I saw the flyer I was certain I had thrown away. It was creased after likely spending a few days in the laundry hamper before my dad had presumably fished it out while loading the washing machine.

  “Some girls at the trampoline park gave it me,” I said with a shrug, once again folding the open gym flier. “I’m sorry I didn’t take it out of my pockets.”

  “It’s okay,” my dad said easily. “Did you want to go to the gym tomorrow?”

  I stared at my dad in confusion. I was certain I was going to get a lesson on not leaving things in my pockets and likely would need to help fold all the towels that were about to come out of the dryer. But instead, my dad looked genuinely happy about the piece of paper I was once again holding. I kicked myself for not remembering to actually throw it away, instead leaving it for my dad to find and bring up.

  “No,” I assured him. “I don’t think cheerleading is my thing.”

  “But this isn’t regular cheerleading.” At my confused expression my dad continued. “I looked up the gym online and they do a lot of different cheerleading than I’ve ever seen. I watched a video on the website and they do a lot of flips and throw people in the air. It looks like it could be fun.”

  “Fun?” I repeated. “Dad, how can cheerleading be fun?”

  “Okay, maybe not fun,” he tried again. “It looked hard. The stuff the kids in the video were doing looked like a lot of hard gymnastics. I’ve only seen stuff like that on the Olympics before.”

  My expression clearly showed how unimpressed I was, and threw my dad into action right away. He pulled out his phone and motioned for me to lean in closer. I did, not really sure what I was about to see. I assumed it was going to be a bunch of people yelling “Go Team,” while they skipped around, but was surprised when I saw it was quite the opposite.

  I watched the video my dad had pulled up in shock as the girls, and boys, in uniforms ran around flipping and flying through the air. It was a series of clips showing kids of all ages on what looked like stages and also in what I assumed was the gym I had heard so much about. In each clip people were running, jumping, flipping, or dancing around. And, in one clip, a group of guys threw a girl in the air and she spun and twisted around what looked like a dozen times before being caught by them. My mouth dropped open the instant the girl landed safely in the boy’s arms.

  “Some of the teams are just for older kids,” my dad told me. “They have teams for girls your age too. In fact, I looked on YouTube and found a video of the little-little kids performing if you want to see it.”

  “No Dad,” I insisted. “That was cool and all, but I don’t want to run around in glitter and a short skirt.”

  “I understand,” he nodded. “But what if you at least gave it a try?”

  “Why?” I asked, more sharply than I meant to.

  “Max, this c
ould be good for you,” he began. “You hang out with Kyle and Peter so much I feel like sometimes you forget you're not actually one of the boys.”

  “So you think I should act more like a girl?”

  “No,” he tried again. “I think something like this could help you hang out with more girls your age. Not to mention it looks hard. It could be a fun new challenge.”

  “Dad, I don’t think I need a challenge that makes me wear skirts and dance around to that kind of music,” I said making eye contact with him so he knew I was serious. “Those tricks look nice and all, but cheerleaders aren’t the kind of people I would even be friends with, let alone the kind of people I want to actually turn into.”

  “Your mom was a cheerleader.”

  Those five words made all of my arguing fly out the window. I looked at the ground, instantly sorry for my comments. Thinking about it, I remembered seeing photos of my mom once in a sweater and skirt that had to be from a cheerleading team. It was an image in her high school yearbook, taken at a prep rally. It was a photo I had stared at over and over but had never really noticed anything about the photo but her face. It was one of my favorite photos since her hair was down and her eyes looked super blue in the photo. They were the exact blue my eyes were now, the photo taken a few years before her eyes took on the more blue-green color that I always remembered. The idea that there was more to the photo I had never noticed was shocking to say the least.

  “I’m sorry,” I tried to say, but my dad cut me off.

  “You don’t need to be sorry,” he said earnestly. “I just know if your mother was here she would be thrilled to know that you were even thinking about following in her footsteps. She didn’t cheer like the people in that video, but she would tell you to give it a chance at least and see if you like it or not.”

  My eyes were filling with tears, my emotions suddenly reaching a boiling point. I could go weeks and weeks without crying about my mom, but then certain days it would hit me like a ton of bricks. Perhaps I would never stop being sad my mom had died. Even after 6 years it didn’t feel like the wound had healed as much as I hoped and prayed it would.

  “I don’t want to force you,” he continued. “I just worry that sometimes I make you miss things. Girls your age should be doing things like this, not going hunting and fishing on the weekend and spending time watching sports. It’s okay to do those things, but I feel like I make you miss out. I don’t know about these kind of things, and I don’t want you to keep not doing them just because it’s out of my comfort zone, or the comfort zone I’ve helped you create.”

  “But what if not doing things like cheerleading doesn't mean I’m missing out?” I said in reply, trying to mask my emotions by keeping my gaze on the beige carpet. “Do I really need to do stuff like that?”

  “Not at all,” my dad assured me. “I just want you to get to do everything girls your age do. I want you to be able to dance around or do cartwheels or whatever, even if it’s not something I know a lot about and can teach you. I’ve always tried my best to give you chances to try things, but I think I’ve given you things to try that I like. Hunting and fishing are great, but I don’t know enough about these more girly things. And you might try it and hate it and never do it again. But there’s a chance you might like it. There’s a chance you might be really good at it, and I don’t want you to miss that chance just because your mom’s not here to encourage you to try.”

  I nodded then, suddenly unable to keep my tears in my eyes. My dad leaned over and wrapped an arm around me, pulling me closer. I understood his gesture as the invitation it was and climbed up to sit on his lap. For a lot of kids my age, sitting on your dad's lap and hugging him while you were crying was weird or too babyish. But to me it was as normal as a high five or fist bump. In public I rarely even hugged by dad, and certainly never cried. But in our house, where no one could see me break down, it was easy to hold onto the only parent I had left and let the tears and feelings flow.

  When my mom first died I cried all the time. I missed a whole month of school since I just felt sick and scared and lonely every second of the day. My dad stayed home with me most days, only going into work when he really needed to. Everyone understood that we both needed time. And during that time, we grew even closer. I could tell my dad how I was feeling and what I was thinking, and he did the same to me. We would look through photos of my mom and talk about good memories of her for hours. Then one day, my dad decided we needed to make new memories. My dad decided it was time to live life as best we could so the sad memories didn’t have room in our lives anymore. He was certain my mom wanted us to find a way to be happy again.

  That was when we started fishing, hunting, hiking, doing sports, and hanging out all the time. I still missed my mom, but with all the fun I was having, it was like only the good memories seemed to float and stay at the top. I would think about the sad things now and then, but I was able to go on with life knowing that my mom would want me to keep making happy memories. I headed back to school and starting trying new sports, while my dad went back to work with new purpose. He was a research scientist for a pharmaceutical company, but quickly decided he needed to find a cure for the cancer that killed my mom. The work made him tired and frustrated a lot, but when he came home at night, or was with me on the weekends, he made sure to spend time with me and make my life as memorable as possible.

  Moving to Texas for a job in a better lab was tough, but it once again gave my dad and I something new to try. New areas to explore, new people to meet, and new daily adventures. I never complained. Honestly, I enjoyed living in a house that didn’t remind me every second of every day that my mom wasn’t living there with us anymore. Sure, I missed my friends back in Oregon, but thanks to Peter and Kyle, I felt like I didn’t just get new friends, I got brothers when we moved. But, I was still missing a mom. That was clear every time I woke up or went to bed and looked at the photo of my mother and I that sat on my nightstand. I missed her often, but going through each day was a little easier knowing my dad was working to save other people, while she was somewhere watching out for me still.

  “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” my dad said, his arms wrapped tight around me. We were both crying, holding onto each other and letting the heaviness of our feelings cover us like a blanket.

  “What?” I asked, leaning back to look at him. I had been so focused on thinking about my mom and remembering the pain of missing her that I had forgotten what we had been talking about.

  “The open gym,” he reminded me, wiping tears from his face. “I don’t want to push you if you don’t want to go. It could be a fun thing to try, but if you don’t want to right now-”

  “I want to go,” I interrupted, surprising even myself. “I’m not saying I want to be a cheerleader or be on a team or anything. But I think you’re right. Trying it would be something Mom would want me to do. And maybe I’ll even like it and feel closer to her.”

  Nodding, my dad hugged me again. We sat like that for a while, just comforting each other without speaking or moving. As the time passed, I could feel myself growing both more stressed and also nervous about the open gym. But knowing my mom had been a cheerleader really did have me excited to try it as well. I knew it wouldn’t be the same as having her there with me, but, maybe, doing what she loved would make me feel a little closer to her all the same.

  “Wow,” I said breathlessly as we entered the TNT gym on Saturday afternoon.

  Walking into the massive gym was unlike anything I expected it would be. The massive space had to have been at least three times the size of the gym at my middle school. It was a big rectangular room, much longer than it was wide. On the right side of the room was a mirror that made up the entire wall. Blue mats were directly in front of the mirrors, likely allowing people to watch themselves as they were performing, like I had seen in my cousin's dance class when I was little. Four mats stretched down the whole side of the room, only broken up by space between each one fo
r people to set their personal items in bright white cubbies already brimming with backpacks and glitter covered gym bags. The left side of the room looked much different. Closest to the door was a reception desk that was covered in paperwork and a pile of pens. Behind the desk was a door leading to a series of offices and rooms with large picture windows. Three of the rooms had desks in them, while the other room was filled with chairs and couches all facing out towards the gym.

  After the offices and sitting room, the rest of the left side of the room was filled with all kinds of mats and tools that I could only assume were for working on cheer tricks. There was also a foam pit in the far corner, past what looked to be an elevated runway made of trampolines. It was the area that drew the most of my attention, likely since it was the one area not filled with people. The entire room was a sea of people, made up of mostly girls, all of them chatting and talking and hugging while walking around the room or sitting on the massive blue mats. I realized that most of the kids sitting on the mats were wearing similar black shirts and tank tops that all said TNT on them. The letters were made of glitter in a variety of colors. In that moment, I realized it was the same tank top Halley had been wearing at the trampoline park when I first met her. Her tank top had red letters, and as I looked around I saw others with the same red as well as teal, purple, and even gray. Most of the people, whether wearing TNT shirts or not, had big bows in their hair, covered in glitter and sometimes sequins.

  Glancing at the adults around the room, I noticed they had similar shirts in various colors, only with “STAFF” written in silver glitter on the front and backs of their shirts. Even with all the glitter on their shirts, it was nice to know that all of the adults around me weren’t just a lost parent like my dad. As my dad took some papers from the table near the door, I finally looked closer at the kids on the mat and spotted Lexi who was waving me over to her spot on the mat.