Learning to Fly (TNT Force Cheer #1)

by Dana Burkey

  “Is she in here?” Another voice asked after the door opened for a moment, letting in the noise from the gym. There was a pause in which I could only assume Halley was motioning to the other set of shoes that I could suddenly see as well. “It’s Tonya, Max. Can I get you to open the door?”

  With a sigh I stood up and opened the door slowly. Thankfully my tears had subsided not long after entering the bathroom. My nose was still running, but was more or less manageable. Based on the looks on Lexi and Tonya’s face as I opened the door, however, I assumed I looked like a complete mess.

  “Do you want to go to my office?” Tonya asked with a small smile. “No one’s in there and we can sit and talk without worrying about people coming in.”

  “Okay,” I nodded, finally stepping out of the stall and right into Halley’s arms. She hugged me before I could decide if I wanted her to or not, and as I returned the hug, I had to admit it was a comfort in that moment.

  As we walked out of the bathroom and into the gym, I wasn’t surprised to see both Lexi and Connor waiting near the bathroom to also check on me. Lexi wrapped an arm around me and began to walk with us while Connor stayed back an extra step, as if unsure how to respond. Knowing how Kyle and Peter reacted when I cried about my mom, I was glad that Connor stayed in the open gym space as Tonya led the three of us girls into her office and then closed the door. The blinds were quickly closed for added privacy as Halley, Lexi, and myself took a seat on the couch in the corner of the room.

  “Alright,” Tonya began, sitting in a rolling desk chair and moving it a few feet in front of me. “Why don’t you tell us what happened.”

  “I want to go home,” I said simply, trying to keep my tears from returning. I was kicking myself for acting so emotional, but couldn’t seem to stop it.

  “How about this,” Tonya said reaching into her pocket and pulling out her phone. “If you let me know what happened, you can use my phone to call your dad so you don’t even have to go find yours. You can call while Halley and Lexi get your stuff and then you can walk out the back door here without anyone realizing you left. But first I need to know a little more about what happened to get you this upset.”

  I thought about it for a minute, my mind flicking to the faces of the girls glaring at me as we walked off of the mat. It was enough for me to nod and take a deep breath before explaining the time spent with my dance team. Although I mentioned the fact that I couldn’t get the moves as well as the less than helpful words from the other girls, it was my final comment that got me the most emotional.

  “And when Paige called me Maxine the last time I just wanted to walk off the mat right away,” I sniffed, my eyes threatening to spill tears onto my cheeks. “She said it twice, then told me that it didn’t even matter when I corrected her and said it was Max. She didn’t care about me or anything but trying to impress everyone in the gym by all of us getting the dance right.”

  “I apologize if this sounds insensitive,” Tonya began once I was done. “But why is it that it bothered you that much when Paige called you Maxine?”

  “My name is Max,” I mumbled, the tears suddenly sliding down my face in thick streams. “The only person that ever called me Maxine was my mom.”

  The room went quiet then, as if everyone was processing what I had just said. I was mad at myself for being so emotional, but in that moment it was like all the emotions of not fitting in at the gym and the stress of not knowing the dance in front of everyone, and even the idea of crying in front of Tonya, Halley, and Lexi made the emotions just bubble up even more. When Tonya finally spoke, her voice was heavy with emotion as well.

  “What Paige did wasn’t okay,” she explained. “She may have called you Maxine without knowing, but she knows you're new to the gym. So do Leanne and the other girls on that team. They chose to take the low road today when I wanted them to take the high road so badly.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, wiping my face with the back of my hand.

  “I put you on that team in hopes that you would get to know the top fliers here at the gym,” Tonya said while blinking back her own tears. “I thought if you could see the older girls who all started where you are now it would get you excited and keep you trying new things and working hard on your skill. But instead they were mean. Plain and simple. They cared more about looking good than about teamwork. Paige may have used a name she shouldn't have without knowing, but she knows how to be a leader. Instead she chose to be a boss. And I’m sorry it all happened along with her calling you by a name that has a lot of importance to you.”

  “Not everyone here is like them,” Lexi said, finally breaking her silence. “I know you haven’t gotten to meet everyone yet, but the other girls on Blast are really excited to get to know you.”

  “After practice earlier I heard some of the girls on our squad talking about how great you’re doing,” Halley added quickly. “Anna was telling some of the other girls that once you get used to the routine you might be the best cheerleader on the squad.”

  “I totally agree!” Lexi grinned. “You can fly and tumble better than I can after all these years and it’s only been a few weeks for you.”

  “But I’m not at all like the rest of you when I’m not cheerleading,” I finally said, getting to the root of my emotions. “I’m never really going to fit in, even if I can tumble or fly or dance or anything else.”

  “What do you mean?” Lexi asked, looking genuinely confused.

  “You girls all like glitter and this kind of stuff,” I said, reaching up to touch my bow for emphasis. “But I’m not a girly-girl at all. I play sports and go hunting with my dad and my best friends are boys that are practically like my brothers.”

  “When I was your age I was on my school's football team,” Tonya said, surprising all three of us sitting on the couch. “I was the kicker, but I still trained with the boy’s team once a week in case they needed me to do a trick play or whatever. And Nicole has four older brothers, so she knows more about camping and fishing than any guy I’ve ever met. Oh, and Jade on Nitro played hockey before she joined the gym. Those are just the ones I know off the top of my head.”

  I opened my mouth to say something, but realized I didn’t know what I could say. What Tonya said could have been true, but I didn’t really know. There were so many people in the gym I hadn’t met, and so many people that didn’t know me. It was hard to imagine there being more girls that I had stuff in common with, but at the same time, with so many people between the various squads, there had to be at least a few people that I had more in common with than the ability to do a back tuck.

  “Are you going to quit the team?” Lexi asked in the silence that followed Tonya’s comment.

  “I don’t want to be the odd one out all the time,” I shrugged, not giving her an answer one way or the other.

  “Then I can work with you on the dances,” Lexi offered. “I can learn all of your choreography so I can break it down and make it all easier for you to learn.”

  “And I can come in extra to practice all your flying if you want,” Halley also added. “I bet our whole stunt group would be willing to help.”

  “Not to mention you have a lot of coaches here that want you to feel at home,” Tonya assured me. “You’re an amazing athlete and that kind of talent deserves a spot at the gym as long as you want one. Which I guess is the real question here. If I can show you that you’re not as different as you think, do you want to stay at the gym?”

  “I’m not sure,” I admitted.

  “Can you give me until the end of camp to prove you have more in common with everyone than you realize?” She tried again. “Unless you want my phone now, that is.”

  I looked at the phone in Tonya’s hand, thinking of what my dad would say if I called him. Sure, he wouldn’t want me to be unhappy and crying all evening locked in the office. But, at the same time, I knew he wanted me to try. He wanted me to really put in an effort to try something that was both out of my comfort zone and
would also connect me a little more with my mom.

  “At the end of the camp if it’s clear the only thing I have in common with people is back tucks and heel stretches, then what?” I challenged, my eyes still locked on the phone.

  “Then we part ways, thankful for two weeks of amazing memories, if nothing else,” Tonya said evenly, despite both Halley and Lexi shifting uncomfortably in protest.

  “Okay,” I sighed. “I’ll give it till Sunday.”

  The rest of the evening was spent sitting in the grass outside with Halley, Lexi, Anna, Connor, Brett, Matthew, and a girl named Shelly that I quickly learned was Matthew's girlfriend. We sat outside and chatted idly about random things and nothing all at the same time. It felt good to just do nothing, while still being around people that cared about how I was feeling. Although I didn’t tell them all that had happened, it was clear that a lot of people in the gym were feeling bad for me. Whether it was because they saw me freeze during the dance performance, or because they had glimpsed me crying was unclear. What was clear, however, was that by letting Lexi and Halley know the truth about why I broke down, I had gained two friends for the long haul.

  We stayed there in the grass chatting and hanging out until lights out. Then, rather reluctantly, we headed inside to get some sleep. Between the active evening along with the emotional overload, I fell asleep easily. I woke up feeling more refreshed than I thought I would after spending a night sleeping on gym mats in a sleeping bag. I was still wary about how the day ahead was going to go, but as I sat and ate breakfast in the field I got a hint of what was to come.

  “Fill this out and turn it in before we start morning warm-ups,” Greg told us as he passed out paper and pens to everyone.

  “Write down three facts people might not know about you,” Lexi read aloud around a bite of her bagel. “I’ve cheered here so long I feel like everyone knows me.”

  “Finally, something I’m better at than you,” I joked, quickly writing down three facts easily. “I think this is the easiest thing I’ve done all weekend.”

  “I have at least one no one is going to guess,” Connor assured us, folding his paper once he was done writing.

  “I doubt that,” Halley challenged. “You’ve been here even longer than Lexi, so I’m sure it’s something at least a few people know.”

  Halley and Connor continued to go back and forth as we finished breakfast and went inside. The plan for the day wasn’t clear yet, but as we headed to the mats and started stretching as instructed, I noticed Leanne was shooting me dirty looks from across the room. At first I thought she was just a little cranky from a night sleeping on the floor. But then I watched as she looked my way while talking to someone else. Her face went from a smile to a glare in about two seconds when her eyes locked on mine. After that, I tried to ignore her and focus on the stretches. And it was a good thing I did since we spend the morning working on our team routines.

  “Max, I need you to really watch your timing on the twist up,” Nicole called over to me after I came down from running our stunts.

  “Okay,” I said, a little shocked that she hadn’t called me Maxine like she always did.

  Nicole gave me a thumbs up and then turned to correct a mistake on the other side of the mat. When I saw Tonya working with the squad in purple one mat away, I knew she had likely talked to Nicole, letting her know why I didn’t like to go by my full first name. The realization made me smile. Clearly Tonya was doing a few things to encourage me to stay at the gym; getting Nicole to actually call me Max was a good first step.

  “Alright ladies, mark the jumps this time, I want you to all focus on your stunts and pyramid,” Nicole called out as we all finished grabbing water a few minutes later. “Only throw tumbling if you want to practice, but all flying is full out people.”

  I walked to my starting spot and struck the pose that I still found rather ridiculous. A few days ago I just stood there, but now that we were adding the transitions and all the movements, I was encouraged to really perform the way the others on the squad did. So, I stood there at the start of the number with on hand pointing up while the other was on my hip that I had jutting out to the side. I of course also had a massive smile on my face, the one part of performing I still struggled with the most. But I just plastered the grin on my face and focused on the routine as our music started. Moving my arms and then kicking quickly, I turned and did a roundoff back tuck followed by a hop up into the hands and arms of my stunt team.

  From the first stunt all the way to my last back tuck I was able to forget about everything but just landing tumbling, holding my body in the right position, and of course keeping the insanely large smile on my face. I was still struggling with the scorpion, but was able to almost get the pose on the final of our three run-throughs, the last of which included full tumbling as well. It all left me tired and ready for a nap as we finally were allowed to leave the blue mats and head outside to work on our shirts once again. The shirts were waiting for us on tables, along with fabric paint and enough glitter in squeeze bottles to fill an entire swimming pool.

  “So what design should we go with?” Skyler asked, holding up her now tie-dyed shirt. It was covered in light and dark red swirls thanks to the rubber bands and the way she had twisted it before adding the dye.

  “We should use the glitter paint to make our names on the back and then make the TNT logo on the front but with all the colors from the gym,” someone suggested, getting some encouraging replies immediately. I couldn’t help but frown, knowing that it was similar to some of the other squad’s shirts I had noticed sitting out to dry.

  “Okay,” Lexie nodded. “That’s one idea. But what if we did something not so expected. What do you think we should do Max?”

  “Me?” I replied, not loving all the attention suddenly on me.

  “Yeah,” she grinned. “We’ve all made these kinds of shirts before, so we kind of use the same ideas a lot. But you’ve never done them so you might think of something we never would.”

  “Exactly,” Halley added. “We also do a lot of glitter or write ‘We Love Cheer’ all the time, but maybe you have a better idea?”

  “Not to put me on the spot or anything,” I said with a nervous laugh.

  Glancing over at the finished shirts that were sitting on the table next to ours, I saw that the girls on one of the other teams wrote ‘Grabbing Jackets’ on the back of their shirts. The words caught me off guard, but also reminded me of something I had overheard a few of the girls talking about as we were stretching one day.

  “Jackets,” I began slowly. “Those are the prizes for winning something, right?”

  “Nationals,” Corra explained. “When you win Worlds you get rings, but when you win Nationals you get jackets. Our squad came in second last year, but we’re really hoping this year we finally get to take first and get our jackets.”

  “What if we decorated our shirts to look like the jackets?” I suggested, not all that confident in my idea. “Or would that be weird?”

  “No that’s perfect!” someone quickly agreed

  “The jackets are all black and look kind of like a letterman's jackets with leather sleeves,” Halley told me over the noise of girls talking and agreeing. “And then on the back it has the NCA logo in the center of all of the writing.”

  “So we’re going to paint the whole shirt black?” Anna asked, looking a little skeptical of the whole thing.

  “What if we still used the other idea,” I said suddenly getting an even better idea. “We could make it look like the jackets are open and since our shirts are red we could make it look like a uniform showing through the opening.”

  “That’s a lot of painting,” Lexi said with a big smile. “We better get to work!”

  And get to work we did. Knowing all of the paint would take a while to dry, we got moving right away on painting the back of the shirt solid black so we could flip it over and paint most of the front as well. Once girls were done painting their shirts they
started fanning them and even running inside with them to use the hairdryers in the bathroom. The sudden burst of activity and excitement over my idea made me feel really good. It also helped that it happened without Tonya or the other coaches orchestrating it. I knew more things were sure to come that were of their doing, but this time at least, I felt like a part of the gym thanks to the girls on Blast.

  “What’s with all the paint?” Connor asked pointing to the spots and smudges on my hands, arms, and even legs as I sat down next to him with my lunch.

  “It’s from our shirts,” I explained, digging into my food eagerly. After the t-shirt decorating time, everyone in the gym got to choose a class to take leading up to lunch. There was tumbling, flying, dancing, and conditioning. At Lexi’s encouragement I went to dance, with her by my side of course, so I could work on what was clearly my weakest area.

  “You mean the shirts you all hid in the office so no one could see?” He joked, although the comment was true.

  “We want to surprise everyone,” I shrugged, already excited to see the looks people would give us when they saw our shirts at the showcase. “How was stunt class?”

  As Connor described working on stunts with TJ, I was happy to see the section of grass around us fill quickly with faces I recognized. Lexi and Halley joined us, as well as Sarah, Skyler, and Anna from Blast. They were followed by a few girls I had met at the dance class, Mallory and Bridget. Matthew and Emma also joined us, as well as Josh, Elliot, and Amber. It was nice to have people to sit with, but even nicer to know who those people were and to feel like they were making an effort to get to know me. Getting to know people like them was slowly making up for people like Leanne and Paige that I had the misfortune of meeting as well.