Reaching The Summit (TNT Force Cheer #2)

by Dana Burkey

  “This is what you have been working for all year,” Nicole said to the team, her speech much different than what she said to Blast before performing. “You have the heart and the talent, now go out there and hit this routine like never before. I know each of you has what it takes to get to tomorrow, but you need to show them. Show every judge and person watching that even if today is just the semifinals, you’re walking away with rings this weekend.”

  At the mention of the championship Summit rings, a lot of girls started cheering, clapping, and even jumping up and down on the spot. I found myself even more fueled with energy and excitement right along with them. The mood was electric, and the idea of going onstage and making a big statement with a perfect performance was all I could think about.

  “Hands in,” Nicole finally said with a grin.

  I tried to follow along the cheer I had only done with the team a few times, but mostly let everyone else say the words for me. The cheer, however, did a perfect job to get everyone even more ready to perform. “You lit the Fuze it’s time to blow, get on that mat and start the show. We’re here to win! We cannot lose! Let’s hear it now, on three a Fuze. ONE, TWO, THREE! FUZE!”

  It may have only been the first time I was performing for a real crowd with Fuze, but once I stepped out onto the mat and began the routine, it felt like I had done it a million times. Every move, stunt, and motion was like second nature as I worked with my teammates to perform all of the elements I had known for just a few short weeks. The serious mood before taking the stage was apparently just what I needed to land everything, all with a less than serious smile on my face.

  When the routine ended and we left the stage, the crowd sounded so much louder than they had for Blast’s performance just before. Part of this could have been because the girls on Blast were all at the edge of the stage screaming extra loud for me. But, whatever the reason was, it felt amazing. When I finally left the stage and made it to where Lexi, Halley, and the other girls in red were waiting, they all but knocked me to the ground. Clearly, they were proud of what I had just accomplished with my second performance of the day.

  “Your tumbling was amazing!” Lexi gushed as soon as she was done giving me a massive hug. “You guys are totally going to make it to the finals.”

  “Well, we find out soon enough,” I replied, although I had a huge grin on my face.

  “I’m not going to lie,” Halley began as she walked with me towards the playback station. “Seeing you do so well with Fuze made me a little shocked you weren't on that squad sooner.”

  “Thanks,” I said, knowing Halley meant it as an amazing compliment.

  Now, I have to admit that what Halley said was true. I really did fit in great with the girls on Fuze. Unless you knew it and were looking for me, you would not have been able to tell that I was the new person on the team. But, even as I watched the playback and saw how great we all looked, I was happy to still be on Blast. Fuze was a hard team and pushed me in new ways, but Blast was special thanks to my friends. Friends, I realized, that would be there to support me no matter what team we were all cheering on. Even if we were on different teams that didn't even compete or practice at the same time, we were friends no matter what.

  “That’s the best we’ve ever done,” someone said, although I couldn’t tell who it was that spoke. I realized then that I had been so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t even get to see the replay of our performance. But, based on how it felt out there and how everyone was still buzzing with energy, I knew it must have looked pretty good. And that was good enough for me!

  As we all finally walked away from the viewing booth, I found my dad. He had been hanging back a little to make room for all the girls crowding around Fuze. For a second I thought he might be annoyed I didn’t find him as soon as I left the stage. But, based on his greeting I knew nothing could have been further from the truth. Picking me up to spin me around in a full circle, my dad set me back on the ground then planted a kiss on my forehead. The look of pride on his face after seeing me perform with Fuze for the first time was enough to get me feeling instantly emotional. Thankfully I didn’t have to worry too long about the possibility of tearing up or crying.

  “This thing has been buzzing like crazy,” my dad said, pulling my cell phone out of his pocket and handing it to me.

  Looking at the screen I saw I had missed messages from both Connor and Peter. Since I didn’t check my phone between my two performances I saw many of them were about Blast’s performance, and then also about the performance I had just done onstage with Fuze. I scanned through them quickly, trying to take it all in. Peter had been following along on Twitter, while Connor and some other athletes from the gym were watching the live feeds. Despite the two different ways of following my time at Summit, they both said one thing in almost the exact same words: “You’re totally going to finals with both teams!”

  Sitting in the hotel room that night I found myself packing my bags, at a loss for anything else to do. The day was exhausting, to say the least, and while I waited for our late night room service pizza to arrive it was the only useful action that came to mind.

  “You’re already packing?” Halley asked with a frown. She and Lexi were sitting on one of the beds sharing a bag of gummy worms.

  “I need to do something,” I said as I put the last of my clothing items back into my suitcase and turned to face my friends. “I just have way too much energy right now.”

  “Then stretch or something,” Lexi shrugged, slurping a long gummy worm into her mouth. “You can’t pack now when you still have another day of performing and a day in the parks to look forward to.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” I said with the shrug.

  Stepping away from my suitcase I did what Lexi said and pulled my leg up behind my body and held it in place with both arms for a skill known as a needle. The goal was to keep both legs straight while you still kept your body upright so your leg up in the air was all but flat against your back. It was easy enough for me to hold, although when I had a team of people holding me up in the air I tended to wiggle a little too much and fall out of the stunt or at least not keep it quite as straight. But, standing in the hotel room I focused on holding the stunt perfectly still until the sound of Lexi and Halley laughing was too much of a distraction.

  “What?” I asked them, finally dropping my left leg to the ground.

  “I was just kidding,” Lexi laughed. “I think you proved today you’ve done more than enough stretching for a while.”

  Deciding to give up on the needle for a while, I walked across the room and hopped onto the bed where my friends were lounging. I stole a few gummy worms then rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling. After a few seconds, I realized it was the longest I had just sat down and done nothing since finding out that not just one but both of my squads were going to finals. The news had me jumping and skipping around the entire evening, too excited to stay still. It was just too much good news to move on from so quickly. Blast was in fourth going into the final, probably due to the lack of performance in our routine. Fuze, however, was in second. The team in first was only above us by a tenth of a point, so we needed to hit the final performance and also hope the first place team had at least one bobble in order for us to take home the first place rings.

  “So do you think you’re going to be on Fuze next year?” Halley asked, finally breaking the silence that was filling the room.

  “Me?” I asked, rolling over to watch her as she nodded while eating another candy. “Maybe. But my dad kind of mentioned that some of the other gym parents heard coaches talking about me being on Nitro or Detonators next year.”

  “What?” Lexi yelped, actually jumping up so she was standing on the bed. “Are you serious? That’s so awesome!”

  “It’s not that big of a deal,” I tried to say, but Halley was quick to correct me.

  “It’s a big big deal!” she explained. “Those are level 5 teams that get to go to Worlds! And if you’re on the s
quad maybe you can be there for either teams’ first win!”

  “You mean we’ve never won first at Worlds?” I asked, thankful Lexi was finally sitting back down on the bed.

  “Nope,” Lexi said with the shake of her head. “Our level 5 teams have gotten so many seconds and thirds, people actually made jokes and memes and all kinds of stuff about it.”

  “A year or two ago there was an Instagram account all about things TNT Force gym athletes can’t do,” Halley added. “It was after the year all three teams took second at Worlds, and the whole page was about everyone being second best and this and that. People got really upset about it and the account got taken down for bullying or something.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly. “So why does it matter if I’m on Nitro or Detonators?”

  “You’re tumbling,” Lexi said instantly. After seeing the blank expression on my face she continued. “We can work on partner stunts and good pyramids and dances and all that, but we don’t have power tumblers. We need people who can do a pass, then just throw a punch front and do another great pass again. I don’t think we’ve had a tumbler like you at the gym since Greg aged out.”

  “So thanks to my tumbling I could help us get the raw score up?” I asked, trying to wrap my head around everything I had just heard.

  “Exactly,” Lexi grinned.

  “And you’re really good at flying, so who knows what else they could do,” Halley chimed in. “I bet you could do a kick single kick single basket.”

  In response, I just nodded, then tried to follow along as Halley and Lexi began to brainstorm the other stunts and skills I could do that would add to the overall team score and potential. What they were saying made a little sense to me, though. I was good at tumbling, and the smallest flyer my age. Lexi was a little lighter than me, but she was still too young to be on a senior team. That meant that I was the easiest to throw in the air for baskets and other skills. It seemed like a trivial reason for me to get placed on a squad, and at the same time I wasn’t officially on any team yet for the upcoming season.

  Skill assessments and try-outs were a few weeks away, so I would need to wait until then to really figure out what team I would make. Not to mention that between now and then I might also be placed on a softball team that required my attention. Since I knew there wasn’t anything I could one way or the other, I went back to snacking on the gummy worms.

  Lexi and Halley went on talking about my cheer future for a while longer. They might have talked all night, but thankfully the room service showed up and was the perfect distraction. We ate every slice of the large pizza, happy for the extra food since after dinner we had done a lot of swimming. But then, well before the time we claimed we were going to stay up until, we went to bed. It wasn’t early, but it wasn’t exactly late either. We just figured it would be good to get a lot of sleep for the next day. After all, Sunday had the potential to be a very important day for all the athletes on both Blast and Fuze.

  As soon as I woke up on Sunday morning

  I could tell that something was different. It was just like most competition days in general, but when you looked closer it was like something was a bit off. It started the second I got out of bed. We had been joking and kidding around all night up until bed, but as we got up and got ready to leave for the competition, all of the joking was gone. For a while, it seemed to help me focus on what was to come. But then, as we sat watching teams perform before we got ready to head to warm-ups, I started to feel more and more anxious. Being so serious and intense for so long was leaving me feeling like I was going to explode.

  “Are you okay?” Halley asked me as we sat watching a junior level 3 team on stage.

  “What?” I asked looking at her suddenly. “Me? Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “Yeah right,” she laughed. “You look like you’re going to scream. Or maybe the real problem is that you literally need to scream.”

  “Yes,” I nodded. “Both of those.”

  “Well calm down,” she said simply. “You have nothing to worry about.”

  “Nothing?” I asked in reply. “I’m on two teams. That means two chances to let everyone down when I mess up.”

  “No,” Halley corrected me immediately. “You have two chances to prove to everyone why you’re going to be on a level 5 team next year. Two chances for everyone in this arena to realize how good you are at cheerleading. You’re going to get out there today and perform two perfect routines like always, and we all know it.”

  “Not like always. I messed up a dance move when we were at the competition in Vegas,” I said, knowing instantly it was a weak attempt to show her she was wrong.

  “As I was saying,” she continued with a laugh, “You have nothing to worry about.”

  In fact, as if to prove how right she was, the team on stage dropped part of their pyramid. They were a team that was ahead of us going into the finals, and seeing them fall was weird. It didn’t make me happy, but in a way it was a good thing. Seeing them make a mistake was like taking a weight off my shoulders. That mistake gave us an even bigger opportunity to beat them. The second I thought that, however, I realized that wishing for someone else to do bad wasn’t how I wanted to win. So, instead, I decided to use my extra energy to cheer for every team that took the mat before us.

  “They just hit,” Lexi frowned at me after a level 3 team we were up against finished on stage a few minutes later.

  “I know. Wasn’t it awesome?” I asked with a nod of my head as I continued clapping.

  “What if they beat us?” she asked me, clearly confused by my reaction to them doing so well.

  “Well, I don’t know if their raw score was big enough or not,” I began. “But I would rather win against teams that hit and made it hard for us, then win because everyone else had mistakes.”

  “You never cease to amazing me,” Lexi replied. But, from that moment on, I noticed that she also joined me in my cheering.

  In fact, by the time we went back to warm up with Blast, I noticed that most of the girls around me in red TNT uniforms were cheering for the teams onstage as well. Even once I was backstage stretching and getting ready to warm up my tumbling I was enjoying watching the other teams around me. Spending my time encouraging other people, even if it was just by watching and appreciating what they were doing was making me excited to show them all what I could do. Not to show off or rub it in their face, but rather to join in on the performing fun. It reminded me of how I felt at open gym times, and before long I couldn’t help but compliment the people around me.

  “That was an awesome tumbling pass,” I said to a boy who was also backstage. After watching him warming up a tumbling pass, I simply had to say something.

  “Thanks,” he said, turning to give me a smile.

  I gave a little wave and walked away to warm up my skills as well, feeling somehow even more excited. The idea of being able to walk up to someone and say “good job” and things like that was really fun. I didn’t usually talk to other teams at competitions, but in that moment I was excited to start letting people know when I enjoyed their hard work and skills. It was apparently appreciated since the boy I complimented came over to return the favor after I did my own tumbling pass.

  “That was really good,” he said to me, actually holding his hand out. “I’m Daniel.”

  “Max,” I said shaking his hand. I noticed he was wearing a white and light blue uniform, but wasn’t sure what gym he was from.

  “Good luck out there,” Daniel said, then turned to follow his team out onto the stage.

  The interaction took seconds but made me feel really great all the same. Instead of worrying about whether or not the athletes in my divisions were going to beat my teams, I could just focus on doing my best and wishing the same for the people around me. Despite the high level of competition, I felt more at ease than at the far less important softball clinics where no one seemed to show support for one another. Realizing that, part of me wanted to tell even more athletes good jo
b. But, I also knew I needed to focus on my own team. So, I decided to do what I could to encourage the girls around me wearing red as well.

  I found myself calling out “great back tuck” and “that was perfect” and “your height on that was insane” to the girls around me basically nonstop. Anytime there was even the smallest compliment to give, I made sure to scream it out. I noticed other girls were doing it as well, really making sure to build one another up before our performance. For the first time all season, our talking felt more genuine than all of our mat talk. As a result, by the time we walked out onto the stage I felt like there wasn’t anything we couldn’t do.

  Unlike a lot of the times I performed, I was aware of every move I made, every beat of the music, and every stunt that was lifted or tossed into the air. Nothing was passing me by in a blur like usual. Time seemed to travel in slow motion as I flipped and tumbled and spun my way around the mat, all fueled by the comments everyone was calling out to each other.

  “Kill it one last time!” Halley cheered me on before my kick single. She didn’t remind me to keep my leg straight that time, but I managed the move perfectly all the same.

  “That was flawless,” Anna said once I was safely back on the ground.

  “You guys rock!” I said in reply, then continued on to the next move in the routine.

  When we reached our final pose after the two and a half minutes on stage, the response from the crowd was louder than any competition all season. As I was jumping and skipping and hugging my team, it suddenly hit me. We did it. We performed our routine the best we ever had before, and it was on the day that mattered the most. Based on the way the girls around me were also cheering, smiling, and even crying I knew that they were realizing the same thing as well.