Clash of the Cheerleaders

by April Marcom

  Nicole waved over the trivials as I paid for a Caesar salad—Kerry, Ginger, Angeline, and Tabitha—three of them bleach-blondes and all of them every bit as superficial as our cheer captain. They were always SO desperate for any attention they could get from Nicole. Usually, they weren’t allowed to eat with us, so I figured she invited them to our table so they could hear about Ty. She’d probably already told them all about the dare.

  I sat down beside her, feeling miserable. “I couldn’t do it,” I said quietly.

  “What?” Nicole asked.

  “I couldn’t ask out Ty. I barely made it to my locker before he left his this morning and then I didn’t see him all day.”

  Everyone stared at Nicole, who was staring hard at me. She looked MAD. I really couldn’t back out now that the trivials knew. They’d probably spread it all over school and Nicole would say I made us all look bad. That could get ugly.

  “I guess you’ll just have to do it next period,” she finally said. “I’ll switch seats with him in home ec.”

  I nodded and looked down at my salad.

  This was becoming worse than when Zaniah dared Lavender to break into the school in the middle of the night to use the boys’ bathroom. It took her three days of sneaking around school, trying to find a safe way of getting in later at night, to pull that one off. Yeah, we really needed to have a ban on playing Truth or Dare at our sleepovers. I guess the excitement and the laughs it always brought on were just too much fun to give up.

  I jumped when a hand closed around my shoulder. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” Blaine asked me.

  My heart leapt at the sight of him—his broad shoulders and star football player jacket. I had to remind myself to keep my head. “No.”

  “Just for a second, I promise.”

  “No.” I shook his hand away from my shoulder, so he bent down and put his face right beside mine.

  The smell of his cologne was captivating. “You have to talk to me eventually,” he said, before he kissed my cheek and walked away.

  I felt nine pairs of eyes locked on me. They were nearly as horrible as the tears fighting to escape. I fought back harder. I dug into my salad, determined not to let Blaine win, and forgot all about Ty… until the warning bell rang.

  6

  We groaned at the horrible buzzzzz of the school bell. A strong breeze rushed through us like a tiny hurricane when ALL the giant outside doors in the cafeteria were suddenly thrown open.

  “Come on, Hadley,” Nicole said, standing up to join the hastening crowds.

  I grabbed my purse and books. “Bye, girls.”

  “See you later,” Steph and Zaniah said together.

  Home economics wasn’t a horrible class, not my favorite, but not my least favorite, either. Everyone was split up so that two people sat to a small table. Nicole and I were pretty centered, while Ty sat in the back with this kid no-one else would partner up with, Brady or Barty or something.

  “How are you going to get Ty to switch with you?” I asked, wondering if she wanted us to pretend we were in a fight.

  “I’ll just act like I’m interested in that kid he sits with. What’s his name?”

  I shrugged.

  “Whatever. You don’t need to know a name to flirt.”

  My heart pounded as we walked into the classroom and I saw Ty sitting there in the back, like a dark shadow rebelling against the florescent lights.

  “Watch this.” Nicole put on a totally fake smile and swayed her hips all the way back to the frizzy-haired kid sitting next to Ty. “Hey there. Mind if I sit with you today?”

  I stopped at the first row of table-desks to watch.

  His eyes got giant. He couldn’t even put together a response. I imagined him feeling like all his dreams had just come true.

  Ty raised an eyebrow and leaned back in his chair.

  “You can have my seat next to Hadley today,” Nicole told him. “I really want to sit with…” She looked back at the boy neither of us even knew.

  “Bryan,” he said, still staring wide-eyed at Nicole.

  “Bryan.” She tilted her head sweetly and leaned closer to him. Flirting with guys seemed to come so naturally to her.

  Ty didn’t say a word as he moved to Nicole’s chair, ignoring me completely when I took the seat beside him. I tried and failed miserably to think of something to say to him until the bell rang and Miss Peters walked in the door.

  “Good morning, class,” Miss Peters said in her usual commanding voice. “Since we’ve been discussing home design, I’ll be passing out color swatches of fabric and worksh—Nicole Hemming and Ty Black, why aren’t you in your seats?”

  I glanced over at Ty, wondering if he would put all the blame on Nicole. He stared silently at our teacher.

  “I thought I’d sit in the back today, Miss Peters,” Nicole said. “It’s just for one day.”

  “Next time get permission first, all right? And tomorrow’s September twenty-third. All home economics students will be at the grocery store for the afternoon, so you’ll have to switch back Wednesday. Now, as I was saying, I’ll be passing out fabric and worksheets. Your assignment is to study the colors and decide which ones best complement each other based on what we studied last week. You’ll be placing them together in groups of two.” Miss Peters went to a tall filing cabinet in the corner and opened the top drawer. “You’re welcome to work in pairs or alone, but you will have to share the fabric with your partner.”

  I swallowed hard, because that meant there was no way around talking to Ty.

  “Cindy Neighbors, would you please come and pass out these worksheets?”

  Cindy’s western boots tapped noisily against the ground as she went to grab the stack of papers. Miss Peters’ red sandals joined in to the beat when she took a box full of giant silver rings with squares of fabric attached to them from her desk and started handing them out.

  “Do you wanna work on this with me?” I asked Ty when a ring of fabric was placed between us.

  “Sure,” Ty said without bothering to look at me. He started rifling through the fabric and I wondered if maybe I should be doing the same thing with him.

  I tried making conversation instead. “I like your shirt. Where’d you get it?”

  “Target.”

  “Yeah? Target’s always fun.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  Cindy set two pieces of paper down in front of me, so I passed one to Ty, who was still looking through the fabric.

  Just get it over with so you can stop stressing, I told myself. “Can I ask you something?”

  “If you want to.” He was still acting like I wasn’t even there. It was like talking to a wall!

  I waited a couple of minutes to see if he would tear his eyes away from his work long enough to look at me, but he never did. So I turned my attention to the fabric we shared and concentrated on the assignment.

  I looked back at Nicole halfway through class. She was laughing at whatever Bryan had just said and staring at him like he was the hottest, most incredible guy ever. He’d probably be devastated when class was over and Nicole never spoke to him again. At least he was talking to her, though. I figured I was pretty lucky to have gotten two words out of Ty.

  Class dragged on and Ty didn’t acknowledge me once. When the bell rang, I cringed, not knowing what to do.

  “Do you want me to hand in your paper with mine?” I asked Ty, hoping my friendliness would be returned.

  All he said was, “No, thanks,” before he walked away.

  Seriously?! I screamed inside my head. Nicole had to dare me to ask out the ONE guy in this WHOLE SCHOOL who I can’t get to talk to me.

  “Hey, Ty,” Nicole called after him. “You can have your partner back. I’m done with him.” She gave Bryan an unnecessarily evil look.

  “I’ll still see you at the game Friday night, right?” he asked.

  “Seriously? There’s not even a game this Friday. Get a clue.”

  “What?” He looked confused as
he trailed behind Nicole and me out the door. “I don’t understand. You just said we should hook up at the game.”

  “I lied,” Nicole said over her shoulder. I bet she loved doing that to him, showing the world she can get any guy she wants and then shutting him down and totally humiliating him.

  Bryan must have stopped following us, because we didn’t hear anything else out of him.

  “So where are you going with Ty Friday night?” she asked me.

  “Why do you assume he said yes?”

  “Duh, you’re a cheerleader. No guy says no to a cheerleader.”

  I stared absently down the hallway, wishing I could use my next class as an excuse to get away from her, but we had math together sixth hour.

  Nicole grabbed my arm and stopped walking. “He didn’t say no, did he? Because there would have to be something seriously wrong with him to turn you down.”

  “No, I just didn’t ask him. I couldn’t even get him to talk to me.”

  She looked at me like I was crazy. “Maybe you were right about him, but you have to at least ask.”

  I couldn’t help thinking how stupid this whole thing was getting. “Why is it so important to you that I ask him out?”

  “Because I dared you to, and you’re a cheerleader. You can’t be too scared to ask out any guy in this high school, because they all want cheerleaders. You’ll make us all look weak if you back down from this dare.”

  We had to move out of the way so a big group of guys could get past us.

  I wanted to remind her that no-one would even know, but she’d ruined the chances of that happening when she told the trivials everything at lunch.

  Maybe she was right, anyway. Asking out one guy shouldn’t be that big of a deal, especially for a cheerleader. But this was Ty Black! He was probably the hardest guy in school to ask out. “I’ll ask him out in class on Wednesday, I promise.”

  “No way. I’m not sitting by that loser Bryan again. You’re going to ask him tomorrow on our budgeting field trip. I’ll make sure you sit next to him on the bus ride.”

  “Fine.”

  7

  Tuesday should have been fun. It was a field trip day. Everyone who took home ec got half a day off school to go pretend they were grocery shopping and practice budgeting. Nicole, Brittany, Steph, and I were all going. But after yesterday, I just wasn’t looking forward to it anymore.

  The other three girls and I met out front when the lunch bell rang. The sun was shining and the crisp cold autumn air filled my lungs. Sack lunches were already being handed out. Everyone was fighting to get one, since we only had fifteen minutes to eat and then load the two buses already parked in the bus lane.

  “Here you go,” Brittany said when she saw me, handing me a bag.

  “Thanks, Brit.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Steph asked Nicole as I bit into my apple.

  “The plan is to get Hadley on the bus with Ty,” Nicole said, twisting and turning, searching the students for him.

  “So we’re not going to try to load a certain bus together?”

  “Yeah, on the way back.” The way she was half-ignoring us to look for Ty was almost like sitting with him in class again. “There he is. Come on, Hadley.” Nicole grabbed my arm and walked us toward the first bus in line.

  Brittany and Steph looked at me questioningly, but followed when I walked after Nicole. We weaved through the excited chattering students, and got separated more than once.

  Then finally, Nicole stopped us right behind Ty. “Now we wait,” she said quietly.

  Ty was playing a game on his phone while he ate a turkey sandwich, totally oblivious to us. He really was breathtaking to look at. That shouldn’t have mattered, though. Nicole had built up all her cheerleaders to have the confidence needed to talk to hot guys. Something was just different about this one.

  “All students who have finished eating—please begin boarding the first bus,” a voice called over a megaphone. We looked toward the first of two buses and saw Miss Peters with the speaker in her hand. A few students were already heading her way.

  “Is she crazy? We just got here,” Steph said.

  “She’s definitely crazy, making me get on one of those disgusting school buses,” Nicole said, her lip curling into a sneer.

  “You know this trip’s optional, right?” Brittany reminded her.

  “I’d rather ride one of those things than be at school.”

  I forced myself not to remind Nicole that she and I spent years riding one of those ‘things’ when we were younger, before she turned into what she was now.

  We stood there eating for a few minutes as Nicole did her fashion police thing, pointing out all the hideous clothes she couldn’t believe people were brave enough to wear in public.

  And then… “It’s time to go,” Nicole said suddenly, grabbing my arm again.

  “But none of us are done eating yet,” Steph said. I was barely halfway through my sandwich.

  “Fine, you stay. It’s time for me and Hadley to go.” Her eyes stayed locked on Ty as she pulled me along behind him.

  “What about my trash?” I asked.

  She grabbed it from me and handed it along with hers to some guy we were walking past. She realized too late who she’d handed it to.

  “Hey, Nicole,” Bryan said. “You want to sit with me on the bus?”

  “Eww.” Nicole left him behind still holding our trash and pushed a girl out of the way so we would be right behind Ty.

  I heard the girl gasp behind us. “Excuse you,” she said angrily, then changed her tone completely. “Oh, sorry, Nicole.”

  We joined the swarm of students pressing against each other toward the buses. Then we were climbing the three stairs and moving through the center aisle, Nicole keeping right behind me and me right behind Ty. It stunk, bad. I’d forgotten how much school buses smelled like sweat and pee.

  Students were sitting wherever they wanted. Ty stopped next to an empty seat about halfway down and climbed in.

  Then I felt Nicole bump into me kind of sideways, so I would fall into the seat beside him. My shoulder slammed into his side. “What are you—” I started to ask, but she just kept going.

  I looked over at Ty. His eyebrows had an angry arch to them.

  “I-I’m sorry,” I stuttered. “I didn’t mean to fall over on you like that.”

  He only shrugged. “S’ okay.” He pulled a pair of earbuds out of his pocket and plugged one end into his phone and the other into his ears. It didn’t look like I was going to get anything else out of him. But he also didn’t ask me to move. So I sat there beside him, trying to think of the right thing to say.

  It occurred to me that he might say no. Whether Nicole believed it or not, there had to be guys out there that wouldn’t be into a girl just because she’s a cheerleader. Maybe I could get away with just asking him when we were nearly to the store and then never speaking to him again.

  We sat there for another five minutes or so, him staring out the window as he listened to his music and me trying to decide how to ask him out. He only looked up when the bus roared to life, and then went back to staring outside.

  We barely made it out of the parking lot before my phone dinged with a text. I opened the message and saw that it was from Nicole. I twisted around in my seat and saw her sitting four rows back next to Heath. Read it, she mouthed out to me. So I opened the text and read: Just ask him already.

  I gave her one final look of desperation, begging her for mercy. She pushed Heath’s hand out of her face when he tried showing her something on his phone and pointed at Ty.

  Slowly, I turned back around. This was it. “Um, Ty… Ty…” Either he couldn’t hear me or he was ignoring me. I reached over and tapped him on the arm.

  He kind of leaned over as he took out his headphones. “Yeah?”

  “There was something I wanted to ask you. I was wondering if you might want to do something after school on Friday.”

  For a second he just stared
at me with this blank look on his face. Then a corner of his mouth rose into a dangerously handsome grin. It was the first time I’d ever seen him smile. “You wanna go out with me?”

  “Well, once. I mean, just one date.”

  “Aren’t you with Marksen?”

  “No.” I could almost taste the bitterness inside my mouth.

  Ty laughed softly. “All right.”

  “All right?” Did he just say yes?

  “Sure. I’ll pick you up at six. Will that work?”

  It took me a minute to answer. “Yeah, yeah six is fine—I’ll just write down my address.” I started to reach in my purse for a pen.

  “That’s okay, I know where you live.”

  I stopped to stare at him.

  He laughed softly again. “I helped my dad paint the outside of your house over the summer. You were never home, but I remember seeing pictures of you on the wall when your mom invited us in for lunch… You’re hard to forget.”

  “Oh.” I went ahead and pulled out a pen and a shred of paper and scribbled down my number. “Well here’s my phone number in case anything comes up.”

  The tips of his fingers rested against mine as he took it. “I wouldn’t worry about that.” He flashed a row of white teeth at me when he smiled. My heart fluttered in a brand-new way.

  The bus began to slow down as it pulled into the cracked grocery store parking lot. It wasn’t very far from school.

  Should I offer to do my budgeting project with Ty? I wondered. I really, really didn’t want to. But now all of a sudden, I was totally weirded out and I didn’t know how I was supposed to act around him—except, I guess that’s how I’d always been around him. Should I just ignore him until Friday or pretend we’re friends? Pretend, because after Friday, I was still going to act like none of this ever happened.

  Just a stupid dare. That’s all it is.

  Luckily, a few seconds after the brakes quit squealing and we came to a stop, Nicole was at my side. “Let’s go.”

  So I had to leave him behind.

  We hurried to the other bus and waited for Brittany and Steph. Brittany was practically bouncing up and down by the time she walked off their bus and hit the pavement. “What happened, Hadley? Tell—me—everything,” she said.