Clash of the Cheerleaders

by April Marcom

  “Well,” Poppy stood up and came to sit next to me on my bed. “Tomorrow’s kind of a monumental thing for you. When you were outside, Zaniah was saying how Friday marks the end of the Clash of the Cheerleaders war, where you five win and the other five lose. Maybe you’ll feel better when it’s all over.”

  “I hope you’re right.” I was certainly looking forward to getting past this whole thing and having life get back to normal.

  Nicole was the only one who could prevent that. I just had to hope tomorrow would make a big enough impact to silence her.

  43

  “Ugh—I don’t want to go to school today,” I groaned when my alarm went off the next morning. Brittany said she’d be texting us at six a.m. to make sure we were awake, so I set my alarm for five fifty-eight.

  “Poppy.” I reached into my window, where she’d slept last night. “Hey, Poppy.” I sat up and patted her empty sleeping bag.

  My mind finally woke up just enough to register the sound of her taking a shower and singing the Mr. Sandman song. She had an amazing voice.

  “Wow, she’s an early riser.” I got up and turned the lights on, then started pulling on my uniform. I hardly got on my top before Brittany group texted,

  Every1 up?

  Barely

  I texted back.

  Unfortunately

  Steph added before I went back to getting dressed. I ignored the buzzing of the other girls texting responses. Next, I sat at my desk and pulled my hair into a high ponytail.

  Poppy was still humming when she came out of the bathroom. “Good morning, Hadley.”

  “I haaate waking up this early,” I grumped. I picked up my glitter hairspray and, half-asleep, pressed the sprayer way too early. A mist went all over my forehead and into my eyes. “Ah, darn it!” I dropped the glitter spray and grabbed for my pack of makeup remover wipes.

  “What happened?” Poppy picked up the bottle and put it back on my desk.

  “Nothing, I’m just having a hard time waking up… I didn’t know you were such a great singer.”

  “Thanks. I play the guitar a little bit too.”

  “Oh, yeah? You ever think about doing it professionally.”

  “Sometimes. My stage fright kind of kills it for me, though.”

  “Right.” I struggled to brush on my liquid eyeliner with shaking fingers. “Are you as nervous as I am about today?”

  “I thought cheerleaders don’t get nervous.”

  “It’s not like stage fright nervous. I know what Nicole did to me, but—I still feel really mean. She got jumped yesterday, Poppy. Someone actually broke her teeth.”

  “Wow, that’s bad.” Poppy sat on my bed and pulled half her hair back with a clippie.

  The whole school was counting on me for the big reveal, though. There was no going back now, no matter how mean I felt.

  “Is Ty going to the pep rally or skipping school today altogether?” I asked absently.

  “My mom wants him to go since I’ll be there. She’s staying home to let our little brother and sisters sleep late.”

  I nodded and finished my makeup without saying anything else. It was nice that Poppy didn’t mind the silence, and allowed me the time to think.

  We went downstairs for breakfast and ate cereal mostly in silence, as well.

  Through most everything I did, two pictures kept popping into my mind: 1) Nicole crying to me on video chat the night before, and 2) Underground’s picture of my dad with both of us. The contrasting images put as much anger as guilt into me, for what she’d done and what she’d been through.

  I got on my phone to look at Underground’s new article, more for a distraction than anything. He’d simply pinned a single sentence to the top.

  * * *

  It’s been really fun to put such exciting articles out this week, but for today, I’m turning things over to Hadley for the big uncovering of Nicole’s secrets…

  * * *

  My stomach got queasy at that. I ended up throwing the rest of my cereal away.

  The mood was a lot lighter in the van ride, at least. Instead of breaking out Team Hadley stickers, Brittany led us in a school spirit cheer. She was obviously feeling no reserves about today.

  SWH was pretty dead when we got there. The hallways were almost completely deserted and deathly quiet. The front door shutting behind us echoed through the lockers.

  “It’s like we’re in The Twilight Zone.” Zaniah wiggled her fingers at us, and sang the familiar tune, “do do do do, do do do do.”

  “Yeah, it’s kind of creepy,” Brittany agreed.

  We zigzagged from hall to hall, hitting our lockers together to drop off all our stuff.

  The gym was virtually empty when we walked inside. Only the basketball coach was sitting behind the announcer’s table at one side of the court, messing around on his cell phone. The basketball goals had been electronically lifted so that they pressed horizontally against the ceiling. The backdrop screen we would be using for the presentation hung where the west goal would have been.

  “Hey, Coach Reynolds,” Brittany said, leading our group across the gym floor. “We’re giving a presentation on bullying at the pep rally. Mind if we get set up?”

  “Go ahead. Mr. Horawitz gave me a heads up.” His eyes never left the tiny screen in front of him.

  Poppy set her laptop on the other end of the announcer’s table and turned it on. While it was waking up, she plugged in a cord, then bent down to get a look at the black, layered box under the table with buttons and dials and plugins all over it. She really seemed to know what she was doing, since she got the other end of her cord hooked up pretty quick. Then she hit a power button and the giant screen hanging below the west goal lit up white.

  Poppy stood to watch it. “It’ll just take a minute for everything to warm up. So, there are three microphones on top of the power box,” she said to Coach Reynolds. “Are they all connected to it?”

  He finally lifted his gaze to meet hers. “Yep.” An eyebrow dipped down. “You new to Silver Wing High School?”

  “No, sir. I will be next year, though. I’m only in eighth grade right now.”

  “Oh my gosh,” I said, remembering something. “We forgot to sign Poppy in as a visitor at the office!”

  “We still have time,” Zaniah said.

  Poppy checked the time on her laptop. “We better hurry. I want to be sure everything’s going to work properly before the pep rally starts.”

  “This place will be crawling with students in ten or fifteen minutes,” Coach Reynolds said.

  We ran through the gym, then slowed our pace to speed-walking in the hallways. There were a few more kids there now. We even passed the four trivials along the way.

  “No, Nico-liar?” Stephanie asked as we passed them.

  “None of your business,” Tabitha shot back.

  Mrs. Ringer picked up a ‘Visitor PASS’ sticker and pen when she saw us headed for the glass door, then held it out to us. Principal Horawitz must have given her a heads up, too.

  “Thank you,” three of us said together before we rushed back into and through the halls.

  More kids were steadily trickling into the school. Half the marching band was already sitting in the designated area of the bleachers when we reentered the gym. A few students had even climbed to the top rows.

  Poppy opened her presentation, then hit a key on her laptop and Bullying popped up on the big screen. She hit the same key and her definition appeared. “Looks like we’re good to go,” she said, erasing them both.

  “So now we just wait, right?” Lavender asked.

  “Bleh. I guess we should practice our pep rally cheers since they just showed up,” Stephanie said, nodding to the trivials who’d walked into the gym.

  “What about Poppy?” I asked, hating to leave her middle-schooler-side while we were in the high school.

  “I’ll be fine.” She took a seat next to Coach Maguire. “I need to study for the two tests I’ll be making up Mond
ay, anyway.”

  Stephanie waved the trivials over. “How about if we go over our Fire It Up cheer until Coach gets here?” she asked when we were all gathered together. We lined up and ran through the cheer. Kids really started pouring in about the time we got to the end. Several came over to request a sticker and left empty-handed.

  I got waaay distracted and barely made it through the steps when Ty took a seat in one of the hard, plastic chairs next to Poppy. He kept talking to her until Ms. Nordik and Principal Horawitz appeared heading our way.

  “Are you girls ready?” Principal Horawitz asked us.

  “Yes, sir.” Brittany nodded.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you girls were giving a presentation at the pep rally?” Ms. Nordik asked.

  “Not them.” Zaniah glanced at the trivials, when Ms. Nordik included them in a proud, sweeping look. “Just us five.”

  “And Poppy,” I added. Ty was gone now, so I waved her over. “She did all the hard work.”

  Poppy came over, and said, “Hi.”

  “So you’ll become one of my students next year?” Principal Horawitz asked, giving her a wink.

  “Yes, sir. Ty Black’s my brother.”

  “Really? Good kid. Good grades. I’ll expect the same from you, Miss Black.” The winking eye raised an eyebrow to her.

  “Of course. I’m a straight A student, and a member of my school’s science club.”

  “Well, that’s good to hear. So, I think the plan is to start with your presentation, then we’ll have the cheerleaders cheering and the band playing while our football team comes out onto the floor. We’ve still got a few minutes for now, so I think I’ll go check with Coach Sanders to make sure they’re ready, too.”

  “Thanks, Principal Horawitz,” Brittany said.

  “Thank you,” the rest of us echoed.

  I noticed Ty sitting in the second row right behind the announcer’s table. He’s just here to support his sister, I told myself, wishing it was for me, too. At least the football players were waiting in the locker rooms, so Blaine wasn’t hanging all over me right in front of Ty. Eh, what does it even matter? I asked myself dejectedly.

  A knot began to form in my stomach when I looked up at the enormous and still-growing number of high-schoolers in the stands on both sides. In a matter of minutes, I would be ripping the knives Nicole had driven into my back and stabbing them into hers. Hopefully it wouldn’t get me in too much trouble.

  I still couldn’t stop thinking about her crying and pleading with me not to do this the night before.

  That picture of my dad with his arms around us both came to mind next. He used to play board games with us whenever Nicole spent the night over. Any memory she had of him was always a good one. It occurred to me for the first time that he wouldn’t have wanted this from me, no matter what Nicole had done.

  But I was backed into a corner. These hundreds of kids had all been promised her secrets. Most of them were already watching me at that very moment, sitting ready to witness the gruesome act.

  Brittany put a hand on mine and Poppy’s backs and got our group of six moving toward the table. “So, are we ready for real?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Duh.”

  “I hope so,” I said with a sigh.

  “Don’t worry, Hadley,” Zaniah said. “You’re the star of the show. You couldn’t mess this up if you tried.”

  “Thanks, and thanks so much for having my back through all this, girls. Seriously, I don’t even want to think about what I would have done without you.”

  “Aw, we love you, Hadley.” Brittany put her arms around our necks to give us a hug. Lavender, Stephanie, and Zaniah hugged us from the other sides.

  “Thanks for letting me do this with you guys, too,” Poppy said, leaning over to pull the microphones out from under the table. She handed them out to Brittany, Stephanie, and Lavender.

  Brittany looked at her really surprised. “You know we literally couldn’t have done this without you, right?”

  “Yeah,” Stephanie said. “We’re great with athletics, not so much with computery smarts.”

  “Plus, you’re so much fun,” Lavender added.

  Poppy smiled as she flicked up the little switches on the speakers. “Do we need to test these out, Coach Maguire?”

  “Nah, they should be good.”

  The drumline hit a beat. They did warmups and drew a few cheers from the crowd. The stands started to look like they might burst. The flow of students became a mere trickle pretty soon.

  “It’s show time, girls,” Brittany said eagerly when Principal Horawitz stepped onto the gym floor and made his way to center court, followed by Vice-Principal Mindy.

  44

  Deep breaths, I told myself, trying to carry out the command. I looked through the stands, row by row, searching for Nicole’s battered face.

  “I’m going to need one of those, girls,” Principal Horawitz said when he was close enough to hold out a hand for a microphone. Lavender held hers out. Then he and Ms. Mindy went to stand at the center of the gym. They waited for the band to finish their song.

  This was the moment we’d been preparing and waiting for all week. My girls surrounding me gushed with anticipation. Even if I decided to let down my school, I couldn’t do it to them.

  “Good morning, Silver Wing High School,” Principal Horawitz said into the mic.

  A few kids shouted, “Good morning,” back to him. Slowly, people got quieter.

  “If you haven’t already heard,” Principal Horawitz continued, “our football team is on quite a winning streak.”

  Some guy hollered, “Yeah, go Angels,” in a scratchy voice that caused some laughing.

  Principal Horawitz paused to chuckle to himself. “Yes, a quarter of the way through the season, our football team stands undefeated.” He stopped for all the cheering and clapping and whistling.

  I glanced at Ty and caught him watching me.

  “All right, all right.” Principal Horawitz waved a hand for silence. “We’re going to start today’s pep rally with a special presentation which will be given by five of our varsity cheerleaders and a student visiting us today from Silver Wing’s Henlock Middle School—Brittany Peterson, Lavender Harkington, Zaniah Flethchy, Stephanie Alderman, Hadley Cane, and Poppy Black.” He turned to face us. “Girls, I’ll turn the time over to you.”

  I sucked in this giant, red-hot breath. “Oh my gosh,” I muttered under the applause while letting out the air. I followed the other four center stage.

  Principal Horawitz handed the mic to Lavender and went to take a seat across from the announcer’s table.

  The word Bullying popped up on the screen, then the definition, and I kind of wanted to run away and hide somewhere.

  Brittany held her mic up first. “We’ve had, like, the craziest week of bullying ever with the Clash of the Cheerleaders going on. My girls and I thought we’d do this to help put a lid on all that and wrap up the week right. So here goes.” She turned her attention to the screen. “Bullying is any act performed by one person to hurt another person in any way…”

  The red-hot feeling in my chest pulsed like crazy through my body. I went over Nicole’s biggest secrets in my head. First, there were her years of bed wetting. I’d started bringing my own pillow and sleeping bag instead of crashing in her bed after my second time getting soaked. I still remembered waking halfway through her accident and trying to get her up with no success. Soooo embarrassing, but nothing compared to the others.

  Brittany was already handing her mic to Zaniah.

  Okay, deep breaths, Hadley.

  Second, Nicole stuffed her bra for nearly a year in middle school. She couldn’t wear anything even remotely low-cut, for fear of someone seeing the evidence. Sleepovers were kind of tense throughout that time period, because what if something shifted in her sleep? I remembered her moving around inside her sleeping bag when she woke up and we were at someone else’s house, just to make sure her fake boobs were s
till in place. Totally humiliating.

  The mic had been passed a few times before I paused from my thoughts long enough to pay attention to my BFF’s presentation. How far along were they if they were talking about the best ways to respond to bullies? The hot fear still pounding through my body made it hard to remember.

  Relax, Hadley. Take a deep breath. I inhaled and exhaled slowly. Nicole deserves it. She dishonored Dad, the best dad ever, the one who was always so nice to her.

  Third, she cheated on two of her major finals last year. Math was always a struggle for Nicole, and she said science just gave her a headache. At some point during her freshmen year, she decided it would be easier not to try, to let someone else do it for her. This was something I couldn’t prove, so she probably wouldn’t have to retake the exams or anything. Still, awful.

  Brittany had the mic in her hand again. Was this her third or fourth time around? She was talking about what a bystander should do when they see someone being bullied.

  Oh my gosh! They’re more than halfway done. I bit my nails nervously. It must have been three years since I put down that habit. Just try to calm down. Breathe, Hadley, in and out. Breathe.

  There was also Andrea’s Mercedes. Nicole scratched it on our way to cheer practice after school. It was a miracle no-one saw her. The next morning, Andrea stomped through the halls, asking everyone WAY too loudly if they knew who did it, and threatening to recreate the scars put on her car onto whomever did it when she found them. Absolutely the most dangerous secret, physically, anyway.

  Stephanie threw her long ponytail over her shoulder and took the mic. She read the first part of the final section of Poppy’s presentation, where a few anti-bullying organizations were highlighted.

  A tiny drop of sweat ran down the side of my face. My insides were tense and felt like they were trembling, like any second they would run for it and leave my empty body to face this horrible thing I had to do alone.

  Chill, Hadley, and breathe. Deep breaths. This will all be over soon.