Revenge of the Titan

by Zoe Evans

  “Weird. I wonder what they were fighting about?”

  Jacqui shook her head. “I have no idea. But if we had to worry about having an annoyed Clem with us before, now we have to worry about having an annoyed and ANGRY Clem. Trust me, from experience, the combo is not a good one.”

  “When is that girl ever NOT angry?”

  Jacqui smiled. “I guess you’re right. But today she seems more peeved than usual. Oh man, I hope Coach Whipley knew what she was doing in asking her to tag along.”

  Just then, Tabitha Sue came running over to us. “Hey, guys! You ready for our big day?” She was in high spirits, thank goodness. Her cheeks were flushed from sprinting to us, and her eyes had a little sparkle in them.

  “More than ready,” I replied.

  “Ready to kick butt!” said Jacqui.

  “Well, come on then and get on the bus! We’re doing makeup.”

  I decided I would do my best to try and ignore Clem and her Mama Drama and enjoy just hanging with my team and getting psyched up with them. Katarina had brought what looked like a duffel bag purely devoted to makeup and beauty.

  Jacqui got elbow-deep into the bag, seeing what goodies lay inside. “Seriously, Katarina? Six different types of hot rollers?”

  “Of course,” Katarina scoffed. “Everyvon has theee different hairs. Vich von vould like me to style zem?” She looked at Tabitha Sue, Jacqui, and me. Then her eyes landed on Jared.

  “Hey, count me out!” said Jared. “My hair looks just fine the way it is.”

  “Oh, come on, Jared,” Tabitha Sue teased. “How about a little stage makeup?”

  Jared covered his face with his hands. “No! No makeup. Ew!” He ducked behind the seat where Ian and Matt sat, listening to their iPods. “Guys, you have to help me. The Mary Kay ladies are attacking!”

  Matt lowered his headphones. “Mary WHO?”

  Jacqui passed around blue ribbons to all the girls. “These are good luck ribbons,” she said. “To tie in our hair. Guess it’s a Titan ritual I can’t shake. Except the Titans always tie them in their laces.”

  “Nice. Thanks, Jacqui,” I said.

  Suddenly we were overcome with the smell of fresh bagels. I looked toward where the smell was coming from, and it was at the front of the bus, where Mom had been chatting with Coach Whipley. I didn’t remember Mom bringing bagels into the car.

  That’s when I looked outside the bus and saw Mr. Datner driving off. I guess it was pretty nice of him to supply us with our morning carb fix.

  “I promised you guys breakfast, and here it is!” she said, handing the bagels back. “We’ve got all flavors. There’s low-fat cream cheese and butter in the bag. Don’t ruin your uniforms!” She passed the bag to Clementine first, who was sitting in the front with Mom and Whipley. Clementine frowned and wrinkled her nose. “Ugh. No thanks.”

  “What? They’re still warm. Come on, have one,” Mom said.

  “No thanks, Coach Hays, I don’t like to fill up on carbs. I have my protein shake in the cooler. So many less calories,” she said smugly.

  I knew Mom wanted to say something back to her but was holding it in. Mom was all about healthy eating, but she also knew that carbs aren’t the worst thing before an action-packed day. “Suit yourself,” she said, passing the bag to the Testosterone Twins instead.

  As we were chowing down, Mom came toward the back of the bus and started counting heads. “Everyone here?” she said, counting one more time.

  “No!” joked Ian.

  Mom smiled. “Really funny.”

  She gave the bus driver the go-ahead to leave, and we started pulling out of the parking lot. “Okay, guys, this is it!” said Jacqui. “The moment we’ve all been waiting for. Who wants to sing some Grizzly songs?”

  Clementine scowled and put her fingers in her ears.

  I secretly wished that Clem and her Big Bad Mood had stayed at home. Even Mr. Datner would have been way better than this!

  It took a couple of hours, but we passed the time pretty well, singing songs and telling funny cheer stories. When we pulled up to the school where the competition was being held, people were bursting to get off the bus and find out where we’d be placed in the order of schools competing.

  “All right, Grizzlies. Stick together!” said Mom. “Don’t forget your stuff.”

  The school’s gym was larger than ours, but way smaller than the one where the Titans had competed for Regional Qualifier. Still, it was all gussied up for competition day. There was a big stage in the middle of the auditorium that held the mat, with giant fluorescent lights that gave the mat an eerie glow. It was like the mat itself had some kind of supernatural power. I hoped it was the power to make us win.

  You could smell the anticipation in the room. Cheerleaders wearing every color of the rainbow flipped, kicked, and cartwheeled across the mat. “Higher!” yelled one coach, who looked like she hadn’t slept in years. “Did I say lower? I didn’t think so. Girls, come on!” One of the cheerleaders ran off the mat in tears.

  It’s always moments like these when I’m happy that Mom is our coach. Her style is definitely serious and firm, but she doesn’t put us down or make us feel bad.

  I looked around at the competition and felt a little overwhelmed. Nearly every cheerleading team had its game face on. These girls looked FIERCE. Even though the competition was definitely a big deal for all the teams there that day (including us), I didn’t expect everyone to look so serious. This was Get Up and Cheer!, not Regionals. I looked at Jacqui to see what she was feeling, and her face was just a sea of calm. I guess she’s been to quite a few of these things in her life—and after having had to sub for Marissa at the Titans’ Regional Qualifier, this probably seemed like a piece of cake.

  Mom went off to register our team, so Jacqui and I went about finding a somewhat quiet corner to gather in a circle and stretch out for a bit. Until we knew when we were set to compete, we didn’t want to tire the team out too fast.

  When we sat down, I saw that Katarina was fidgeting with her bows nervously.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I am just sinking about Diane. She should be being here. She vas good flier. Good stunter.”

  I was like, “Oh no. Not the Diane stuff again . . .”

  “Who?” said Jared. “I do not know this person thou speakest of. That name is dead to me.”

  I knew he wasn’t still THAT upset over the Diane thing, because he hadn’t talked about it in a while. That was probably his way of closing the conversation. Unfortunately, Katarina completely misunderstood and started freaking out.

  “Vat? Diane ees not dead!”

  “No, no,” said Jared, laughing. “It’s an expression.”

  Katarina exhaled with relief. “I am sorry. I have zee nerves.”

  Tabitha Sue patted Katarina on the back. “Don’t worry, we’re gonna rock this place.”

  “Of zis I hope,” said Katarina.

  We led the team through a series of stretches, and then Jacqui suggested we hold hands and “focus on ourselves winning.” I’ve never been much into that “Kumbaya”-type stuff, but I figured it couldn’t hurt.

  When Ian and Matt finally stopped sniggering about how cheesy it was for all of us to hold hands (basically after Jacqui shot Matt one of her quieting looks), we all took a few deep breaths together.

  “Now, envision yourself doing the routine,” said Jacqui.

  I opened my eyes just a bit to make sure that everyone was going along with this and was surprised to find the entire team’s eyes were closed. Nice!

  “Okay, we’re totally synchronized. We’re smiling, we’re loud, we’re full of energy.”

  I nodded, then realized that no one could see me agreeing with her.

  When Jacqui was done, I could almost see the positive energy radiating from our team. We totally need to do this more often!

  Mom came back and told us that we would be competing smack-dab in the middle of the day. I thought that was pretty good�
�it would give us time to prepare but not TOO much time. We waited for our turn on the practice mats, trying not to get psyched out by the other teams.

  One team, the Hornets, wearing gold-and-black uniforms that literally seemed to sparkle, looked really awesome on the mat. There was one part where the team separated into three groups, and the bases lifted up the fliers at exactly the same moment. The fliers then did some heel-stretches into tick-tocks without missing a beat. They came down in a cradle, with huge smiles on their faces. This squad was definitely not boring.

  “Wow,” Mom whispered to me. “I think that’s the competition.”

  “No kidding,” I said.

  Finally it was our turn on the mat.

  “Grizzlies!” said Mom. “You worked hard for this. You’ve gotten this far. This is your time to shine. Now show everyone what makes the Grizzlies roar!”

  We ran onto the mat screaming as if this were the real deal, and not a practice run.

  We tried to imagine our music, and as we began I could see Mom smiling at us from across the mat. Everything was going fine in the routine, from everyone remembering their places, to hitting each move with precision. And then a mini disaster struck: Tabitha Sue lost her balance in the middle of a heel-stretch and nearly ate the mat, before Ian caught her.

  This was not a good sign. I knew it wouldn’t take much to rattle Tabitha Sue. She gets so stressed out at these kinds of things, and I could tell that from the moment we’d entered the auditorium, she’d been a little on edge.

  “Tabitha Sue, you okay?” I asked.

  Her face looked white as she bent down to massage her leg. “This is bad, Madison. I never mess up that heel-stretch. What if this means I’m gonna mess up for real when we’re out there?”

  “Tabitha Sue,” I said, “that’s not gonna happen. This is what the run-throughs are for—you have to get all the bad stuff out here so only the good stuff happens when it’s our turn.”

  “Did you hurt yourself?” asked Mom. A little wrinkle of worry appeared between her eyebrows.

  “Not really. I mean, it hurts a little. . . .”

  “I’m gonna go get you an ice pack. Rest it off, okay?” said Mom.

  Tabitha Sue nodded.

  “All right, guys, we’re gonna continue our run-through without Tabitha Sue,” Jacqui announced. This would be a real test for us—could we do the routine with a missing person?

  The answer, thank goodness, was YES. The stunt sequence went off without a hitch. Tabitha Sue cheered her heart out from the sidelines.

  “That looked awesome!” she said, as we came running off the mat, nearly everyone out of breath.

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  “Definitely,” said Tabitha Sue. “Maybe you guys should do this without me.”

  I wasn’t exactly sure she was being sarcastic, so I punched her in the shoulder. “Shut up! Please. Are you kidding me?”

  “Hey, hey, just putting it out there,” she said with a smile.

  Then, just as I was getting hopeful that this Tabitha Sue thing was our only setback of the day, Katarina came sprinting over, looking like someone had just run over her puppy. “Thees ees the most terrible!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My skeert! It has been reeped!”

  She held up her skirt to show me a rip the size of Montana.

  “Yikes,” said Jacqui. “All right, calm down, Katarina. This can be fixed.” I saw her scanning the crowd for Mom, who notoriously carried things like sewing supplies in her bag. I’d be surprised if she didn’t have an entire sewing machine with her for a day like today. Mom finally emerged from the sea of pom-poms and glitter, holding the ice pack over her head.

  “Sorry this took so long,” she said, handing it to Tabitha Sue. “You wouldn’t believe how many people are already injured. It took me ten minutes just to get to the front of the first-aid-kit line.”

  “We didn’t bring our own ice packs?” asked Jacqui.

  “We did, but they didn’t hold up as well as I would have liked during the long bus ride. It’s too bad—hey, what’s wrong with Katarina?”

  Mom had just noticed Katarina, sitting with her head in her hands. Katarina looked up at us with a mascara-streaked face. “I feel like eediot! I peeked at string and now look!”

  She showed Mom the rip.

  “Oh,” Mom said.

  “We were thinking you probably have some sewing supplies on you. Right, Coach?” asked Jacqui.

  “Yes, in fact, I do!” Mom said excitedly. “Katarina, come with me. Guys, we’ll be back in a jiff.”

  “Don’t worry, Katarina,” said Jared as Katarina moped along. “There’s time to sew this back up.”

  Jacqui looked around for the rest of the team but couldn’t find Ian and Matt anywhere. Usually all she had to do was call their names and they would come running, but that tactic didn’t really work so well in this super-crowded and loud space.

  “Tabitha Sue and Jared, you stay here. Maddy, will you come help me round up the troops?”

  We searched on the mats first, in case the boys were practicing last-minute stunts. No luck. Then we looked by the canteen. Still no Ian or Matt. The place was too crowded to find these guys easily, even though they looked more like football players than cheerleaders.

  “Maybe we should just go back to our spot and hope they show up?” said Jacqui. She sounded a little frustrated. “We need to keep practicing.”

  “I know,” I said, still looking through the crowd for two muscle-y jocks in blue, white, and red. Then, just as I was about to give up too, I spotted them. In the bleachers, talking to a small group of cheerleaders wearing barely more than bikini tops and short shorts (totally against regulation). And guess who was standing nearby with a smug smile on her face? Of course: Clementine.

  Ian was standing in that way dudes like to pose to show off their muscles best: hands clasped in front of him so he could flex his biceps while making it seem that this is just how he always looks. Yeah, right! What was this, some kind of bodybuilder contest?

  Matt was giving googly eyes to a pint-size cheerleader with the biggest hair I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t imagine how much hair spray went into her cheer look. Can we say Totally Eighties?

  In typical Jacqui style, all she had to do was stand near Matt, and within seconds he turned around. He cleared his throat nervously and started blushing like a girl when he realized she was there.

  “Oh, hey, Jacqui,” he said, with a little squeak.

  “Um, this doesn’t really look like practicing to me,” Jacqui said with an arched eyebrow. “Unless you’re just practicing your flirting technique.”

  Just then Clementine walked up to us, put an arm around two of the cheerleaders, and smiled innocently. “I was just introducing the boys to some pals of mine. You know, just being friendly.”

  Jacqui and I were pretty darn sure that Clementine wasn’t trying to do us any favors. It’s not like she ever gave those guys the time of day when we were at school (ever since they became Grizzlies). Being friendly? I highly doubted it. Being a nuisance? That was more like it.

  “The boys are supposed to be with the rest of the team,” I said, more to Ian and Matt than Clementine. “And the last thing we need right now are distractions.”

  I actually didn’t mean to be mean, but I realized how that sounded after it came out of my mouth. Oh well. “Come on, guys, let’s go,” I said. The sooner we got out of the Clementine Circle of Friends, the better.

  “Whoa,” said Clementine. “You guys need to chill out. All this stress isn’t great before a competition.”

  Jacqui grabbed Ian and Matt by the hands and started dragging them away. “Thanks for the advice, Clem,” she said, as we walked away.

  “Those girls were nice!” said Ian as we walked toward the Grizzlies. “What’s the big deal?”

  I could tell that Jacqui was in a zero testosterone tolerance kind of mood. “The deal is,” she snapped, “Tabitha Sue is injured and Katarina
just had a wardrobe malfunction. We don’t need anything else to bring us down. Let’s just stick together, focus on what we’re here to do today, and win. Okay?”

  Ian gulped. “Okay, Cap’n.”

  Thankfully, by the time we got back to the rest of the team, Tabitha Sue was looking a lot better. “I think the ice pack did the trick,” she said. “I’m totally fine to get back in the game.”

  “Awesome. It doesn’t even look bad,” I said, examining the light pink bruise on her leg.

  The problem was, Mom and Katarina hadn’t come back yet. I was getting a little worried. I wanted to make sure we’d have time to run through the routine one last time before it was our turn up. And the morning had been going by so fast. By the time you got through the crowds to walk from one end of the gym to the other, that was, like, ten minutes without even trying.

  We decided to take the team—minus Katarina—to the mats again to just work on the stunt sequence. It was a little hard to do without one key stunter, but we made it through. Yay! And I was just telling the team to remember their cheer faces (huge, ridiculous grins and eyes on the crowd) when I spotted some familiar faces hovering nearby. It was Lanie, with Marc and even EVAN in tow! My cheer face must have been off the hook, because I just felt like bursting out in song. Finally, after all the nonexistent e-mails, calls, and texts from Evan (and the thousands of e-mails, calls, and texts from MOI), here he was. At my competition.

  I ran over to my friends with my arms open wide for hugs. I felt like I was in one of those movies where the sappy music starts playing and the actors run to each other in slow motion.

  “You guys! How in the world did you get here?”

  Lanie smiled and looked at Evan, who was staring at his shoes. “Don’t look at me,” said Lanie. “It was all this guy.” She jabbed her index finger in Evan’s shoulder. “He promised his mom he’d mow the lawn all summer and build a compost heap if she drove us here.”

  Evan grinned sheepishly up at me. “I’m gonna be elbow-deep in trash and worm poo, that’s for sure.”

  I was so relieved to (a) see Evan here and (b) have him talk to me, I felt like I had wings on my back that were lifting me off the ground.