by Kieran Scott
I laughed and pulled away. “Enough already. I get it.”
My mom smiled and gave me a hug. “Look, the Annisa I know would never let a bunch of petty girls stop her from cheerleading.” She pulled back and looked me in the eye. “The Annisa I know would never let anything stop her from getting something she wanted.”
It never ceased to amaze me how totally deep and beautiful my mother’s eyes were. They made you believe pretty much anything she said. Usually.
I mean, in theory, my mother was right. I’d never backed down from a challenge before. But I’d also never felt like this before—so alone and totally ostracized. I’d never had so many people not like me—and they didn’t even know me yet. The whole thing was just too overwhelming. I was having trouble working up that go-getter excitement, and I hated myself for it. What the heck was wrong with me?
I had a feeling the Annisa my mother knew had left the car somewhere back on the New Jersey Turnpike. And it looked like the Florida Annisa was going to be an utter outcast.
“Tell me it isn’t true,” Bethany said, grabbing me in front of our homeroom the next morning. She dragged me inside and straight to the back. “Tell me you didn’t actually go over to the dark side. I let you out of my sight for five seconds—”
“Okay, ow,” I said, sitting down and extracting my arm from her grip. “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on? What’s going on, you ask? Only the total readjustment of my entire personal peer-assessment process!” Bethany ranted. “I thought I knew you! I thought we were simpatico! And then I find out that you’re going to be a cheerleader!” She brought her hand to her head and swooned. “One day without me and this is what happens to you. I think I need to sit down.”
I swallowed against a dry throat. “Yeah, about that. Where were you yesterday?” I asked, hoping to change the subject.
“I ditch every once in a while. Keeps the teachers guessing. And don’t try to change the subject. Cheerleading?” She said it like it was another word for “roadkill.”
“Look, I’m not trying out,” I told her. “And how did you know I went to the meeting, anyway?”
“Because my dear brother Bobby, king of all that is evil in this place, is dating Tara Timothy, queen of all that is evil in this place,” Bethany whispered hoarsely. “She came over to my house last night ranting about the brunette überklutz that broke her nose and is obviously trying to ruin her,” Bethany said. “Wait a minute!” Her dark-rimmed eyes brightened slightly. “Is that why you’re doing this? To ruin her? Because then I might be able to get behind it.”
“Um . . . no. Not really,” I said.
“Then I just don’t get it. You’re so not a rah-rah,” Bethany said, studying me.
“Why? Why is it so impossible to see me as a cheerleader?” I asked.
“You met them! Do you think you belong there?”
Frustration started to mount in my chest. I just wanted someone to give me a straight answer. Something to make me certain I was making the right decision.
“Not necessarily, but why? Because they’re blonde? In case you haven’t noticed, so is this entire school.”
Bethany turned in her seat to face me and lowered her voice. “They’re not just blonde. They’re mega-popular. And psycho-bitchy. They look down their noses at anyone in this place who tries to be just a little different.”
“You mean like you,” I said.
“Please. I don’t care what those people think of me,” she said, turning to face forward again and picking up a pen to doodle along her desk. Body language, anyone? She obviously did care. Or at least had at some point in her life.
“Okay, so I’m not a bitch and I’m not blonde, but who’s to say I can’t be popular?” I said.
“You’re not getting it. You’re not blonde, you’re not a bitch, so therefore you will never be popular,” Bethany said, dead serious. “At least not around here.”
Wow. Was it really possible that the social lines could be that straight and narrow at this place? And if so, who was I to try to change them? I mean, normally I’m up for a challenge, but to strive against adversity just so I could be on a squad of people who hated me anyway? It hardly seemed worth it.
Apparently my gut instinct was right. I was going to stay as far away from tryouts as possible.
“Me. Friends with a cheerleader,” Bethany said under her breath. “I gotta say, I just don’t think it’s possible.”
“Well, don’t worry about it,” I said grumpily, trying to ignore the closed-mindedness of her statement. “It’s not gonna happen.”
Sage flounced right over to my desk before English class.
“So, you’re not coming today, right?” she said. “Because you seem like a smart girl, so you know enough not to come.”
I wondered if I could rip those eyelashes off in one strip—quick and painful, like a Band-Aid. Not that I would ever try something like that, of course. I swallowed my pride and looked her in the eye.
“No,” I said. “I’m not coming.”
“Good.”
My hands curled into fists and my nails dug into the fleshy part of my palm as she walked to her desk. I so wanted to go over there and tell her exactly where she could shove her pom-poms.
“You’re kidding, right?” Mindy said, slipping into the next desk. “You’re not coming?”
I was saved from answering by the proverbial bell. Mrs. O’Donaghue started class, but we were only a few minutes in when a note landed square in the middle of my desk. I opened it, my hands shaking.
Annisa!
You HAVE to come! I need moral support!!!
XO
Mindy
I grabbed my pen and scrawled a message back.
What about Sage?
After all, I’d just gotten to this humanity-forsaken school. Mindy had other friends—people she’d known a lot longer than she’d known me. Let them be her moral support. I tossed the note back. It took Mindy a little bit longer to respond. The return note read:
Sage doesn’t want me on the squad. She’s too proud of herself for being the only sophomore that made it last year. If I make it, it’ll be like she’s not special or something.
XO
Mindy
I glanced back at Mindy and lifted one shoulder. I liked the girl and all, but I had made my decision.
Maybe.
It was just . . . Sage. Why did she have to come up to me and get my blood boiling all over again? I had been about ninety-nine percent comfortable with my decision right up until she got her little pug nose in my face. She was so smug. Wouldn’t it be worth trying out just to show these people they couldn’t get to me?
You know, I was starting to think that maybe I was a kind of proud person. I would love to say I could rise above it all and let their crap roll off my back, but the idea of cheering my heart out, making the squad and shoving their faces in it was growing more and more appealing.
Hey. Nobody’s perfect.
Mrs. O’Donaghue picked a few people to read aloud from Romeo and Juliet and, thankfully, I was not one of them. As the play was recited around me, I found myself spacing in and out, trying to envision myself at tryouts. I saw myself doing the cheer, saw myself executing a back tuck and surprising the judges. I glanced across the room at Sage, who was blithely scribbling in her notebook. She thought she was so much better than me. Just imagine the look on her face if I made the squad. Just imagine how shocked they would all be.
“Where be these enemies?” a guy a few rows ahead of me read, knocking me back into the present. “Capulet! Montague! See what a scourge is laid upon your hate/That Heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!”
It was the Prince’s big speech at the end. The part I like to call the “Neh neh neh neh neh neh!” speech. He gathers Romeo and Juliet’s fathers together over their children’s dead bodies and basically tells them they’re idiots and that their feud killed their kids. I always loved this part. It was when the old f
arts learned their lesson, two deaths too late.
Even though Romeo and Juliet’s situation was entirely different than mine, hearing that speech made me realize what a coward I was being. This wasn’t about pride. It was about courage! Conviction! Standing up for myself! Was I going to stand by and let a bunch of blondes intimidate me? No! I was not! Thank you, Big Bill!
As soon as the bell rang, I got up to deliver a “Neh neh neh neh neh neh!” speech of my very own.
“Sage!” I called out before she could get out the door.
She turned around, surprise in her big eyes. Mindy walked up behind me.
“I changed my mind,” I said firmly. “I’ll see you after school.”
Then I slipped right past her and headed off down the hall, my heart pounding. Okay, so it wasn’t much of a speech, but for once she didn’t have a loud whisper for me as I walked away. The “Neh neh neh neh neh neh!” had done its job.
“You do realize that just by wearing that outfit you’re seriously jeopardizing the fate of your eternal soul,” Bethany told me. We were standing outside the gym after school and Bethany was giving me a last-minute anti-pep talk. “Honestly, have you ever considered the concept of eternal hellfire? It doesn’t sound like fun.”
I was starting to think that Bethany Goow was a bit of a drama queen.
“Thanks for your concern, but I think I’m gonna be fine,” I told her with a laugh.
And I would. If all those butterflies that were currently slam-dancing in my gut would take five already. On the other side of the wooden doors, Mindy was going through her routine. I said a quick prayer to whoever might be listening that she wouldn’t mess up. Best-case scenario here? Mindy and I would both make the team, thereby making my daily life slightly less heinous than it needed to be. Unfortunately there were about twenty girls trying out for two spots, so the odds were against us.
“Are you sure this isn’t a joke?” Bethany said. “You’re going to go in there and moon them, right? You have ‘cheerleaders blow’ written across your butt.”
Before I could respond to that lovely visual, the cheering inside stopped. Mindy was being scored. And I was next.
Oh, God. I was going to hurl.
I heard pounding footsteps as Mindy jogged out and then the door opened. She was smiling, but somehow still looked nauseous.
“How did you do?” I asked.
“Okay, I think. You’re next,” Mindy responded. Then she lowered her chin and looked around at the other waiting girls. “They have half the football team in there in the stands to respond to the cheer. It’s so weird.”
The butterflies dispersed, leaving a hollow feeling. Half the football team? I almost wished she hadn’t warned me.
“Annisa Gobrowski?” someone called out from inside.
“Break a leg,” Mindy said.
“Literally!” Bethany called after me.
I rolled my eyes at her before stepping into the gym. I would just have to deal with Bethany if I made the squad. I just hoped she didn’t really make me choose between her and cheerleading. I’d only known her a few days, but somehow the girl felt like home to me. I didn’t want to lose her.
I jogged into the center of the gym, hands on hips, skin-busting grin in place. I made eye contact with each of the five judges, none of whom were my teachers. Coach Holmes was in the room, but no other cheerleaders were present. (Big relief.) Daniel Healy was there, however, front and center and surrounded by at least twenty guys in varsity jackets. He flashed me a thumbs-up.
“You can begin whenever you like,” Coach Holmes said.
And so I did.
An hour later, it was over. Everyone had done the routine and we were all sitting on the floor in the gym, waiting for the verdict. I felt oddly calm while Mindy sat next to me, chewing her nails into oblivion. I had done the best I could. And I had nailed the back tuck. Now it was just up to the numbers.
Performing for the judges was a lot easier than performing for the squad. And Daniel and the rest of the guys had at least responded to the cheer. All of them except one big, lumberjack type that I had pegged as Bethany’s brother, and therefore Tara’s boyfriend. He had just sat there with a bored expression. At one point, he’d even yawned.
“Okay, as far as I can tell, there are only three people who might have scored higher than us,” Mindy whispered.
I looked around the room furtively, wondering if anyone had heard. It didn’t matter, however. There were little clusters of whispering girls all around us, undoubtedly hypothesizing about the same thing.
“I’ll bite. Who?” I asked.
“Wendy Stewart? The girl with the wavy hair and the super-white teeth?” Mindy said, tilting her head in Wendy’s direction.
“Yeah. She’s pretty good,” I said, recalling her performance from the day before.
“Then there’s Shira Citron and Ally Stevenson,” Mindy said. “I think they almost made the squad last year.”
“What about that girl with the thick hair and the freckles?” I asked. “She was pretty good.”
“Trista McCarthy?” Mindy said, biting her lip as she pondered the possibility. “I don’t know. She seems kind of without energy.”
“Maybe,” I said. “We’re definitely above that chick in the spandex. She was all left feet.”
“Christy? Yeah. I feel bad for her. I think her mom wants her to be on the squad. She’d rather be in the library, writing romance novels,” Mindy said.
I glanced at Christy from across the gym. She was sitting by herself, her nose buried in a book called Hearts Aflame.
The sound of the gym door opening was like a nuclear bomb blast. Everyone sat up straight and there was an intake of air that could have created a black hole. Coach Holmes walked in, clipboard in hand, followed by the rest of the squad. I stared at Tara and Sage, trying to read their faces. Did they know anything?
“Okay, everyone, I want to thank you all again for your hard work,” Coach Holmes said, standing at the front of the room. “Many of you had incredibly high scores, but only two of you could make the team. I’m not one for dramatics, so those two people are—”
I reached out and clasped Mindy’s hand.
“Mindy McMahon and Annisa Gobrowski.”
She said my name! And wait! She said Mindy’s name! We both jumped up and screeched and hugged like the little cheerleaders we were. I couldn’t believe it. We’d beaten the stupid odds! We’d both made the team!
Then I realized we weren’t the only ones shouting.
“Her!? She’s on the team!?” Tara Timothy screamed. “She’s the one who narced on Kristen and Danielle! We wouldn’t have even had to go through this whole thing if it wasn’t for her!”
Mindy and I stopped jumping up and down and looked at Tara. The rest of the squad was standing back near the wall, avoiding eye contact with anyone.
“Tara, Kristen and Danielle made their own beds,” Coach Holmes told her. “No one is to blame for their behavior but themselves.”
“Oh, please!” Tara screeched, in complete tantrum mode. “The girl broke my nose. I’m gonna look like the Elephant Man for regionals because of her. And besides, she’s a total klutz! She’s going to bring us all down.”
Okay, that was totally uncalled for. She had no right to rag on my cheerleading skills. She hadn’t even seen them yet. And maybe I could be a klutz sometimes, but that was sometimes. I wasn’t a walking disaster area.
“This can’t be happening,” Tara continued. “Can’t you recount the scores?”
“Hey! Wait a minute,” I broke in.
“Was I talking to you?” Tara snapped.
I felt like I had been slapped.
“No, you weren’t,” I said. “But you were talking about me like I’m not even here. Don’t I get a chance to defend myself?”
“Girls,” Coach Holmes said in a warning tone.
“I’m sorry I broke your nose, but it’s not like I did it on purpose,” I said, looking Tara in the eye. Then
I turned to Phoebe, who was glaring at me from the wall. “And it was not my fault you had to move. It is, however, your fault that I have to live in a puke pink room.”
Phoebe’s mouth dropped open and I felt a smidge of regret, but I was on a roll.
“And you!” I said to Sage. “I don’t know what I did to offend you, but you can loud-whisper about me all you want. The last thing I need is the approval of a superficial brat like you.”
There was a moment of silence and I took a step back. I looked around at all the closed-off faces. Yeah, my first day had been an abysmal comedy of errors, but I hadn’t done anything on purpose. I was a good person. And I didn’t deserve all this.
“I’m sorry, Mindy,” I said, raising my hands. “I can’t do this.”
Then I turned and jogged out of the gym, slamming through the back door. I ran past the football field where the guys were practicing, past the cross-country team that was finishing their cooldown. I even cranked it up a notch and sprinted past the last few mailboxes to try to flush all the voices from my head. Voices telling me to go back—that Coach would never let me back on the team if I didn’t. I had to ignore them. If I didn’t, I would end up spending the next few months hanging with a bunch of girls who would make my life a living hell.
No way. It was over. When I got to my house, I realized I had never once looked back.
The next morning, I left fifteen minutes early for school. There was no way I could deal with Daniel Healy. I was sure that Sage had told him all about my freak-out and had totally embellished the things I said. He probably wouldn’t want to talk to me anyway and I’d have to walk to school with him walking twenty yards behind me in uncomfortable silence.
As I was crossing the football field, my cell phone rang. When I saw Jordan’s name on the Caller ID, I almost cried.
“Hey!”
“Hey, babe! I just wanted to call and see if you decided what to do about this whole cheerleaders of the Antichrist thing,” she said.
