The Geek Girl's Guide to Cheerleading

by Tahmaseb, Charity

  “PQ?”

  “Party Quest, Bethany. You still didn’t sign up, did you?”

  I hadn’t, and I wasn’t sure I was going to either. For the past few weeks all my friends had gone crazy over a new online role-playing game. The avatars in the game were cute, and if Moni was right, there were tons of guys who played. But the truth was, I found online boys just as intimidating as the real-life ones.

  Moni’s fingers flew over the keys, but she didn’t enter the game world. There wasn’t enough time. Twice a month and every other holiday, Moni stayed with her dad, eighty miles north in Minneapolis. Sometimes she left straight from school. Other times, like tonight, she met up with her dad at a neutral location like the Happy Chef just north of town.

  Her mom seemed to go a little crazy on those days. Moni never said anything, but I had the feeling I was the buffer zone in the routine. With me around, Moni could finish packing and mentally prepare for her dad’s new girlfriend without her mom hovering over her.

  Moni logged out, readied her laptop for the trip, and threw a few more things in her bag. At the last minute, she grabbed the pom-poms and stuffed those in as well. She blew kisses to Orlando and Archimedes while her mom paced out in the hall.

  “I’ll call you from my cell,” Moni said when we pulled up to the curb in front of my house. These days, she never used the D-word (for Dad) around her mom. It always made me wonder when her parents would start acting like grown-ups again.

  I stood on the front porch until I saw brake lights and the turn signal; then Moni was officially gone. I sighed. Things had been bad enough right after the divorce; but once both of her parents started dating, Moni’s spirits had sunk even lower. On weekends she had to put up with Monica, her dad’s walking, talking Barbie doll. And lately, Mrs. Fredrickson spent a lot of time in coffee shops with a younger man whom Moni had dubbed “Starbucks Boy.”

  In comparison, sneaking in a set of pom-poms was a minor problem. Still, I shoved them under my jacket—hoping it just looked like I’d had a big lunch—and opened the front door. Inside was dark, but I caught a whiff of chicken cutlets and my dad’s special biscuits. Okay, so he popped them from a can and baked them, but somehow that made them dee-licious.

  In the entryway, I dropped my backpack and everything nonessential to my mission. I willed my stomach not to growl and crept up the small flight of stairs to the living room. Three tiptoed steps down the hall to my bedroom, I ran into my nine-year-old sister, Shelby.

  “What’s that?” she asked, poking the front of my coat.

  “Nothing, nothing at all.” I race-walked to my room.

  “Come on, Bee. Show me what it is.”

  I shut my bedroom door, shoved the pom-poms under the bed, hung my coat in the closet, then sat at my desk, like nothing had happened.

  A few seconds later Shelby poked her head inside. “Let me see.”

  “What?” I said, a little breathless.

  “Beth-a-nee, come on.”

  I shrugged and glanced at the closet, then pretended I hadn’t. Shelby sprang forward, threw open the closet door, and said, “Ah…ha?”

  I laughed.

  “I’m telling Mom!” Shelby ran from the room.

  “What?” I called after her. “That I have nothing in my closet?”

  Dad yelled from the kitchen. It was time to eat. I waited until partway through dinner to drop the C-bomb. I figured with the carbohydrates from the biscuits making everyone drowsy, I might be able to slip in a reference to cheering between the talk about college politics (Dad), and Science and Math Sisters Club (Shelby), and tomorrow’s Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma’s (Mom).

  Once everyone settled into a rhythm of eating and talking, I plunged in. “Could you please pass the salt?” I said to Mom. “And by the way, I’m-cheering-for-winter-sports-this-year.”

  My mom sighed. For a moment I thought that was the end of it. I didn’t have the salt, but hey, I didn’t have any explaining to do either.

  “Really, Bee.” Mom studied the shaker in her hand before passing it to me. “If you don’t enjoy athletics, just don’t go to their contests. Taunting the jocks will only make things worse.”

  “Huh?” Dad, Shelby, and I all said at once.

  Mom raised a spear of broccoli on her fork and used it to indicate my dad. “Oscar, you have to agree, nothing good can come from jeering at them.”

  “Dear.” Behind his glasses, Dad’s expression looked perplexed. “I think she said…cheering.”

  The broccoli fell from Mom’s fork. Her brow wrinkled, then she smiled and nudged me with her elbow. “Cheering?” She laughed. “Oh, right. Bethany. A cheerleader. Of course.”

  I thought she might spurt green tea out her nose.

  “That is what she said,” Shelby chimed in. “Isn’t it, Bethany? Isn’t it? Isn’t it?” Her eyes glittered as they swam from me to Mom and back again to me.

  “Well—,” I started.

  “Well?” Mom echoed.

  “Well, yes, cheer-ing. Moni and I tried out, just for fun.” I shrugged, probably because I still didn’t believe it myself. “And we made the squad.”

  “Do you have real pom-poms?” Shelby gushed. “Can I see them? Will you teach me the cheers?”

  “Hold on there, Miss Firecracker,” Mom said. “Bethany, honey, are you sure this isn’t some sort of—”

  “Some sort of what, Mom? Mistake? Joke?” Chantal Simmons and her gauntlet girl groupies probably thought Moni and me making the squad was some sort of hilarious error. But my own mother? I expected my parents would have trouble accepting the “Bethany as cheerleader” concept from an intellectual standpoint. Smart girls like me didn’t participate in such frivolous things.

  “Why shouldn’t I be a cheerleader?” I demanded.

  “Now, Bee.” Dad reached over to pat my hand. I pulled it away. “I’m sure your mom didn’t mean—”

  “No, no. Of course not.” Mom pressed her fingertips against her closed eyes—a sure sign she was aggravated. “I just…I mean, are you certain that you…and Moni?”

  Enough was enough. I picked up my plate and headed for the kitchen.

  “Bethany,” said Dad.

  “Bee, sweetie, come back and finish your dinner.” That was Mom.

  “I’m not hungry,” I said, and stomped to my room.

  Later, as I made my way to the bathroom, I overheard my parents still discussing it.

  “Our little girl is growing up,” Dad said. “It’s time she started making her own decisions. And if some of them are poor ones, then, well, that’s a learning experience too.”

  “You just don’t know, Oscar. You were never a teenage girl. They can be so cruel.”

  “You’re talking to the man who went through high school as Oscar, as in Mayer wiener. You don’t have to tell me anything about cruel. But I don’t think the athletic department would—I mean, this isn’t a prank, not if the administration is involved.”

  “Oh.” Mom’s voice brightened. “I could call the school….”

  That was the last thing I needed. And even though Mom hadn’t called the school—yet—the shame of it scorched my cheeks. I ran cold water and splashed my face. By the time I returned to my room, they were all there on my bed—Mom, Dad, and Shelby.

  Mom smiled weakly. “Someone wanted to see those pom-poms.”

  I reached under the bed, pulled out the handfuls of purple and gold fringe, and dropped them—one, two—on the floor by Shelby’s feet.

  “Can I touch them?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I said. Then, glaring at Mom, I added, “They won’t bite.”

  “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry,” said Mom. “It’s going to take some getting used to. We’ve never had a cheerleader in the family before.” Except she said “cheerleader” the same way someone else might say “ax murderer.”

  Shelby gave the pom-poms a tentative, then a more strenuous, series of shakes. Over the rattle of fringe, I said to Mom, “Please don’t call the school.
”

  “But—”

  “Please?” I tried to keep the whine from my voice and looked to Dad for help.

  In the end, I got it. Sort of. Mom wouldn’t call the school, but I had to be available for occasional babysitting. Dad hoped I’d continue to help him with the family website. They both hoped I would keep up my grades. No problem.

  Or so I hoped.

  After a long holiday weekend of explaining to my geeky relatives—No, Shelby doesn’t just have an active imagination. Yes, I really will be cheering this winter. Right, I did say varsity squad. No, they don’t have separate crews to cheer for the Brain Bowl team—actually getting a cheerleading uniform seemed beside the point.

  That Monday after school, the entire squad stood in the equipment room, in various states of purple and gold.

  “It’s supposed to be short,” Moni said.

  “Not this short.” I held the microskirt to my waist. “I don’t want to show this much leg.”

  Moni, who was several inches shorter, scowled. “At least you have legs to show.”

  “I don’t care. No one wants to show this much leg,” I said.

  “Chantal Simmons would.”

  Chantal. Despite her current status as Queen Bee, the Chantal I used to know would not relish flashing butt shots at the student body.

  “I bet Jack Paulson likes leggy girls,” said Moni.

  “So?”

  “So, I’m thinking we need to get you an even shorter skirt.”

  In less than two weeks, I’d be the one flashing the student body. That felt…wrong. At least we were allowed to wear a turtleneck beneath the normally belly-baring vest.

  “I’m telling you.” Moni shook out a uniform and struggled into the top. “This changes everything. It’s like Clark Kent transforming into Superman. Only it’s, you know, us.”

  “It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Wonder Geek?” I held the skirt against my waist again. No way.

  Coach Sheila threaded through the group, inspecting each girl, adjusting a skirt here, trading sizes there.

  “Sugar, I know it’s strange at first,” she said, a big-sisterly hand on my shoulder. “But you really need a smaller size.” In a single swoop, she swapped skirts. “It’s supposed to fall four fingers below the butt cheek.”

  That was information I didn’t need.

  “For freedom of movement,” Sheila added. “Besides, you wouldn’t want to look…frumpy.”

  I inspected the even shorter purple and gold skirt. It was so small, I wasn’t sure it qualified as actual clothing. And besides, what was wrong with frumpy?

  Sheila moved on to Moni, who now wore the outfit over gym shorts and a T-shirt. “Very cute. I don’t suppose contact lenses…no? All right. We can work with it.”

  “You know,” Moni whispered, “we could kill her now and bury her under the pom-poms. No one would find her until next fall.”

  I snorted. Death by pom-pom. “A jury of our peers would never convict us.”

  Sheila clapped her hands. “Listen up. We’ve got a lot of work and not a lot of time. Here’s the winter cheer schedule. As you know, we have just under two weeks’ prep time before the first game, but we support more than just the boys’ basketball team.”

  Some girls shifted from foot to foot. The veteran cheerleaders stared at the floor.

  “We’ll be cheering at these upcoming sports events, and I expect you to show up at your appointed time and place. Now.” Sheila’s sparkle turned fiery—downright deadly even. “I’ve arranged it with the wrestling coach. We can use the weight room between three thirty and four fifteen. That’s not a lot of time. So last bell, you’re in workout clothes and downstairs immediately.”

  The weight room? In the basement? The renovated sections of the school were almost nice, but the basement?

  “I want my girls toned!” Sheila cried.

  “Remember when I said this cheerleading thing would pay off?” Moni said. “This wasn’t what I had in mind. Brian said a rat ran across his foot down there in gym class.”

  A rat? From anyone other than Brian, I would take that as a joke. But Brian, mild-mannered math boy, was far too serious to joke about rats, especially after reading 1984.

  “After weight training,” Sheila continued above the groans, “it’s upstairs to the lobby for stretching and routine work—which is what we’ll do right now!”

  Right now? In the lobby? In our scraggly gym clothes?

  “Sheila, can we—,” a senior ventured.

  “Out, out, out. We only have an hour left.”

  An hour. I tugged at the tie of my faded drawstring shorts. How bad could it be?

  Sheila herded us from the equipment storeroom, down the hall past the locker rooms, and into the lobby. The doors to the gym were wide open, and the varsity basketball team ran some kind of shooting drill inside. Sheila started us with a warm-up routine. I wasn’t sure how it happened, but the basketballs stopped thumping in the gymnasium. We’d finished stretches and were working our high kicks when the boys gathered at the doors to watch.

  How bad could one hour be? Pretty bad. Humiliating, even. Right there—standing a head taller than all the other boys—was Jack Paulson. I tried not to look at him. I knew I would trip if I did. Much better to fade to the back. Maybe I didn’t know cheerleading but I was an expert at invisible.

  “You know.” Moni’s words came between breaths. “Now would be a really good time for you to do the splits.”

  Sheila beamed at us. “Moni, what a great idea. I just love your attitude. Bethany, would you care to demonstrate?”

  I cared very much not to, thank-you-very-much. How could I stay invisible with my legs splayed across the lobby floor? Moni glanced at me and mouthed, Sorry.

  Yeah, well, so was I. If Moni hadn’t been my best friend for two and a half years I would’ve…

  But Sheila was waiting, the other girls were staring, and a hush had fallen over the boys gathered at the gym doors. Humiliation, meet Audience.

  My limbs felt numb, but somehow I walked to the front of the group, drew in a deep breath, then let the air seep from my lungs while I eased my legs to the floor—sideways. And since I couldn’t feel anything but cold tile anyway, I planted my elbows on the floor and my chin on my fists. A single, long wolf whistle came from the gym.

  “By the end of the season, I know all of you will be able to do this,” Sheila announced. “Shall we start?”

  The rest of the squad slid to the floor…or at least tried to. Moni frowned. Maybe it was from pain, but probably it was Sheila, who was crouched next to her, saying, “Breathe, breathe, don’t forget to breathe.”

  I turned my face toward the gym doors, where all the boys still stood. Or rather, all the boys except Jack. Where was he? Did he think I was showing off?

  Coach Miller blocked my view and hustled the boys back inside. Only then did I realize that I had been the one who forgot to breathe. Now I could feel my limbs again, and each and every muscle was cramped. Standing might require assistance.

  Across the lobby, in the gym, Jack tipped the ball through the net, then paused next to senior Ryan Nelson before getting back in line. Together they peered through the doors. And laughed.

  At me?

  I turned my head, as if I was fascinated by the trophy cases, and stayed that way until the reflection of Jack in the glass vanished.

  Maybe because I dreaded actually wearing the uniform to school, the days slipped by. A week later, on Tuesday, there I was, in an impossibly short skirt, ready—more or less—to cheer wrestling that night. According to Sheila, wearing uniforms on game days promoted school spirit. So far, the only thing the outfits seemed to promote was hypothermia. My legs had felt like popsicles ever since I left home and I wasn’t sure if my knees could still bend, or if they would simply snap off when I tried to sit.

  “I can’t believe you betrayed the brotherhood.”

  I whirled from my locker, the cheerleading skirt swaying with the move.r />
  Todd blocked my way, his arms folded over calculus and physics books and a rumpled plaid shirt. He probably glared, too, but his mop of bed-head hair and those fingerprint-smudged glasses shielded me from the effect.

  “Could you say that again?” I asked. “In English this time?”

  “This.” He waved a hand at the cheerleading uniform. “What is this supposed to be, Reynolds?”

  I checked the urge to roll my eyes, then leaned close and whispered in his ear. “They’re called clothes. Perhaps you’ve heard of them?”

  He sputtered a few words, but when Moni appeared I was saved somewhat from his wrath. His eyes widened. “Not you, too!”

  “You didn’t tell him?” I asked her. That wasn’t exactly a fair question. I hadn’t told anyone. In fact, I was still hoping no one would notice. And yes, I realized the absurdity of that. Now.

  “I thought you would,” Moni said. “I told Brian.”

  On cue, Brian emerged from the stream of students and approached our group. As soon as he saw Todd’s face, he took a step back and tried to rejoin the masses. Too late. Todd was already reaching to grab his collar.

  “You knew about this?” he said to Brian.

  “Well…yeah.” Brian shrugged him off and straightened his shirt. “It’s kind of cool, isn’t it?”

  “No, it is not cool. You can’t mess with these things.”

  “I don’t know,” said Brian. I watched his eyes scan Moni from the toes of her white and silver Skechers to the purple and gold bows that held back all but the most rebellious of her curls. “I think they look cute.”

  “They always look cute,” Todd said.

  A compliment from Todd? Maybe we really had entered a new world order.

  “Okay, so now they’re hot.” Brian wiggled his eyebrows. On his sweet, round face, it looked kind of weird, but Moni granted him one of her smiles.

  Todd frowned. “Think you can you still rub two brain cells together in that outfit, Reynolds?”

  “I aced my German test yesterday,” I told him.

  “And Mr. Shaffer says I can stay in Math League,” Moni added, “even though cheerleading practice is at the same time.”