by Jeff Shelby
“We can cheer if we want to,” Grace said behind me. “You always say we can do what we want.”
“Well, yeah,” I warily agreed.
“You just said that we had to think about whether we wanted to cheer for other people or whether we wanted people cheering for us,” Sophie said.
“That’s right,” I said, glad someone had paid attention to whatever rant I’d gone off on whenever I’d gone off on it. “Just depends on what you want.”
“I swear you talked about stabbings and ghosts,” Will muttered, shaking his head.
Ten minutes later we pulled into a very full parking lot at the Moose River Municipal Arena. Minivans like ours occupied half the spaces in the parking lot, and empty school buses were lined up in the fire lane. Families hustled across the lot, hurrying toward the entrance and many of the younger girls were dressed in miniature cheer outfits. And had their faces painted.
“It’s like Halloween out here,” Will observed.
“I love Halloween!” Sophie said.
This was true. Of all the kids, she was the one who most looked forward to Halloween. She had a notebook of costume ideas for the upcoming holiday and had mentally catalogued the best houses for trick-or-treating in the surrounding neighborhoods. I was pretty sure she had a countdown calendar, too.
Grace squealed. “I love candy! Is there gonna be candy?”
This was also true.
“No,” Will practically barked. “There won’t be candy and there won’t be any other costumes except stupid cheerleading costumes. And we’ll have to sit here and watch a bunch of girls do stupid dances and songs for teams that aren’t even here.”
I sighed. Maybe this wouldn’t be such a good idea after all.
I herded them out of the car and toward the arena. The wind was biting and I tucked my chin into my neck, urging the girls to move faster. We found Brenda at the top row of the small venue, waving and pointing to an empty spot next to her.
Derek, her youngest boy, saw us. “Bill! Bill!” he shrieked, mispronouncing Will’s name. He stood up and threw his entire bag of popcorn in the air in celebration. As popcorn rained down on everyone around them, Brenda grabbed him by the elbow and hissed something into his ear. By the time we reached the top of the seats, Derek was trying to scoot away from her, a pout on his face, his arms crossed against his chest in defiance.
I smiled at him and his pout deepened. “You sit here,” he said to Will, pointing to the empty space next to him.
Will smiled and sat down and, within seconds, was chatting with Derek about Spiderman and Minecraft. I wondered why he was so great with other kids and so awful with his own siblings.
Brenda shifted closer to Derek, juggling Mary in her lap. She was well past the age that she needed to be held, but Mary clung to her like a baby koala, especially in unfamiliar places… like the arena filled with mini cheerleaders and blaring dance music.
“That was quite the greeting,” I said, sliding into the seat next to her.
The girls sat down on the bench above us. Grace’s shoes pressed into my butt and Sophie shrugged out of her jacket, dropping it on my back.
“Wasn’t it?” Brenda said through gritted teeth. “I hope everyone enjoyed their free popcorn. In their ears.”
“No one seems terribly disturbed,” I said, glancing at the people in the rows below us. One woman with curly red hair still had some kernels on top of her head. “They’ve got kids. They understand.”
“They don’t have this kid,” she muttered, keeping an eye on him as he started pulling on Will’s arm.
“He’s fine,” I told her. “He’s exuberant.”
“I should’ve named him Exuberant.”
I chuckled. Derek was all boy, and then some. He was a cross between a tornado and a hurricane. Despite his destructive tendencies, he could also be incredibly sweet and kind. And he was probably one of the cutest preschoolers I’d ever seen.
“When does Maddie’s team perform?” I asked.
She checked the brochure in her hand. “They’re next to last. It’s going to be...interesting.”
“Why do you say it like that?”
She leaned back against the concrete wall behind us. “Well, her coach is...interesting.”
I chuckled. “That’s one word for her.”
Brenda looked at me. “You met her? When I put you on pick up duty?”
“Oh, we met, yes,” I said. Brenda held out her bag of popcorn and I took a handful. “I made the mistake of wearing a Moose River sweatshirt when I came the first time.”
Brenda’s eyes widened. “You didn’t.”
“I did.”
“Yeah, she doesn’t like that.”
“She made that very clear.”
“Well, I feel like she’s a good coach, in that she can teach dance and strength and tumbling,” Brenda said. Mary reached into the popcorn bag and pulled out one piece. She stuck it in Brenda’s mouth. “Thanks, sweetie,” she told her, planting a kiss on top of her head. She turned back to me. “But when it comes to choreography for the entire team?” She made a clicking sound with her tongue. “She has some kind of ‘out there’ ideas.”
“Out there?”
How could anything in cheerleading be considered ‘out there?’ They chanted and shook pom poms and formed pyramids.
“Let’s just say they’ll probably have the most unique routine you’ll see today,” she said. She leaned closer to me. “If Maddie actually cared about cheerleading, then we’d probably look for another team. But she doesn’t. She’s just looking to improve her skills to carry over to ballet. This is close, this is cheap and it is entertaining in it’s own way.”
“I think I’m actually excited to watch now.”
“The good news is Maddie is realistic about their chances,” she said. Mary shoved another piece in her mouth. She chewed and swallowed. “The bad news is that it will still probably not be good.”
I shifted on the bleacher. “I thought they had a shot at winning since Amanda Pendleton is missing.”
“Technically, yes, their chances are better,” Brenda said, an amused expression settling on her face. “But...well, I’ll just let you watch.”
“You’re a tease.”
She leaned across me. “Derek! Stop kicking him!”
I glanced over at him. He was methodically kicking Will in the shin, over and over, like a hammer on a nail. Will just laughed as Derek froze and leaned back in his seat.
“Do it again and…and…” Brenda stopped, trying to think of a punishment.
“And I won’t play Minecraft with you the next time I come over,” Will provided.
Derek’s face fell and his foot stilled. Brenda gave Will a grateful look.
“You’re like The Derek Whisperer,” she told him. “I might need you to come live with me for the next thirteen years.”
Will paled a little at the suggestion but still managed a smile in response.
Grace nudged me. “I want candy,” she whispered loudly.
“I don’t have any.”
“The concession stand does. I see people with M&Ms and Skittles. And Milky Ways. And hot dogs.”
“Did you bring money?” I asked.
She frowned. “No.”
“I did,” Sophie announced.
I turned around. She pulled a five-dollar bill out of her jeans pocket. “Can I go get something?” she asked.
“Sure,” I told her.
“Hey,” Grace said. “Will you buy me something? I’ll pay you back.”
Will’s eagle eyes zeroed in on Sophie’s money. He stood up. “Me, too. I’ll even pay you a penny interest.”
They scampered down the benches, negotiating interest rates and what Sophie was willing to accept in exchange for fronting them money.”
“Hey,” I said to Brenda. I glanced at the benches again. “You’re missing someone. Please don’t tell me Johnny is still lost in another corn maze.”
She giggled. “Pretty sure
those are off-limits for all eternity now. No, Drew and Melissa had a birthday party to go to. He practically begged to take him, even though it’s at Chuck E. Cheese. Anything to get out of coming to this.”
Drew was Brenda’s oldest son, who was about as different from Derek as night and day, and Melissa was the same age as Grace, and one of her best friends – and also the complete opposite of Derek.
The music abruptly turned off and the lights flickered off and then back on. An emcee came out to the center of the arena, microphone in hand, and welcomed us all to the competition. She ran down the list of teams competing, introduced the judges and reminded us about good sportsmanship and cheering positively. The kids came back from the concession stand, each one clutching a piece of candy. They sat down just as the emcee finished speaking.
The first team came out, a hurricane of green and white outfits, bouncing around the gym like pinballs as a heavy bass thrummed through the walls of the arena. They launched right into their routine, screaming and dancing and tumbling. They punched the air and exploded with happiness when they finished their routine. A group of fans launched out of their seats, hooting and hollering. They were dressed in the same green and white, some with their faces painted with matching stripes.
Nothing says commitment like adults painting their faces.
“Were they good?” I asked Brenda. “They looked good to me.”
Brenda nodded. She had a board book in her hand and Mary was yanking on one of the paper lift-the-flaps. “They were pretty good, but they made some mistakes. Wait until Moose River Fusion comes out. You’ll see the difference, even without Amanda.”
Two groups later, Moose River charged out into the gym, clad in their red and black uniforms, making all of these weird hand gestures and air punches and jumps. But Brenda was right. When the music started, they were clearly better than everyone else. They jumped higher, they cheered louder and their tumbling passes were incredible. They looked more like Olympic gymnasts than kids from my town. There were no bobbles, no missteps, no trips. They were like a well-oiled machine.
“And I’m not kidding you when I tell you that Amanda Pendleton made them even better,” Brenda yelled into my ear when the crowd exploded with applause at their finish.
I couldn’t imagine what more she could bring to an already phenomenal team, but I took her word for it.
We watched six more teams go before Maddie and the Cheerlicious Cheetahs came sprinting out to the middle of the venue. At first, they seemed just like the other groups. Full of energy, big smiles, snazzy uniforms, jumping around like they had ants in their pants. But they seemed more nervous and their smiles tended to flicker as they looked for Greta Mathisen, who was perched down in the front row, sitting ramrod straight, her hands balled into fists on her thighs.
The lights dimmed and the music began. I recognized it immediately. Michael Jackson’s Thriller. They began their routine and that was when I realized what Brenda meant by...interesting.
It was a weird song choice. It didn’t have the same upbeat rhythms and cadences of the songs we’d already heard, and I didn’t think it really lended itself to creating lots of energy in the arena, energy for the cheerleaders to feed off of.
I wasn’t wrong.
The routine was this weird blend of dance and cheer, some girls doing tumbling passes while others did the famous zombie dance behind them. It was all out of sync and the audience wasn’t entirely sure how to take it. There was some clapping, some nervous laughter and some confusion. The girls were admirably trying to hold the routine together, but even they didn’t even seem sure as to what they were trying to accomplish.
Greta Mathisen was still rigid on the bleacher bench, but I could see her eyes were flitting around, gauging the reaction of everyone in the stands. I wasn’t an expert, but I knew she couldn’t have been pleased. The energy that had permeated the gym during the earlier performances had dissipated. Slowly, her plastered-on smile flattened out. Her lips clamped together as she realized that her team – and the routine she was responsible for – wasn’t going over the way she’d probably hoped.
The finale to their act was a basket toss – Brenda was helping me with the lingo – and when the girl in the basket got tossed, she did another zombie pose high up in the air. I’m sure at some point, Greta Mathisen thought it might look different or unique, but to me, all it looked like was that she’d lost her composure and was flailing in the air.
When the music stopped and the zombies froze, the gym was quiet for a moment. Painfully so. And then a few hands clapped together and the applause started. But the genuine screaming and hooting and hollering that I’d witnessed from the bleachers with the other teams was not there.
“Told you,” Brenda whispered in my ear. “Interesting.”
“Uh...yeah.”
I watched Greta Mathisen rise stiffly from the bleachers and follow her kids out of the gym. She may have been slightly off her rocker, but I was sure even she had felt what everyone else in the gym did.
The routine hadn’t worked.
And by the way she walked, her shoulders slumped, a look of resignation on her face, she’d probably known it coming into the competition. Despite her boasts and predictions about winning and finally taking home the trophy, there was no way she could have thought that routine was going to trump all of the others, even if Moose River had been weakened by Amanda’s absence.
As the last team came out to perform, decked out in purple and yellow cheer outfits, bouncing around on the gym floor, it occurred to me that I could eliminate another suspect from my list.
If Greta Mathisen knew her team genuinely had no shot, there was no way she would’ve risked taking Amanda Pendleton.
THIRTY FOUR
Detective Hanborn was right.
That’s what kept running through my head as we drove home from the cheer competition. We’d stayed for the awards. Moose River Fusion came in second. Greta Mathisen, Maddie and their Cheerlicious Cheetahs came in next to last. Which, in retrospect, seemed like somewhat of a victory in itself. But as we drove home, I just couldn’t shake the idea that all of my conjecture about Amanda having been kidnapped was probably all wrong and Hanborn had been right to smirk at me and dismiss me like I had no clue what I was doing.
“Mom, can we get pizza?” Will asked.
“No. I’m making dinner.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“How about French fries?”
“Oh, fries sound good,” Sophie chimed in.
“And a shake,” Grace said. “No, wait. A smoothie. Mom, can we get smoothies?”
“You all act like I haven’t fed you today,” I said.
“Lunch was hours ago,” Will said. “And we already had to buy our own snacks…”
“Yeah, my candy cost a whole dollar,” Grace said. “And Sophie’s charging incense so I really own her a dollar and ten cents.”
“Interest,” Will corrected her.
I wondered if someone had stuck a sign on me, indicating what buttons to push to get what they wanted. Guilt always worked wonders. And all of these kids knew it.
I pulled into the first fast food restaurant I saw and got into the drive-thru lane. All three kids cheered loudly and, for a split second, it sounded like I’d been transported back to the arena and the cheer competition.
“Shh,” I said, eyeing them in the rearview mirror. “If they can’t hear me, I can’t order.”
They piped down immediately and I ordered them fries and smoothies. Not the best of dinners, but at least there was fruit in their drinks. I hoped.
As we sat idling in the line waiting for our food, I couldn’t fight off the feeling of dejection. I’d been wrong about Madison and Eleanor Bandersand. I’d been wrong about Greta Mathisen. I’d been wrong about everything.
I’d started to warm to Jake’s idea of getting my private investigator’s license. But if I’d missed so badly on this, if my guesses had been completely wrong,
I didn’t feel very confident about people eventually paying me money to solve their mysteries. Being curious was far different than being a detective. I was good at being curious, but I wasn’t sure I would be any good at being a detective.
We reached the window and I handed cash out the window to the disinterested clerk. She took it, handed me my change back and told me it would be just another minute.
“Why do they call it fast food if it’s not fast?” Grace asked.
“Because it’s supposed to be fast,” Will answered.
“But it’s not. It’s slow.”
“Yeah, it’s not you like you just drive up and its ready and we can reach in the window and grab it,” Sophie said.
“They should call it slow food,” Grace said.
“That’s dumb,” Will said. “It’s called fast because you pull up, you order, they make it and you pay for it and you drive away. It’s not like when we’re at home and we have to wait forever for Mom to make dinner.”
That got my attention. “Forever? Really?”
“Well, yeah. Sometimes, I’m starving. But if dinner is in two hours, then it’s not fast. But if I drive over here, then it’s fast because I can get it right away.”
“We don’t even have our food yet,” Grace said, frowning in his direction. “So I hope you’re not starving now. Because this is not fast.”
“Fast would be if you ordered French fries and they just handed them to you,” Sophie said. “Before you even paid.”
“Oh whatever,” Will said, leaning his head back. “You don’t even get what I’m saying.”
“Yes we do,” Grace answered. “You’re saying you don’t know the difference between fast and slow.”
She and Sophie high-fived and Will just shook his head.
