Brunettes Strike Back

by Kieran Scott

  Stop touching him, you beyotch! the little devil on my shoulder raged.

  “Wow. You are so evolved,” Bethany said, in a tone that told me she knew exactly what I was really thinking.

  “Well, I don’t get it,” Mindy said, toying with the string on her red hoodie. “Number one, it’s rude to you, however evolved you are. And number two, how could he even talk to her after the way they broke up? I mean, she cheated on him in front of the whole school. I don’t think I’d be able to be in the same room with someone who did that to me.”

  That meant a lot coming from someone who was part of the Sage Barnard Entourage. Actually, now that I thought about it, Mindy had been hanging out with me a lot more than Sage lately. Huh. Maybe I had officially won her over from the dark side.

  Meanwhile, I couldn’t tear my eyes off Daniel and Sage. They just looked right together. They paused by the water fountain so Sage could take a drink and Daniel just hovered there like she was the only person in the world. Hadn’t he even noticed me standing here all slack-jawed?

  Oh, how I wished I’d tracked Jordan down over the weekend. But every time I had tried her cell, it had gone straight to voice mail. And every time I had called her house, her little brother had cryptically told me she was “out.” Why hadn’t she called me back? I really needed her words of wisdom right about now.

  Just then, Sage noticed me gaping and smirked. Looking me right in the eye, she plucked at Daniel’s hair like she was picking out a piece of lint, then giggled at him and ran her fingers through it. I didn’t even see how Daniel reacted. I was too busy looking at the floor and trying not to vomit all over my new Pumas.

  “You all right?” Steven asked. At least he didn’t snap a picture and capture my humiliation for all eternity.

  My skin felt prickly and hot all over. I swallowed and nodded and attempted to smile, but it must not have been that convincing, because Bethany let out a little groan of frustration and hoofed it down the hall.

  “Hey, Sage,” she said loudly. “Did you notice that really funky smell in the girls’ locker room after gym today?”

  “What?” Sage asked, probably baffled by the fact that Bethany was speaking to her at all.

  “Yeah, it was sort of like a rotting-eggs-meets-tampon smell and I swear it was coming from the vicinity of your locker,” Bethany said matter-of-factly. “I just thought you might want to clean it out, you know, for sanitary purposes.”

  Omigod. She did not just say that.

  Daniel paled and Sage looked like she was going to faint. “I . . .” She looked at Daniel. “I gotta go.”

  Sage scurried off down the hall and Bethany shrugged, then leaned down to take a drink from the fountain. I’ll admit I was relieved to see the two of them separated, but the icky feeling in my stomach didn’t feel like it was going away anytime soon.

  What were Daniel and Sage talking about? For the first time in my life I think I was feeling kind of possessive. And I didn’t like it one bit.

  My body had never been so exhausted. I was sitting on the floor in Tara Timothy’s family room with my back propped up against the couch. My legs throbbed underneath the coffee table. I really wanted to eat the slice of pizza that was on the red plastic plate in my lap, but I wasn’t entirely sure I would be able to lift it to my mouth. My arms felt like a pair of potato sacks that someone had randomly attached to my torso.

  “Hey, Annisa, could you pass me the red pepper?” Erin Bailey asked from the other end of the coffee table.

  I looked at the little plastic bottle. “I really don’t think so,” I replied.

  Whitney laughed, picked up the bottle and tossed it at Erin, who caught it effortlessly. Why did everyone else seem so totally fine when I felt like a side of beef?

  “Feeling the burn?” Whitney asked through her chipmunk cheeks full of salad. She waggled her eyebrows at me and took a swig of her diet soda. With her short blonde hair and her model good looks, Whitney was often told she looked like Cameron Diaz. And you know how Cameron always wins that best-belch award at the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice thing? Well, Whitney was just as good at that too. I totally loved her. Steven snapped her picture and she shooed him away with a wave of her hand and a loud burp, earning a few laughs and groans.

  “Pardon my bodily functions!” Whitney said.

  I watched Steven go and tried not to roll my eyes. He was certainly staying true to his promise to follow us everywhere. He had been there all through practice and now seemed to have a backstage pass at Tara’s house as well.

  “Think Tara’s parents would mind if I took up residence in their family room?” I asked Whitney, leaning my head back against Jaimee’s leg. She was sitting Indian-style on the couch behind me. “I don’t think I’m ever going to move again.”

  “I know,” Jaimee agreed. She patted the top of my head in sympathy. “I thought spontaneous toe-touches were enough. What was Tara thinking with the front-hurdlers? I mean, I’m all up for a challenge and everything, but my legs are totally jellified.”

  “I think you mean ‘simultaneous,’” Felice corrected Jaimee, dropping down on the couch next to her. “Simultaneous toe-touches.”

  “Okay, walking dictionary,” Chandra said, rolling her eyes.

  “At least you guys can catch air,” Mindy said, gingerly bending one knee. Her other, sprawled-out leg was about twice as long as mine. “Long legs suck.”

  “Wah, wah, wah,” Chandra said, slugging on a bottle of water. She popped a Hershey’s Kiss into her mouth and chewed. “You sound like all of those supermodels who swear they were picked on in high school for being scrawny and tall. I would kill for those legs.”

  “I would kill to be able to jump half as high as Tara wants me to,” Mindy replied.

  “At least she’s keeping us in shape for basketball season,” Erin said.

  “No doubt,” Whitney replied.

  I sat up a little straighter. “That’s right. When do you guys start that?” I asked. Erin, Mindy and Whitney were all on the SDH basketball team. They wouldn’t be cheering with us for the winter season, which was going to be so bizarre.

  “The team already started practicing together, but we got a bye for nationals,” Whitney said. “We have to go the Monday after we get back.”

  “Ouch,” Felice said.

  “Tell me about it,” Mindy put in.

  I didn’t even want to think about it. The squad was going to feel so empty without them. And we were going to have to have tryouts to fill their spots. New people on the squad? Disaster. I mean, they were still getting used to me.

  “All right, everybody!” Tara announced, walking into the room holding a videotape over her head. “I know you were all whining while I was gone and I hope you got it out of your systems.”

  Mindy and I shared a smirk.

  “I hold in my hand the videotape of last year’s nationals competition,” Tara said, pausing in front of the television, where a rerun of TRL was playing with the sound all but muted. “I want you to see last year’s champions in action so you know what we’re up against.”

  She shoved the tape into the VCR and stepped back. “Ladies, the Black Bears of Mecatur High School, Louisiana.”

  Very dramatic. You would think she was bringing in the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team or something.

  We all sat back to watch the tape, but seconds into the performance, we were sitting forward again. Jaws dropped. Chandra and Autumn exchanged more than one stunned look. Tara’s eyes narrowed further and further, her head rotating along with the tumbling runs as if she had watched the tape five billion times. Which, let’s face it, I’m sure she had. The Black Bears were unbelievable. Their tumbling looked like something out of, well, an Olympic gymnastics competition. They caught more air than a 747 on their tosses and their formation changes were quick and crisp. No one ever seemed out of step. When the music finally came to a screeching stop, we were all frozen in place.

  Can you say “gulp”?

  Finally, Chan
dra whistled, breaking the silence.

  “Damn, those girls are tight,” Whitney said.

  “Now you know why I wanted front-hurdlers,” Tara said, looking right at Jaimee.

  Jaimee squirmed. What did Tara have, supersonic hearing?

  “Oh, please,” Whitney said, popping a cucumber slice into her mouth. “We can take them, no problem.”

  “Yeah!” Phoebe put in. “They’re not all that. Did you see their expressions? Pathetic!”

  “And the energy was totally not there,” Sage put in. “You can tell they’re all about the technical.”

  I cringed. Every time Sage spoke, I remembered her all over Daniel in the hallway. Did she want him back? Would he take her? Did she have any evil hypnotic powers that could entrance him into thinking he was still in love with her? I wouldn’t put it past the girl.

  “Yeah. We’ve got personality,” Jaimee added. “Right?”

  Everyone chorused their agreement. I pulled myself out of my SageandDaniel reverie to join them, trying to focus on the problem at hand. Gradually we pumped ourselves out of our Black Bears-related shock. Still, I knew that the next few practices were going to be even more grueling than the last. If we were going to take on the Black Bears, we were going to have to do some major overhauling. Like, yesterday.

  “I like the enthusiasm. Just remember this feeling tomorrow when we double our weight-room time,” Tara said.

  “I’m not even tryin’ to hear that,” Kimberly said, raising a hand.

  There was a universal groan. I swear my muscles yelled at me: Why couldn’t you have been a chess champion?

  “Yeah, yeah,” Tara said, grabbing the remote and turning off the TV. “Let’s take it into the backyard and open the props box.”

  Everyone cheered and pushed themselves up from their seats. I put my hands up and Chandra yanked me off the floor. My thigh muscles were quaking, but I told them silently it was time to toughen up. We had a lot of work ahead of us.

  We all gathered around in a circle on the patio in Tara’s backyard. She placed the props box, a large cardboard box covered in yellow and light blue construction paper megaphones, in front of her and sat down on one of the lounge chairs. The props box was a little idea Autumn had brought to us after regionals. For the past few weeks it had been in the corner at every practice and squad function. Whenever we felt inspired, we were to write down either a compliment for a member of the squad or an idea to make the squad even better and put it in the box. Tonight we were going to rip open the box and read its contents as kind of a push to get us through this last week of practice before nationals.

  There weren’t enough chairs to go around, so I sat down on the cool stone of the patio in between Autumn and Mindy, biting my bottom lip to keep from getting too giddy. I couldn’t wait to find out what everyone had written. Steven hovered around us, his flash popping every few seconds.

  “Everybody ready?” Whitney asked.

  “Rip into it!” Chandra called out, earning a raucous cheer.

  Tara and Whitney unstuck the tape and yanked the top off the box, which Whitney tossed over her shoulder, nearly taking Steven out. He ducked out of the way at the last second and snapped a picture of the fallen box top. This kid did not miss a shot. Tara pulled out the first folded slip of paper and read.

  “Our first prop is . . . ‘I wish we all had lungs like Chandra’s. ’”

  Everyone laughed and cheered. Chandra shrugged modestly as she unwrapped another Kiss. “That’s what happens when you have four brothers. I need to be loud to survive.”

  “Here, pass this to Chandra,” Whitney said, handing the slip to Felice, who passed it around the circle.

  “Next up!” Tara said. “Ah, good one. ‘Kimberly flies so high, I sometimes think she’s not coming back down.’”

  Kimberly blushed as we all cheered for her as well. The slip of paper was passed along so that she could keep it, and Tara dug in again. She read the prop silently and rolled her eyes, flushing. She handed it over to Whitney, who cracked up.

  “‘Props to Tara, our superstitious leader!’” Whitney read, throwing her arms around Tara to give her a squeeze. Tara waved off our hoots and hollers and quickly fished out the next prop.

  “This one’s a suggestion,” Tara said as everyone finally quieted down. “‘We should all do community service together.’” She looked up at us. “Good idea. We should talk about that when we get back from nationals.”

  I grinned happily. That one was mine. Of course, if Tara had known that, she probably would have found some way to shoot it down. Anonymity was cool.

  “‘Annisa’s constant pep makes me smile, even during math tests, when I’m usually in the depths of despair,’” Tara read, then smirked. “Wow. Poetic.”

  Everyone cheered for me and I was grinning uncontrollably now as Steven got in my face for a close-up. I had a feeling I knew who had written that one. I shot Autumn a look and she was blushing. Yep. That sounded like her.

  “Another suggestion!” Whitney shouted, shushing the squad. “‘Let’s hire a gymnastics coach to workshop our tumbling. ’”

  “I bet those Black Bears have one,” Erin muttered.

  “No doubt,” Kimberly said.

  “Hey! I want only positivity here!” Tara proclaimed, putting an end to the grumbling. “But, yeah, they do have one.”

  Tara pulled out the next slip of paper, and when she read the contents, she went a little ashen. She clucked her tongue and read. “‘I think Jaimee would make a great captain for next year.’”

  Instant tension. Total silence. Jaimee cracked a smile wider than the Grand Canyon.

  “Trying to get rid of me already?” Tara asked. She did not sound happy.

  I glanced at Mindy as the rest of the squad shifted their positions and tried not to make eye contact. Jaimee pulled her knees up, hugged them and hid her grin behind them. Who was thinking about next year? It was only December. We hadn’t even gotten through nationals yet. Next September seemed light-years away.

  “Are we nominating captains? ‘Cause nobody told me,” Erin said.

  Suddenly the entire squad erupted in excited chatter. Everyone was talking over everyone else, but all I could do was sit there. There was a pit forming in my stomach. Losing Mindy, Erin and Whitney for winter season was one thing. Next year was a whole other ball o’whatever. First of all, Tara would be history. As much as we had argued and clashed, I couldn’t even imagine the squad without her. And it wasn’t just her. Phoebe, Felice, Kimberly, Lindsey . . . Whitney. They would all be gone. Whitney was the first person on the squad who had ever bothered to be nice to me, and Phoebe and I had become friends . . . sort of. It was going to be so weird without them.

  “Hey! Hey! Hey!” Whitney shouted, standing up. She stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled. I have always wanted to know how to do that. Everyone instantly shut up. “We can’t get distracted by this right now,” Whitney said gravely. “We only have a few days until nationals. I say we don’t talk about the captainship until after the competition.”

  A bunch of girls nodded their agreement.

  “Good idea,” Tara said. “So we’re agreed?”

  “Yeah!” everyone shouted.

  “Okay. Let’s get back to the props,” Tara said. “I’d like a little focus here, people.”

  At that moment, my phone let out a loud double beep. The entire squad turned to look at me as I mentally willed myself to disappear. When it didn’t work, I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and checked the screen. There was an IM from Jordan.

  Jordan: where ARE YOU!!!???

  Instant guilt. Clearly Jordan had been trying to reach me to return my many messages.

  “Goblonski? Hello?” Tara said.

  Oops. Tara must have been really mad. She knew my last name now and mispronounced it only when her head was starting to spin. I turned off the phone and shoved it back in my pocket, feeling like the worst best friend in history. I would call Jordan the second I g
ot home.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Anyone put anything in there about not being rude during meetings and practices?” Sage asked.

  A couple of people laughed and my face went from red to maroon. Did I mention how much I craved the ability to disappear?

  Tara reached into the box and pulled out another note. Her face lit with a surprised smile. “’I think that, for nationals, Annisa should dye her hair blonde so we all look uniform. ’”

  Someone snorted a laugh. Everyone else went deadly quiet. I’m pretty sure my brain went into emergency shutdown.

  “It doesn’t really say that,” Whitney said, snatching the slip out of Tara’s hand. “Wow. It really says that. Who wrote this?” she demanded, irritated.

  “Whitney, the props box is supposed to remain anonymous,” Tara said in a super-sweet voice. I imagined chocolate goo just dripping out of her mouth and glomming up her white T-shirt.

  She reached into the box again and I blinked back a couple of hot tears. Get a grip, Gobrowski, I told myself. It was probably just a joke. It was just one person’s idea of a joke. I glared at Sage from across the circle. If anyone would suggest I dye my hair, it would be her. She probably hoped it would come out orange so that I would be so hideous, Daniel would dump me and run back to her Jessica Simpson-looking self.

  “’Annisa needs to go blonde!’” Tara read.

  I blinked. What?

  “Okay, you have to be making this up,” I said, standing and walking over to them. I grabbed the slip of paper and sure enough, she had read it correctly. I didn’t recognize the handwriting, but there it was, in purple ink.

  “Hey! Here’s another one!” Tara announced.

  My blood was seriously starting to boil. “Are you guys serious?” I said, turning to the squad. No one would make eye contact with me. “You guys, come on! Uniformity? Other squads have all kinds of hair colors! Other squads have multiracial members! We don’t all have to look exactly the same!”

  More silence. More inability to actually look at me. “Aren’t you going to say something?”