I Was a Non-Blonde Cheerleader (14 page)

That night, my brother showed up with Hottie Number One (Joe Wu) and Hottie Number Two (Tucker Freeman). Florida surf boys were cu-
ute.
They threw their duffel bags in Gabe’s yet-to-be-unpacked bedroom, then jumped in the pool fully clothed. (Shucks.) I was supposed to study and practice, but somehow Tucker managed to cajole me out of my room and into the water. Though I did put on my bathing suit first.

After drying off, I called Jordan to tell her all about the
insanity of the day. I was gabbing on the phone with her as I came back downstairs for a late-night snack of leftover pizza. (Gabe’s friends had ordered three with everything.)

“I thought you said this squad was good,” Jordan said after I related my tale of woe. “They’re making
us
sound like nationals material.”

“I know! And yesterday they were all over
me
for messing up. Like they would
never,
” I replied, pressing the phone into my shoulder so I could open the fridge. “You should have heard the coach. She was all—”

I stopped midsentence. The guys were conversing in the living room.

“She was all what?” Jordan asked.

“Shhh. Hot boys talking,” I said, tiptoeing down the hall.

“Ooooh. What’re they saying?”

“Hang on,” I whispered. I paused outside the living room, where the guys were battering each other on Xbox, and held my breath.

“You never told me your sister was so smokin’, G!” Joe said.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” Gabe responded.

“She did look fine in that bathing suit, dude,” Tucker put in.

I grinned and scurried noiselessly back to the kitchen. “Jor?” I said, giggling into the phone. “I think I’m cheering up.”

“Amazing what a few hot guys can do for ya,” Jordan replied.

This was the headline on the school paper,
The Weekly Catch
, on Monday afternoon. It was accompanied by a highly unflattering picture of me with my cheerleading skirt flipped up to waist level and Autumn’s foot pressed into my stunned face. I stared at it as I walked down the hall to geometry class, trying to ignore the blatant whispering that had been following me everywhere since lunch, when the papers had been distributed.

“Okay, Annisa! You can wake up now!” I said through my teeth. If the last week had been a dream, this seemed like the perfect moment for the alarm to go off.

“Nice hat,” someone said sarcastically as they passed me by.

I reached up with one hand and touched the black knit beanie cap I’d worn to mark Hat Day, the first theme day of spirit week. Almost everyone in the school was wearing a hat, but most of them were baseball caps of the SDH variety. There were a few exceptions—the occasional cowboy hat, a visor or two, but mine was the only heavy black number.

Tomorrow was Plaid Day. I wondered if everyone in this
town owned blue-and-yellow plaid shirts. But that prospect wasn’t nearly as scary as Face Paint Day which would happen on Friday.
That
was going to be interesting.

“Annisa!” Bethany called out, stopping me before I could turn into class. She was, of course, hatless. “Sorry I missed lunch. I was in the computer lab.” She looked down at the paper in my hands and winced. “So you’ve seen it, huh?”

“You know, I’ve never looked at my half-naked body from quite that angle before,” I said, trying to joke through my nausea.

“Look at it this way. Any guy who asks you out now, there are no expectations,” Bethany said with a shrug.

“Why, because he already knows I’m a loser?”

“No. Because he’s already seen up your skirt.”

I smirked even as my stomach turned. “You know, I don’t think you’ve quite mastered the concept of the bright side.”

“Gimme this,” Bethany said. She snatched the paper away from me, crumpled it in one hand and launched it over her shoulder, where it hit a passing freshman in the head.

“Ow,” he said.

“Whiner,” Bethany replied without even looking at him. “So listen, I’m like
this close
to launching sucks-to-be-us 2.0. You wanna come over after practice today and help me test the site?”

I smiled. A night hanging with Bethany would probably be the perfect antidote to whatever torture was going to be brought my way at cheerleading practice. Plus, I felt a skitter of excitement run through me at the thought of going over to a new friend’s house.

“I’m in,” I said, just as the warning bell rang.

“Great. We’ll burn a few school newspapers in effigy,” she said.

“Sounds like a plan.”

Bethany smiled encouragingly before she walked away. As she headed down the hall, I saw her snatching newspapers away from random people, all of whom protested, but none of whom tried to take them back. I laughed and walked into class. It had taken about two seconds for Bethany to make me feel better.

“Quizzes, get your quizzes,” Mr. Loreng said, handing out papers as we filed into the classroom. My stomach twisted up in knots. I’d totally forgotten about the quiz!

“Ms. Gobrowski,” he said, pursing his lips as he handed me my paper.

There was a huge D at the top of the page. A big, fat D. I dropped into a desk and shoved the paper into my bag before Sage could see it and comment. A D. My first grade from a Sand Dune teacher was a D. I’d never gotten a D in my life.

“Good Monday morning, class!” Mr. Loreng said once we were all seated toward the back of the room. “I hope you’re all bright eyed and bushy tailed today, because
today
we’re going to talk about your quarterly exam!”

Everyone around me groaned and sunk in their seats. Mr. Loreng, who was sporting a fisherman’s cap with actual lures sticking out of it, grinned wickedly.

“The exam will take place in class one week from Tuesday. This gives you exactly eight nights of studying to prepare—”

“But Mr. Loreng, it’s spirit week,” Sage blurted out from the seat behind mine.

I swear I saw little pitchforks appear in Loreng’s eyes. “I hate to be the one to remind you, Miss Barnard, but you’re here to study, not to run around committing acts of
hari-kari
in the name of football dominance.”

Everyone averted their eyes and shifted in their seats. I
got the feeling that no teacher had ever put the perfect Sage in her place before. This was serious.

“Now, if you underachieved on the quiz I just handed back, this is your chance to prove yourself,” Loreng continued.

He handed out sheets filled with topics to study for the exam. They may as well have been written in a foreign language. I hadn’t even
heard
of some of this stuff. And it said we were going to have to do five proofs. I hate proofs. They’re so annoying and pointless. Why do I have to prove a concept if countless mathematicians and sophomore students before me already have? Isn’t there such a thing as having too much proof?

“We are so dead,” Sage said under her breath.

“Tell me about it,” I replied.

For once, she said nothing snotty in return. We were in this one together.

“Goobooski! God! Where is your head today!?” Tara shouted at me that afternoon.

“We know it’s not up her skirt,” Chandra said, causing a round of scoffs and laughter.

“I’m sorry, you guys,” I said, red from exertion and embarrassment. “I just have brain freeze on this section for some reason.”

We had spent the entire practice working on the routine for regionals, and Mindy and I were playing a serious game of catch-up. While everyone else was tired and sweaty we looked like we’d just run the New York City Marathon. My bod was just not used to this much exercise. Practice had already run over by half an hour and I’d just missed my count for the final lift—again.

“All right, girls, let’s call it a day,” Coach Holmes said, stepping forward. “Everyone’s tired and you’ve worked hard. We’ll get this part down tomorrow.”

“But Coach,” Tara began. “We just have to—”

“I’m going back to my office for a few minutes. Why don’t you lead the squad through cooldown?” Coach Holmes said in a no-nonsense tone.

Tara nodded. “Okay,” she said, though I could tell she was biting her tongue. The second the gym door slammed behind Coach Holmes, Tara reeled on us, her mouth set in a straight line.

“Everyone sit,” she said.

“I thought we were going to cool down,” Felice protested. “You know if you wait too long to stretch after a workout—”

“Felice,” Tara snapped.

“Fine,” Felice said quickly, and she hit the floor with the rest of us.

“Look, I don’t know what all of you are thinking, but we are never going to get through this week with these kinds of attitudes,” Tara began, standing in front of us. “This was the worst practice I’ve ever seen. No one has any energy, we’re not hitting our moves. And it’s not just Goberkowski either.”

I blinked. Had she actually just sort of let me off the hook? Or simply singled me out again?

“No one here looks like they care one way or another how we perform at regionals,” Tara continued. “Now, I know
I
want to win. What I need to know is whether you guys even want to be bothered competing.”

A tense silence filled the air. A couple of the girls stared at the floor, clenching and unclenching their jaws as if they were debating whether or not to talk back. In the end, no
one said a word. Tara was just too intimidating. I was starting to think she wasn’t exactly leadership material. Well, maybe in the Marines.

“Okay, how about this,” Tara said finally, breaking the silence to bits. “Do any of you have any suggestions about what we can do to pull this squad together? Because right now, this is not a team, it’s a joke.”

It came to me out of nowhere. It was like a file cabinet had opened in the back of my mind and started spewing out data I had filed away. My heart fluttered with excitement. It was perfect. It would show them that I knew about their traditions, that I wanted to be part of the team, that I was willing to take risks. And it could be fun too. Wicked fun.

I looked around. No one seemed to be on the verge of saying anything. I raised my hand tentatively.

Tara rolled her eyes. “This should be good.”

Okay, she was getting on my last nerve.

“What is it, Annisa?” Whitney asked, sounding interested.

Tara tilted her head and shifted her feet, surprised that Whitney had gotten my back. But she didn’t say anything. Everyone just waited.

I looked from Mindy to Autumn to Whitney and smiled conspiratorially. “Two words,” I said. “Prank. War.”

The squad jumped up, cheering and shouting. Suddenly I was thrust onto their shoulders and lifted into the air as they all shouted, “Hip, hip, hooray! Three cheers for Annisa!!!”

Okay, not quite. But they did slowly begin to stir. A few girls who had been lounging defiantly sat up straight. Glances were exchanged, smiles began to appear. This was it. We all felt it. It was the plan of a lifetime. And it was mine!

“It’s perfect,” Whitney said. “It covers all the bases. It’s a classic spirit week activity, it’ll rally the school—”

“We get to trash the Dolphins,” Jaimee put in.

“And it’ll be kick-ass fun,” Chandra said. Was it just me, or was she eyeing me with new respect?

“All in favor?” Tara said.

Everyone raised their hands. I couldn’t have stopped grinning if the ceiling had fallen in on me right then and there. Was this the beginning of the end of the team-wide freeze-out?

“All right,” Tara said, sitting down with the rest of us. “I say we start tonight. Now all we need is a plan. . . .”