I Was a Non-Blonde Cheerleader (22 page)

“Nice power breakfast,” Sage said, looking down at my bowl. “But then, I guess you’re not hungry, since you were up half the night at Dolly’s, chowing down carbs with my boyfriend.”

My mouth dropped open.
What? How did she . . . ? Why would he . . . ? When did they . . . ?
My brain couldn’t even finish a sentence.

“It’s none of your business what I did or didn’t do last night,” I said, getting up and storming over to the sink, where I noisily deposited my bowl and spoon. God! Did everyone at Sand Dune High think they could tell me where I could go and what I could do? And with whom? I took a deep breath, then whirled on her. “Besides, he’s not your boyfriend anymore.”

“Yeah? We’ll see,
Jersey,
” Sage said.

Hearing her say Daniel’s nickname for me was like blasphemy.

“Were you or were you not trying to suck my brother’s face off last night?” I shot back.

“I think I should go,” Gabe said, beating a hasty retreat.

“
That
is none of
your
business,” Sage retorted.

“Oh, yes it is! You guys made it the business of everybody at the party!” I replied. “Were you always that much of a ho, or does my brother just bring it out of you?”

Sage looked about ready to rearrange my face and I definitely knew the feeling. Mindy sensed there was about to be a cheer brawl and stepped between us.

“You guys! Stop it!” she said in as loud a voice as I’ve ever heard her use outside of cheerleading. “We have to get to the game. You can tear each other’s hair out later.”

I narrowed my eyes as I glared at Sage over Mindy’s arm. Tearing her hair out didn’t seem like the worst idea. But Mindy was right. We were going to be late.

“Fine,” I said finally.

“Fine,” Sage replied. She flounced over to the refrigerator and yanked open the door.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m thirsty,” she replied, her back to me.

Who did she think she was? She hadn’t even asked if she could have something!

“That’s it. I’m going to the field,” I said, walking out of my own house and slamming the door behind me. Maybe Sage would slip and fall on the freshly mopped floor and never walk again. Or at least develop a severe limp. Temporarily.

I’ve never seen so many people at a high school football game in my life. Fans packed both stands, filling up every available inch of bench space and bursting over onto the grass around the track. One side was a wall of yellow and blue, the other a sea of green and white. At the concession stand, the separate colors avoided each other like they were afraid of catching some horrifying disease by brushing up against the arm of an enemy T-shirt. The tension was so thick, I felt like at any second someone would say something mildly insulting, a punch would be thrown and we’d be smack in the middle of an upper-middle-class riot.

But all in all, the people in the stands were fairly well behaved. It was the cheerleaders who were having problems.

“Tara, you are not my mother. Stop telling me what to do,” Phoebe said shakily as I walked by her, Tara and Whitney. They were gathered on the track at the foot of the bleachers, post–football team announcements, pre–hello cheer.

“I’m not telling you what to do,” Tara replied. “I’m trying to give you advice. As a friend.”

“Is everything okay?” I asked somewhat meekly.

Phoebe groaned. She looked like she was about to explode. “Can’t you mind your own business for five seconds?” she asked.

“She’s just worried about you, Phoebe. We all are,” Whitney put in quietly.

“Well, don’t bother. I’m
fine
,” Phoebe said before storming off to stretch by herself. At least she hadn’t burst into tears. That was an improvement.

“What’s going on with her?” I asked.

“Like she said, it’s really none of your business,” Tara snapped.

Whitney sighed. “She won’t even tell
us
what’s going on with her. That’s the problem. I think she’s doing the whole bottle-it-all-up-until-she-explodes thing.”

“Never good,” I said, my heart going out to Phoebe.

“Nuh-uh,” Whitney replied.

I kind of understood why Phoebe might not want to share her problems with anyone, though. Everyone was already gossiping about her father losing her house. Why fuel the fire? Sometimes people could really suck.

“The captains of the two teams will meet in the center of the field for the coin toss!” the announcer called out over the PA system.

Bobby Goow and Christopher Healy emerged from the line of players in front of us. They didn’t even shake hands with the West Wind guys at the center of the field. I was suddenly acutely aware of the void above our scoreboard.

Something bad was going to happen here. I could feel it.

“It’s heads! West Wind elects to receive!” the ref called
out. He blew his whistle and the captains jogged back to their sidelines. All the Sand Dune guys huddled up and put their hands in the center of the circle. They bounced up and down on their toes, shouting and grunting.

“Win! Win! Win!” they all called out together. Then they ran to line up for the kickoff and both crowds went totally insane.

“Let’s go, Sand Dune!” I shouted out, cheering along with the rest of the squad as we started to take our spots for the hello cheer.

The ball was kicked off. Some guy on the West Wind team caught it and took a dive at the twenty-yard line. We all turned toward the crowd.

“Hello cheer!” Tara shouted.

Please, just let this go okay, please, just let this go okay . . .

“Ready?”

“Okay!”

“We’ve got the power!”

“To take control!”

Coach Holmes gestured at us manically. She smiled like the Joker and pressed her fingers into her cheeks, pulling her lips up. Apparently we didn’t look quite happy enough. Shocker. I grinned as hard as I could as my arms flew through the moves.

“To rock this joint!”

“To go for gold!”

Coach waved her hands in front of her with her eyes wide, the universal signal for “More energy!”

“We welcome you!”

“To our school!”

“Take it from us!”

“Sand Dune rules!”

This time it wasn’t me who missed the pyramid count. It was the other side that went down. Not as messily as it had at the pep rally, though. In fact, it seemed like it just never went up. Coach looked as if she were about to have a stroke.

“I missed a mark.
One
mark,” Phoebe said to Tara as we dismounted.

“Whatever.” Sage hiccuped. “I didn’t feel like going up anyway.”

“What the heck is
wrong
with you people?” Chandra hissed.

“What’s the matter, Chandra? Does everything always
have
to be perfect with you?” Autumn put in.

“Ladies! What are you doing!?” Coach Holmes whisper-shouted from under the bleachers. Her eyes were about to pop free of their sockets. “Call a cheer!
Now
!”

Tara jumped to attention and everyone moved lethargically back to their places. “Defense is hot!” Tara called out. “Ready?”

The “okay” sounded more like a lame “maybe” than a full-hearted agreement. Coach Holmes hung her head. This was going to be an interesting afternoon.

“When you go out there for your halftime routine, I had better see ten times the energy, ten times the spirit and ten times the precision that I’ve seen in the first half,” Coach Holmes lectured as the marching band finished up their Disney medley. “You look like a bunch of amateurs out there. I’m half tempted to let the freshmen finish the game. Do you want me to bring them in? ’Cause I will.”

“No, Coach!” we all said in unison.

Hiccup, giggle
, Sage put in, earning an admonishing glance from everyone on the team. She’d been hiccuping for the past ten minutes.

“Good! Now go line up and get ready to go on!” Coach Holmes said.

We turned and jogged toward the sideline. Sage tripped and fell right into Mindy’s arms, laughing. What was her problem?

“Oh my God!” Mindy said, helping Sage stand up straight and holding her shoulders. “Are you drunk?” she whispered.

Sage hiccuped and shook her head, her ponytail whacking her in the face. My heart plummeted.

Holy crap.

Skull Punch.

“Mindy! What did she drink back at my house after I left?” I asked, pulling them away from the rest of the squad.

“Just some fruit punch,” Mindy told me as Sage giggled at nothing in particular.

“Rooty tooty fruity,” Sage said, and laughed.

“Oh my God,” Mindy said, finally catching on. “Was there leftover Skull Punch?”

Sage burped. Loudly.

“Apparently,” I said.

“And now, your Sand Dune High School varsity cheerleaders!” the voice on the PA shouted out. The crowd cheered.

“What are we gonna do?” Mindy asked, her skin as white as a sheet. “She can’t go out there!”

The squad was already jogging onto the field. Coach Holmes waved at us frantically with her clipboard. If we stayed behind, the squad couldn’t do the routine. There were too many formation changes. Too many stunts. And if we stayed behind, Sage would get caught and kicked off the squad and we would all be screwed.

“Get her other arm,” I said, gripping Sage’s biceps tightly.
Mindy did as I instructed. I think she was too scared to think for herself. “Let’s go.”

We jogged out onto the field, Sage between us, and dropped her off in her spot. She stood there, her shoulders slumped forward, her eyes at half-mast. I crossed myself even though I’m not Catholic. We needed all the help we could get.

The music started up, and the rest is a blur. I did the best I could in my first public performance of the routine, but it wasn’t me I was worried about. Sage was all over the place, moving right when the rest of us went left, clapping off beat. Phoebe, meanwhile, was so out of it, she was one step behind on everything, if not more. Then, during the last formation change, Chandra actually hip-checked Autumn out of the way to get into place. It was mayhem.

At one point in the routine the whole squad turns around to face the visiting bleachers. When we did, the entire West Wind High cheerleading squad was standing on the sideline, doubled over laughing. I had never felt so utterly humiliated.

Somehow, when the music stopped, all the stunts were up like they were supposed to be. Our fans cheered halfheartedly and I knew they were as appalled as I was. We sprinted off the field, barely able to muster enough energy for a “Whaddup, Sand Dune!”

Coach couldn’t even look at us. We were as pathetic as pathetic can be. Then Sage decided to seal the deal by falling flat on her face on her way off the field. Her sister had to pull her up and over to the fence, where she promptly vomited on a pom-pom. A resounding “Ugh!” went up from the crowd.

We were as good as dead.

“First down! All you need is a first down!” I shouted, half out of my head. “Let’s go, Crabs!”

My pulse pounded frenetically as Mindy clutched my hand. In the last few minutes, the squad had lost all semblance of order on the track and Coach Holmes was too wrapped up in the game to care. We all were.

I glanced at the scoreboard as Mindy squeezed my fingers near the breaking point. There were forty-five seconds on the game clock and the team had no time-outs left. The score was 23–19. We had held West Wind scoreless in the second half, but we still needed a touchdown here to win. It looked like it was in the bag if we could just get this first down and if the runner ran out of bounds to stop the clock. Then we’d be on the ten-yard line and have time for a shot at the end zone.