I Was a Non-Blonde Cheerleader (23 page)

“I can’t take it. I’m gonna barf,” Mindy said, looking legitimately queasy.

“I think we’ve seen enough of that for one day,” I shouted back.

Sage had been relegated to the first aid station, where she was currently sleeping it off. Coach had yet to deal with her, and I couldn’t think about it now. I was too busy having a coronary.

The team lined up. I could just hear Christopher’s audible. The ball was hiked and I jumped up and down to see what was going on. He dropped back. He handed it off to . . . Daniel! Daniel cradled the ball and ran for the sideline, gaining one . . . two . . . three yards! Enough for a first down!

“Get out of bounds!” I screamed along with half the crowd. “Get out!”

Some huge defensive end came out of nowhere and smacked Daniel into the ground. You could hear the crack
of their helmets for miles. Everyone winced and groaned. Luckily Daniel got right up. Unluckily, he hadn’t gotten past the sideline. The clock was ticking away.

Christopher gestured at the team wildly, trying to get them back into position so he could run one last play. Everyone scrambled back to the line. All I could hope was that they had something to call. Something that would get them into the end zone.

The clock was at 20 . . . 19 . . . 18 . . .

Christopher took his place behind the center. 17 . . . 16 . . .

“Hut one! Hut two!”

15—

And then the whistle blew. The ref ran over to the line, waving his arms in the air. He called something out at the top of his lungs that I
had
to have heard wrong.

“That’s time! Game over!”

“WHAT!?!”
(That was me screeching.)

The West Wind High players jumped up and down, hugging each other in celebration. The Sand Dune players gathered around the ref, demanding an explanation. A couple of them ripped off their helmets and got all up in the man’s face. Bobby Goow looked like he was possessed, his face purple and his dark hair clinging to his head with sweat. Everyone in the stands was stunned into silence. We looked at the clock. The lights didn’t lie. There were still fifteen seconds on it.

The ref blew his whistle manically, trying to get the guys to back off. He hit the button on his belt mic to connect his voice to the PA system. His words rang out over the field like a death knell.

“The clock on the scoreboard . . . the clock on the scoreboard is incorrect,” he said.

“What!?”

“He’s gotta be kidding!”

“This is bull—”

“The official game clock is kept on the field by the officials,” he continued, unperturbed by the thousands of people salivating for his blood. “The official game clock has run down.”

The Sand Dune High stands erupted with boos and jeers and cries of disbelieving fury. The West Wind High stands went wild. Their players ran off the field, shouting and screaming, arms raised in victory.

“West Wind has won the game,” the official finished, slamming the last nail into the coffin. “West Wind High wins by a score of twenty-three to nineteen!”

Coach Turcott and the assistants rushed the field, lacing into the ref with a few choice words. I heard someone shouting about misinformation. Then something about the bylaws of the league. The players all hovered on the field in disbelief, as if they were waiting to be told to get in that last play even though the Dolphins had long since vacated the line. I had never felt a sensation like this in my stomach before. This must have been what the phrase
gut-wrenching
referred to.

“They were bought off!” someone’s dad shouted from the stands. “The refs were bought off!”

“This is not right! It’s not fair!” someone else was crying.

Seconds passed . . . then minutes. Finally Coach Turcott grabbed his clipboard and stormed toward the school. Still, no one could believe it. No one could move. How could something like this have happened? And in
this
game, of all games.

Eventually we all came back to consciousness long enough to gather our things and trudge off the field. As we
walked by the visitors’ bleachers, a bunch of kids leaned over the railings, singing at the top of their lungs.

“Na na na na, na na na na, hey, hey, hey, good-bye!”

Suddenly I saw the support beams under the bleachers give way, collapsing the stands and taking the bevy of bouncing morons down with them. If only I had the power to make my daydreams come true.

The auxiliary gym was full of colorful banners and signs and some streamers and balloons left over from spirit week, but it may as well have been decorated for a funeral. That was how we all felt as we sat there in front of Coach Holmes. Like someone had just died. It wasn’t enough that we had to lose the big rivalry game, but to lose it like that? It just wasn’t fair.

“I don’t even know what to say to you girls anymore,” Coach Holmes told us flatly. Her fed-up detachment was even worse then her shouting. “Whatever is going on with all of you, you had better sort it out before regionals,” she said, shaking her head. “’Cause if you don’t, we are just going to get laughed off the mats. And that’s the truth.”

At that moment Sage, who had rejoined us in a state of semiconsciousness after the game, got up and ran from the room. We could all hear her heaving on the grass. Tara rolled her eyes and sat back on her hands. I kind of felt like ralphing myself.

“Excuse me,” Whitney said, quickly following after her sister.

“What the hell is up with Sage?” Coach Holmes demanded of the rest of us. I looked at Mindy and shook my head ever so slightly. Mindy looked at the floor.

“I’m sorry, Coach,” Whitney said, rejoining us. She smiled apologetically and bit her lip. “She has some kind of stomach flu. I told her to stay home this morning, but you know
Sage. School spirit all the way.” She shrugged innocently, pressing her lips together like,
What else can I say?

There was a prolonged silence as Coach Holmes took this in and mulled it over, but finally she just raised her hands. “Fine. Whatever you say. Everyone go home and get some rest. Over the weekend I want you to think about what this squad means to you. If you come back on Monday ready to work, I’ll be here.”

She picked up her bag and walked out. The rest of us slowly got to our feet and followed. Personally, I couldn’t wait to get the heck out of there and soak in a nice long bath, provided it wasn’t full of beer cans or something.

“What are you doing now?” Mindy asked as we headed for the door.

“I’ll probably just chill by the pool this afternoon and try to distract myself with geometry,” I told her. “Want to come over and study?”

Mindy opened her mouth to answer, but before she could, we both overheard something that caused us to freeze.

“It’s all Gobronski,” Tara Timothy said. “The girl is bad luck. Ever since she got here, everything’s been falling apart.”

That was it. Something inside of me just popped. All Tara Timothy had done since the day I arrived was pick on me and bad-mouth me. I was so tired of her and all her little friends watching me and criticizing every single move I made. Ever since my meltdown at tryouts, I’d kept my mouth shut and tried to fit in, tried to get them all to like and accept me. Well, I was done.

I turned on my heel, stalked up to Tara and the three girls huddled around her and cleared my throat. Tara looked surprised when she saw me there, but not upset that it was obvious I’d overheard.

“You know what,
Captain
?” I said, crossing my arms over
my chest. “Maybe you should stop focusing on
me
and start focusing on the fact that your precious little squad is imploding! If you were any kind of a captain, you would do something about it instead of pinning it all on me!”

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. It was all I needed to buoy me into a second round.

“Did you ever think about the fact that maybe this is all
your
fault?” I demanded, my adrenaline pushing me forward. “You’re supposed to be our leader, right? What kind of leader sits back and watches while things get this bad? Everyone is fighting, no one wants to act like a team and your best friend is a basket case! Maybe you should get off your ass and
lead
!”

Tara was stunned silent. Lindsey, Kimberly and Michelle all stared at the floor.

“And by the way, the name is Gobrowski!
Go. Brow. Ski!
It’s not that hard!”

I turned around again, grabbed Mindy’s arm and stalked through the doors out into the sunshine. For the first time in days I felt as light as air. I felt free. I felt like the weight that had been pressing in on my chest had been blown to pieces.

I felt like myself again.

“Why do I need to know the sum of the angles of a rhombus?” I asked Jordan that afternoon. “Why? Why, why, why?”

“Honey, no one knows the answer to that one,” Jordan replied.

The doorbell rang. “I gotta go, Jor,” I said. “Call ya later.”

“I’ll keep an eye on the news to see if anyone’s killed your referees yet,” she joked.

“Keep me posted,” I told her before hanging up.

I got up and sprinted for the door, grateful for another excuse to avoid geometry and salivating to see who it was. Maybe Bethany had gotten my messages and decided to come over for a makeup talk. Maybe Daniel was stopping by to weep on my shoulder over the injustice of the game. I slid over to the door in my socks and yanked it open. Nothing could have prepared me for the sight of Phoebe Cook standing on my front step, hair falling out of her long ponytail, her face blotchy and caked with dry tears.

“Hey,” she said with a sniffle. “I’m running away from home.”

Ooooookay. I noticed her one hand was clutching a duffel bag with a pillow shoved through the handles while the other clung to her backpack. Apparently she wasn’t kidding. But that didn’t explain what she was doing on
my
doorstep. I thought she wanted nothing to do with me.

“Can I come in?” she asked, her voice about to crack.

“Um . . . sure,” I said, stepping aside. She walked in and looked around, taking in every detail of her former home. My heart went out to her. Why would she come here, of all places? A house that would undoubtedly bring back a million memories.

“I’m sorry, it’s just, I couldn’t go to Whitney’s or Tara’s,” Phoebe said, as if reading my mind. “They’re driving me crazy. And you said if you could do anything . . .”

God, she looked
really
tired. “Here. Let me take your bag,” I said.

“Thanks,” she gave up the duffel.

I was unsure of what I was supposed to do. “Can I . . . get you anything?”

Phoebe smiled slightly and I was pretty sure it was the first time I’d ever seen her do it. “Could I just . . . lie down for a while?”

“Sure,” I replied. “The living room’s kind of a mess. But we could go to my room.”

The instant I said it, I regretted it. My room had been her room not so long ago. In her clearly fragile state, walking in there might just push her over the edge. But it was too late. Phoebe was already headed upstairs. She walked right to my room and stepped through the door. I placed her bag down on the floor and pulled her pillow out for her.

“Do you really hate the pink?” she asked.

“I . . . uh . . . pink’s not really my color,” I said.

“Oh,” she said. Then she started to cry.

“We could go to my parents’ room,” I said quickly. I hated seeing people cry.

“Why are you being nice to me?” she asked, sitting down on my bedspread. She covered her face with both hands.

’
Cause you’re a blubbering mass of neuroticness?
my brain answered.

But she did have a point. Just that morning she had told me to mind my own business, and now I was welcoming her into my house and offering her whatever she wanted. But how could I not? She looked so wan and sick and sad.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, handing her the pillow. “Just lay down. You’ll feel better if you sleep.”

“I haven’t slept in days,” she said, holding her pillow to her.

I sat down on the edge of my desk chair and bit my bottom lip. “Do you . . . I mean . . . if you want to talk—”

“Did you ever just think your entire family was completely insane?” Phoebe blurted, yanking a tissue out of the box on my bedside table.